RE: Rugops and Spinostropheus in USA Today

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

> From: Mike Taylor [mailto:mike@indexdata.com]
>
> Interesting.  According to this article, someone called Thomas Holtz
> Jr. says ``dinosaur scientists and geologists will be interested in
> what the fossils show about how the ancient continents split and how
> the abelisaurids related to one another across continents.''  What I'd
> like to ask Dr. Holtz if I ever met him is, why is this interpreted as
> meaning that SA and Africa were in contact for an extra 15 million
> years, and not that abelisaurid evolution was pretty conservative for
> 15 million years?
>
Dr. Holtz never SAID that he bought the idea of the longer contact, nor that
this solves the questions about Gondwanan breakup, only that folks would be
interested in this new information...

I, for one, would happily accept that "conservatism" in abelisaurids as a
perfectly plausible interpretation.

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796