re: Where have all the ornithischians gone?

["Peter W. Buchholz" <pbuchholz@mymail.msu.montana.edu>]

David Peters wrote (regarding _Technosaurus_):
> This is the kind of material that needs to be looked at with the eye
> that MAYBE  the pubis is not retroverted in this taxon, (Is that why it
> appears to be mixed up with sauropodomorph material? I don't know and
> haven't seen).

If I recall correctly (all literature is in boxes at the moment, so bear with 
me), _Technosaurus_ was based entirely on skull elements, some of which may be 
prosauropod, and some of which apear to be (to me anyway) actually 
ornithischian.

> Silesaurus is definitely on the list of ornithischians without a
> retropubis.

I have to disagree.  About a year and a half ago with Mickey Mortimer's help, I 
put _Silesaurus_ into the published matrices of Sereno & Arcucci 1994, Novas 
1996, a combined matrix of Sereno & Arcucci 1994 and Novas 1996, and Benton 
1999.  In each case, Silesaurus came out as the sister taxon to Ornithischia + 
Saurischia.  There may be some features in _Silesaurus_ that pull it toward 
Ornithischia, but there are quite a few characters of Dinosauria that it lacks.

For DML emails on the subject please see:

http://dml.cmnh.org/2003Dec/msg00244.html

http://dml.cmnh.org/2003Dec/msg00261.html

Pete Buchholz