New Papers and a Baby

["Jerry D. Harris" <jharris@dixie.edu>]

Hi All -

   A few new things:


Carpenter, K., and Everhart, M.J. 2007. Skull of the ankylosaur 
Niobrarasaurus coleii (Ankylosauria: Nodosauridae) from the Smoky Hill Chalk 
(Coniacian) of western Kansas. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science 
110(1/2):1-9. doi: 10.1660/0022-8443(2007)110[1:SOTANC]2.0.CO;2.

ABSTRACT: The skull of the nodosaurid Niobrarasaurus coleii (Mehl) is 
redescribed as the result of the discovery of additional material, including 
the partially crushed braincase. The bone surface shows moderate remodeling, 
but not to the point of sutural obliteration. The snout section suggests a 
long, narrow skull more similar to Pawpawsaurus than the broader Edmontonia. 
Nevertheless, the skull differs from other nodosaurs in the ornamentation of 
the bone surface and trapezoidal outline of the occipital condyle in 
posterior view.


Cole, V.B. 2007. Field notes regarding the 1930 discovery of the type 
specimen of Niobrarasaurus coleii, Gove County, Kansas. Transactions of the 
Kansas Academy of Science 110(3/4):132-134. doi: 
10.1660/0022-8443(2007)110[132:FNRTDO]2.0.CO;2.

ABSTRACT: In 1930, Virgil B. Cole, an oil field geologist, collected the 
partial skeleton of a dinosaur (Ankylosauria; Nodosauridae) from the lower 
Smoky Hill Chalk in southeastern Gove County, Kansas. Cole described the 
discovery and collection of the specimen in a hand written letter (February 
25, 1930) to Dr. Mehl on stationary from the hotel in Dighton, Kansas where 
he was staying at the time. The remains were shipped to Cole's alma mater 
(University of Missouri-Columbia) where they were examined and described by 
Mehl (1931, 1936) and given the name Hierosaurus coleii. Cole's letter and 
other field notes were curated with the specimen at the University of 
Missouri-Columbia and then transferred to the Sternberg Museum of Natural 
History with the specimen in 2002 (Everhart, 2004). The following is a 
verbatim copy of Cole's letter and two field drawings. (Michael J. Everhart, 
Transactions Co-editor).



Shimada, K., and Parris, D.C. 2007. A long-snouted Late Cretaceous 
crocodyliform, Terminonaris cf. T. browni, from the Carlile Shale (Turonian) 
of Kansas. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science 110(1/2):107-115. 
doi: 10.1660/0022-8443(2007)110[107:ALLCCT]2.0.CO;2.

ABSTRACT: We describe the first record of Terminonaris cf. T. browni Osborn, 
1904 (Reptilia: Crocodyliformes) from the Fairport Chalk Member of the 
Carlile Shale (Upper Cretaceous: lower Middle Turonian) in Russell County, 
Kansas. The specimen is a partial rostrum consisting of fused nasals with 
parts of co-ossified maxillae. This new fossil record is significant because 
it is the geologically youngest Terminonaris specimen, the first 
Terminonaris specimen from Kansas, the sixth known specimen of the genus, 
and the southernmost occurrence in North America. Because Terminonaris is 
thought to have been a nearshore inhabitant, its occurrence in the Fairport 
Chalk, which is an offshore deposit, suggests that the specimen was 
transported for a long distance before its deposition.



...and a few slightly oder things from the same journal that I don't recall 
seeing here previously:


Shimada, K., and Fernandes, M.V. 2006. Ichthyornis sp. (Aves: 
Ichthyornithiformes) from the lower Turonian (Upper Cretaceous) of western 
Kansas. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science 109(1/2):21-26. doi: 
10.1660/0022-8443(2006)109[21:ISAIFT]2.0.CO;2.

ABSTRACT: FHSM VP-2139 is the proximal end of a right carpometacarpus of the 
Late Cretaceous toothed seabird, Ichthyornis (Aves: Ichthyornithiformes), 
housed in the Sternberg Museum of Natural History, Hays Kansas. The specimen 
was found near the contact between the Carlile and Greenhorn Formations in 
southern Ellis County, Kansas. The specimen marks the oldest record of 
Ichthyornis in Kansas, and this report represents the first detailed account 
of this specimen. The estimated total "skeletal length" (from the beak tip 
to the pygostyle tip) and "skeletal wingspan" (between the right and left 
phalangeal tips) of the bird individual are 24 cm and 43 cm, respectively. 
The bird specimen is paleoecologically intriguing, because it occurred in an 
offshore deposit which formed during the maximum transgressive phase of the 
Greenhorn Cyclothem.


Everhart, M.J., and Ewell, K. 2006. Shark-bitten dinosaur (Hadrosauridae) 
caudal vertebrae from the NIobrara Chalk (upper Coniacian) of western 
Kansas. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science 109(1/2):27-35. doi: 
10.1660/0022-8443(2006)109[27:SDHCVF]2.0.CO;2.

ABSTRACT: The Niobrara Chalk in western Kansas was deposited on the eastern 
shelf of the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Sea during Coniacian through 
early Campanian time, hundreds of miles from the nearest land. As might be 
expected, the remains of terrestrial animals, including dinosaurs, are 
extremely rare in this marine environment. The first dinosaur (Claosaurus 
agilis) collected by Marsh from the Smoky Hill Chalk Member of the Niobrara 
Chalk in 1871 was also the only hadrosaur known from this formation. All 
other dinosaur remains collected there since 1871 have been identified as 
nodosaurs. Here we report the discovery of an articulated series of nine 
hadrosaur caudal vertebrae (FHSM VP-15824) from the Smoky Hill Chalk (Upper 
Coniacian) of southeastern Gove County, Kansas. The presence of non-serrated 
bite marks on four of the vertebrae and the partially digested appearance of 
the proximal and distal ends of the series suggest that the vertebrae had 
been scavenged from the floating carcass of a dinosaur by a large shark, 
most likely Cretoxyrhina mantelli. The specimen represents the earliest 
known occurrence (Upper Coniacian) of the Hadrosauridae in the Smoky Hill 
Chalk, and preserves the earliest evidence of scavenging on dinosaur remains 
by a shark in the Western Interior Sea.



    Also (thanks to SP for pointing this one out!), there's a poster now 
uploaded to the new _Nature_ Precedings web site 
(http://precedings.nature.com/) that can be downloaded for free:


da Silva Marinho, T. 2007. Functional aspects of titanosaur osteoderms. 
Poster presentation, III Jornada Fluminense de Paleontologia, 10 December 
2006, Nature Precedings. 
http://precedings.nature.com/documents/508/version/1. doi: 
10.1038/npre.2007.508.1.

Not sure if that's an appropriate citation format for such a thing, but 
that's how I've put it into EndNote (I also put in a "Retrieved" date, but 
cut that out here); the DOI number makes it citeable, if nothing else.  This 
is the first time I've heard about or been to this site, and I'm not sure 
how I feel about it.  On the one hand, I'm all for free distribution of 
information; on the other, I'm not certain that a site like this isn't going 
to end up a catch-all for not only useful (even if not peer-reviewed) 
information, such as poster presentations and, ostensibly, PowerPoint 
presentations, but also for all kinds of random, nonsensical crap.  The site 
says that uploaded material will be screened by their "professional curation 
team for relevance and quality, but are not subjected to peer review," and 
given _Nature_'s general reputation for quality, I'm inclined to give them 
the benefit of the doubt and presume that they'll have Earth scientists, if 
not actual paleontologists, dealing with incoming paleo material.  The 
purpose of the site (http://precedings.nature.com/about) is to be "a place 
for researchers to share documents, including presentations, posters, white 
papers, technical papers, supplementary findings, and manuscripts. It 
provides a rapid way to disseminate emerging results and new theories, 
solicit opinions, and record the provenance of ideas. It also makes such 
material easy to archive, share and cite. The whole service is free of 
charge...This service is intended to provide a more rapid and informal 
communication system than that enabled by scientific journals, and in this 
sense is complementary to them. Many of the findings you read here may be 
preliminary or speculative, and remain to be confirmed. Please bear this in 
mind when deciding how seriously to take them."  That last part is what 
worries me in terms of quality of stuff there...by no means am I saying that 
anything on the site is necessarily garbage, but that it might inadvertently 
give legitimacy TO garbage by serving as a "publication" of sorts.  The site 
also says that "Nature Precedings hosts manuscripts that may be submitted to 
any journal of any publisher."  This also worries me; I get the feeling that 
some people (and probably an increasing number of people over time) will put 
stuff there and claim it IS published -- heck, it's got a DOI number and is 
citeable, so why not?  Except for the peer-review process, of course, but 
there's no requirement in a publication that it must be peer-reviewed 
(peer-review isn't even a qualification of the ICZN to name something); 
hence, back to my concern about garbage being there and being "legitimized." 
They do also say "Content that we consider to be non-scientific or 
pseudoscientific will not be posted. We will only post genuine contributions 
from qualified scientists. This will usually require submitters to have a 
recognised academic affiliation," so at least we won't have to worry about 
cr**tionist crap getting put there and "legitimized."  Suffice to say that I 
will sit back and watch this site for a while to see how it fleshes out 
before I even think about putting anything there...

    I'm not the only one with thoughts on the matter; The Ethical 
Palaeontologist has also voiced in on the issue 
(http://www.juliaheathcote.com/blog.htm) and brought up the worthwhile 
subject of copyright (of, for example, pictures pilfered from articles 
and/or web pages that are used in PowerPoint presentations -- I use 
glute-loads of these!).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jerry D. Harris
Director of Paleontology
Dixie State College
Science Building
225 South 700 East
St. George, UT  84770   USA
Phone: (435) 652-7758
Fax: (435) 656-4022
E-mail: jharris@dixie.edu
and     dinogami@gmail.com
http://cactus.dixie.edu/jharris/

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