Re: Dead Men Don't Wear New Papers

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

> > "The apparent scarcity of prosauropods in Upper Triassic strata of the 
> > Newark Supergroup is interpreted as an artifact of ecological 
> > partitioning, created by the habitat range and dietary preferences of 
> > phytosaurs and by the preservational biases at that time within the 
> > lithofacies of the Newark Supergroup basins."

> Phytosaurs? Probably not, but what was meant? Sauropodomorphs or aetosaurs?

   No, I think they meant phytosaurs -- what they were trying to say 
(nearly 100% data-free though it is) is that the absence of "prosauropod" 
fossils, particularly footprints in the near-lacustrine environments, in the 
Triassic of the Newark Basin (and, I suppose, the American southwest) had to 
do with them avoiding the phytosaurs, which must then have had a preference 
for "prosaurosteak."  Only when the phytosaurs went out at the end of the 
Triassic could the "prosauropods" come near enough to potentially 
fossil-producing environments to leave footprints and bones.  Weird, when 
"prosauropods" clearly had no problem coexisting with phytosaurs 
elsewhere...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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/

"Trying to estimate the divergence times
of fungal, algal or prokaryotic groups on
the basis of a partial reptilian fossil and
protein sequences from mice and humans
is like trying to decipher Demotic Egyptian with
the help of an odometer and the Oxford
English Dictionary."
              -- D. Graur & W. Martin (_Trends
                  in Genetics_ 20[2], 2004)