The best 24 hours in dinosaur history?

[Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com>]

It's certainly been an astonishing 24 hours.  First the announcement
of Butler et al.'s wonderfully preserved new basal ornithischian,
_Eocursor_; then this freaky giant oviraptorosaurzilla (which by the
way would have a much better name than _Gigantoraptor_); now, hot on
the heels of these comes a major new paper on the third great dinosaur
lineage, a fantastically complete and absolutely tiny baby sauropod
referred to diplodocidae:

        Schwarz, Daniela, Takehito Ikejiri, Brent H. Breithaupt,
        P. Martin Sander and Nicole Klein.  2007.  A nearly complete
        skeleton of an early juvenile diplodocid (Dinosauria:
        Sauropoda) from the Lower Morrison Formation (Late Jurassic)
        of north central Wyoming and its implications for early
        ontogeny and pneumaticity in sauropods.  Historical Biology 19
        (3): 225-253.  doi:10.1080/08912960601118651

The PDF is available, for those with access, from:
        http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08912960601118651

I've not had a chance to read this properly yet, but from a quick skim
it seems that Schwarz et al. have done a really solid job on this
specimen, figuring pretty much everything, both photographing and
illustrating for many elements, and carefully considering the
implications of ontological variation in such a young specimen.

It's a shame that this has come out the day after the big theropod,
which is predictably getting all the attention; lovers of basal
ornithischians must be equally irritated by this syndrome :-)  But
this is going to be an important paper.

I'm not sure what the status is, though, of the Sauriermuseum in
Aathal where the specimen is held.  If anyone knows more about it, I'd
like to hear, but from the website at
        http://www.sauriermuseum.ch/
it could be seen as a pretty commercial operation.  Clarification will
be welcomed.

 _/|_    ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <mike@indexdata.com>    http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "I have challenged the entire quality assurance team to a
         Bat-Leth contest.  They will not concern us again." -- Klingon
         Programming Mantra