New Papers on the Roof

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

Hat-tip to Angela for the title...!  Sorry I haven't been posting lately --  
the usual mass of other priorities has prevented me from getting to things! 
Thanks to everyone else for posting lots of stuff in my absence!  Here's 
some noops (uh, that's "new papers") for y'all that I don't think have been 
mentioned yet:


Upchurch, P., Barrett, P.M., Zhao, X., and Xu, X. 2007. A re-evaluation of 
Chinshakiangosaurus chunghoensis Ye vide Dong 1992 (Dinosauria, 
Sauropodomorpha): implications for cranial evolution in basal sauropod 
dinosaurs. Geological Magazine 144(2):247-262. doi: 
10.1017/S0016756806003062.

ABSTRACT: Re-description of the left dentary of Chinshakiangosaurus 
chunghoensis reveals that it possesses an unusual combination of 
'prosauropod' and 'sauropod' character states. Cladistic analysis places 
Chinshakiangosaurus as one of the most basal sauropods known currently. 
Mapping of dentary and dental characters onto the most parsimonious 
topologies yields insights into the sequence of acquisition of a number of 
feeding-related characters. For example, it seems that basal sauropodomorphs 
(traditional prosauropod taxa) possessed a fleshy cheek that attached to the 
mandible along a marked ridge, and that the same structure was present in 
the most basal sauropods. The early sauropod skull developed a lateral plate 
that reinforced the bases of the tooth crowns labially, and had wrinkled 
tooth enamel and a concavity on the mesial portion of the lingual part of 
each crown, while retaining a fleshy cheek and a relatively weak symphysis. 
More advanced sauropods (eusauropods) lost the cheek, perhaps in order to 
increase the gape of the jaws in response to a change in feeding style that 
involved collection of larger quantities of poor quality foliage.



Taylor, M.P., and Naish, D. 2007. An unusual new neosauropod dinosaur from 
the Lower Cretaceous Hastings Beds Group of East Sussex, England. 
Palaeontology 50(6):1547-1564. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2007.00728.x.

ABSTRACT: Xenoposeidon proneneukos gen. et sp. nov. is a neosauropod 
represented by BMNH R2095, a well-preserved partial mid-to-posterior dorsal 
vertebra from the Berriasian-Valanginian Hastings Beds Group of Ecclesbourne 
Glen, East Sussex, England. It was briefly described by Lydekker in 1893, 
but it has subsequently been overlooked. This specimen's concave cotyle, 
large lateral pneumatic fossae, complex system of bony laminae and camerate 
internal structure show that it represents a neosauropod dinosaur. However, 
it differs from all other sauropods in the form of its neural arch, which is 
taller than the centrum, covers the entire dorsal surface of the centrum, 
has its posterior margin continuous with that of the cotyle, and slopes 
forward at 35 degrees relative to the vertical. Also unique is a broad, flat 
area of featureless bone on the lateral face of the arch; the accessory 
infraparapophyseal and postzygapophyseal laminae which meet in a V; and the 
asymmetric neural canal, small and round posteriorly but large and 
teardrop-shaped anteriorly, bounded by arched supporting laminae. The 
specimen cannot be referred to any known sauropod genus, and clearly 
represents a new genus and possibly a new 'family'. Other sauropod remains 
from the Hastings Beds Group represent basal Titanosauriformes, Titanosauria 
and Diplodocidae; X. proneneukos may bring to four the number of sauropod 
'families' represented in this unit. Sauropods may in general have been much 
less morphologically conservative than is usually assumed. Since 
neurocentral fusion is complete in R2095, it is probably from a mature or 
nearly mature animal. Nevertheless, size comparisons of R2095 with 
corresponding vertebrae in the Brachiosaurus brancai holotype HMN SII and 
Diplodocus carnegii holotype CM 84 suggest a rather small sauropod: perhaps 
15 m long and 7600 kg in mass if built like a brachiosaurid, or 20 m and 
2800 kg if built like a diplodocid.

(Yay, another "X" dinosaur!  Now we need some more "Q"s...)



Barrett, P.M., and Wang, X.-L. 2007. Basal titanosauriform (Dinosauria, 
Sauropoda) teeth from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Liaoning 
Province, China. Palaeoworld 16(4):265-271. doi: 
10.1016/j.palwor.2007.07.001.

ABSTRACT: The Yixian Formation of Liaoning Province, People's Republic of 
China has yielded a diverse fauna of non-avian dinosaurs, but is dominated 
by small-bodied taxa. Here, we describe a series of isolated teeth from the 
Lujiatun Beds of the formation that are referable to a basal titanosauriform 
sauropod. Some of the teeth possess a distinctive circular boss on the 
lingual surface, which suggests that they are referable to cf. Euhelopus sp. 
This identification provides some additional support for biostratigraphical 
correlations between the Jehol Group and the Mengyin Formation of Shandong 
Province that suggest an Early Cretaceous age for the latter unit. Moreover, 
the titanosauriform affinities of the teeth provide further evidence for the 
dominance of this sauropod clade in eastern Asia during the Cretaceous.



Zhou, C.-F., Gao, K.-Q., Fox, R.C., and Du, X.-K. 2007. Endocranial 
morphology of psittacosaurs (Dinosauria: Ceratopsia) based on CT scans of 
new fossils from the Lower Cretaceous, China. Palaeoworld 16(4):285-293. 
doi: 10.1016/j.palwor.2007.07.002.

ABSTRACT: Psittacosaurs, small basal ceratopsians with a parrot-like beak, 
are among the most abundant dinosaurs, but occur only in the Early 
Cretaceous of East Asia. Although the general morphology of psittacosaurs is 
fairly well understood, the endocranial anatomy of the group has never been 
described. New discoveries of well-preserved skulls from the celebrated 
Liaoning beds in northeastern China provide the material for conducting 
research on psittacosaur endocranial morphology. Using computed tomography 
scans of three-dimensionally preserved skulls, this study reveals basic 
endocranial anatomy of psittacosaurs and provides the first 
palaeoneurological evidence of psittacosaurs in relation to their behaviour. 
Although commonly believed to have had a small brain and small eyes, 
psittacosaurs had relatively high brain/body size ratios that are comparable 
to those in the large theropod Tyrannosaurus, and probably had a keen sense 
of smell and acute vision, as evidenced by their enlarged olfactory lobes 
and bulbous optic lobes. The configuration of the semicircular canals agrees 
with limb proportions to suggest that psittacosaurs were agile animals, 
perhaps better able to escape predation by carnivorous dinosaurs on that 
account. The behavioural adaptations implied by this study may have been 
crucial for the successful radiation of psittacosaurs during the Early 
Cretaceous of East Asia.


Mayr, G. 2007. Avian higher-level phylogeny: well-supported clades and what 
we can learn from a phylogenetic analysis of 2954 morphological characters. 
Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research. doi: 
10.1111/j.1439-0469.2007.00433.x. ABSTRACT: It has been shown that increased 
character sampling betters the accuracy of phylogenetic reconstructions in 
the case of molecular data. A recently published analysis of avian 
higher-level phylogenetics based on 2954 morphological characters now 
provides an empirical example to test whether this is also true in the case 
of morphological characters. Several clades are discussed which are 
supported by multiple analyses of mutually independent molecular data 
(sequences of nuclear genes on different chromosomes and mitochondrial 
genes) as well as morphological apomorphies, but did not result from 
parsimony analysis of the large morphological data set. Incorrect character 
scorings in that analysis notwithstanding, it is concluded that in the case 
of morphological data, increased character sampling does not necessarily 
better the accuracy of a phylogenetic reconstruction. Because morphological 
characters usually have a strongly varying complexity, many simple and 
homoplastic characters may overrule fewer ones of greater phylogenetic 
significance in large data sets, thus producing a low ratio of phylogenetic 
signal to 'noise' in the data.



Kring, D.A. 2007. The Chicxulub impact event and its environmental 
consequences at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Palaeogeography, 
Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 255(1-2):4-21. doi: 
10.1016/j.palaeo.2007.02.037.

ABSTRACT: An impact-mass extinction hypothesis for the Cretaceous-Tertiary 
(K/T) boundary transition has been confirmed with multiple lines of 
evidence, beginning with the discovery of impact-derived Ir in K/T boundary 
sediments and culminating in the discovery of the Chicxulub impact crater. 
Likewise, a link between the Chicxulub impact crater and K/T boundary 
sediments has been confirmed with multiple lines of evidence, including 
stratigraphic, petrological, geochemical, and isotopic data. The 
environmental effects of the Chicxulub impact event were global in their 
extent, largely because of the interaction of ejected impact debris with the 
atmosphere. The environmental consequences of the Chicxulub impact event and 
their association with the K/T boundary mass extinction event indicate that 
impact cratering processes can affect both the geologic and biologic 
evolution of our planet.



Prasad, G.V.R., Verma, O., Sahni, A., Parmar, V., and Khosla, A. 2007. A 
Cretaceous hoofed mammal from India. Science 318:937. doi: 
10.1126/science.1149267.

ABSTRACT: The sedimentary record documenting the northward drift of India 
(Late Cretaceous to late Early Eocene) has recently provided important clues 
to the evolution, radiation, and dispersal of mammals. Here, we report a 
definitive Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) archaic ungulate 
(Kharmerungulatum vanvaleni genus et species nova) from the Deccan 
volcano-sedimentary sequences exposed near Kisalpuri village in Central 
India. This find has important implications for the origin and 
diversification of early ungulates and raises three possible 
paleobiogeographic scenarios: (i) Archaic ungulates may have been 
cosmopolitan in distribution. (ii) Kharmerungulatum might be an immigrant 
from Western Asia. (iii) Archaic ungulates may have originated in India.



Cobbett, A., Wilkinson, M., and Wills, M.A. 2007. Fossils impact as hard as 
living taxa in parsimony analyses of morphology. Systematic Biology 
56(5):753-766. doi: 10.1080/10635150701627296.

ABSTRACT: Systematists disagree whether data from fossils should be included 
in parsimony analyses. In a handful of well-documented cases, the addition 
of fossil data radically overturns a hypothesis of relationships based on 
extant taxa alone. Fossils can break up long branches and preserve character 
combinations closer in time to deep splitting events. However, fossils 
usually require more interpretation than extant taxa, introducing greater 
potential for spurious codings. Moreover, because fossils often have more 
"missing" codings, they are frequently accused of increasing numbers of 
MPTs, frustrating resolution and reducing support. Despite the controversy, 
remarkably little is known about the effects of fossils more generally. Here 
we provide the first systematic study, investigating empirically the 
behavior of fossil and extant taxa in 45 published morphological data sets. 
First-order jackknifing is used to determine the effects that each terminal 
has on inferred relationships, on the number of MPTs, and on CI' and RI as 
measures of homoplasy. Bootstrap leaf stabilities provide a proxy for the 
contribution of individual taxa to the branch support in the rest of the 
tree. There is no significant difference in the impact of fossil versus 
extant taxa on relationships, numbers of MPTs, and CI' or RI. However, 
adding individual fossil taxa is more likely to reduce the total branch 
support of the tree than adding extant taxa. This must be weighed against 
the superior taxon sampling afforded by including judiciously coded fossils, 
providing data from otherwise unsampled regions of the tree.We therefore 
recommend that investigators should include fossils, in the absence of 
compelling and case specific reasons for their exclusion.



Xing, L., Wang, F., Pan, S., and Chen, W. 2007. The discovery of dinosaur 
footprints from the Middle Cretaceous Jiaguan Formation of Qijiang County, 
Chongqing City. Acta Geologica Sinica 81(11):1591-1602.

(Thanks to Kazuo Takahashi for that last one!)



The "official" versions of these papers, mentioned some time ago when they 
came out as on-line first, are now also available:

Senter, P. 2007. A new look at the phylogeny of Coelurosauria (Dinosauria: 
Theropoda). Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 5(4):429-463. doi: 
10.1017/S1477201907002143.

ABSTRACT: The most comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the theropod clade 
Coelurosauria to date, is presented here, with 85 coelurosaurian ingroups 
and 360 characters, using Allosaurus and Sinraptor as outgroups. The strict 
consensus tree is highly resolved and has the following topology: 
Tyrannosauroidea + (Compsognathidae + (Arctometatarsalia + (Ornitholestes + 
(Therizinosauroidea + (Alvarezsauridae + (Oviraptorosauria + (Avialae + 
(Troodontidae + Dromaeosauridae)))))))). The analysis places Coelurus and 
Tanycolagreus at the base of Tyrannosauroidea, Deinocheirus within 
Arctometatarsalia, Protarchaeopteryx within Oviraptorosauria and 
Epidendrosaurus at the base of Avialae. The analysis results in wide 
phylogenetic separation between Caenagnathus (close to the base of 
Oviraptorosauria) and Chirostenotes (placed within a clade of crested 
oviraptorids), casting doubt on their synonymy. All taxa with an enlarged, 
trenchant ungual on the second toe are placed within Troodontidae or 
Dromaeosauridae; at the base of the latter is an unenlagiine clade that 
includes Unenlagia and Rahonavis. The hypothesis that dromaeosaurids are 
secondarily flightless birds is not supported.



Hone, D.W.E., and Benton, M.J. 2007. An evaluation of the phylogenetic 
relationships of the pterosaurs among archosauromorph reptiles. Journal of 
Systematic Palaeontology 5(4):465-469. doi: 10.1017/S1477201907002064.

ABSTRACT: The phylogenetic position of pterosaurs among the diapsids has 
long been a contentious issue. Some recent phylogenetic analyses have 
deepened the controversy by drawing the pterosaurs down the diapsid tree 
from their generally recognised position as the sister group of the 
dinosauromorphs, to lie close to the base of Archosauria or to be the sister 
group of the protorosaurs. Critical evaluation of the analyses that produced 
these results suggests that the orthodox position retains far greater 
support and no close link can be established between pterosaurs and 
protorosaurs.



Difley, R. 2007. Biostratigraphy of the North Horn Formation at North Horn 
Mountain, Emery County, Utah; pp. 439-454 in Willis, G.C., Hylland, M.D., 
Clark, D.L., and Chidsey, T.C., Jr. (eds.), Central Utah - Diverse Geology 
of a Dynamic Landscape. Utah Geological Association Publication 36. Utah 
Geological Association, Salt Lake City.

ABSTRACT: A general biostratigraphic chart of the North Horn Formation type 
locality synthesizes a suite of published and new faunal and stratigraphic 
information. Vertebrate bone, eggshell and track bed data, as well as 
invertebrate, plant, microfossil and trace fossils, are plotted against time 
to reveal patterns of stratigraphic fossil diversity and possible fossil 
co-occurrences, and to allow paleoenvironmental interpretations. It 
illustrates that much supporting data concerning paleoenvironments and 
paleoclimate can be derived from invertebrates, microfossils, plants and 
trace fossils. When systematically placed in a stratigraphic arrangement, 
all fossils from small fossil fragments to spectacular specimens such as 
Alamosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex are together useful for reconstructing the 
North Horn ecosystem of central Utah. New macrofossil and pollen data better 
define the K-T transition than was previously possible. Some of the 
stratigraphy is updated from previous reports. North Horn Mountain is 
overall the most paleontologically useful area of the Cretaceous part of the 
North Horn Formation of the central Wasatch Plateau.



Scheetz, R.D., and Britt, B.B. 2007. Paleontological discoveries of James A. 
'Dinosaur Jim' Jensen in central Utah; pp. 455-465 in Willis, G.C., Hylland, 
M.D., Clark, D.L., and Chidsey, T.C., Jr. (eds.), Central Utah - Diverse 
Geology of a Dynamic Landscape. Utah Geological Association Publication 36. 
Utah Geological Association, Salt Lake City.

ABSTRACT: James A. ("Dinosaur Jim") Jensen's paleontological career was a 
dynamic chapter in Utah's vertebrate paleontologic history in the 1960s 
through the 1970s. Much of his success stemmed from the local contacts he 
made with people familiar with the Utah backcountry, and his charismatic 
public persona. As a result, he built one of the more active paleontological 
field programs in the country for his time, collecting major fossil troves 
from central Utah, including the "world's smallest dinosaur" and the first 
relatively complete dinosaur egg in North America.
This is a historical summary of Jim Jensen's fossil discoveries in central 
Utah presented to illustrate the paleontological diversity of the region. 
The importance of some of these finds, especially from the Triassic Chinle 
Formation, has yet to be fully realized. Discoveries in the Upper Jurassic 
Morrison and Lower Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formations provided the first 
look at some important aspects of known dinosaurs. His work in the North 
Horn Formation aided students of mammals and lower vertebrates and helped 
preserve the dinosaur record of the Late Cretaceous. His investigation of 
the Paleocene Flagstaff Formation and Eocene Green River Formation resulted 
in the recovery of exceptionally preserved champsosaurs, fish, and trace 
fossils. And, even though Pleistocene fossils were not his forte, he 
cultivated relationships with others who routinely reported Ice Age fossils 
to him, resulting in the recovery of spectacular specimens. As 
scientifically valuable as these findings are, each discovery also had a 
human side, including both problems and successes, some of which are just 
coming to light.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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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"Easy. Just touch the match to"
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