RE: New Papers of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

David Marjanovic wrote:

> Well, the breakup of Pangaea only started for biogeographical purposes
> around the Early-Late Cretaceous boundary when Africa broke off of South
> America and apparently lost the spinosaur connection to Europe (...and
> Thailand). 

Not sure what you mean here.  The Laurasia-Gondwana split occurred a long time 
before this (Late Jurassic).  As for dromaeosaurids, their distribution was 
compatible with a vicariance model, so long as the Cretaceous unenlagiines were 
limited to Gondwana and the velociraptorines and dromaeosaurines were limited 
to Laurasia.  But when Turner et al. (2007; the _Mahakala_ paper) recovered the 
Mongolian taxon _Shanag_ within the Unenlagiinae, this throws a spanner in the 
works, because it implies at least one dispersal event.     

Cheers

Tim



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