Re: New Papers of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

David Marjanovic (david.marjanovic@gmx.at) wrote:

<Fine, but has *Valdosaurus* been split? On the other hand, *Barosaurus* has 
been, *Brachiosaurus* remains to be tested, *Allosaurus* is IIRC quite 
questionable in the Tendaguru, and *Australodocus* and *Dicraeosaurus* have not
been found in the Morrison so far, while *Apatosaurus*, *Eobrontosaurus*,
*Camarasaurus*, *Supersaurus* and others are so far missing from the
Tendaguru.>

  Why should *Valdosaurus* be split? Or *Allosaurus* not be in the Tendaguru?
It's in the Portuguese sediments, after all, and there was a close connection
between the European and African masses during the Late Jurassic. There is no
reason to assume that despite the provincialization of a region, that taxa
cannot then also be shared with a similarly-aged formation a quarter way around
the globe. The same is true then of provincialized taxa in the Morrison.
Nomenclature aside, it's more like the form and nature of the taxa and not the
names themselves that should be compared -- and I'm leaving an annoying gripe
about biostratigraphy out.

<It's apparently an even smaller clade. For example, *Deinonychus* sometimes 
comes out as a basal dromaeosaurine, but retains "velociraptorine" teeth, like
*Sinornithosaurus*. The teeth in question are stout and not much recurved, and
are generally difficult to confuse with anything else.>

  And I still don't think functionally morphic structures as teeth are
taxonomically informative without any sort of particular distinction (read:
Tyrannosauridae).

  Cheers,

Jaime A. Headden
http://bitestuff.blogspot.com/

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)

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