The Hunt For Red New Papers

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

Hi All! -

   Still playing catch-up post-SVP, but here's a few things (thanks to Lee 
for pointing me to some of them!):


Stilwell, J.D. 2007. The lost world of Rekohu: unlocking ancient secrets of 
the Chatham Islands. New Zealand Geographic 87:8-9, 12.

     Not a technical paper, of course, but this is particularly interesting 
in that they figure and report some articulated but fragmentary avian 
hindlimb material from the Late Cretaceous from the islands...oddly 
penguin-like!  I'm _very_ interested in hearing more about this stuff...



Ensom, P.C. 2007. The Purbeck Limestone Group of Dorset, southern England. 
Geology Today 23(5):178-185. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2451.2007.00630.x.

ABSTRACT: The late Jurassic to early Cretaceous Purbeck Limestone Group of 
Dorset has been a focus for media and academic attention for the last 150 
years. For example, The Illustrated London News in 1857 carried an article 
by the Revd Charles Kingsley, (of The Water Babies fame), titled .Geological 
Discoveries at Swanage., describing fossil-hunting endeavours of Samuel 
Husband Beckles (1814-1890; Fig. 1). Beckles had been encouraged by Richard 
Owen (1804-1892) to go in search of the tiny fossilized mammalian remains in 
these strata. Beckles rose to the challenge and at his own expense employed 
a team of workmen to carry out the excavations; in the process they 
uncovered a thin layer containing the numerous remains of diminutive mammals 
along with the remains of other vertebrates, including turtles, crocodiles 
and ornithischian dinosaurs. Since then, dinosaur tracks and related 
discoveries from these same strata have often caught the imagination of the 
press, inspiring sensational headlines such as "Builder digs up giant lizard 
fight" and "Dinosaur graveyard in Swanage Bay"!



Weinbaum, J.C., and Hungerbühler, A. 2007. A revision of Poposaurus gracilis 
(Archosauria: Suchia) based on two new specimens from the Late Triassic of 
the southwestern U.S.A. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 81(2):131-145.

ABSTRACT: Two associated partial skeletons, one from the McCarty ranch 
(MOTTU site 0690) near Kalgary, Texas, Tecovas Formation, and the other from 
the Petrified Forest Member of the Chinle Formation, outside the Petrified 
Forest, Arizona, represent the most complete specimens of Poposaurus 
gracilis found to date, and increase our understanding of the osteology of 
this rare pseudosuchian archosaur. The cervical centrum of TTUP-10419 
possesses an accessory dorsal parapophyseal rib facet, as in "Lythrosuchus". 
The ilia of these new fossils are the first of Poposaurus to preserve the 
complete preacetabular blade, which is long and "blade-like" rather than 
"paddle-shaped" as previously thought. These specimens also confirm that 
isolated elements previously referred to Poposaurus (fused sacral vertebrae, 
the pubes and the ischia), but not present in the holotype indeed belong to 
that taxon. The morphology of the cervical centrum and the preacetabular 
blade of the ilium are identical to the much larger type of "Lythrosuchus" 
langstoni , suggesting that "Lythrosuchus" is a junior synonym of 
Poposaurus. However, we retain the species Poposaurus langstoni nov. comb. 
on the basis of larger size, absence of a distinct ridge on the lateral 
surface of the ilium, and the lack of a pit on the proximal end of the 
ischium. A phylogenetic analysis suggests a monophyletic Poposauroidea and a 
paraphyletic "Rauisuchia".


    In the same volume as the latter is a paper with new info on 
_Coelurosauravus_, but I don't have it yet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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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