RE: China vs. USA

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Mike Keesey wrote:


> This was a species count, though, not a genus count. (Not that there
> aren't examples of synonymous species among Chinese dinosaur fossils,
> but I'm not sure that it's any worse there than here in that regard.
> Just look what Maidment et al. did with American _Stegosaurus_
> species!)


Yes.  Although some recent Chinese finds are a little dodgy (e.g., 
_Qinxiusaurus_, unless those caudal neural spines really are distinctive), most 
seem OK.   I wouldn't say the same for many of the newer Chinese avian/avialan 
taxa, however.



> Actually, the U.S.A. is about 1.024 times as large as the People's
> Republic of China, so we should have a (very slight) advantage.


You'd think these kind of statistics would be clear-cut, but apparently the 
relative sizes of the USA and PRC are a bone of contention.  Apparently the 
sticking points are territories claimed by China, which (combined) rack up a 
lot of square mileage for the PRC (e.g., Taiwan; Arunachal Pradesh), as well as 
how the US calculates its total size.


Cheers

Tim
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