Tuojiangosaurus - no shoulder spines? (was Re: Long-necked stegosaur coming out in Proceedings B)

[Tim Williams <tijawi@yahoo.com>]

David Marjanovic wrote:


> > From memory. I remembered that the name was considered
> invalid and figured 
> if a valid description had come out, I'd have learned of
> that via the DML. Probably I overlooked a statement that it
> was valid in some enormous New Papers post. 


Maidment & Wei (2006) explicitly describe _Gigantspinosaurus sichuanensis_ as 
valid.  So looks like we're stuck with the horrendous moniker.  :-(


For some interesting musings on _Gigantspinosaurus, check out...


http://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2008/11/13/gigantspinosaurus-the-lost-chinese-stegosaur/


http://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/guest-post-miragaia-longicollum-a-new-stegosaur-from-portugal/


BTW, this second thread seems to indicate that the type specimen for 
_Gigantspinosaurus_ (in the Zigong Dinosaur Museum, but unnumbered) might be 
the same specimen as the articulated stegosaur skeleton mentioned by Gao et al. 
(1986) and assigned by them to _Tuojiangosaurus_.  Galton and Upchurch (in the 
Stegosauria chapter of Dinosauria II, p.355) cite this specimen in support of 
the presence of parascapular spines in _Tuojiangosaurus_.  (BTW, this is also 
how _Tuojiangosaurus_ is illustrated in Holtz & Rey's "Dinosaurs" 
encyclopedia).  But if the reconstruction of _Tuojiangosaurus_ with shoulder 
spines is actually based on _Gigantspinosaurus_, then _Tuojiangosaurus_ might 
not have had parascapular spines after all (the holotype and paratype don't 
have them).


Oh, this means that all my previous posts on _Tuojiangosaurus_ having 
parascapular spines may be WRONG.  Ah well...


Cheers

Tim