> From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu]
> On Behalf Of David Marjanovic
>
> > Tim Williams and myself have suggested the possibility *Rapator*
> > repr= esents a pdI-1 phalanx of an alvarezsaurian (possibly a
> > mononykid=2C based = on morphology=2C but this is even more
> > far-fetched due to biogeography reas= ons).
>
> A mononykine would be far-fetched, but an alvarezsaurid in
> general would not be -- South America and Australia weren't
> isolated from each other.
I have published (in Dinosauria II) my speculation that Rapator is a giant
early alvarezsaurid. However, now that I have a cast of the specimen, and
with the information of megaraptorans in hand (as it were), I reject my
earlier speculation and much more strongly support Rapator as a basal
tetanurine, possibly a megaraptoran.
Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu Phone: 301-405-4084
Office: Centreville 1216
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Fax: 301-314-9661
Faculty Director, Earth, Life & Time Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite/
Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843
Mailing Address: Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Department of Geology
Building 237, Room 1117
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742 USA