RE: Complete juvenile theropod unveiled in Germany

[Mickey Mortimer <mickey_mortimer111@msn.com>]

Although of course my opinion could change based on the published description, 
I stand by my earlier identification of the new theropod as something like 
Juravenator, if not a member of the same genus.  It has all of the diagnostic 
characters of Juravenator listed by Chiappe and Gohlich (2010) which can be 
evaluated- large skull, few maxillary teeth, subequally long antorbital 
fenestra and orbit, identical humeroscapular, metatarsofemoral and 
scapulofemoral ratios, scapula narrowest at neck, etc..  It doesn't have 
Juravenator's supposed maxillary notch, but I've always argued that was 
taphonomic.  All of the bones look pretty much identical- the scapula, ilium, 
manus proportions, obtuse lacrimal, very short and high bases on the unguals, 
maybe even the odd vertically projected and curved caudal prezygapophyses 
(though these are hard to make out in the new specimen).  Of course at least 
some of these are probably due to young age.  Maybe compsognathids as currently 
recognized are united by ontogenetic features and at least some taxa like 
Juravenator and Scipionyx are baby carnosaurs or megalosaurs instead of 
coelurosaurs.  But I'd be very surprised if this specimen and Juravenator 
aren't the same kind of theropod, whatever they are.

Mickey Mortimer

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> Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2011 08:03:05 +0200
> From: saichania@gmail.com
> To: DINOSAUR@usc.edu
> CC: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Re: Complete juvenile theropod unveiled in Germany
>
> El 13/10/2011 4:18, Jura escribió:
> > Do we have an idea of where this little guy fits in the theropod family 
> > tree?
>
> According to Oliver W.M. Rauhut and Christian Foth, it's a basal
> tetanuran, a basal megalosauroid.