Re: Gargantuavis neck vertebra

[GSP1954@aol.com]

The one problem I have with the paper is the reference of an isolated 
vertebra not only to a specific genus, but to a particular species that is not 
from exactly the same formation and level of that formation, and when there 
are no cervicals known from the holotype or even from any other specimen that 
can be assigned to the group. After all, just a thousand years ago there 
were a whole lot of similar modest sized moa species crawling around New 
Zealand. Who knows how many gargantuavid (not sure if this is the family name, 
too 
lazy to check) species and genera were wandering around on the island/s 
(not sure how many there were, too lazy to check) of Campanian/Maastrichtian 
southern France. Must have been a number of them if that Darwin was right 
about evolution of the species. Chucking isolated material into a species is 
more often than not a very bad habit that we need to stifle yourselves on. Like 
tossing all Triceratops random bones into T. horridus when it now looks 
like there are two or more species separated stratigraphically. Another bad one 
is labeling all allosaurid remains from the Morrison (except the top) A. 
fragilis. Pleeeze. 

GSPaul</HTML>