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MariusRomanus | 1 Jul 2006 04:11
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Fossils in CA and grad school

Well, I’m finally off to Monterey, CA for two years in order to get my Master’
s Degree in Climatology. (Air Force Weather sends those officers selected to 
get their advanced degrees to the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey.) 
While in CA, I’d like to take full advantage of what the state and the surrounding 
area has to offer when it comes to paleontology… If you have any 
suggestions/recommendations about the must see’s and must do’s, please let me know. I’d 
really appreciate it.

On a side note, I just got back from taking a trip out to Katmai National 
Park (west of Kodiak Island), where I got the opportunity to watch grizzlies for 
a day… up close and personal. If anyone wants to see some cool bear photos, 
let me know. I'll get them up on the web before I leave AK (07 July).

Kris
http://hometown.aol.com/saurierlagen/Paleo-Photography.html
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Nick | 1 Jul 2006 05:39
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Re: Aletopelta coombsi

On 6/28/06, ryan boyd clack <rclack <at> usc.edu> wrote:
> Is The Armored Dinosaurs by Carpender, 2001 still the best book on
> Aletopelta coombsi?  And is it's classifcation in Ankylosauridae still the best current
>understanding? Hilton (in Dinosaurs and other mezozoic Reptiles of
California) double
> lists the fossil as both Ankylosauridae and Nodosauridae in the appendix.

Ford and Kirkland's description in that volume is the only
description/discussion I am aware of explicitly using Aletopelta (with
the exception of Carpenter's paper on ankylosaur phylogenetics which
lists it at the very least as a valid taxon).

I don't believe it has been included in any phylogenetic studies using
cladistics, and the lack of good cranial material (except teeth). The
only cladistic analysis that uses postcranial characters across a wide
range of taxa to my knowledge is Carpenter's which wouldn't let you
test the placement of Aletopelta given the compartmentalization method
he employs.

Alternative cladistic analyses that employ postcranial characters
typically are too small (consider Kirkland, 1998) or have other issues
(Sereno, 1999; Xu et al, 2001), and while the only other cladistic
analyses concerning ankylosaurs are limited to cranial characters
(Hill et al, 2003, Vickaryous et al, 2001, and so on).

Really it'd be great if Carpenter went back at some point to his
matrix from his paper in The Armored Dinosaurs and scored the taxa for
all of his characters, rather than employing compartmentalization. :(

Nick Gardner
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Mark Hallett | 1 Jul 2006 06:24
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Re: George Page

That's sad news. I remember how great his nature
programs were, matched only by those of David
Attenborough. Going back much further (1950's), there
was the series "Adventure", created by the American
Museum of Natural History and narrated by Charles
Collingwood. At 3:00pm on Saturdays I was as a wee lad
always glued to the set for this, since it introduced
the worlds of paleontology, anthropology in a dramatic
but always factual way.  --Mark 

--- Danvarner <at> aol.com wrote:

> George Page, the creator of the PBS  series, 
> "Nature", passed away 
> yesterday. 
> "Nature' under his direction  was one of the 
> greatest of natural history 
> programs. He was the  perfect narrator. The first 
> program, "Flight of the 
> Condor" 
> is a  classic. Now the occupation is filled  with
> hucksters wearing costumes. 
>  
> Sound familiar? I'll miss George.  DV  
> 
> 

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Danvarner | 1 Jul 2006 06:39
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Re: George Page

In a message dated 7/1/2006 12:25:04 AM Eastern Standard Time,  
marksabercat <at> yahoo.com writes:

<< Going back much further (1950's), there
was the series  "Adventure", created by the American
Museum of Natural History and narrated  by Charles
Collingwood. At 3:00pm on Saturdays I was as a wee lad
always  glued to the set for this, since it introduced
the worlds of paleontology,  anthropology in a dramatic
but always factual way. >>

Kindred spirits:
    _http://dml.cmnh.org/2002Jul/msg00013.html_ 
(http://dml.cmnh.org/2002Jul/msg00013.html) 

    DV
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Christopher Taylor | 1 Jul 2006 08:26
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Palaeos shutdown

Toby White informed me a couple of months ago that he is unable to
continue working on the Palaeos website (HYPERLINK
"http://www.palaeos.com/"www.palaeos.com) due to other requirements of
his time. The website is still accessible at present, but there are no
guarantees as to how long this will be so. Toby White and Alan Kazlev
have put in a great deal of effort on this site over the years, and I
would like to extend a thank you to them for doing so.

    Thanks,

        Christopher Taylor

--

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29/06/2006
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Jay | 1 Jul 2006 08:45
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Re: Aletopelta coombsi


--- Nick <nick.gardner <at> gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> Ford and Kirkland's description in that volume is the only
> description/discussion I am aware of explicitly using Aletopelta (with
> the exception of Carpenter's paper on ankylosaur phylogenetics which
> lists it at the very least as a valid taxon).

But also have a look at Coombs and Demere, 1996. This was the first paper to throughly describe
the material of Alectopelta, though it wasn't actually named back then.

Coombs & Demere, 96. "A Late Cretaceous nodosaurid ankylosaur from marine sediments....<etc etc>.
In Jour. Pal. 70: 311-326. 

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Mickey Rowe | 1 Jul 2006 09:01
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Dinosaur List Administrative Message

This file was last touched April 4, 2006

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Rather than sending the whole long administrative message each month
I'm going to give you only the table of contents and the two sections
that I expect to be the most popular.  If you wish to see the entire
document you can visit it at any time at:
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A.P. Hazen | 1 Jul 2006 11:49
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Re: Dinosaur Diversity Analyzed

Interesting little paper from Mike Taylor (who gave a link for 
downloading  a pdf in his last posting), with nice graphics.
Repeatedly emphasizes that the statistics he gives should be 
approached with caution for a whole lot of reasons.

Sampling bias an obvious one: the  very large number of dinosaur taxa 
known from the  United Kingdom (about (guesing and doing mental 
arithmetic) 1/700 of the Earth's land  area), for xample, surely 
reflects the long history of geology as a science there!

Are there  any good ways to estimate sampling bias?  Paticularly: any 
ways, using available infformation, to estimate which parts of the 
Mesozoic have been better-sampled  than others?  For instance... 
Somewhere in the literature there must be a reasonably complete and 
compact list of all the dinosaur fossil sites that have been worked 
in the last century or so: are some ages much better represented than 
others?  This would give a very crude indication-- site briefly 
surveyed by a government geologist when the country it is in was a 
colony would be counted as equivalent (for sampling) to one of the 
extraordinarily rich sites that have been extensively excavated over 
decades, but I suspect getting a more refined measure of sampling out 
of the published literature would be very difficult.

    (I know attempts at estimating sampling  bias have been made in 
connection with the question of whether dinosaur diversity was 
declining in the late Cretaceous...)

--

Allen Hazen
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A.P. Hazen | 1 Jul 2006 11:55
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Nomenclatural question

(We had a discussion of the "Eu-" prefix a little while back.  At the 
other end of taxon-nomenclature...)
A number  of taxa with names like Blankomorpha and Blankiformes have 
been defined in recent years to cover extinct critters which, before 
the cladistic revolution, would  have been called ancestral Blanks, 
but which have had the bad luck not to leave living descendents and 
so are "outside the crown group Blank."  My sense  is that when  both 
suffixes have been used, Blankomorpha is the more inclusive.  Is 
there actually an established convention governing this?
--
Allen Hazen
Philosophy Department
University of Melbourne
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Mike Hanson | 1 Jul 2006 17:57
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Cambridge Greensand pterosaur hypodigms

I've been searching lately for information specimen numbers and material 
of Cambridge Greensand pterosaurs, Unwin, 2001 only mentions the numbers 
and material of the holotypes of each recognized species along with only 
several other referred specimens but does not satisfactorily give 
specifics of other specimens.
According to the paper these species consist of:
*Ornithocherius simus*: 3 rostra and 5 mandibular symphyses including 
CAMSN B54.428 (holotype, rostrum) and MANCH L10832
*O. sp.*:
*Coloborhynchus capito*: 4 rostra and 2 mandibular symphyses including 
CAMSM B54.625 (holotype, rostrum) and BMNH R481
*C. sedgwickii*: 8 fragments of the anterior end of the rostrum and 4 
mandibular symphyses including CAMSM B54.422 (holotype, rostrum)
*Anhanguera cuvieri*: consists of 23 rostra and 19 mandibular symphyses 
(several of which have been assigned to their own species) including 
BMNH 39409 (holotype, rostrum) and CAMSM B54.431 (rostrum)
*A. fittoni*: consists of 5 rostra and 2 mandibular symphyses including 
CAMSM B54.423 (lectotype, rostrum)
*Lonchodectes compressirostris*: BMNH 39410 (holotype, rostrum, from the 
Lower Chalk of Kent) and CAMSM B54.584 (rostrum)
*L. microdom*: Fragments of rostrum and mandibular symphysis including 
CAMSM B54.486 (holotype, rostrum), and BMNH R2269 (mandibular symphysis)
*L. machaeorhynchus*: single mandibular symphysis, CAMSM B54.855
*L. platystomus*: fragments of rostrum (YORM 1983/113F) and mandibular 
symphysis (BMNH 43074)

I would like to know the specimen numbers that are not given, if anybody 
can provide me with any information, please, do so. Unwin's paper does 
not provide enough information and the original descriptions do not 
provide numbers.
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Gmane