Re: New Dinosaur Fossils Found in Africa

[Tom Holtz <tholtz@geochange.er.usgs.gov>]

>Researchers Find Bones of Previously Unknown Dinosaurs in Africa
>10/14/94
>
>By TARA BURGHART
>
>CHICAGO (AP)

[much deleted]

>Sereno said Afrovenator was a type of predator known as an allosaurus. It was
>smaller than Tyrannosaurus Rex, the killer king that lived during a later era
>in
>the American West, but bigger than the Velociraptor featured in the film
>"Jurassic Park."

AAGHH!  He did NOT say it was an Allosaurus, or even an allosaurid!!  He's
calling it a generalized torvosauroid, sister group to a
Torvosauridae-Spinosauridae clade.

[Actually, when a graduate student in Great Britain finishes her work on
the type specimens of Megalosaurus bucklandi, most of us suspect
Torvosauroidea and Torvosauridae will officially become Megalosauroidea and
Megalosauridae]

                                
Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.                                   
tholtz@geochange.er.usgs.gov
Vertebrate Paleontologist in Exile                  Phone:      703-648-5280
U.S. Geological Survey                                FAX:      703-648-5420
Branch of Paleontology & Stratigraphy
MS 970 National Center
Reston, VA  22092
U.S.A.