Re: Biennotherium

[jrhutch@garnet.berkeley.edu (John R. Hutchinson)]

[I've gotten a couple more messages about _Bienotherium_, and although
 they're largely redundant with what George wrote, I've decided to
 lighten up a bit and send them along.  I'm packaging them together,
 though.  My apologies to Tom for allowing this to appear to have come
 only from John.  Consider it my punishment for your having written to
 dinosaur@lepomis... instead of dinosaur@usc.edu, Tim :-)  -- MR ]

_Bienotherium_ (one n) is certainly not a dinosaur; it is a member of the
Tritylodontidae; known from the Lower Jurassic of Eastern Asia
(Mongolia/China I think). It is a cynodont (therapsid), very closely
related to the mammals. Cute little rodent-shrew-lizard-looking-guy.
_Biennotherium_ (two n's) is nothing I'm aware of.

                        John R. Hutchinson
                  Evolving Evolutionary Biologist
                 Department of Integrative Biology
                  3060 Valley Life Sciences Bldg.
                University of California - Berkeley
                        Berkeley, CA 94720
                      Phone:  (510) 643-2109
                      Fax:    (510) 642-1822
         http://ucmp1.berkeley.edu/people/jrh/homepage.html

--------and Tom Holtz wrote:

Bienotherium ynnanense is a Lower Jurassic Chinese tritylodontid
synapsid, one of the more 'ratty' advanced therapsids.

>[I don't know about the animal in question, but "therium" is usually
> translated as "beast", and (as Jeff said) is applied pretty much
> exclusively to mammals and their ilk. -- MR ]

Except in Theropoda.

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
Dept. of Geology              Email:th81@umail.umd.edu
University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661

"There are some who call me...  Tim."