Re: Erlic/kosaurus

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 96-05-29 11:14:31 EDT, Thomas_R_HOLTZ@umail.umd.edu
(th81) writes (quoting me):

>>Which postcranial characters are these? Pneumatization of the axial
>>skeleton, which runs rampant through Theropoda and even Prosauropoda
>>and Sauropoda?  Semilunate carpal, which I have yet to see in any
>>segnosaurian specimen, but which everybody says is there (like the
>>emperor's new clothes)?
>
>Try checking out Barsbold's Carnivorous Dinosaurs of Mongolia opus, in
>the carpal figures, for one.  There was also a paper by Barsbold (&
>Perle?) on therizinosaur limb elements which has many of the same
>illos.

Yep, I did, and--it doesn't really articulate proximally with the
metacarpals the way a semilunate carpal should. But maybe the drawing
is just bad. On the other hand (no pun intended!), there is no such
carpal at all in the carpus of _Alxasaurus_ as illustrated by
Russell. So the "possible semilunate carpal" of _Therizinosaurus_
could be a segnosaurian(?) autapomorphy.

>>Don't forget that Huene once thought prosauropods were closely
>>related to coelurosaurians.  The coelurosaurian features you may see
>>in segnosaurs could be their coelurosaur-like prosauropod characters
>>in various derived states.
>
>Or they could be coelurosaurian features with some prosauropod
>convergences.  Either is possible.  To evaluate between the
>possibilities, we must use some technique for comparing the
>alternative working hypotheses.

Know of any technique >>besides<< cladistic analysis? :-) The concept
of using more cladistic analysis to check/refine earlier cladistic
analysis leads to rather obvious philosophical problems...