NEW DIMORPHODON

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

Newest _Nature_ has this..

CLARK, J.M., HOPSON, J.A., R. HERNANDEZ, R., FASTOVKSY, D.E. and 
MONTELLANO, M. 1998. Foot posture in a primitive pterosaur. _Nature_ 
391: 886-9.

The article made the cover - and on seeing a fully articulated 
pterosaur foot mounted in plantigrade posture, I first thought Dave 
Unwin and colleagues were the ones who wrote the paper.

The pterosaur not only proves that dimorphodontids were plantigrade, 
it is a new species  - _Dimorphodon weintraubi_. It differs from _D. 
macronyx_ in having a first wing phalanx that is not 
significantly shorter than the ulna, and in being bigger. It is in 
fact the biggest non-pterodactyloid pterosaur thus far reported. _D. 
weintraubi_ (named after Dr. Robert L. Weintraub) is surely the same 
as the large dimorphodontid previously reported by Clark et al. at 
the 1997 SVP meeting.

DARREN NAISH
darren.naish@port.ac.uk