_Saurexallopus_

[smithjb@sas.upenn.edu (Joshua Smith)]

SL Nyveen wrote:
> 
> Anybody want to deluge me in details about what Saurexallopus is and why
> it's so different from any bones?
> 
        Laurie,

        _Saurexallopus_ is a Maastrichtian-aged ichnogenus originally 
described in ?1995 by Jerry Harris and some of his/my crazy friends.  
I am not sure about the spelling, but it is close.  I recently was part of a
team (1996) that described essentially the same morphotype from the 
Maastrichtian-aged Lance Formation (the formation where the first _T.rex_ was
found) of eastern Wyoming.  We are currently writing it up, but it is one 
bizzar track.  I am talking only about the Lance examples here, but it looks 
kind of like a "theropod" track, except that the toes are very long and 
narrow.  The digital pads are not sub-circular or such as
they often are in "Theropod" ichnites, but are elongated more along the axes
of the toes.  There is a very odd hallux that is also very long and 
thin.  It is essentially a quadrupedal ichnite, rather than a tridactyl 
track with a small hallux impression.  Very very strange critter.  We 
have nothing in the Lance record that I know of that could be the 
trackmaker for this little guy.


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Josh Smith
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