_Plastosicus_ revealed

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>]

Hello, all.

As you may remember, Alessandro Marisa was searching for the identity of a
creature labled "_Plastosicus_" from a drawing by Mike Milbourne in
Prehistoric Times.

After getting a copy of the figure and seeing the shape of the infratemporal
fenestra, I was suspicious about this being a theropod (as some were
claiming).  The shape of the fenestra looked a lot more like an
ornithosuchid or prestosuchid to me.  It finally struck me (OUCH!): this
isn't "_Plastosicus_", it's _Prestosuchus_.  As such, it is NOT a dinosaur:
it is a pseudosuchian.

So, if anyone has added "_Plastosicus_" to your lists of dinosaur genera,
take it off now, please.

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