MADAGASCAN ORNITHISCHIANS

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

A thought. I've read in some recent things that, despite all the new 
theropods, sauropods etc coming out of Madagascar, it has yet to 
produce one ornithischian.

However, this overlooks a paper by Piveteau from 1926 in which a 
Madagascan tooth was named _Stegosaurus madagascariensis_. George 
previously suggested that this name might be a junior synonym of 
_Majungatholus_, but of course this was back when we thought that _M. 
atopus_ was a pachycephalosaur. Seeing as it can't be from the 
theropod _Majungatholus_, I take it this tooth shows that 
ornithischians _were_ present on Madagascar after all.

I believe Forster et al. in the recent Gondwana abstracts published 
in _Annals of the South African Museum_ stated that Madagascar has no 
known ornithischians: I cannot find this ref right now but can direct 
people to it in the dino-l archives.

"Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred"
Happy now Jon?:)

DARREN NAISH
darren.naish@port.ac.uk