Re: Tatisaurus

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

At 01:33 PM 5/13/99 +0000, Neil Clark wrote:
>Is *Tatisaurus* considered to be a stegosaur related to 
>Huayangosaurus as Dong (1990) suggests in his paper in *Dinosaur 
>Systematics* edited by Carpenter and Currie?  He doesn't seem to 
>consider that it may be a primitive thyreophoran related to 
>Scelidosaurus.  This surprises me considering it comes from the 
>Lufeng Formation (Lower Jurassic) of China.

In 1996 Spencer Lucas synonymized _Scelidosaurus_ and _Tatisaurus_.  Not
unreasonable: however, he did not demonstrate that the similarities were
derived rather than shared primitive thyreophoran characters, so this
synonymy is a bit weak at present.

Dave Norman is redescribing _Scelidosaurus_, and I believe he has gone to
examine the _Tatisaurus_ type material. It will be interesting to hear what
he discovers.

Lucas, S.G.  1996.  The thyreophoran dinosaur _Scelidosaurus_ from the Lower
Jurassic Lugeng Formation, Yunnan, China.  pp. 81-85, in Morales, M. (ed.),
The Continental Jurassic.  Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin 60.

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