Re: big meat-eaters (Epanterias)

[AM Yates <Adam.Yates@bristol.ac.uk>]

On Sun, 12 Mar 2000 Dinogeorge@aol.com wrote:

> 
> Allosaurus, either as a synonym of A. fragilis or as a separate species, 
> Allosaurus amplexus. He also referred some large theropod caudals that he 
> found to the genus. I've compared the figures of E. amplexus in Osborn & Mook 
> with figures of the corresponding bones of A. fragilis in Madsen (1976) and 
> there seems to be no real difference except size. If it had the proportions 
> of an A. fragilis, it would have been about 11-12 meters long, which is in 
> the T. rex size range (around 12.5 meters).


Isn't the situation with Epanterias even more complicated by the fact
that there was another really big allosaurid running around at the same
time, namely Saurophaganax? If my understanding is correct the type
material of Epanterias is simply too incomplete to tell which of these
two forms it belongs to (or indeed if it is yet another taxon) so it
must be consigned to that overstuffed trashcan of nomina dubia. Which of
course raises the ugly question of the identity of the type of
Allosaurus itself, technically I think that it is not possible to
diagnose which of the growing number of Morrison carnosaurs it belongs
to but it would be very counter productive to abandon Allosaurus and
erect a new name for the well known form that we currently call
"Allosaurus". The same situation exists with a great number of well
known taxa. For instance the type of Plateosaurus is inadequate to
determine if it belongs to the well known form from Trossingen and
elsewhere (that currently bear the name Plateosaurus) or to a newly
discovered large robust melanorosaurid-like prosauropod. Perhaps it is
time to go through all these well used names based on dodgy types and
petition the ICZN to transfer the names to nearly complete specimens.

cheers

Adam Yates  

> >