Re: Byronosaurus

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Dan Bensen asked:

<Does anybody know the translation of the "Byron" bit
of Byronosaurus?  (I'm guessing its a part of the
geography?)>

  "Byronosaurus jaffei" -- Byronosaurus = Byron (for
Byron Jaffe, son of two AMNH-MAE team members) +
-saurus (Lat.) > sauros (Grk.) lizard, reptile:
Byron's lizard; jaffei = jaffe (for [Byron] Jaffe) +
-i (Lat.) genitive suffix: Jaffe's. == Byron Jaffe's
lizard. (this is how I write my etylomolgies, just to
be somewhat thourough).

<Also, who named the thing?>

  The skinny is that Norell, Clark, Chiappe, and the
rest are having some fun with the names of the several
new taxa coming out of Ukhaa Tolgod -- you have been
graced with the first, prepare (and tremble!) for the
rest.... :)

<BTW: If anybody has anything else to add about
Byronosaurus, I'd love to hear it.>

  The animal has been pictured and illustrated for
years, in many popular articles, including _Nat. Geo._
in 1996 (Webster, 1996, to be exact), and Novacek's
book "Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs." It's a
delicate animal known by much of the postcrania and
skull, but so far only the skull has been well
demonstrated in the literature, and it's a beaut!
Diagnostic features include the undenticulate teeth,
the upturned snout, the very large external nares,
features of the cervical vertebrae, and more. Norell
and Makovicky's abstract in the 1999 _JVP_ describes
more of these.


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com