Re: Dromaeosauridae names, please!

["Mickey_Mortimer" <Mickey_Mortimer@email.msn.com>]

Dan Bensen wrote-

> Ah, how fortunate for you that I have just completed a Dromaeosaurid
> (Deinonychosaurid) page, complete with species list, links, and highly
> innacurrate pictures. :)

Quite amusing. :) Those pictures aren't inaccurate as much as they're
hypothetical.  I remember drawing things like that ("here's Kakuru's head
based on Avimimus").  Of course you're a far better artist than I was/am (I
put you right up there with Greg Paul).  The only real problem with accuracy
is that Deinonychus and Achillobator need deeper skulls.  I'd say the only
dromaeosaurids worth illustrating are Deinonychus, Velociraptor,
Sinornithosaurus, Bambiraptor and perhaps Achillobator.  A head
reconstruction of Dromaeosaurus is possible as well.  By the way, "Laelaps"
explanatus is velociraptorine, so it should really be Saurornitholestes?
explanatus instead of Dromaeosaurus explanatus.  And Dromaeosaurus gracilis
is better represented as Deinonychus? gracilis.  I just love your
reconstructions of "Koreanosaurus", based on a femur that's never been
illustrated, and of Euronychodon asiaticus, based on a tooth that is in all
probability something more similar to troodontids or ornithomimosaurs.

Also, I forgot Unenlagia in my list (I didn't have the second Velociraptor
AMN paper in May when I wrote it).

Unenlagia Novas & Puerta 1997
U. comahuensis Novas & Puerta 1997
reference- Novas and Puerta, 1997. New evidence concerning avian origins
from the Late Cretaceous of Patagonia. Nature 387: 390-92.

Other possible named dromaeosaurids include Unquillosaurus ceibalei,
Phaedrolosaurus ilikensis and "Chilantaisaurus" maortuensis.  These must be
studied further or described better to determine their familial identities
however.  See my comments on the last two at:
http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/2000Oct/msg00076.html
http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/2000Sep/msg00434.html

Mickey Mortimer