Re: Dromaeosauridae names, please!

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

I can't give many references (well, most have been given in the meantime). I
consider the following to be members of Deinonychus > Archaeopteryx (with
varying certainty):
Achillobator giganticus (in part)
Adasaurus mongoliensis
Bambiraptor feinbergorum (not -i, has been emended)
Deinonychus antirrhopus
Dromaeosaurus albertensis
?"Dromaeosaurus" gracilis
Euronychodon portucalensis
??Euronychodon asiaticus
?Heptasteornis andrewsi
"Ichabodcraniosaurus" (LK Mongolia, only mentioned in _Michael Novacek
[NovÃÄek?]: Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs, Anchor Books 1996_, possibly
the same as
one of the unnamed dromaeosaurs mentioned in The Dinosauricon)
"Kitadanisaurus"
Koreanosaurus
?Nuthetes destructor
?Ornithodesmus cluniculus
?Paronychodon lacustris
?Phaedrolosaurus ilikensis
Pyroraptor olympius
Saurornitholestes langstoni
Sinornithosaurus millen[n]ii
Utahraptor ostrommaysorum
Variraptor mechinorum (often considered as a nomen dubium or nearly so; in
this case I don't understand why the museum at EspÃraza shows a nearly
complete mounted dromaeosaurid skeleton as Variraptor mechinorum...)
Velociraptor mongoliensis
Unnamed 1: frontals + fused parietals, aff. Saurornitholestes, Romania,
end-Maastrichtian (from some _Neues Jahrbuch_ article...)
Unnamed 2: teeth, LK, Sudan
Unnamed 3: that unnamed "small maniraptor" from Morrison that's haunting the
literature since 1989
Unnamed 4: teeth & maybe more, EK, Victoria/Oz
Indeterminate ones from _Currie + Padian (ed): The Encyclopedia of
Dinosaurs_: Karakalpak Autonomous Republic/Uzbekistan, Kizylkum
Desert/Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan
Unnamed 5: ?fairly complete, 4 m long, EK, Isle of Wight
Unnamed 6: LJ, Colorado (The Dinosauricon)
Unnamed 7: the owner of the tail of Archaeoraptor (must have been *tiny*,
the tail is about 15 cm in length...)
More unnamed ones from this list (actually, I've got that from
www.dinosauria.com/jdp/archie/fudd.htm, from a mail by Darren Naish:
>> Little teeth provisionally referred to the Maniraptora are described and
figured in Metcalf et al. (1992) - these come from the Gloucestershire
Bathonian (Mid Jurassic) site here in England. I think they're also
discussed by Metcalf and Walker (1993) in In the Shadow of the Dinosaurs,
but I don't have that to hand. An amazing assortment of other small
Bathonian taxa are reported from the same site, as are a few bigger things
like a cetiosaur and a big megalosaur. There are also confusing rumors of a
small, relatively complete theropod with big hooked claws. This one did the
rumor circuit early last year, but still nothing on it. Expect more on April
1st I guess..
Anyhow, at least one of these Bathonian teeth is labeled tentatively as
"dromaeosaurid-like (juvenile?)". Feduccia and colleagues might like to note
that dromaeosaurid-like animals were, therefore, around prior to the Lower
Cretaceous (as Tom Holtz has pointed out previously). Michael Benton (1993)
provided an excellent overview of the same Bathonian site[. Of] the
maniraptoran tooth he says: "New findings include some of the world's oldest
frogs, salamanders and lizards, as well as some of the oldest members of the
Maniraptora, the group that includes birds and their nearest dinosaurian
relatives." The ceratosaur present in the deposit (restored, basically, as a
Coelophysis in the dioramas) should not cause confusion with any Welsh sites
(new coelophysid footprints), or anything from.. say, the Isle of Skye for
example. Of course, it has. Me, I'm waiting for that new Sarcosaurus skull.
And a possible maniraptoran tail vert[ebrae] has been reported from the Isle
of Skye too, leading Neil Clark to adorn the cover of Scottish Journal of
Geology (and a mug, and a bunch of t-shirts apparently) with some
cetiosaur-attacking feathery little dromaeosaur-look-alikes. Last I heard,
Neil had not verified the identity of the vert[ebrae]. Neil? I think the
Isle of Skye stuff is Bajocian-Bathonian, but having said that it's probably
not. Anyway, it's definitely mid-Jurassic. <<