ON REVELATIONS

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

In listing the animals he regarded as possible members of the 
dromaeosaurid-bird clade, David wrote...

> ?Heptasteornis andrewsi 

There is big breaking news on this and similar forms - some of 
you were informed at SVP. Also new material. Please do not spill 
the proverbial beans as this is in the works. 

On that note, can I remind list members that, if you come up 
with a revelatory conclusion (e.g. you suddenly notice that 
_Deinocheirus_ is the world's biggest enantiornithine, and not an 
ornithomimosaur at all), please be sensitive about your conclusion. 
Certainly people are entitled to announce their own discoveries, but if 
a proposed new identity for an old specimen becomes widely known in 
the community it CAN then become harder to get it published. Some 
journals are unbelievably sensitive to this sort of thing and won't 
accept papers on topics that have already been aired on the internet. So, 
keep working, but be mindful (sensu sith). Of course, if the identities 
have already been publicly announced (at conferences, in abstracts 
etc.), the topic is fairly open for discussion. Also be aware that a 
revelatory conclusion is usually worth publishing - it would be better 
for you if, rather than announce it on the internet, you get it through 
peer review. 

To keep people informed, I can tell you that 'revelatory' identifications 
are being worked on for the theropods _Thecocoelurus_, the 
elopterygines, _Harpymimus_, the new IoW coelurosaur and 
_Rapator_. The monograph on _Irritator_ (submitted) has some 
interesting decisions on spinosauroid taxonomy.

> Unnamed 5:
> ?fairly complete, 4 m long, EK, Isle of Wight 

I take it this is the new genus I'm working on (with Steve Hutt et al.). It 
is emphatically not a member of the dromaeosaurid-bird clade 
(Eumaniraptora Padian et al. 1999). Again, there is a scoop working 
its way through the system.

> 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:

The little Bathonian teeth from Gloucestershire do appear to be from 
dromaeosaurids, or dromaeosaurid-like forms, and compare closely 
with dromaeosaurids in terms of morphology and DSDI (denticle size 
difference index). I also have an article in the next Dinosaur Society 
Quaterley Journal (climbing theropods) and as a result have been 
corresponding a lot with Jeff Liston, the editor. He said that in David's 
article he referred to Middle Jurassic troodontid-like teeth, and cited 
something by me as the source. I checked stuff in the DML archives 
and I think at some stage I might have mentioned such things - if I did I 
suspect this was an error as I cannot recall such teeth being described 
in the literature. The earliest troodontid-like teeth I know of are 
_Koparion_ (Chure, in BYU Geology Studies), other Morrison 
specimens described (in JVP abstracts) by Chure and Madsen, and 
Guimarota teeth described by Zinke. As we've noted on the list before, 
Dan Chure no longer thinks that _Koparion_ is necessarily of 
troodontid identity.

"She irons her jeans - she's EVIL.... she must be destroyed"

DARREN NAISH 
PALAEOBIOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP
School of Earth, Environmental & Physical Sciences
UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH
Burnaby Building
Burnaby Road                           email: darren.naish@port.ac.uk
Portsmouth UK                          tel: 01703 446718
P01 3QL