RE: Tarbosaur/Tyrannosaur-Velocirapter/Saurantholestes ???

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> Dinogeorge@aol.com
>
> With all due respect, this is a >woefully< inadequate assortment
> of features
> on which to refer Tarbosaurus to the genus Tyrannosaurus.

This is as opposed to your compelling synapomorphy of the North American
tyrants (to the exclusion of the Asian taxa) "lived in North America"? (And,
on that website, bataar is NOT retained in Tyrannosaurus!).

> "Inflated appearance" of
> lacrimal (as opposed to what? "deflated appearance")??

Quite frankly, if you do not understand this description than you haven't
spent any time working on tyrannosaurs.  As opposed to the typical theropod
lacrimal condition, those in the big tyrants look... well... "puffy" or
"inflated" or "outwardly expanded".   (In fact, looks are not decieving, but
I can't speak more of that now...).  Most people looking seriously at
tyrannosaurid fossils recognize this as a similarity between the big guys.

> What kind of a range is 170% "or shorter"??

That's for a good editor to pick up...  "or less", I suppose, would be
better.  That is as opposed to the ancestral condition, where mc II is 200%
or more the length of mc I.

> Look at the gross
> morphology of the two genera, fer cryin' out loud. Give me a break.

With all due respect, George, I have spent time with the specimens, looking
at the real fossils from multiple angles, picking them up, etc.  I've spent
a damn site more time looking at the gross morphology (and, more to the
point, the detailed morphology) of the specimens than most on this list, you
included.

However, given all that, my current taxonomic preference (reflected on that
website) is to keep these "genera" separate.  Ultimately, of course, debates
over "generic" affinities are the baggage of a pre-evolutionary system:
there is no serious scientific metric for "genus", nor even a serious debate
over the "genus problem" (this is as opposed to the extremely serious and
on-going multidisciplinary debates over the "species problem").

George, don't you think it a least bit curious that Maleev AND Paul AND
Bakker AND Russell AND Carpenter AND me AND Currie AND Carr AND Sereno AND
Brochu have all found that the similarities between Tyrannosaurus rex and
T[whatever] bataar fossils show them to be more similar to each other than
to Albertosaurus/Gorgosaurus grade forms (position of Daspletosaurus
relative to the two "T"s, though, is debated amongst us).

Be that as it may, though, we could be wrong.  If so, show us.  Give the
world a more compelling argument than "Tarbosaurus lived in Asia".  In point
of fact, I know of at least one guy who DOES have some potential evidence
for this, and his work is currently being reviewed.  Where it winds up,
though, we'll have to see.

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796