RE: harpymimids

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

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> Nicholas Gardner
>
> I'm making a cladogram section on my webpage and I have a problem
> with the
> Harpymimidae.  I'm trying to find a place in this chart, a place in this
> chart... for them.  Are they oddball ornithomimes?  Or
> therizinosaurs?  If
> they are therizinosaurs, where do they fit?

The _Harpymimus_ type (which includes more material than illustrated in the
original and subsequent papers) is definitely an ornithomimosaur.  It isn't
so much an oddball as it is primitive: where it differs from other
ornithomimisaurs (save _Pelecanimimus_), it does so by showing a primitive
rather than derived state.

                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