Re: Papers on Line: The Acrocanthosaurus paper!

[NJPharris@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/2/01 11:25:47 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
tholtz@geol.umd.edu writes:

> For those interested, Currie & Carpenter's paper on the most complete
>  specimen of _Acrocanthosaurus_ paper is one of several offered in pdf 
format
>  by Geodiversitas.  You can find it by going to:

A good reference to have on hand.  Currie and Carpenter argue rather 
strenuously that _Acro_ is an allosaurid and not a carcharodontosaurid, 
though most of the character states they mention are also consistent, to my 
mind, with a position for _Acro_ as a primitive carcharodontosaurid, more or 
less intermediate in form between _Allo_ and the carcharodontosaurines 
(_Giga_ and _Carcharo_).  That is certainly what it looks like to me.

They do have a cladogram, but for an outgroup they use the highly derived 
Abelisauridae rather than the more conservative _Ceratosaurus_ (or something 
like _Torvosaurus_), which I would have preferred.  I also disagreed with 
some of their character polarities.

All in all, a good read, though.

--Nick P.