RE: TYRANNOSAURIAN IMPLOSION [long; part 1 of 2]

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

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> Dinogeorge@aol.com
>
> Perhaps the most interesting way to attack this problem would be to run
> cladistic analyses of >the specimens themselves<. Get as many
> characters as
> possible from the specimens, plug these into a computer, and see how the
> specimens group together. If you get lots of unresolved
> polychotomies, you're
> probably dealing with a single species with a fair amount of individual
> variation. If you get clumps, these may represent definable species or
> subspecies. If you get a Hennigian comb, you may be seeing the staged
> evolution of a single species. And so on.

Actually, Carr & Williamson did this a few years ago for a poster at SVP
(didn't include the Mongolian forms, though), and I have a similar project
in the back burner.

                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