Re: Questions from my Guest Book

[Mickey Rowe <rowe@psych.ucsb.edu>]

Chris Brochu is not currently subscribed to the list.  He peruses the
archives at least occasionally, so he saw T. Michael Keesey's invoking
of his name; he wrote to me directly because I wrote to him to make
sure he saw TMK's message.  And hence:

------- Start of forwarded message -------
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 14:42:06 -0700
To: Mickey Rowe <rowe@psych.ucsb.edu>
From: chris brochu <cbrochu@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>
Subject: Re: [tmk@dinosauricon.com: Questions from my Guest Book]

>- Has anyone heard of a pre-Morrison North American stegosaur (or
>thyreophoran, anyway) called "Hesperisaurus"? Apparently it is on display
>at the North American Museum of Ancient Life in Utah.

I've never heard of Hesperisaurus, but Hesperisuchus is a
"sphenosuchian"-grade crocodylomorph.  It is definitely pre-Morrison.

>- One guest said that, in a book called "Collins Dinosaurs", Chris Brochu
>authored this passage:
>
>"For decades it [_Deinocheirus_] was assumed to be a monster carnivore,
>but a series of finds revealed that it belonged to an unusual group of
>theropods -- the therizinosaurs. They had long necks, small heads, and
>teeth that seemed suitable for eating plants. The hips were huge but the
>legs and tail were quite short. We now think _Deinocheirus_ was a
>dinosaurian version of the extinct giant ground sloth, which sat on its
>haunches and used its powerful arms to rake vegetation towards its mouth."
>
>I thought it was generally held to be an ornithomimoid, not a
>therizinosaur. What "series of finds" is this? Chris? Somebody?

Both correct and incorrect:

1.  The book does, indeed, say this.

2.  I did not write that entry.  The book was written by several people,
each of whom is listed on the title page.  Mike Brett-Surman acted as
consulting editor.  My name comes first only because the names were listed
alphabetically - each of us contributed blocks of sections independently.
These were also worked over by the technical editors, usually for the
better.

The relevant section cited above was assigned to someone else; I'm  not
sure who.  Perhaps he was thinking about general therezinosauroid
discoveries.

Overall, I am very happy with the way the book came out.  The editors
added a blurb at the last minute about the dinosaur "heart" that I would
have blocked had I known in advance, and as with any book (especially those
written by multiple authors), there will be the occasional inconsistency.
We're bipedal primates and can do no better.


chris

------------------------
Christopher A. Brochu
Assistant Professor
Department of Geoscience
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242

christopher-brochu@uiowa.edu
319-353-1808 phone
319-335-1821 fax
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