RE: Fw: I know why birds and some reptiles survived mass extiction

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

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> ELurio@aol.com
>
> > > Oviraptors sat on their nests and didn't survive. >>
>
> Were there any LANCIAN oviraptors? I can't find any....
>

Varricchio (2001) reports the presence of a specimen he refers to
_Elmisaurus elegans_ from the Hell Creek of Montana (MOR 752).  There are
additional Lancian oviraptorosaur material from western North America, but
these are at present undescribed and in private hands.  In Mongolia and
China latest Maastrichtian faunas have yet to be clearly identified, so we
don't know if this region retained its extremely high abundance of
oviraptorosaurs from the Campanian and early Maastrichtian.

One annoying habit of oviraptoroids (caenagnathids and oviraptorids):
lacking teeth, you can't identify them from isolated teeth!  In other words,
you have to find the bones rather then the (much more common) shed teeth.

Varricchio, D.J. 2001. Late Cretaceous Oviraptorosaur (Theropoda) dinosaurs
from Montana.  pp. 42-57 IN Tanke, D.J. & K. Carpenter (eds.), Mesozoic
Vertebrate Life: New Research Inspired by the Paleontology of Philip J.
Currie.  Indiana Univ. Press.

                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