Re: Oviraptoridae back & forth

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

  I guess I should continue the trend of my replying to things oviraptorid in 
nature ... heh heh.

Øyvind M. PAdron" (gorgosaur@hotmail.com) wrote:

<to my satisfaction i see that Ingenia and Oviraptor has been divided into two 
new genera Khaan
and Citipati. But still there's a major difference between the skull that we 
all know as
O_philoceratops (with the fancy crest) and the type (AMNH 6517). There is allso 
a skull known as
O_philoceratops that is allmost identical to Rinchenia. Then I discover that 
Rinchenia's gone back
into Oviraptor.>

  *Khaan* did not come out of any other taxon, as no material had ever been 
referred to another
taxon. The material of *Citipati* has, however. *Khaan* is completely new.

  *Oviraptor philoceratops,* as I've said before, is properly resticted to the 
type which has an
incomplete skull that appears to indicate a tall, caudally-extensive crest, as 
in the other
species, *O. mongoliensis.* "Rinchenia" has never been formally named and based 
on recent
publication of Clark, Norell, and Barsbold (on *Khaan* and *Citipati*) it will 
likely never be.
There are not that many cranial differences between the two species. The proper 
designation is
*Oviraptor mongoliensis.* The rostrally projecting crested skull (GI 100/42) is 
closer to
*Citipati* than it is to *Oviraptor* (Clark et al., 2001, _JVP_ 20 (2)).

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

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