RE: Pterosaur Books

[Silvio Renesto <renesto@mailserver.unimi.it>]

> Concerning The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Pterosaurs I have to share the 
> good comments made by other listmembers but  I just want to point out some 
> minor flaws concerning Italian pterosaurs, not affecting the overall good 
> quality of the book, TAKE IT AS A SMALL ADD ON, NOT AS A CRITIQUE:
1) Not author' s fault but , following Wild's papers, he reconstructed 
Peteinosaurus skull on the basis of Dimorphodon, as stated in the caption: 
Indeed, Peteinosaurus skull is so far unknown apart for a piece of lower 
jaw and,  looking at the actual specimen, if any similarity has to be 
found, this is with Preondactylus.  As several times Fabio Dalla Vecchia 
pointed out, the two genera (if they really are two separate genera) are 
nearly identical in most, if not all, skeletal elements and the skull of 
Preondactylus is quite different from that of Dimorphodon. If anyone wants 
to go deeper in his topic should contact Fabio, not me. He made his PhD 
thesis and published papers on these topics.
2) The Milano specimen of Eudimorphodon is stored at the University (here, 
near my office) and not in the Museum of  Natural History.Different 
institutions.
3) In general, the artwork both by Wellnhofer (BW drawings) and John 
Sibbick is nothing less than excellent, though I  dislike the orientation 
of the fifth toe in some of Sibbick illustrations....a matter of 
interpretation anyway...
Cheers and season's greetings to all listmembers

                                        Silvio Renesto







_
        "When they hear of the Way,
        The highest minds hurry up to practice it;
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        They sometimes feel it real and sometimes not;
        The lowest minds laugh at it.
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                                (Lao Tzu)


Silvio Renesto

Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra
Università degli Studi di Milano
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I 20133 Milano
Italy
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e-mail:  renesto@mailserver.unimi.it
        Silvio.Renesto@unimi.it
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