NEMEGTOSAURIDS

[Tetanurae@aol.com]

Way back on 16 December 2001 Ken Kinman wrote:
<<Are you perhaps suggesting that Malawisaurus and Nemegtosaurus might be 
rather distantly related.  I can't remember who proposed it, but some have 
thought that Nemegtosaurids are Diplodocimorphs rather than Macronarians.  
Or did that turn out to be based on convergences?>>

I know it's a little late, but here goes.  Nemegtosaurids (really just Nemegtosaurus) had been proposed as diplodocoids and had been placed there in a few phylogenetic analyses by Upchurch.  Wilson and Sereno, and a combination of some South American paleontologists (forgive me, the paper is impossible to find in the US) however find it to really belong to some sort of macronarian.  The South Americans even proposed that it had an arched nasal a la Brachiosaurus and Camarasaurus.  Before one dismisses this, one should really look at the old B. brancai plates in Paleontographica and cover up the nasal bones - it's a spitting image of Nemegtosaurus.

See also:

http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/1998Nov/msg00697.html

http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/1998Nov/msg00677.html

Pete Buchholz
Tetanurae@aol.com