Yet even more questions (and I'm sure there'll be more...)

["Dino Rampage" <dino_rampage@hotmail.com>]

Hi everyone, it's me again to bother you with some questions...

1) Did Thescelosaurus have scutes on its body? I've seen many 
reconstructions with its flanks covered in armour, but I've also seen some 
without. Are the scutes on Thescelosaurus genuine or is it perhaps tan 
artifact of preservation (say, ankylosaur armour being deposited together 
with the thescelosaurus skeleton)

2) Are heterodontosaurs basal ornithischians, basal ornithopods, or basal 
marginocephalians? Jamie A. Headden seems to think they're the possible 
ancestors of pachycephalosaurs, but others seem to place them as either 
basal Cerapoda or outside Cerapoda itself

3) Is there any evidence for mononykines, true Oviraptoridae or 
homalocephalid pachycephalosaurs in Late Cretaceous North America? While 
dromaeosaurids, troodontids, caenagnathids, ornithomimids, tyrannosaurs, 
ankylosaurs, pachycephalosaurids and hadrosaurs seem common to both Asia and 
America, (and some even seem to share genera) it's puzzling to see some 
groups don't seem to make the journey over the Bering Straits (if they did 
exist then) Alvarezsaurs, therizinosaurs, oviraptorids, homalocephalids, 
nemegtosaurs sauropods from Asia, and "hypsilophodonts", ceratopsids and 
nodosaurs from North America seem unique to their continent. Why is this so? 
Are there factors that seem to aid the dispersal of certain clades while 
restricting the movements of others? Are is it more likely that these groups 
did indeed cross over, just that they haven't been rediscovered yet. 
(Although seeing how ceratopsids were so numerous and gregarious, it's 
highly unlikely that in a century of digging in the Gobi, not a single 
ceratopsid skeleton has been unearthed) Note: I remember seeing a very old 
painting very reminescent of Charles Knight, I don't know whether it was by 
Charles Knight himself or which year it was from, but it was a scene 
depicting Late Cretaceous Mongolia, showing Tarbosaurus (or Tyrannosaurus 
bataar to those who prefer it) menacing a couple of nesting Protoceratops, a 
bunch of hadrosaurs (Tsintaosaurus if I'm not wrong) and most surprisingly, 
a ceratopsid! This painting showed a solitary Styracosaurus, and the caption 
said that it was an as-yet unnamed species (at that time). Any records to 
show that a lage ceratopsian was dug up in the Gobi??



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