MORE ON MAASTRICHTIAN MARINE REPTILES, NEW VOLUME

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

Re: Mulder's new volume on Maastrichtian marine reptiles, 
thanks to Dan for his comments. Here are some responses.

-- _Allopleuron_. Dan writes...

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I briefly saw this volume a few weeks ago at the New Jersey 
State Museum and I did a monstrous double-take (remember 
Jimmy Findlayson in the Laurel and Hardy flicks? He was 
also the guy who invented the Homerian "D'oh!") when I 
saw the long tail of this turtle. 
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Ditto. In fact I read and reread the description to make sure 
the figured specimen wasn't a composite, or I wasn't looking 
at the turtle's neck or something. This was all because I was 
showing the volume to my colleague Sarah Earland 
(working on turtles, shares my office): she had just returned 
from Germany and had been showing me images of Green 
River turtles that also had absurdly long tails, so it was 
uncannily timely. There are of course living turtles with 
stupidly long tails (_Platysternon megacephalum_, 
employed by Borsuk-Bialynicka (1977) in comparison with 
_Opisthocoelicaudia_) but they ain't marine.

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Also, does anyone know of any other instances of fossil 
Mesozoic marine vegetation besides the Maastricht sea-
grasses?
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I don't but I know there are assorted phylogenetic reasons 
for thinking that kelp was around in the Cretaceous. If 
you're interested see..

Domning, D. P. 1989. Kelp evolution: a comment. 
_Paleobiology_ 15, 53-56.

On the restoration accompanying the description of 
_Prognathodon saturator_ Dan writes...

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Art is way too kind a word. Let's just say I'm responsible 
(guilty) for the image. It was a rush job and not the painting 
I had in mind.
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Folks, Dan is being too self-critical. The painting isn't bad 
at all.. hey, dead reptiles, blood and guts, and sharks.. what 
else do we need? Seriously, it really isn't that bad.

Tracy Ford has reminded me that the volume can be ordered 
online from...

http://www.nhmmaastricht.nl/nederlands/nieuws/nieuws06.
htm

-- 
Darren Naish
School of Earth & Environmental Sciences
University of Portsmouth UK, PO1 3QL

email: darren.naish@port.ac.uk
tel: 023 92846045