Re: other questions

[Josh Smith <smithjb@levee.wustl.edu>]

At 11:03 AM 2/16/2003, Nick Pharris wrote:
> Quoting Chris Collinson <chris_collinson@hotmail.com>:
>
>
> > Is it likely that Avaceratops represents a possible ancestor to 
> Triceratops,
> > being the only other ceratopsian without parietal fenestrae? And is it
> > lammersi or lammersorum, I've seen both.
>
> I'd say it's unlikely, as _Avaceratops_ retains a number of primitive
> characters lost in _Triceratops_ and the other chasmosaurines.
>
> If I have the story right, Dodson originally coined the name as _Avaceratops
> lammersi_.  But he actually intended to name the animal for the Lammers
> *family*, and not just one (male) Lammers, so it really should be
> _lammersorum_.  Dodson didn't like having his name screwed with and so
> continues to use _lammersi_.

Nope.  That is not actually what appears to have happened, although it is 
close.  According to Peter himself (this conversation was a while ago, 
however), he was thinking of the Lammers family as an entity (what is that, 
a collective singular?) rather than as a plural group.  I am, I am sure, 
killing this in a linguistic sense with respect to terminology, but 
hopefully the gist is clear.  Peter is pretty well schooled in Latin, and 
from what he has told me regarding this issue, I think I recall him saying 
he consciously choose _lammersi_ because of the way he was viewing the name 
Lammers.

-Josh

------
Josh Smith
Assistant Professor of Geology
Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences
Washington University
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smithjb@levee.wustl.edu
http://epsc.wustl.edu

Director, Bahariya Dinosaur Project
http://egyptdinos.org