Deltadromeus pubis/ischium

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

Re: the pubic/ischial shafts of _Deltadromeus_, Mickey 
quotes Nick Longrich as saying....

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For one thing, pubes virtually always have a fenestra 
located between the boot and apron- whether it's 
Carnotaurus, Allosaurus, Unenlagia, whatever. This is not 
present in the "pubes" of Deltadromeus. 
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I'm not disputing Nick's identification of the 
_Deltadromeus_ 'pubes' as ischia (I think he's correct), but a 
minor point..

Not all theropods have the 'interpubic foramen' or whatever 
you want to call it (viz, the distoproximally elongate 
foramen visible cranially or caudally between the pubic 
shafts): it is absent in basal theropods pretty much all the 
way up to Allosauroidea (if memory serves, _Torvosaurus_ 
lacks it). Thus absence of this foramen in _Deltadromeus_ 
would be in keeping with the idea that this taxon is a non-
tetanuran. Incidentally, Martill et al. (2000) suggested that 
the foramen was for the passage of a duct linking the 
abdominal to the post-pubic air sac. 

(Also) incidentally there is a minority view that the correct 
plural of pubis is not, and cannot be, 'pubes' but is in fact 
'ossa pubis'. 

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

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