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Deltadromeus pubis/ischium
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