Interesting tidbits from SVP abstracts

[Nick Pharris <npharris@umich.edu>]

Hey, guys,

I was just perusing the abstracts for the upcoming SVP meetings, and I came
across a couple of interesting snippets:

>From Jeff Wilson's abstract for "A REDESCRIPTION OF THE MONGOLIAN SAUROPOD
NEMEGTOSAURUS MONGOLIENSIS NOWINSKI (DINOSAURIA: SAURISCHIA) AND COMMENTS ON
LATE CRETACEOUS SAUROPOD DIVERSITY":

"Thus, a uniformly non-neosauropod Jurassic Asian fauna was replaced by
titanosauriforms by the Early Cretaceous. The Middle Jurassic origin of
Titanosauriformes implied by wide-gauge trackways suggests that that the
group originated outside Asia and later migrated to Asia."

I take it this means Jeff now considers _Euhelopus_ to be a non-neosauropod (and
hence not a close relative of titanosaurs)?


And from Agnolin, Apesteguia, and Chiarelli's "THE END OF A MYTH: THE MYSTERIOUS
UNGUAL CLAW OF NOASAURUS LEALI":

"The Noasaurus pedes are unknown, but as suggested by their closely
related velocisaurines (e.g. Velocisaurus, Masiakasaurus, Santanaraptor), were
probably non-raptorial, but cursorial."

_Santanaraptor_ a noasaurid?  That's a new one!  Skin impressions from a
noasaur...

Well, I guess those of you who actually get to *go* to the meeting will have to
tell us what this is all about...

Nick Pharris
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Linguistics
University of Michigan