New papers

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

First up, a salvo against the BANDits...  However, Feduccia &c appear now to 
be arguing that birds and maniraptorans are indeed closely related, but that 
they are NOT theropods or dinosaurs.  This is a load of codswallop, of 
course, but it may require a new tactic in refuting their arguments (e.g., 
demonstrating that you cannot remove Maniraptora from the Theropoda, any 
more than you can take Aves out of Maniraptora).

Chiappe, L.M. (2004). The closest relatives of birds.  Ornitologia 
Neotropical. 15(Suppl. S): 101-116

ABSTRACT: "The origin of birds, the clade originating from the common 
ancestor of the Late Jurassic _Archaeopteryx_ and extant birds, has been at 
the center of a heated debate throughout the history of evolutionary 
biology. Although many disparate hypotheses of bird origins have been 
proposed in the last two centuries, an overwhelming consensus exists in 
support of the idea that birds evolved from maniraptoran theropod dinosaurs. 
Osteological support for this hypothesis is plentiful. The skeletons of such 
maniraptoran dinosaurs as dromaeosaurids, troodontids, and oviraptorids, 
share a great deal of similarity with those of birds. In addition, a series 
of spectacular discoveries in the last decade has provided new lines of 
evidence that supplement the already overwhelming osteological data. This 
recent evidence is derived primarily from the study of egg morphology and 
integumentary anatomy but also includes behavioral inferences based on a 
handful of rare fossils. These discoveries have documented the presence of 
feathers, brooding behavior, autochronous ovideposition, and other avian 
attributes among basal maniraptoran dinosaurs. The available evidence 
strongly supports the classification of birds within theropods and indicates 
that many avian attributes previously thought to be unique to birds (from 
brooding behavior to flight) first evolved among maniraptoran dinosaurs. 
Although dissenters of the Maniraptoran hypothesis of bird origins have 
countered by highlighting temporal and developmental limitations, these 
criticisms are clearly spurious. The most frequently voiced arguments, the 
so called "temporal paradox" and the homology of the digits of the avian 
hand, are tainted by logical inconsistencies. Perhaps the most important is 
the fact that these dissenters have been unable to produce alternative 
phylogenetic hypotheses that could explain, within the methodological 
framework of cladistic parsimony, the vast amount of similarity between 
non-avian theropods and birds."

A hadrosaur paper...

Mulder, E.W.A., Jagt, J.WM and Schulp, A.S (2005).  Another record of a 
hadrosaurid dinosaur from the Maastrichtian type area (The Netherlands, 
Belgium): SEELEY (1883) revisited.  Bulletin de l'Institut Royal des 
Sciences Naturelles de Belgique Sciences de la Terre. 75: 201-206.

ABSTRACT: "An incomplete left tibia of an indeterminate hadrosaurid from the 
type area of the Maastrichtian Stage, contained in the collections of the 
Museum fur Naturkunde der Humboldt-Universitat Berlin (ex Binkhorst van den 
Binkhorst Colln), is described, illustrated and compared with the type lot 
of _Orthomerus dolloi_ SEELEY, 1883 [nomen dubium]. Although the specimen 
lacks geographic/stratigraphic details, a small matrix sample taken from the 
medullar foramen has now yielded benthic foraminifera that corroborate its 
provenance from the Maastrichtian type area, and Suggest it to have 
originated from the upper portion of the Maastricht Formation (Emael or 
Nekum members)."

And when you gotta go, you gotta go...

Fernandes, M.A., Dos Reis Fernandes, L.B. and De Figueiredo Souto, P.R. 
(2004).  Occurrence of urolites related to dinosaurs in the lower Cretaceous 
of the Botucatu Formation, Parana basin, Sao Paulo State, Brazil.  Revista 
Brasileira de Paleontologia. 7(2): 263-268.

ABSTRACT: "The geological units that correspond to the Mesozoic in the 
Parana basin, Sao Paulo State, are included in Sao Bento Group, by 
correlation with the Piramboia, Botucatu and Serra Geral formations. The 
Botucatu Formation's age is bracketed between the Upper Jurassic and the 
Lower Cretaceous (Neocomian). The Botucatu Formation is composed of aeolian 
sandstones showing cross-stratification from medium to large scale, a 
typical trait of migrating dunes. Ichnofossils were collected in the Sao 
Bento Quarry, located in the city of Araraquara, Sao Paulo State. Samples 
MPA-002 e MPA-003, respectively, are the negative epirelief and positive 
hyporelief of the same trace fossil. MPA-001 is a negative epirelief. These 
features show a removal of sedimentary material, in contrast to the 
morphology of ornithopod and theropod dinosaur tracks, where compression and 
deformation of unconsolidated sedimentary layers occurs. These trace fossils 
show a pattern corresponding to erosion caused by evacuation of liquid 
wastes and are classificated as urolites, because this term has already been 
applied to the occurrence of ichnofossils of this type in France and 
Germany. The morphostructure of these urolites is very similar to the 
erosional geometry produced in the substrate by expelled liquid waste of 
modern ratite birds, such as _Struthio camelus_ (ostrich). These urolites 
are the first records in Brazil of this type of ichnofossil, and is also one 
of the first examples of trace fossils attributed to liquid waste expulsion 
by dinosaurs."