Almost New Papers

["Jerry D. Harris" <jharris@dixie.edu>]

Hi All -

   Just got hold of a few more '06 papers:

Ye, Y., 2006, The sauropod fossils from the Zigong, Sichuan, China, in Dong, 
W., and Wang, Y., eds., Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the 
Chinese Society of Vertebrate Paleontology: Beijing, China Ocean Press, p. 
1-8.

   -- reviews mostly existing stuff, but also reports _Mamenchisaurus_ skin 
impressions.

Jiang, S., 2006, The stegosaur fossils in Sichuan Basin, in Dong, W., and 
Wang, Y., eds., Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Chinese 
Society of Vertebrate Paleontology: Beijing, China Ocean Press, p. 9-16.

   -- also a review, but has a not bad photo of _Gigantspinosaurus_ in the 
ground, complete with ginormous, bent parascapular spines; the specimen 
looks like it lacks a tail, and while some neck is visible, I am not certain 
about a skull (it looks vaguely there, or to have been removed before the 
photo was taken -- there's a large patch of irregularities the same tint as 
the matrix at the end of the neck, and that area is pedestaled, as is the 
rest of the specimen...); it also has some skin impressions.

Zhang, X., Li, G., Lin, J., and Ling, Q., 2006, Stratum model of the 
Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary of Datang, Nanxiong Basin, Guangdong, China, in 
Dong, W., and Wang, Y., eds., Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the 
Chinese Society of Vertebrate Paleontology: Beijing, China Ocean Press, p. 
17-32.

   -- mostly a biostratigraphic report trying to pinpoint the K/Pg boundary 
in this area, but depends heavily on dinosaur eggs, as well as ostracodes.

   I also got:

Lü, J., Ji, S., Yuan, C., and Ji, Q., 2006, Pterosaurs from China: Beijing, 
Geological Publishing House, 147 p.

   -- this is also largely a review; no new species are described (though 
this is the first time I've seen a picture of _Yixianopterus_, which is 
described in the book from the 2005 Heyuan International Dionsaur 
Symposium), although they erect the new "family" Boreopteridae within the 
Ornithocheiroidea, to which they ascribe _Boreopterus_ and _Feilongus_. 
There's also a cladistic analysis of all these taxa plus lots of other 
pterosaurs -- the goal seems to have been to simply position the Chinese 
pterosaurs, not revamp pterosaur phylogeny as a whole.  There are also some 
SEM shots of _Beipiaopterus_ soft tissue, one CT cross section of 
_Dsungaripterus_, and some info on Chinese pterosaur tracks and the Jehol 
eggs. The book is entirely in Chinese except for the list of characters used 
in the analysis and an appendix listing the Chinese pterosaurs and their 
higher-group affiliations.  Interestingly, in this list (and possibly 
elsewhere in the text), they note that _Longchengpterus_ and _Istiodactylus 
sinensis_ are junior synonyms of _Nurhachius_.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jerry D. Harris
Director of Paleontology
Dixie State College
Science Building
225 South 700 East
St. George, UT  84770   USA
Phone: (435) 652-7758
Fax: (435) 656-4022
E-mail: jharris@dixie.edu
and     dinogami@gmail.com
http://cactus.dixie.edu/jharris/

"Trying to estimate the divergence times
of fungal, algal or prokaryotic groups on
the basis of a partial reptilian fossil and
protein sequences from mice and humans
is like trying to decipher Demotic Egyptian with
the help of an odometer and the Oxford
English Dictionary."
              -- D. Graur & W. Martin (_Trends
                  in Genetics_ 20[2], 2004)