China vs. USA

[Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com>]

John Schneiderman writes:
 > Remember though, the United States has had at least 50 more years
 > of dinosaur fossil hunting, evaluating and in many cases clumping
 > valid genera together.
 >
 > China seems to create a new genera for every find, mostly based on
 > location.  Reexamine some of those finds, nail down though
 > stratigraphic ages and you might find they do not have quite so
 > many as the United States, now.

This cuts both ways, though.  For example, the "genus" Mamenchisaurus
definitely contains more than one genus.  So the relatively
undeveloped state of Chinese palaeontology results in unwarranted
lumping as well as (probably) unwarranted splitting.

 _/|_    ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <mike@indexdata.com>    http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "We demand rigidly-defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" --
         Vroomfondel and Majikthise, "Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy"