Re: Gargantuavis neck vertebra

[GSP1954@aol.com]

My slip up. What I meant is that of late there has been only one species of 
proboscidean in any region, so it might have been true of sauropods in one 
formation of limited lateral extent like the Nemegt. 

On the other hand I am not sure how much time it took to deposit the 
Nemegt, and what level/s the only good published titanosaur skull and 
titanosaur 
skeleton come from. 

And just one species of ostrich lives over a huge area of Africa, so it is 
possible that the Late Cret big bird remains are just one species. Should 
not be formalized by assignment though. 

GSPaul


In a message dated 6/14/12 1:33:15 AM, david.marjanovic@gmx.at writes:

<< >  Giant animals tend to be less diverse species wise, and the Nemegt

>  sauropod remains were from the same formation, so the probablity that

>  the Nemegt titanosaurs are from one species is a higher than for much

>  smaller bird remains from differing sediments. As has been noted,

>  there were 9 moa species just recently on wee islands, one

>  proboscidean each in Africa and Asia.


How many proboscidean species you recognize in Africa depends -- 

surprise, surprise -- on your species concept. Many people nowadays 

distinguish the savanna elephant (*Loxodonta africana*) from the forest 

elephant (*Loxodonta cyclotis*).

 >>

</HTML>