RE: Avenantia and Riebeeckosaurus (Permian dinocephalian therapsids) cranial morphology (free pdf)

[Brad McFeeters <archosauromorph2@hotmail.com>]

Saw in my inbox, "Avenantia and Riebeeckosaurus (Permian dino..."

I'm a _little_ disappointed right now.  :P



> Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2013 09:34:44 -0800
> From: bcreisler@gmail.com
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Avenantia and Riebeeckosaurus (Permian dinocephalian therapsids) 
> cranial morphology (free pdf)
> 
> From: Ben Creisler
> bcreisler@gmail.com
> 
> The journal Palaeontologia Africana is being made available online.
> It's still a work in progress but some recent papers are now in open
> access.
> 
> 
> Saniye Güven, Bruce S. Rubidge & Fernando Abdala (2013)
> Cranial morphology and taxonomy of South African Tapinocephalidae
> (Therapsida: Dinocephalia): the case of Avenantia and Riebeeckosaurus.
> Palaeontologia Africana 48: 24-33
> URI: http://hdl.handle.net10539/13310
> http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/13310
> 
> Tapinocephalid dinocephalians comprise a large component of Middle
> Permian herbivorous tetrapod biodiversity and are significantly
> abundant in the Karoo rocks of SouthAfrica. In order to understand the
> effect of the alleged Middle Permian extinction in the terrestrial
> record of amniotes a clear understanding of the taxonomic diversity of
> this group is essential. The tapinocephalids Avenantia kruisvleiensis
> and Riebeeckosaurus longirostris have in the past been distinguished
> by a set of characters, including differences in the snout length
> which was previously interpreted as a key diagnostic character.
> Further preparation of the material attributed to these species shows
> that the purported distinguishing characters, such as snout length,
> low intertemporal crest, and surface thickening of the parietal
> represent postmortem deformation (including distortion and weathering)
> or can be interpreted as individual or ontogenetic variation.
> Accordingly A. kruisvleiensis is synonimized with R. longirostris.            
>