RE: Spinosaurus - the authors respond

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@umd.edu>]

On Sat, September 20, 2014 4:09 pm, dale mcinnes wrote:
> How much spinosaur material is actually known from L. Cret. sediments in
Africa
>
> during/ after Campanian ? Is there enough time towards termination of
the Mesozoic
>
> to give rise to more highly derived spinosaurs ?

Very, very little is known of continental African faunas above the
Cenomanian. Some new stuff is coming out soon, but not yet published.

But no spinosaurine material yet. And in fact none of the rare
post-Cenomanian spinosaurid material anywhere is complete enough to say
anything about how derived the critters were relative to Spinosaurus.

Face it: if we knew about such things, they would already be news!!

And of course there was enough time. Keep in mind, whales go from fully
terrestrial animals to Basilosaurus in 15 million years or so.

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu   Phone: 301-405-4084
Office: Centreville 1216
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Fax: 301-314-9661

Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843

Mailing Address:        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Department of Geology
                        Building 237, Room 1117
                        University of Maryland
                        College Park, MD 20742 USA