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Buried under a jumble of new taxa

By laelaps on February 13, 2008.

Archosaurs have been making a lot of news over the past day or so. First, there's the diminutive new pterosaur Nemicolopterus crypticus, a toothless Early Cretaceous form that may have been arboreal. As far as dinosaurs go, the hadrosaur Velafrons coahuilensis was described in the December issue of Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, but it's just now getting some time in the limelight.

Paul Sereno and Stephen L. Brusatte, fresh from reporting a new species of Carcharodontosaurus, hit us with a double-dose of new theropods in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, describing the abelisaurid Kryptops palaios and the carcharodontosaurid Eocarcharia dinops, both having implications for theropod evolution & biogeography. The same issue of the journal also features a new paper by Godefroit et al. detailing the new hadrosaurs Sahaliyania elunchunorum and Wulagasaurus dongi from China, the paper suggesting that all hadrosaurid dinosaurs are of Asian origin. I haven't had the chance to read any of these papers yet, but with such a glut of news I had to say something.

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dinosaurs
paleontology

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Love that pterosaur. If you need a copy of the paper, Brian, one of my readers was kind enough to send it to me, so I can forward it your way. What's most interesting about it (besides its tiny size) are its pedal phalanges, which are strongly curved for gripping branches (one assumes). This implies that Nemicolopterus led a more arboreal, or dare I say, scansorial mode of life than other pterosaurs.

Cute little guy, Mike! I didn't initially recognize it as one of yours (it seems like you used different media than usual), but I now notice your initials in the corner. I like it, and I'm glad you moved the patagium up the leg, which would make sense in a more arboreal pterosaur!