Dinosaur Genera List corrections #166

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The Dinosaur Deluge of 2001 continues!

The party for Phil Currie alluded to in Dinosaur Genera List corrections #165 
went off without a hitch at the Patricia Hotel, Patricia, Alberta. About 100 
of Phil's dino-pals, including Tracy Ford and your humble servant, attended 
as project organizer Darren Tanke presented Phil with his copy of Mesozoic 
Vertebrate Life, whose existence had been kept a closely guarded secret from 
Phil. It was a most remarkable project, and the book instantly became a 
valuable contribution to vertebrate paleontology.

On July 3, a couple of days before we flew to Alberta, the following email 
(slightly edited here) was sent to the dinosaur list, and I duly added name 
#913 to the Dinosaur Genera List:

Ruehleia Galton, 2001

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A new prosauropod genus and species is created by Galton (2001):

Ruehleia bedheimensis Galton, 2001

Holotype: MB (Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin), unnumbered (Rühle von 
Lilienstern Collection): a reasonably complete skeleton that consists of 
cervicals 4-10, dorsals 1-14, partial sacrum, about 20 caudals, right 
scapula-coracoid, both humeri, right radius and ulna, both manus 
(incomplete), both pelvic girdles, femora, tibiae and right astragalus.

Etymology: Latinized names as an allusion to Hugo Rühle von Lilienstern of 
Bedheim.

Locality: Romhild, 20 Km from Schleusingen, southwest of Hildburghausen 
(South Thuringia, Germany).

Age: Upper Norian (Trossingen Formation = Knollenmergel).

Ruehleia bedheimensis is a plateosaur sensu Galton & Upchurch (in prep.) with 
the following characters: three-vertebrae sacrum includes a dorsosacral; 
ilium with a very large pubic peduncle and an extremely short anterior 
process, proximal end of the pubis with length of articular surface for ilium 
much longer than wide with a very short acetabular part (equals half the 
width of the iliac surface); manus with three large carpals with complicated 
proximal articular surfaces.

The reference is:

Galton, P. M. 2001. Prosauropod dinosaurs from the Upper Triassic of Germany. 
In Colectivo Arqueologico-Paleontologico de Salas, C.A.S. (Eds.): "Actas de 
las I Jornadas Internacionales sobre Paleontologia de Dinosaurios y su 
Entorno (Proceedings of the 1st International Symposium on Paleontology of 
Dinosaurs and their Environment)," Burgos (Spain), 25-92.

The holotype and referred specimens will be described by Galton (in press: 
The prosauropod dinosaur Plateosaurus Meyer, 1837 (Saurischia: 
Sauropodomorpha). II. Notes on referred species from the Upper Triassic. 
Revue de Paleobiologie, Geneve)

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Jose Ignacio Ruiz-Omeñaca
Area de Paleontologia
Departamento de Ciencias de la Tierra
Universidad de Zaragoza
50009 ZARAGOZA
ESPAÑA - Spain
Phone: 34-76-761000 ext. 3160,  34-76-761079
Fax:     34-76-761088
E-mail: jigruiz@posta.unizar.es
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I have not yet seen the paper. I also add the following species to the table 
of European dinosaurs in the forthcoming Mesozoic Meanderings #3 second 
printing:

Ruehleia Galton, 2001
    R. bedheimensis Galton, 2001†

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While visiting the Dinosaur Provincial Park library after the Currie 
celebration, I was able to finish reading my copy of Terrible Lizard by 
Deborah Cadbury. Another "must have" book for dinosaur aficionados, it is 
meticulously researched and highly detailed, and essentially tells the story 
of vertebrate paleontology in Great Britain during the first half of the 19th 
century. Much information is provided about the rivalries of that era, 
including the amazing fact that Gideon Mantell's injured spine became a 
pathological specimen (no. 4808.1) in the Hunterian Museum, after his death 
on November 11, 1852 of an overdose of painkillers, under the curation of his 
arch-enemy Richard Owen. It remained available there for some 90 years until 
destroyed in a raid during the German blitz of London in World War II. This 
is a terrific book, highly recommended.

And on page 273 of this book is name #914 for the Dinosaur Genera List:

"Colossosaurus" Mantell vide Cadbury, 2000 [nomen nudum => Pelorosaurus]

During the latter half of 1849 it was Mantell's working name for the sauropod 
he subsequently (in 1850) named Pelorosaurus, published here, as far as I 
know, for the first time. (The British edition of this book is copyrighted 
2000; the American edition appeared in 2001.)

"Colossosaurus" also becomes part of the extensive synonymy under Pelorosaurus
 in the forthcoming Mesozoic Meanderings #3 second printing.

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Finally, while browsing in the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology library I 
came across a 1999 paper in Chinese by Peng & Shu (Tracy Ford has the 
bibliographic information) that emended the type species of the sauropod 
Abrosaurus from A. dongpoensis to A. dongpoi. This change has been entered 
into the Asiatic dinosaurs table in the forthcoming Mesozoic Meanderings #3 
second printing.