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Well, it has been quite some time since I've had to update the Dinosaur
Genera List. Whereas 2001 featured a flood of new dinosaur descriptions, 2002
seems to be in something of a lull. Most of the names added to the List in
2002 have been of the miscellaneous variety, including mainly nomina nuda and
names whose status has changed. Last month I crosslinked the Dinosaur Genera
List by letter, so you may simply click on a letter at the top of the List
and a hypertext link will take you to the top of the sublist of names that
begin with that letter; click on Back to Top at the end of each letter's name
list and you'll go back to the top of the List, ready to go to another
letter: Cute little HTML feature. Anyway, here are the additions and
corrections since circa April, 2002.
[1] Limnornis entries-----------------------------------
As I was indexing the forthcoming book on Mesozoic birds (Chiappe & Witmer
[or vice versa], eds.) from University of California Press, I came across a
passage concerning putative avian fossils that might possibly belong to
nonavian dinosaurs. The passage included two presently avian genera not in
the Dinosaur Genera List. A shotgun request to the Dinosaur Mailing List for
citations turned up the following, via Fred Ruhe and Tommy Tyrberg:
Benton, M. J., Cook, E., Grigorescu, D., Popa, E. & Tallódi, 1997. "Dinosaurs
and other tetrapods in an Early Cretaceous bauxite-filled fissure,
northwestern Romania," Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 130:
275–292.
Tracy Ford lent me his copy of the paper, and, sure enough, it suggests that
the possibility that the genera Palaeocursornis and Eurolimnornis are
theropod dinosaurs cannot be ruled out, because the remains are terribly
incomplete. Naturally, once there is even a hint that published genera are
nonavian dinosaurs, they go into the Dinosaur Genera List!
Fortunately, I've begun keeping track of Mesozoic birds for publication in
the ever-delayed third edition of Mesozoic Meanderings #2, so I already had
the somewhat convoluted taxonomy of these two genera in my data files.
Altogether four generic names are involved, and here is how their taxonomy
will read in the forthcoming second printing of Mesozoic Meanderings #3 (not
to be confused with the aforementioned third edition of Mesozoic Meanderings
#2, whose publication is still a long way off):
Eurolimnornis Kessler & Jurcsák, 1986*
E. corneti Kessler & Jurcsák, 1986†*
= Limnornis corneti Kessler & Jurcsák, 1984 [in part]†*
NOTE: Taxonomy of this genus is according to the revision of Bock & Bühler,
1996. The possibility that this genus, originally described as a bird (that
is, an avian dinosaur), represents a nonavian dinosaur was opened by Benton,
Cook, Grigorescu, Popa & Tallódi, 1997. This is why it appears in this list,
although it is presently regarded as avian. See also Palaeocursornis.
Palaeocursornis Kessler & Jurcsák, 1986*
= Eurolimnornis Kessler, 1987/Kessler & Jurcsák, 1986*
= Limnornis Kessler & Jurcsák, 1984/Gould, 1839*
= Palaeocursornis Jurcsák & Kessler, 1985 [nomen nudum]*
= Palaeolimnornis Jurcsák & Kessler, 1985 [nomen nudum]*
P. corneti (Kessler & Jurcsák, 1984) Bock & Bühler, 1996‡*
= Limnornis corneti Kessler & Jurcsák, 1984 (in part)†*
= Eurolimnornis corneti (Kessler & Jurcsák, 1984) Kessler & Jurcsák,
1986*
= Palaeolimnornis corneti (Kessler & Jurcsák, 1984) Jurcsák &
Kessler, 1985†*
= Palaeocursornis biharicus Jurcsák & Kessler, 1985 [nomen nudum]†*
= Palaeocursornis biharicus Kessler & Jurcsák, 1986†*
NOTE: Taxonomy of this genus is according to the revision of Bock & Bühler,
1996. The possibility that this genus, originally described as a bird (that
is, an avian dinosaur), represents a nonavian dinosaur was opened by Benton,
Cook, Grigorescu, Popa & Tallódi, 1997. This is why it appears in this list,
although it is presently regarded as avian. See also Eurolimnornis.
The typography of the above entries, including some vowels with diacriticals
in the authors' names, daggers and double daggers indicating type species,
and boldface/italics, may not transmit correctly to everyone. Please accept
apologies for this. To have the correct typography, you should (heh heh) buy
my book when it appears.
So these became genera #943–946, added in early May 2002:
Eurolimnornis Kessler & Jurcsák, 1986* [probable bird]
Limnornis Kessler & Jurcsák, 1984/Gould, 1839* -> Eurolimnornis &
Palaeocursornis [probable bird]
Palaeocursornis Kessler & Jurcsák, 1986* [probable bird]
Palaeolimnornis Jurcsák & Kessler, 1985* [nomen nudum -> Palaeocursornis;
probable bird]
[2] Aucasaurus-----------------------------------
The current issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology carries the
formal description of the new South American carnotaurine genus Aucasaurus.
This name first appeared in print in the book
Chiappe, L. M. & Dingus, L., 2001. Walking On Eggs: The Astonishing Discovery
of Thousands of Dinosaur Eggs in the Badlands of Patagonia, Scribner
Publishers: 224 pages [ISBN 0743212118].
The name was added as name #904, a nomen nudum, to the Dinosaur Genera List
in Dinosaur Genera List corrections #159. The formal description has now
appeared in the paper
Coria, Rodolfo A., Chiappe, Luis M. & Dingus, Lowell, 2002. "A new close
relative of Carnotaurus sastrei Bonaparte 1985 (Theropoda: Abelisauridae)
from the Late Cretaceous of Patagonia," Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 22
(2): 460–465 [July 8, 2002].
This changes the status of the name Aucasaurus in the Dinosaur Genera List to:
Aucasaurus Coria, Chiappe & Dingus, 2002
Here is how the entry for Aucasaurus presently appears in Mesozoic Meanderings
#3 second printing:
Aucasaurus Coria, Chiappe & Dingus, 2002
= Aucasaurus Chiappe & Dingus, 2001 [nomen nudum]
A. garridoi Coria, Chiappe & Dingus, 2002†
= Aucasaurus garridoi Chiappe & Dingus, 2001 [nomen nudum]†
[3] Psittacosaurus species-----------------------------------
Two new species have recently been added to the genus Psittacosaurus, one
from Liaoning and one from Siberia. I have not yet seen the papers, but I
have enough information that I can add them to the table of Asiatic dinosaurs
in Mesozoic Meanderings #3 second printing:
Psittacosaurus liangi Liu, 1999
Psittacosaurus sibiricus Voronkevich & Averianov vide Leschinskiy, Fainherts,
Voronkevich, Maschenko & Averianov, 2000
The latter was described in the following paper:
Leschinskiy, S. V., Fainherts, A. V., Voronkevich, A. V., Maschenko, E. N. &
Averianov, A. O., 2000. "Preliminary results of the investigation of the
Shestakovo localities of Early Cretaceous vertebrates," in A. V. Komarov
(ed.), Materials of the Regional Conference of the Geologists of Siberia, Far
East and North East of Russia. Volume II. GalaPress, Tomsk: 363–366 [in
Russian].
Ralph Molnar told me about this species a decade or more ago, when he visited
a Russian museum and saw the label Psittacosaurus sibiricus on one of the
specimens. We've been waiting a long while for this one! (There is now
evidently much more material available of this species.)
I have no citation as yet for the earler species, just an author's name. Any
further information on these two species would be most welcome at this end.
Here is what the listing for the genus Psittacosaurus in Mesozoic Meanderings
#3 looks like right now:
Psittacosaurus Osborn, 1923
= Protiguanodon Osborn, 1923
P. mongoliensis Osborn, 1923†
= Protiguanodon mongoliensis Osborn, 1923†
= Protiguanodon mongoliense Osborn, 1923†§
= Psittacosaurus osborni Young, 1931
= Psittacosaurus tingi Young, 1931
= Psittacosaurus protiguanodonensis Young, 1958
= Psittacosaurus guyangensis Cheng, 1982 [juv.]
P. sinensis Young, 1958
P. youngi Chao, 1963
P. chaoyoungi Wang, 1983 [nomen nudum]
P. xinjiangensis Sereno & Chao, 1988
P. meileyingensis Sereno, Chao, Cheng & Rao, 1988
P. sattayaraki Buffetaut & Suteethorn, 1992
P. neimongoliensis D. A. Russell & Zhao, 1996
P. ordosensis D. A. Russell & Zhao, 1996
P. mazongshanensis Xu, 1997
P. liangi Liu, 1999
P. sibiricus Voronkevich & Averianov vide Leschinskiy, Fainherts,
Voronkevich, Maschenko &
Averianov, 2000
Note also this listing:
Luanpingosaurus Cheng vide Chen, 1996 [nomen nudum]
L. jingshanensis Cheng vide Chen, 1996†
NOTE: Wang et al., 2000 (Vertebrata PalAsiatica 38: 92) list Luanpingosaurus
as a synonym of Psittacosaurus (R. E. Molnar, pers. comm.).
[4] "Mandschurosaurus magnus"-----------------------------------
The description of Charonosaurus jiayinensis appeared in print last year:
Godefroit, Pascal, Zan Shuqin & Jin Liyong, 2001. "The Maastrichtian (Late
Cretaceous) lambeosaurine dinosaur Charonosaurus jiayinensis from
north-eastern China," Bulletin de l'Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de
Belgique, Sciences de la Terre/Bulletin van het Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut
voor Natuurwetenschappen, Aardwetenschappen 71: 119–168 [May 15, 2001].
Besides the osteology of Charonosaurus, the paper reviews the history of
dinosaur discoveries from the Amur/Heilongjiang region. Here the name
"Mandschurosaurus magnus," used on a label for a hadrosaurian skeleton at the
Geological Museum of Heilongjiang, appears in print for the first time.
Although this doesn't affect the Dinosaur Genera List, it will be added as a
nomen nudum to the synonyms of Mandschurosaurus amurensis in the table of
Asiatic dinosaurs in the second printing of Mesozoic Meanderings #3. If
further work shows the partial skeleton to belong to a different or distinct
taxon, I'll change its listing accordingly, of course.
[5] Ricardoestesia-----------------------------------
Way back in 1991 at the San Diego SVP annual meeting, where I was selling
copies of the just-printed first printing of Mesozoic Meanderings #2, Robert
Sloan commented while we were waiting for a lecture to begin that I had
inadvertently introduced a theropod nomen nudum into the literature. In my
book, he said, I had misspelled the name Ricardoestesia with an "h":
Richardoestesia. Fortunately, Cambridge University Press had a display at the
meeting, and I quickly produced a copy of the Dinosaur Systematics book,
wherein the genus was described. The spelling Richardoestesia was used
practically everywhere in the paper, so I had assumed that that was the
correct spelling and so listed it in MM #2. The spelling without the "h" also
appeared in the paper, and I dutifully listed it too, as an incorrect
original spelling.
Sloan was aghast that the spelling he and his two coauthors, Phil Currie and
Keith Rigby, chose for the genus had been replaced throughout the document by
some nameless individual on the Cambridge staff after the proofreading had
been completed. They had wanted their spelling to emulate the famous
(notorious?) generic names honoring contemporary paleontologists employed by
South American paleontologist Florentino Ameghino, who had specifically used
the combining form ricardo-. I hadn't the heart to tell him that, as first
revisor, I had pretty much killed any chance of restoring via normal ICZN
rules the spelling that they wanted. But I promised him that I'd look into
the situation and would do what I, in my small way, could do to get the
h-less spelling established. So I deliberately chose to ignore my
nomenclatural act in the first MM #2 printing and reversed it in the second MM
#2 printing a year later. Asserting that the existence of two different
spellings of the name in the original paper was evidence that a typographical
error had been committed, I proposed Ricardoestesia as the correct spelling
of the genus. If enough workers used the h-less spelling, I figured, and if
nobody noticed what I had done in the first printing, in time the h-less
spelling would preponderate. Then, even if someone did turn up my original
revision, a good case could be made to retain the h-less spelling, which is
the way the authors originally wanted it. Preponderant usage carries great
weight in zoological nomenclature.
For the next ten years, I worked to ensure that the h-less spelling was used
in any dinosaur document that I had input into that dealt with that genus.
For example, the spelling Ricardoestesia is used throughout the Phil Currie
Festschrift volume Mesozoic Vertebrate Life because as indexer I brought this
issue to the editors' attention. It is most appropriate to use Phil's
intended spelling, and not the invidious misspelling, in a book celebrating
Phil's career in paleontology! Wherever else in the literature the h-less
spelling appears is directly or indirectly because I have campaigned for it
behind the scenes. I am very happy I was able to do this. Going by the rules
is fine in most situations, but when the rules, through no fault or
negligence of the original author, perpetuate an egregious name in favor of a
desired name, it is an injustice that deserves correction. There is no
linguistic reason to prefer richardo- over ricardo- or vice versa; both are
equally valid Latinizations. Nobody's reputation is slighted if the h-less
spelling is used. The reason for preferring Ricardoestesia over
Richardoestesia is simply that the former is the spelling the authors wanted,
and as far as I know they are blameless in this error.
Unfortunately, not many people noticed the h-less spelling emendation in MM
#2 second printing, so the h-ed spelling still predominates in the literature
by a considerable margin. Recently a second species of the genus was
described under the h-ed spelling: Richardoestesia isosceles Sankey, 2001.
And now the issue has resurfaced again, because the indefatigable Ben
Creisler, researching a new publication, pointed out that the h-ed spelling
must be considered correct, fixed by my act as first revisor. (How odd that a
number of my other nomenclatural acts in the first printing of MM #2 have
mainly been ignored, e.g., correcting Avaceratops lammersorum, Sauropelta
edwardsorum, and Tenontosaurus tillettorum exactly according to the rules,
but this particular emendation must stand!) In truth, the correct spelling is
the one that workers in time come to use, and if enough people use the h-less
spelling, then it will become the accepted spelling for the genus. Recall
what happened to Rioarribasaurus (which was not accepted, even though it was
technically the correct name for the Ghost Ranch theropod, and a petition to
the ICZN suppressed it); and a similar fate seems to be befalling
Megapnosaurus, which I haven't yet seen used by a single theropod worker
(although maybe it's too soon to say).
At this point, I would strongly recommend that readers of this post become
proactive and employ the name Ricardoestesia in favor of Richardoestesia in
any published works that cite this genus. I will continue to do so myself, of
course, and if it requires petitioning the ICZN to resolve the matter, I'll
try that, too. BUT: If I hear from the original authors (at least two of whom
receive these Dinosaur Genera List updates by email) that they no longer care
which spelling becomes accepted, I will abandon this effort. I will also
immediately write up a suitable Dinosaur Genera List update and will change
the spelling of the name to Richardoestesia in the List.
[6] Shenzhouraptor sinensis-----------------------------------
China Daily for July 23 carries a story about a "flying dinosaur" described
as Shenzhouraptor sinensis. The description has evidently appeared in the
Geological Bulletin of China, but I have not yet seen it:
Wang Ying, 2002. "Fossil supports dinosaur-into-bird theory," China Daily
07/23/2002, pagination not available.
Until I see the description, or at least a citation that gives the names of
the authors, the DGL will carry Shezhouraptor as name #947:
Shenzhouraptor Wang, 2002 [nomen nudum]
It is yet another dino-bird fossil from the remarkable Liaoning locality.
Thanks to Kazuo Takahashi for this notification. An English version of the
description is set to appear in Nature. And see [8] below.
[7] Omeisaurus new species-----------------------------------
A new species of the sauropod Omeisaurus is described in
Feng, T., Jin, X., Kang, X., & Zhang, G., 2001. "Omeisaurus maoianus: A
complete Sauropoda from Jingyan, Sichuan," Research Works of the Natural
Museum of Zhejiang, Beijing: China Ocean Press: 128 pp.
I have not yet seen this reference, either. So we add
O. maoianus Feng, Jin, Kang & Zhang, 2001
to the list of Omeisaurus species in the Asiatic dinosaurs section of the
second printing of Mesozoic Meanderings #3. All the Chinese sauropod species
need to be reexamined and revised, a difficult job indeed.
[8] Jeholornis prima-----------------------------------
This week's Nature carries the description of a new "bird" taxon, Jeholornis
prima:
Zhou Zhonghe & Zhang Fucheng, 2002. "A long-tailed, seed-eating bird from the
Early Cretaceous of China," Nature 418: 405–409.
The abstract of the article notes that Jeholornis had a long,
dromaeosaurid-like tail with elongated zygapophyses. Indeed, the description
of the animal is so close to that of a flying dromaeosaurid that I must
include it among the nonavian dinosaurs, so it becomes name #948 in the
Dinosaur Genera List, and I won't even asterisk it as probably avian. Greg
Paul predicted the existence of flying dromaeosaurids about a decade and a
half ago, and this might just be one such. I also think a comparison with
Rahonavis is called for.
Jeholornis Zhou & Zhang, 2002
To the Asiatic dinosaurs section of the second printing of Mesozoic
Meanderings #3 we add the species
Jeholornis Zhou & Zhang, 2002
J. prima Zhou & Zhang, 2002†
NOTE: Described as a long-tailed, seed-eating bird from the Early Cretaceous
of China, this could well be a flying dromaeosaurid dinosaur.
The current Dinosaur Genera List appears at this URL:
http://members.aol.com/Dinogeorge/dinolist.html
Partial index: