Nyctosaurus Update

Back in June, I reported on the sale of one of the famous crested Nyctosaurus specimens. A few weeks ago, Mark from a fossil selling site called DinoStar left this comment:

Not very accurate Matt. Frithiof is a very decent person who is doing a very legal business. Both KJ1 and KJ2 are still in the Brazos museum and are scheduled to be there for the next 2 years. KJ1 was sold to person who is constructing a museum. KJ2 is still for sale. Most private collections are eventually donated to a museum.

First, let me point out for the record I never said that what Frithiof and Mark do is illegal. As long as the fossils were obtained legally in the US, it's perfectly legal to sell them. That doesn't mean it isn't ethically questionable and actively detrimental to science, which I and pretty much 95% of the paleontological community would agree that it is.

Nevertheless, Mark shed some light on the nature of the infamous eBay sale. It's going to someone constructing a museum. What kind of museum or what kind of somebody remains a mystery. There are plenty of dodgy outfits out there calling themselves museums, and specimens in their collections may as well be in an 18th century cabinet of curiosity. A private "museum" is still a private collection unless the museum is somehow in the public trust, so it doesn't eliminate the hesitation most scientists would have of touching one of those specimens. But, as long as it's made freely available for study, this may be good news.

Or not, because even on Mark's own site, fossils currently on display in random small museums are being offered up for sale. For example, for only $19,000, I could become the proud owner of a Confuciusornis specimen with "scant restoration" and what looks to be an amazing anatomically incorrect ornithurine-like tail fan, straight "from China" which does not allow any exportation of fossils under any circumstances (though it does say it's from an "old collection", have the laws changed in 14 years since these birds first started turning up?). If I can buy my very own illegal Chinese pygostylian straight out of a museum's glass case, what's to keep the new owner of KJ1 from trying to cut his losses if the museum doesn't turn a profit?

KJ2, for what it's worth, is still for sale. So if you want to own a nearly one of a kind scientific treasure to hang up in your den, act soon. Maybe the Field Museum can take it off your hands in 50 years once you kick it?

What Is A Nomen Oblitum? Not What You Probably Think

Above: Illustration of Manospondylus gigas by Matt Martyniuk, copyright.

In a previous post, I brought up the taboo subject of Manospondylus gigas, the large Lancian theropod named by E.D. Cope in 1886 and a potential senior synonym of Tyrannosaurus rex. Google "manospondylus" and the first hit is an old Q&A post by Mike Taylor called "So why hasn't Tyrannosaurus been renamed Manospondylus?"

Good question!

Aside from cultural inertia, the answer Taylor gave is this: "As of 1st January 2000, a new ICZN ruling has come into effect, saying that a name that's been considered valid for fifty years can't now be replaced by one that's been considered invalid during that time." This is also the answer Mickey Mortimer gave in some (but not all) relevant entries on the current Theropod Database. Brian Switek, in an old Laelaps post, gave the same answer: Manospondylus hasn't been considered valid in 50 years, so it's a nomen oblitum ("forgotten name"). He also suggested that this means T. rex has "protected status" which would have to be overturned by the ICZN in order for M. gigas to become valid.

The problem is that none of that has any bearing on what "nomen oblitum" actually means according to the current ICZN code. The ICZN states that in order for a name to be declared a nomen oblitum, all of the following things need to be true:
1. the senior synonym or homonym has not been used as a valid name after 1899
2. the junior synonym or homonym has been used for a particular taxon, as its presumed valid name, in at least 25 works, published by at least 10 authors in the immediately preceding 50 years
3. a paper must be published citing evidence for #2, and citing both names together, declare that the junior synonym or homonym is being made a nomen protectum ("protected name") in accordance with ICZN article 23.9.

The confusion seems to come from #2. It's not a matter of the senior name not having been used in the past 50 years, but the junior name must have been used frequently enough in recent history in order to be eligible for conservation. Clearly, T. rex meets the second criteria. But what about the first and third?

For number one, the answer is I'm not sure, but I think so. It depends on what your definition if "is" is. Has Manospondylus been used since 1899? Definitely, yes, and in several papers, as Mickey Mortimer pointed out in the comments on my previous post on this topic. But was it used as valid? Most authors, even in the early 20th century, recognized that two vertebrae were pretty poor material to be basing a species on. Many of them considered it to be what we'd now call a nomen dubium ("dubious name"). For example, here's what Matthew & Brown (1922) had to say on the subject: "Osborn has already (1917) called attention to another fragmentary type, Manospondylus gigas, as possibly identical with Tyrannosaurus but based upon an inadequate type." They don't explicitly say it's valid or invalid (I'd like to know what Osborn 1917 actually aid on the matter but don't have that paper. Anyone?).

As for number three, it appears that the situation has never been adequately addressed in the literature, so the criterion is not satisfied. The issue came up in 2000, when Peter Larson claimed to have rediscovered the original Manospondylus locality, and more of the type specimen, confirming it is the same as T. rex. As far as I know, this has never seen print beyond an AP article (Anonymous, 2000. "Discovery could Endanger T.Rex Name." The Associated Press.)

In short, could M. gigas be a nomen oblitum? Maybe, depending on the meaning of "valid" and if somebody gets up the nerve to actually publish the case. Is Manospondylus a nomen oblitum as of right now? Definitely not, and it remains the valid senior synonym of Tyrannosaurus until and unless someone acts as revisor to the contrary.

Addendum: Just for fun, I looked up "valid" in the ICZN's glossary. Who better to determine what the ICZN means by valid than the ICZN? Here's the entry:
valid, a. (validity, n.) Of an available name or a nomenclatural act: one that is acceptable under the provisions of the Code and, in the case of a name, which is the correct name of a taxon in an author's taxonomic judgment.

Since the Code does not formally recognize nomina dubia as invalid names (or at all, really), this seems to indicate that M. gigas was considered valid by all those authors in the 20th century, at least under the ICZN's definition. Matthew and Brown, for example, did not consider M. gigas an invalid name (a junior homonym, improperly coined, etc.), just non-diagnostic. Which as far as the rules are concerned, is A-OK. Sorry kids, barring an act of ICZN, M. gigas looks like it's on solid footing as a currently valid name.

Balaur bondoc: Dodo-Raptor?

Here's a really interesting idea floated by Andrea Cau (with help from Mickey Mortimer, Ville Sinkkonen, Rutger Jansma and Zach Miller) over at his Theropoda blog.

Everyone is making a big deal about Balaur bondoc, the apparently double-sickle clawed dromaeosaur. The double sickle idea comes from the very strange nature of the foot (close-up image in the last post, linked above).

Above: Fossils of Balaur bondoc reconstructed as a standard dromaeosaur. Credit: PNAS/AP.

The first sickle claw is present on the first toe. Normally, in non-avian theropods, the first toe is small and placed high on the foot, like the dew claw of a dog. Basically, it's vestigial. However, in lineages where the first toe evolves some kind of use, the entire metatarsal supporting the toe tends to descend, placing the first toe at the same level as the others. This is seen in two lineages of theropod: birds, where the first toe is used for perching, and therizinosaurs, where it's been re-adapted for walking. Animals that use four toes in walking (rather than having four toes but only using three) are called functionally tetradactyl.

So, did Balaur not use its enlarged first and second toes to kill prey as in other dromaeosaurs, but simply as extra walking digits, as in therizinosaurs? Balaur is certainly built like a therizinosaur, with short, stocky hind limbs and very weird hips. The hip bones of Balaur, as you can see in the image above, are extremely swept back. Some of this may be due to crushing, but probably not all. Normally, such a hip arrangement is seen only in herbivorous dinosaurs, which need to clear out space in the torso for their expansive, plant-fermenting guts.

Tim Williams on the DML has also pointed out that the atrophied hands with reduced third finger and fused wrist elements are also indicators of decreased predatory ability. The only other dinosaurs I can think of off hand that have such reduced third fingers are avialans and the herbivorous Caudipteryx (and, of course, alvarezsaurids and tyrannosaurids, but for different reasons). Avialans and Caudipteryx are the only ones that retain fairly normal hand proportions while shrinking the third finger.

Much has been made of the fact Balaur lived on isolated Romanian islands, and that the "island rule" probably had a lot to do with its weird anatomy. Could similar effects have led to this line of dromaeosaurs becoming fully herbivorous? Weirder things have happened to island dinosaur lineages. Just look at the kiwi.

The parallels between Balaur and therizinosaurs are hard to ignore, but obviously it would be helpful to have some skull material before definitely drawing any conclusions about its diet. In the mean time, check out the cool reconstruction Andrea included in his post for what a therizinosaur-mimicking dodo-raptor may have looked like.

Balaur's Gate

Ok, I know everyone and their moms is going to be posting on this but, as many of you have noted, I'm heavily biased towards maniraptorans and this is one of the coolest of the decade.

Hyperbolic Jurassic Park fanboys, meet Balaur bondoc, the dromaeosaurid with not one, but two sickle claws on each foot.

Above: Boom. From NatGeo.

Note that the two sickle claws are on digits one and two, and digit one is essentially anti-retroverted, pointing forwards as in therizinosaurs. Balaur also has a lot of fusion in the hand, with digit two and three fused together and digit 3 reduced, as in caudipterids. Balaur lived on the island of Hateg in Maastrichtian (latest Cretaceous) Transylvania, a location known for its insular dwarfism among herbivorous dinosaurs, including the dwarf sauropod Magyarosaurus and dwarf hadrosaur Telmatosaurus. While Balaur is about the size of the larger contemporary dromaeosaurs at around 2 meters in length, its unique suite of derived skeletal characters also fits into the "island rule," according to Sues in an accompanying write-up to the official paper. While herbivorous forms tend to "shrink" on islands to conserve resources, predators often grow larger to better exploit the dwarf herbivores, relatives of which would be out of their league elsewhere. A good example of this are the famously small, extinct Stegodon dwarf elephants of Flores (or indeed the apparently dwarf humans, Homo floresiensis), and the contemporary giant monitor lizards like the Komodo dragon. However, no teeth of any carnivore larger than Balaur have been found in the Hateg basin deposits. Teeth are usually the most numerous and obvious indicators of the local carnivore population, so Balaur was probably the largest predator in its ecosystem. This would seem to fit with its stocky build and double sickle claw: here was an animal that truly met the popular image of dromaeosaurs grappling with prey larger than themselves. The extra claws and solid build of Balaur would have come in handy when taking down a hadrosaur or sauropod.

You can read more on this find at National Geographic.

Update: It seems like there's some confusion about the name. Tom Holtz on the DML, and some parts of the above NatGeo article, reported it as Baldaur bondac. Others (and other parts of the linked article) use Balaur bondoc. The later is he correct spelling.

Trendsetting: DinoGoss Committed (or possibly Commended)

Just a quick note that the blog over at Bachelorsdegree.org is featuring DinoGoss among a multitude of far more worthy paleo-blogs, intended to be a list of resources for Paleontology students. I can't say I disagree with any of the selections, and most of these are mandatory subscriptions for anyone interested in paleo.

As you can probably tell, the main impetus for this post was as an excuse to use a picture from Back to the Future II.

While I'm here, and advertising myself, I might as well post a link to my ongoing attempt to put together a "field guide" to the lower Yixian Formation flora and fauna. You can check out the gallery at DeviantArt. And don't be afraid to comment on them, the harsher the anatomical nitpicks, the better!

Triceratops Exists, Learn to Read

Above: "Evil scientists want to kill me!"

By now many of you may have seen the headline on science news sites proclaiming that Triceratops has gone the way of Brontosaurus thanks to Scanella and Horner's new paper which suggests it may have been a sub-adult form of Torosaurus. If you understand the very rudimentary basics of science, you may be thinking, "WTF?"

Unfortunately, it should be clear by now that the vast majority of "science reporters" out there are among the most incompetent people being paid to ostensibly "do" the "job" of "reporting news" "accurately." I've already covered the backstory here. Needless to say, just because Triceratops is a juvenile Torosaurs doesn't mean it no longer exists, and furthermore Torosaurus is the newer name, so the name Triceratops is safe and sound (well, except from the shadowy threat of Agathaumas, but that's a different story). Also, David Orr at the awesome blog Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs has already addressed this failure of journalism and journalistic integrity. So I'll just add a few thoughts because really, this is just getting ridiculous.

You've heard it said before that most mainstream science reporters do not understand any single part of the subjects they're covering, and they can therefore be classed not only as useless, but as actively detrimental to human progress. Let's just accept that and call out a few of these hacks by name, shall we? Here are two articles that came up among the top hits when I typed "''Triceratops''" into Google, and are therefore doing the most damage to intelligence in the English speaking world.

Casey Chan, an apparently illiterate Gizmodo blogger, writes: "Scientists sure enjoy crushing my childhood memory of The Land Before Time (they nixed Brontosaurus a while back). Hopefully they won't delete Triceratops too." Immediately after this is a link to a site explaining why they won't, which Casey either read but did not understand or didn't bother to read at all.

Dan Satherley, 3 News NZ reporter of alarmist half-truths, writes: "It seems however that despite its juvenile status, its popularity with the public means that it'll be Torosaurus that ceases to exist. Horner says Torosaurus specimens will now be considered Triceratops." Yeah. You read right. This directly contradicts the headline. Unlike Casey, above, who is merely a simpleton, Dan read the original report, understood most of it (it's not the fact that Triceratops is popular that it remains valid, it's that it's the older name), and wrote the opposite as a headline in an effort to attract more hits. Classy. This is like beginning a review of the movie Backdraft with the headline "Fire in local theater kills dozens."

I should also mention that DinoGoss is not responsible for any head-desk collision injuries caused by reading the comments in these articles. You've been warned.

Amazing Jehol Art and Microraptor Tailfins

Just a quick note on something I stumbled upon while checking out the new google image search. These paintings by Zhang Zong Da are seriously cool, some of the most effective art I've seen portraying the Jehol and Dauhugou biota. My favorite is the third image down depicting pollinating insects. Reminds me of Microcosmos or something, an aesthetic I've tried for with some of my own digipaintings but not nearly at the same level of skill or effectiveness.

One idea I particularly like (and wonder why I haven't seen more often) is the Microraptor with "tailfins" like a '57 Chevy. As we all know, microraptorians had long pennaceous feathers not only on the metatarsus but the tibia (and the thigh in some cases, known as "butt fans"). All gliding micro restorations I've seen have the tibiae fully extended, creating a wide gap between the sticky-out biplane feathers of the metatarsals and the front wings of the arms. The restoration above shows the legs in a 'kneeling' posture, so that the tibia feathers stick more or less straight up behind the front wings, presumably creating a stabilizing effect. I don't know how aerodynamically sound this configuration would be, but it sure is a cool idea!