tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post915903872294532052..comments2024-03-23T12:02:36.626-07:00Comments on Mark P. Witton's Blog: Tyrannouroboros: how everything old is new again in recent proposals of Tyrannosaurus taxonomyMark Wittonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02524696111911168322noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-54057994637239404012022-04-08T03:58:18.618-07:002022-04-08T03:58:18.618-07:00"In reference to Nanotyrannus, is there any s..."In reference to Nanotyrannus, is there any species living or extinct that's known to have absolutely larger forelimbs as a juvenile than as an adult?"<br /><br />As far as I recall, that is a myth as there aree NO adult specimens of Tyrannosaurus rex mounted or on display with complete hands. If you see a complete hand, it was reconstructed to some degree. And there is good reason to think that all of them are incorrect.<br /><br />Here is the Fowler's diagram which removed the reconstructed bits from Wyrex's hand, and the same parts of the other:<br /><br />https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/593415936401473546/961942148847140864/FB_IMG_1649415265655.jpgJuan Yuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07617095938075550825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-27962348522899553102022-04-03T02:08:28.230-07:002022-04-03T02:08:28.230-07:00Note however that Glut (1997) specifically states ...Note however that Glut (1997) specifically states of his book "nor is it an organ for formal taxonomic purposes" (pg. xi), so it is not ICZN compliant (Article 8.2- "A work that contains a statement to the effect that it is not issued for public and permanent scientific record, or for purposes of zoological nomenclature, is not published within the meaning of the Code."). Thus any new name in Glut's book is a nomen nudum anyway, so we might as well use the original nomen nudum from Pickering's magazine insert (not a manuscript). Mickey Mortimerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08831823442911513851noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-25976927232008691742022-04-02T14:03:43.894-07:002022-04-02T14:03:43.894-07:00I'd have been happy if they broke out a big ch...I'd have been happy if they broke out a big chunky Sue like Tyrannosaur to trash rexy. You can tell the difference easily, as one is varrying more barrel.Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08847122481807279472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-27630131922905468672022-04-01T01:07:08.747-07:002022-04-01T01:07:08.747-07:00"Canadian Torosaurus [which are actually T. p..."Canadian Torosaurus [which are actually T. prorsus]"<br /><br />If I may ask, why do you say that? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that several papers testing the ToroCeratops hypothesis, including Mallon et al. 2022, have concluded otherwise.raptor_044https://www.blogger.com/profile/10538231485096397412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-74363276046643613272022-04-01T00:33:29.922-07:002022-04-01T00:33:29.922-07:00I know I already commented, but I thought it worth...I know I already commented, but I thought it worth mentioning that I'm glad GSPaul commented too b/c he makes some good points:<br /><br />-In reference to Nanotyrannus, is there any species living or extinct that's known to have absolutely larger forelimbs as a juvenile than as an adult?<br /><br />-When I tried reading Carr 2020 ("tried" b/c I had trouble understanding a lot of it & whether that was b/c I'm not an expert or b/c he didn't explain himself well enough for non-experts), I too thought it weird that he didn't even include Stan, let alone try to explain the fact that robust sub-adults like MOR 1125 have demonstrably-more robust femurs than gracile adults like Stan. Also, when allegedly testing for sexual dimorphism, why include a probably-non-reproductive juvenile like BMRP 2006.4.4 ( https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jeb.13019 )?raptor_044https://www.blogger.com/profile/10538231485096397412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-11125777524530847252022-03-31T07:35:49.949-07:002022-03-31T07:35:49.949-07:00My mistake, started with Pt 3. Part 1 is below. My mistake, started with Pt 3. Part 1 is below. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11161783700278953602noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-82684767634361388542022-03-31T07:35:07.182-07:002022-03-31T07:35:07.182-07:00Pt 2
A core reason that Carr 2020 could not prope...Pt 2<br /><br />A core reason that Carr 2020 could not properly address the species issue even if It really tried is because Carr absolutely refuses to use any of the many private Tyrannosaurus specimens that must be utilized to properly test the hypotheses at this time. So it needs to be asked. If as is almost certainly true Carr continues to exclude private specimens, will he future papers on Tyrannosaurus taxonomy be able to test the problem? What is the point of publishing such a badly disabled analysis? Seriously, how will such an item be scientifically valuable? Example. In 2020 Carr uses 2.27 as the femur ratio to segregate robusts and graciles, well below our 2.4. That is not because Carr used some sophisticated high resolution analysis, it is because he excluded the super gracile gigantic Stan. Which leads to another question. With the news that Stan will be in a new natural history museum, will Carr include it? <br /><br />I am really going to get after Mark for saying the following. <br /><br />“It also establishes that Tyrannosaurus was probably not a “normal” theropod in terms of its ecological role, and that there may be a good reason why this one species occupied such an expanse of time and space in Maastrichtian North America. The 30-odd year lifespan of one Tyrannosaurus encapsulated the ecological potential of several grades of predatory dinosaurs (Holtz 2021), and we might expect such an adaptable animal to have a long evolutionary history and wide geographic range. We might also predict an unusual amount of variation in our T. rex samples because, if this one species was undergoing such a transformation across three decades of growth, it would have transitioned through a large number of “morphs”. Coupled with distortion caused by fossilisation and the dusting of individual variation we’d expect among a reasonable sample of biological entities and we're going to find a lot of variation among our Tyrannosaurus fossils. It’s an interesting idea that explains a lot of weirdness around our T. rex sample, perhaps more parsimoniously than greater taxonomic granularity or sexual dimorphism.”<br /><br />Three decades is a typical lifespan for big theropods tyrannosaurids included so that factor is not compelling. Why predict an unusual amount of variation in a species that lived in a restricted area for just 2 million years (according to the brand new Mallon et al. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society paper on Canadian Torosaurus [which are actually T. prorsus] which has the Hell Creek that deep) or less, when all the rest of the tyrannosaurids over 10 million years in Asia and N Amer lived in a much broader variety of habitats and went after a far greater diversity of prey, and should have had no more or less individual variation and fossil distortion, yet have only two thirds the variation of femoral robustness than the smaller Tyrannosaurus sample? Using Mark’s own criteria of a not really long lifespan (compared to similar sized mammals), wide geographic distribution, existence over geological time, etc., etc. it is the many tyrannosaurid genera and species that should exhibit a lot more variation than just one does. What the patterns first observed in the EB do mean as Scott notes in his fun vid is that the multispecies hypothesis is actually the null hypothesis (also because other TT-zone dinosaurs speciated) that far from having to be established over the never tested monospecific assumption, positively adaptively explains why Tyrannosaurus was so variable, and shifted from retaining the ancestral conditions in basal T. imperator and then went all innovative with weird new gigantic graciles and just one wee incisor. The one species hypothesis is in contrast (if the basic EB data holds up) a scientific empty vessel that in evolutionary terms explains nothing about this. It is sheer tradition – like in Fiddler on the Roof which is also about the Ukraine region but I digress again. <br /><br />Now please go back to Pt 3 above. <br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11161783700278953602noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-11396128250676988162022-03-31T07:33:44.876-07:002022-03-31T07:33:44.876-07:00Oops, did it wrong by starting with Pt 3. This is ...Oops, did it wrong by starting with Pt 3. This is part 1. <br /><br />Just to make sure no one is not aware of them, we authors of the EB paper have posted responses to the often errant criticisms of the study. Enjoy. <br /><br />Paul - http://gspauldino.com/EBTyrannoxResponseedit.pdf<br />Van Raalte -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgXRK9Tjyi0<br />Persons -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saC-RZJiVGg<br /><br />Mark’s discussion regarding past proposals for multiple Tyrannosaurus species is interesting, but misses the mark. All those past efforts have all been peripheral in nature one way or another in terms of publication location and/or analysis, including Carr’s 2020 work which barely looked at the problem. The Paul et al. paper is the first peer reviewed analysis to appear in a mainline journal that uses a sufficient sample incorporating all available useful specimens including private, of which most are stratigraphically correlated (with the same precision as in Carr 2020), 7 characters being used most of them major measures of robustness – the common line that only two characters were used is not so -- along with extensive statistical analysis. Therefore, the notion that the reaction against the EB paper has been so harsh is because it is just another casual stab at naming new species is far from correct -- although it is very possible that many paleos think it is. The core reason for the knee jerk opposition that has included so many inaccuracies is because the paleo mainstream has long been casually yet deeply invested in good ol T. rex. We see that all the time in how even in the technical literature the taxon is referred to by its including its species name, that being done far more frequently than for other dinosaurs which usually go by the genus alone. <br /><br />Because Mark repeats the line that the Carr 2020 is of great import despite my having proven otherwise I will have to repeat that it is not yet again. It cannot be overemphasized that the Carr 2020 paper suddenly touted as the prior proof of one species based on wow 1850!!!! characters had almost nothing to do with the number of Tyrannosaurus species. Check it out. No mention of the species issue in the title or beginnings of the paper. In the section on assumptions Carr clearly states that he assumes there is just one species, and there is barely a test of the question. The 1850 characters in 44 specimens are taxonomically close to useless because only 7 large individuals are stratigraphically correlated which is way too small a sample, with just 3 having the femur. This is the 2000s everyone, we all have to pay actual attention to the damned stratigraphy, about half a dozen does not do it. Not sampled at all are the robustness of the critical elements maxilla, dentary, ilium and humerus. The size of the Carr analysis in reality needs to be emphasized as being unimpressive because while laterally broad in characters of often dubious value, it is fatally shallow in regards to specimens both in leaving a lot of important individuals out (Stan, Samson, Cope, Henry, Wy-rex) and having hardly any stratocorrelations. Mark is wrong when he lauds the quality of the Carr paper which was obsolete when it was published. When it comes to species determination it is vastly inferior to Paul et al. The 2020 effort had so little to do with the problem that it was barely addressed in our 2022 paper. Had I realized that the 2020 paper was going to out of the blue be misused in the manner that it has been I would have included a discussion of why it is not so in the EB paper. Oh well, one can’t think of every far-fetched possibility. The Ukrainians for instance did not realize Putin was actually going to invade (more pertinent to this than one might think to this subject in that war coverage cut into that of the EB paper, news organizations told us that). <br /><br />Because cannot fit entire response into one comment, onto….<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11161783700278953602noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-3319299557690282402022-03-31T07:31:01.680-07:002022-03-31T07:31:01.680-07:00Pt 3
When it comes to determining how many specie...Pt 3<br /><br />When it comes to determining how many species there are, past work prior to that pesky Paul et al. 2022 paper has limited impact on the necessary future work because none of it was close to being of sufficient scope. The real reason the EB paper got such intense blowback? Who the senior author is had something to do with it. Had Carr come to the same conclusions with the same quality data and analysis would he have been so taken to task? But that is not the entire issue. Say that Paul et al. had published a paper with the same content quality sporting the title “Multiple Lines of Morphological and Stratigraphic Evidence Support Subtle Evolution and Probable Speciation Within the South American Genus Giganotosaurus.” That after years of much the same prior back and forth on the side about how many species that gigantic genus contains. Would there have been the big fuss that we saw? Nah. And I would not be having to do all these long responses to long discussions and criticisms of the EB paper. <br /><br />About N. lancensis being the real holotype of T. imperator. Like most Mark ignores the arms. Of Bloody Mary, which is also from the lower TT-zone. Posted photographs show the BM arms are longer than the femur, not true of any other juvenile tyrannosaurid with arms shorter than the femur (gorgosaurs, tarbosaurs), but true of N. Amer. Dryptosaurus which is very interesting. The hand of BM is as long as that of the T. imperator holotype Sue, and that of Jodi is even longer than that of the latter. Does that ever happen in ontogeny? Being just the skull without critical diagnostic skeletal features the N. lancensis holotype is not diagnostic for anything and needs to be formally designated a nomen dubium. For reasons detailed in the EB paper and my response the megagracilis holotype cannot be used as that for T. regina. it too being a nomen dubium. Had we in the EB paper tried to use these as types we would have been correctly severely criticized. <br /><br />We are doing further work on Tyrannosaurus species. Some potential interesting items regarding the skull. <br /><br />Cheers, <br /><br />Greg Paul<br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11161783700278953602noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-90161825130724071442022-03-31T03:53:26.940-07:002022-03-31T03:53:26.940-07:00You're right, but this is confused by Donald G...You're right, but this is confused by Donald Glut spelling the name as "stanwinstonorous" in 1997 in his encyclopaedia. I've added a footnote about this to the post.Mark Wittonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02524696111911168322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-42543582904621510982022-03-31T02:32:52.622-07:002022-03-31T02:32:52.622-07:00I'm glad you discussed "T. x" b/c I ...I'm glad you discussed "T. x" b/c I was just thinking about it in reference to the JW Dominion prologue. More specifically, I was thinking about how using a hypothetical species that might've actually existed (as opposed to a time-travelling, continent-hopping Giganotosaurus) would've been a good compromise btwn being "paleontologically correct" like Trevorrow claimed & setting up a present-day fight w/another large theropod.raptor_044https://www.blogger.com/profile/10538231485096397412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-39773722450037999602022-03-30T13:17:49.109-07:002022-03-30T13:17:49.109-07:00I was under the impression that the proposed speci...I was under the impression that the proposed species name honoring Stan Winston was <i>stanwinstonorum</i>.JMolohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04680513508882353180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3653345901774701895.post-59446043678897302402022-03-30T13:15:55.029-07:002022-03-30T13:15:55.029-07:00Excellent observations and great summary of the cu...Excellent observations and great summary of the current situation.Thomas Holtzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18018386022020920129noreply@blogger.com