Re: WYLEYIA A DROMAEOSAUR? [and a word on Yaverlandia]

["Timothy Williams" <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Mickey_Mortimer wrote:

> I completely disagree.  It is a very important specimen, as Wealden
> coelurosaurs are extremely rare.

Too right.  _Wyleyia_ may not be in the best state of preservation, but it's 
clear it's either a small bird-like coelurosaur or a true avian (though 
probably not a neornithine).  Either way, it's an important fossil for the 
Wealden.

On the topic of dinosaur-bird relationships, here's Phil Currie Down 
Under...

http://www.smh.com.au/news/0009/28/national/national7.html

And on the topic of the Wealden, I noticed Sullivan's NMMNH paper on 
pachycephalosaurs removed _Yaverlandia_ from the Pachycephalosauria.  The 
thick frontals are the only pachycephalosaur feature it has.  No mention 
though on what the skull fragment might be from.  (Ankylosaur?  Abelisaur?  
I wonder.  I'm sure I'm not the only person in the process of re-reading the 
original desription of _Yaverlandia_.)  With the Malagasy genus 
_Majungatholus_ now known to be an abelisaur, and _Taveirosaurus_ of Europe 
an undetermined ornithischian, pachycephalosaurs are now described for 
certain only from the Late Cretaceous of North America and Asia 
(Chatterjee's Late Triassic pachies from India notwithstanding).

> But when somebody (Novas and Bandyopadhyay
> in this case) actually bothered to look at the specimen, they found it was 
> diagnostic.

Better than that, _Laevisuchus_ appears to be a small-sized abelisaur. The 
dinofauna preserved in central India's Lameta beds seems to have contained 
at least three different abelisaurs (there's also _Indosuchus_ and 
_Indosaurus_).


Tim


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