Re: [DMG] Re: Eutyrannosaur preprint

[Gregory Paul]

1) Both anterior maxilla of Nano show no sign of somehow being vertically exaggerated in Fig. 4B,C in Witmer & Ridgely. How would that work? It is obvious (and those I have talked to agree) that the snout, including the anterior profile of the antorbital fossa, is much blockier than that of sharp snouted BM. The only way to get the Nano skull height/length markedly lower towards Jane and especially BM would be to elongate the rostrum, which would involve introducing a major vertical gap. But W&R do not say such, and Gilmore indicated that the skull was found intact with the jaws in place. And the W&R scan of the mandible shows how remarkable deep it is, and blunt ended, very unlike BM. I ran the new restoration past people who have examined the skull and they think it is fine. Which makes sense since I used a 3-D scan with the left side flat on to the viewer to do it. If on the other hand Napoli is somehow correct that the anterior maxilla is too distorted to retain its original shape, then that reinforces that the skull is an inadequate holotype the species of which we should not be chucking other specimens into. 

3) You are right, I missed a tooth that is in its socket, so I have blackened that one in. Only under the anterior maxillae are teeth absent from their sockets on both sides. Thanks for the heads up! 

4) Very veru good for you on all the effort! But. are you saying that there are significant errors in your paper -- which looks like an exemplary work -- that we will catch if we check it out in person? I seriously doubt that. 

    A little while back a team of researchers went to the strenuous efforts to find, excavate, document, estimate mass via elaborate calculations, and 1st description publish in Nature the colossal remains of the super whale Perucetus. Which garnered international attention because of the claim of enormous mass, very possibly in the blue whale zone (there is a line in the paper where they say that). In quite short order a rebuttal appeared by Montani & Peyson showing that the mass estimate was way too high. Did M&P first contact Bianucci et al. to inform them they were going to blow their titanic estimate out of the water as it were and get mega press attention that would show B et al. up. Or get their permission before B. et al. did a follow up paper to respond to the heavy at is were criticism they were getting, suggest a collaboration, or something along those lines? No. Did B. et al. complain about the rapid response without their being contacted, or waiting until they could adjust their estimates in a follow up? No. Did other paleos chastise M&P for being noncourteus and unethical for their rapid rebuttal with no apparent interaction with B et al.? No. Of course not, what M&P that is a standard scientific process -- science can be rough. Once a paper is out describing a new beast (with specimen #), it's open season on it. That is how it has always been, and always should be. It's that academic freedom thing. 

     Hark, another example. I spent a dozen years doing what no one was even looking at, gathering data to analyze the potential species of Tyrannosaurus. Should have already been done. Scott and a student of his helped with the stats. After the paper appeared we sort of figured a reply would take half a year or more. What with all the fuss and bother that arose I was looking at a follow up work, those postorbital bosses for instance. Obviously there would be time to do that. 

    Ha, just kidding! A mere few weeks later appeared the Carr et al. reply, which included Napoli and Zanno. Did any of those people send us a message saying they had concerns with our paper they wished to discuss? No. Did we get to see the rebuttal, much less review it (which is a standard procedure elsewhere, as per https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1192963). No. Did Scott and I then whine about it? No. We took it as a matter of course. Contacting those who produced a paper before criticizing it in print much less asking for permission is NOT SCIENTIFICALLY NECESSARY, AND NOT DOING SO IS NOT OUT OF NORMS! 

    It is optional. 

    I have asked other paleos if after they had published in Nature or the like a new specimen they had decided to assign to a previous taxon, if they then would instruct others to not do what they like with it the specimen until they got a follow up paper published. The reply has been along the lines of say what? 

    So what the bloody hell is this all about? 

5&6) Don't know what Franco and I thinking we "deserved" anything means. From what I vaguely recall I was sort of thinking of naming Jane in the Mesozoic paper -- it has been around two decades, lots of detailed picks of it (incl Larson 2013, Longrich & Saitta 2024), not a sense it was going to be described, not entirely sure if anyone was doing it. But among other items, I got word that Carr will get his work out fairly soon, so best wait until then. Then you two went ahead and named the species which is fine as I keep saying. There is still the genus. Are you perhaps saying only you two, or Carr, can now name the genus at the moment? That when it is pretty certain none of you will do so? 

    Franco and I realized Jane and BM needed names in the summer -- not literally to do so in the summer, but when it became possible to do that. Specifically, we were figuring you two were going to put BM in Nano, or more likely Stygi which has the same distinctive snout, when you published the fossil. I asked Lindsay if she had a timeline on publication, she said soon, and asked us to not do anything until the paper came out. The paper is out. Whether we will have something published by the time you two do a 2nd look is very uncertain. Because Lindsay has made it clear, her name is not longer an option for BM.  

    In any case, the issue of ethics is complicated in this situation as follows. In science recognition of other's priority is always de rigueur in science. Standard procedure. In the preprint Franco and I cite the Nature paper endlessly, sometimes more than once in the same paragraph. That is both to acknowledge your priority on new data ideas when you have such, and for our practical needs. In the preprint as well as the Mesozoic paper Longrich & Saitta 2024 are cited repeatedly for same reasons, as are many other researchers. This is basic ethics and professional courtesy to do so. Not doing so is not ethical. Anyone disagree? 

    About half my Mesozoic paper is about the small TT-zone tyrannosaurs. One reason I did it was because I had a particular novel notion that I wanted priority on - that the TT-zone eutyrannosaurs probably migrated from Appalachia via the new land bridge, it is likely to become the paradigm.. The paper is cited in Z&N -- once (also in the Supplement, except I cannot find the location in the text). As pro-forma. Z&N repeat the land bridge premise, but while doing so do not cite my precedent. As a result the impression the many readers of Nature will get is that the idea is theirs (which is happening, see 1:05 into https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC6wd4T1x0Y). Since then N has not made it clear elsewhere that the hypothesis is not theirs. If someone did something like that to you dear reader, would you not be displeased? Give credit where credit is due. They acknowledge that there may be multiple species of Tyrannosaurus after all. That is good. Not as good is that they cite Paul et al. (2022) and the to the contrary Carr et al. (2022) and then a call for more research on the issue. What is not good about that is they do not cite the Mesozoic paper that includes lots of new data and analysis. Excuse me? Again the readers of Nature are left unaware about my new major paper (138 pages and that's just the maintext). I sent a note to Z & N asking them to in the final version of the paper to add the citations, just means adding the little footnote numbers here and there. I cannot access the final version so do not know whether that was done (if it has been please let us know). Nor do they cite my Mesozoic work indicating that the dorsal view of the Nanotyrannus holotype cannot be reliably restored. 

    See what I am getting to here folks? Z&N and their supporters are making a big case about paleoethics. But they did not consistently follow the standard courtesy and scientific notification in their paper by generously citing prior research that was not original to their study. It is not just them, don't get me started on the long term citation failure problem. I would not have raised the issue. Yet I am being lectured about being unethical and so on over an issue that I and Franco have not been, when they definitely were the such in barely mentioning my paper and not indicating that I am the person who devised the intra N Amer land bridge hypothesis that others are now crediting them with. A piece of advice. If one is getting after me for something, and I have evidence to show that person or persons has issues of their own, I will point to those items, so be careful. Just saying. 

    The point here is that BM has a specimen #, has been published in extensive detail in the leading international science journal, albeit with not a whole lot of citations of prior work which is and should be the norm, and thus meets standard criteria for others to do what they like with it analysis wise. But now those who are considering doing the latter are being accused of being unethical. 

   Really? 

   There is the line about those who live in glass houses. 

   They best not lecture others. 

   If the Z&N precedent is accepted, it will become yet another layer of control of research which violates academic freedom, and slows down yet further a field that is becoming further encumbered by increasing arbitrary rules and regulations by those in position to try to impose them. Let's see that they do not succeed. 

   The preprint Franco and I posted is working. Partly due to the feedback, we are reworking the study, and Franco in particular is conducting a large scale data analysis that is taking more time than expected. Whether what we are coming up with will appear before or after the next Z&N BM work is up for grabs. We certainly are very interested in seeing their Nano and BM skull restorations. 

GSPaul

On Thursday, December 18, 2025 at 02:40:51 PM EST, James Napoli <jamesg...@gmail.com> wrote:

I've just returned from a research trip, so getting to this late. Some further points in response to Greg's latest post:

1) Your excuse for not indicating the tremendous amount of material missing from CMNH 7541 does not hold up - even taking both sides into account, the simple fact remains that you illustrate features that are known on neither side of the specimen. Not to mention that the CT data published over 15 years ago by Witmer and Ridgely should have made the obvious absence of a large chunk of the rostrum clear beyond any doubt. The "revised" illustrations you sent me retain multiple basic errors in anatomy, and the breaks in the rostrum of CMNH 7541 are clearly influencing your perception of their dorsoventral depth. These illustrations are not reliable.

2) You say that the illustration of preserved vs. missing teeth in NCSM 40000 is taking into account teeth preserved on both sides. But again, many more teeth are present than you illustrate. What's going on? Our figures clearly show which teeth are present, so you should absolutely be able to represent their presence accurately.

3) "Basic procedure" is that researchers act in accordance with the wishes of the institution that houses the fossils. We told you explicitly that your work contained numerous anatomical errors that were the basis of your conclusions, and asked you to hold any taxonomic action on that specimen until we had published the relevant data. That's a very simple request, and one that I myself have been on the other end of many times. I am currently in a "holding pattern" on other descriptive projects because I am waiting for researchers with priority to publish their work. It's quite normal and good practice. You refused this request and have now disseminated a piece of research with numerous basic errors of fact because you were so concerned with being the person to give this animal a name that you compromised the scientific integrity of your work. 

4) For the Nanotyrannus paper, I traveled to museums in both the US and Canada; Lindsay further traveled to Mongolia and China. We spent literal months collecting firsthand observations and data for our study. Anyone who has done this knows that in this process, it is common to find errors in original description or anatomical traits that you could not see from published figures alone. It isn't always possible to see every potentially relevant specimen, but if your work is describing a specimen, photographs and drawings are not enough. And your paper is evidence of this - your illustrations simply do not accurately capture the anatomy of these specimens, which I know because I have actually seen all of them in person and spent dozens or hundreds of hours studying them. I do appreciate your kind words about the quality of our work, and I do think we illustrated the specimen quite well - but even from our figures, it's clear that you were not able to produce accurate illustrations of the anatomy and missed obvious deformation and disarticulation of the specimens. I would never dream of publishing a primary descriptive text or taxonomic action on a specimen I had not studied firsthand, for exactly these reasons. I literally just returned from a research trip (which I paid for out of pocket, by the way; I do not currently have grant funding) which renewed my certainty on this point. Working on the specimen significantly changed my understanding of it, which had previously been informed only by a well-illustrated publication. And besides, it's not like North Carolina is as inaccessible as Siberia or far western China. 

5) Why were you and Franco so adamant that you were the people who 'deserved' to name NCSM 4000 and BMRP 2002.4.1? What involvement have you ever had in these specimens? Did you collect the specimens? Prepare them? Raise money to study them? Have you driven them across the country for CT scanning, or even laid hands on them? What gave you the feeling that you should be the ones to name them before anyone else? You complain about us "pre-empting" you by naming BMRP 2002.4.1 - an action we did with permission and after tremendous research investment. Why should you have had that "honor" over us, the team that actually worked on the specimen? I still do not think NCSM 40000 is a unique genus or species - but if later research ever did cause me to change my mind, shouldn't that action be left for those who have poured literal years of blood, sweat, and tears into its study? 

6) You note that you felt that NCSM 40000 and BMRP 2002.4.1 needed titles "in the summer". So you weren't even doing this in response to our paper coming out - you fully intended to name these specimens (including then-undescribed NCSM 40000) prior to the publication of our work. Your arguments that the specimen being described make it "fair game" are thus completely void. You started this process before it was described and clearly intended to supersede any taxonomic action we took. Patently unethical and disgraceful conduct. 

Withdraw your preprint. 

On Sunday, December 14, 2025 at 10:26:43 AM UTC-5 Gregory Paul wrote:

Thanks for the comments on the skull restorations, we posted the preprint in part to get feedback, which we will take into account. Some points. 

We did not illustrate Nano has not having a lacrimal hornlet when it was alive. To explain, in black around white profile-skulls, as in the same for profile-skeletals, the black can represent missing bone, as per the anterior prong of the combined squamosal-quadratojugal of Nano, much of the antorbital fossa, and so forth -- likewise many of the skeletals in the paper have lots of black where bones are missing. The preserved Nano skull lacks the hornlet, so its presence is represented by the solid black bump, approximated after that of Jane. I do not show bone cracks in profile-skulls-skeletons because those who might not know the anatomy could mistake them as bone sutures (I do not show the cracks in the nearly complete nasal of the LACM juvenile in Fig 9G for instance). As far as we can tell the Nano maxillae were not longer than how they are restored in the skull, so no need to show a gap. Perhaps James disagrees, and we are interested to see his upcoming restoration. We will take another look at what bones are missing vs present -- note that the restoration uses both sides to fill in the left view. All that said, there are already on hand numerous diagnostic characters that indicate that Nano, BM, Stygi etc are not the same taxon -- the way tall quadrate-quadratojugals on Nano compared to the much shorter ones on both sides of BM for instance. As they say, perfection is the enemy of good enough, and perfection is rare in fossils. 

As for BM, the teeth are, as in the other skulls, from both sides to fill in the left view. Shall consider doing a revised or new version based on the comments, but those two maxillae are not all that diff from one another. It's a way low skull. Again, as is the differences with the other skulls are already abundant. Much more diff between BM and Nano than between D. torosus and D. horneri, or A. fragilis and A. jimmadseni. What I am wondering is about the seeming flexion at mid skull in which the snout is downflexed from the temporal box. Is that real, preservation distortion, damage before Larson took over? If real could be a diagnostic character. 

Now. As for the assertion that people are still severely restricted in what they can do regarding BM, now that's a head scratcher. Once a detailed publication appears on a fossil the analysis horse is out of the research barn and others can do what they wish. That's basic procedure, I do not think there has been another case of a describer telling others they cannot do what they wish with the specimen after it appears in a well documented peer-reviewed study. There is not a need to know more about BM for researchers to make deep conclusions about its nature. The Nature photographs are high quality. The specimen is actually not super informative in some regards. The complete caudal series is badly banged up (I think from the initial collection effort before Larson arrived), and the whole series is photographed. Most of the rest of the vertebrae and ribs are still under sediment. Good lateral pics of the skull in the paper. Cannot see the top but that is not critical (all the more so because the tops of Nano and Jane are lousy). Very nice pics of the arm. Pelvis and legs in view. Lots of juicy text description. Key measurements published  (still not for Jane) and the scale bars look correct:). I do not see what vital points I would discover by seeing the specimen (until more is prepped well into the future, which I assume will be covered in additional studies down the line). Anyone is now free to name BM, and Franco and I are very nervous someone else will soon do so at least at the species level (in Nano or Stygi), we have our reasons to think that. 

To put it another way, if I worked long and hard to describe a new specimen and peer review published it in detail, and put it in a previous genus-species, I would not even think of telling others to not name it until I do another paper on the specimen. Just not done. 

And what is this about how one has to examine a specimen before publishing on it? Really? Great to do such, but not necessarily necessary, or always practical. Say a taxonomic analysis of a group includes specimens located somewhere in Siberia, others in far western China, and more in south-central Africa? They have been documented in publications. Have to see them? This attitude common to people who have the supporting budget (soon probably disappearing and time to travel hither and yon can come across as a way to push out those who do not have that ability. Just saying. 

About the Gilmorelarsontyrannus name everyone is just so giddy enthusiastic about. I was thinking of naming Jane in the Mesozoic paper, but was not really into doing new names in that, and figured no one else was going to do so like duh (Carr and others thinking it is T. rex, others. N. l.), so why not wait? When Franco said that it and BM needed titles in the summer we were going to tag it Gilmoretyrannus larsoni, we want to honor the two who invented and then have so well defended the MTTH. To our surprise (both in how soon it came out, and that they did it not that we disagree that Jane is not N. l.) Z&N gave it a specific name, so that is out. Thus the fabulous genus name. Right?  

GSPaul  

On Saturday, December 13, 2025 at 10:59:22 PM EST, James Napoli <jamesg...@gmail.com> wrote:

Now that I've had time to fully read this, I will note two things for any interested party:

1)  On page 15, you write "Bones have been carefully traced from source images -- any who disagree with their accuracy need to demonstrate each of the errors with comparative images." I'm happy to do so. To start, you illustration of CMNH 7541 is replete with fundamental errors. You illustrate only small portions of the mandible, premaxilla, and maxilla as being missing. Even a cursory glance at the CT imagery presented by Witmer & Ridgely (2010) - or the illustrations in Carr (1999), for that matter - should indicate that far more of the skull is reconstructed, and that there is in fact a fracture running through the entire width of the rostrum that breaks the skull into two halves. You similarly illustrate the dorsal surface of the lacrimal as flat, but the cornual process was clearly present and broken off, as indicated by the presence of a large lacrimal vacuity on the right side of the skull. The lacrimal is also missing its rostral ramus, which you illustrate as present, because you've mistaken the nasal for the lacrimal. You illustrate the maxilla as having a large dorsal convexity (the "maxillary flange" in tyrannosaur parlance), which is clearly absent when working on the specimen itself. And of course, you have not restored the original length of the caudal part of the skull, which is crushed inwards (as reflected by the broken quadratojugal flange). The figures in Witmer & Ridgely (2010) make these points obvious. 

Your restoration of NCSM 40000 also has a number of clear errors. You illustrate the premaxilla as lacking a rostral "upturn", but if you had examined our figures closely, it should have been clear that the premaxillae are displaced from their natural position, and that if re-articulated they would be more reminiscent of the condition in all other Nanotyrannus specimens. It seems that your interpretation of the extremely shallow rostrum in NCSM 40000 is an artifact of deformation to the right maxilla, which has a clear fault in the pila interfenestralis indicating that it has been dorsoventrally "telescoped". The left maxilla is better preserved, in this respect, and further shows that the rostral end of the antorbital fossa is not, in fact, highly acute - this condition, too, is the result of damage. I cannot determine why you show some teeth as present and others as missing, when the distribution of teeth you illustrated matches neither side of the specimen. All of these factors are clearly evident in the figures we published.

2) You have repeatedly brought up the fact that we named Jane as if it justifies the current study, but there is a crucial difference between you work and ours. We were given explicit permission by the Burpee to study Jane as part of the Dueling Dinosaurs project, and in fact were given permission to loan her skull and fully CT scan it. When we determined that Jane belonged to a new species, we alerted the Burpee Museum prior to publication. Jane is (to our knowledge) still being described actively by Carr et al., and we strove to limit our illustration and description of Jane as much as possible to protect their priority on a full description.

You were not given explicit permission to work on NCSM 40000, and in fact, I conveyed a request on the DML to you to refrain from taxonomic action without all of the relevant data we were generating with work in progress. You refused this request and, as noted above, made myriad basic anatomical errors in your rush to get "your names" published. Correcting these errors would, of course, significantly weaken your argument that these animals warrant placement in new genera, and your argument that NCSM 40000 is not Nanotyrannus lancensis despite possessing an autapomorphy of that taxon. 

The anatomical errors throughout this work should make it clear to any others in our community that the authors did not study any of the relevant material firsthand, and they have stated repeatedly that the preprint exists only to stake claims on naming rights for the specimens that they did not collect, prepare, acquire, or even have permission to publish on. In my opinion, this is an an unethical manuscript and an act of taxonomic vandalism. I suggest you take any actions available to you to retract this preprint and that you do not submit this work for peer-reviewed publication. 

On Saturday, December 13, 2025 at 8:00:22 PM UTC-5 Gregory Paul wrote:

Ah, yes, UWBM 99000 does indeed have like way cool postorbital bosses:) As I discuss and illustrate (Figs. 2, 4, 5, 6) in my Mesozoic paper linked below. It like bigger Scotty are the only Tyrannosaurus specimens with those prominent, high set discs sort of like Mickey Mouse ears. They are both stratigraphic high set robusts, and finally show us what actual T. rex really looked like (the type is missing the postorbitals:(. Which is way different from earlier T. imperator such as Sue with their -- very atypical for tyrannosaurs -- massive, long spindle bosses. Classic species identification features. So using Sue to illustrate the last Tyrannosaurus bad, same for showing T. rex hunting early Triceratops horridus. 

The preprint is largely about the small TT-zone tyrannosaurs, and the final paper will should be the same. I do not have current plans to return to the subject in a big way, having done do in the Mesozoic paper, with some catch ups in the newer work. Will be interesting to see what develops in the fairly near future. 

GSPaul

On Saturday, December 13, 2025 at 07:35:58 PM EST, Franco Sancarlo <franco.sa...@gmail.com> wrote:

Very good comment, but Paul (2025) talked about the argument way better than this preprint does

Paul (2025): https://doi.org/10.11646/mesozoic.2.2.1

Il Dom 14 Dic 2025, 01:09 Adrian Boeye <aboe...@coa.edu> ha scritto:

Given the importance placed on postorbital horns, I'm particularly surprised that UWBM 99000 hasn't seen any mention consider that it preserves excellent post orbitals and shows off some pretty significant variation in rex specimens. Ideally would want  to see some more quantitative analysis attached to this kind of work though

On Saturday, December 13, 2025 at 2:27:33 PM UTC-5 Franco Sancarlo wrote:

Preprint: Sancarlo, F. & Paul, G. S. (2025) The taxonomics of the diverse, lithe basal eutyrannosaur genera and species of late Maastrichtian western North America. BioRxiv (https://doi.org/10.64898/2025.12.10.693447)

Hi everyone. We have posted this bioRxiv draft of our analysis of the situation with the lesser TT-zone tyrannosaurs in the wake of the recent Longrich & Saitta, Paul, Zanno & Napoli and Griffin et al. papers on the subject. With the taxonomically rigid ETRH now moot the phylogenetics and taxonomy of the creatures is now, as it should be, open to free scientific discussion and debate in the context of the MTTH Gilmore proposed back in 1946. 

 

The profile skeletal of the complete Bloody Mary is incomplete because much of the skeleton (some of which was damaged by inept excavation until Peter Larson took over) is covered by matrix that includes soft tissues. The proportions including the small skull are after the photos and measurements in Z&N, etc. BM looks bigger hipped than Jane and was probably a little heavier. 

 

Although L&S and P agree with Z&N that the ETRH is not operative, the first two papers agree that the long armed baso-eutyrannosaurs are not all Nanotyrannus, even the two intraspecies indicated by Z&N not being adequate. P in his paper– who emphasizes the danger of making Nanotyrannus into yet another taxonomic wastebasket -- considered alternatives, but did not go further because we all awaited the description of Bloody Mary (not realizing how soon that would be:). The senior author of the preprint decided in the summer that BM and Kane are new genera, and P joined in the effort to detail why. 

 

As Fig. 7 shows, the intragenera sibling species of Allosaurus look pretty much alike. Same for those of Daspletosaurus. Tyrannosaurus species are more diverse which is why chucking them all into T. rex is not viable (a point that Z&N acknowledge may be correct, as do N&S, so get ready for T. rex not being special anymore – this is the first study to use the new specimen # for Stan:), but they are still fairly consistent. Grade is of course very important when it comes to determining genera.

 

A little while back N asked P on this list to not name Bloody Mary until it is more completely described in a future study. Z&N did name Jane before it has been described. Not a complaint, we were going to name Jane before Z&N did so at the species level. Note that folks can cite this study in technical papers -- Z&N cite Napoli’s bioRxiv item on gator growth. 

 

With Bloody Mary now published it can be seen just how dramatically different it is from both Nano and Jane in its much lower skull with a sharp apex to the snout, high tooth count, and other details. As Z&N note Stygivenator is a very bad holotype, but it exists and it needs to be assessed and diagnosed on its own, rather than lumped into Nano that it is very distinctive from. What is close to Stygi in form and placement is BM, so much so that the two appear to form their own clade at the subfamily level. At the same time there are differences that indicate they are not the same species or even genera. So we name BM “Elegansvenator zannoae”. 

 

A reason we are doing this now is because we are very, very nervous that someone else will conclude the same and name BM, so we are posting the preprint to stake a claim. Same for Jane (which we were already preempted on by Z&N at the species level). 

 

Which also is not Nano. For starters there are considerable differences between what is preserved of Nano and Jane. To that add that we do not really know what the postcrania lacking Nano actually is – it is a better holotype than Stygi, but not by much. Unlike gracile BM and Jane which cannot be late Maastrichtian Dryptosaurus because the robust limbs of the latter are so different, Nano could be in the same species, genus, or family as the NJ specimen. Or very possibly not. But this is a reason that Nano is such a bad holotype that putting other fossils into should not be done unless there is very good reason to do so. So Jane is named “Gilmorelarsontyrannus lethaeus” for reasons that are also obvious – Gilmore was the researcher who using standard comparative anatomy and ontogeny proved the MTTH, and Peter L did the most to defend it of late.  

 

Some of the features Z&N cite as characteristics of Nanotyrannus may instead be subfamily or family attributes. 

 

In his paper P explained that the long arms probably originated in Appalachia and moved into the American west, an item repeated by Z&N. This helps explain the high diversity of tyrannosaurs great and small in the TT-zone, and there is growing evidence that tyrannosaurs were more diverse in a given formation than has been realized as noted by Z&N. For example, the Nanxiong Formation has two small and at least one big tyrannosaur. And of course the TT-zone was deposited over over a million years, and these genera and species did not all live at the same time.  

 

We also take a broader look at the ETRH v MTTH. It is patently obvious that super lithe Elegansvenator and Gilmorelarsontyrannus are not juveniles of mighty Tyrannosaurus. Those of the latter would have been stout little beasts like those of its close relation Tarbosaurus (which Carr thinks is the same genus which is plausible). This is supported by what is known of the juvenile Tyrannosaurus fossils, such as the not elongated tibia of Baby Bob and the robust dentaries. The NYTimes article on the Z&N paper actually says there still no baby Tyrannosaurus fossils, when there are seven of them. Juveniles within a species show little variation, it is with maturity that variation may appear, as per sexual dimorphism. With the amount of anatomical variation in the lesser TT-zone fossils sufficient to support multiple taxa the idea that they are all juvenile Tyrannosaurus flies in the face of vertebrate ontogeny. 

 

About the news coverage of the subject, it is peculiar that aside from Z&N, the long term advocates of the MTTH were rarely interviewed. It has mainly been the ETRH folks. This is a circular bias of the media that abetted to ETRH even though it was always seriously flawed since Rozhdestvensky mentioned it in 1965, and it became oddly ardently held as the “establishment viewpoint” at the turn of the century. 

 

We will soon submit the paper for peer review. This is a draft and we are working on additional aspects, if any wish to direct our attention to items and suggest changes please do so in the near future. 

 

Franco Sancarlo

GSPaul

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