Allosaurus europaeus redescribed (free pdf)

[Ben Creisler]

Ben Creisler

bcre...@gmail.com

A new paper:

Free pdf:

André Burigo and Octávio Mateus (2025) [2024]
Allosaurus europaeus (Theropoda: Allosauroidea) Revisited and Taxonomy of the Genus
Diversity 17(1): 29
doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/d17010029
https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/17/1/29


Allosaurus is one of the most famous theropod dinosaurs, but the validity and relationships between the different species have been confusing and often questioned. Portugal is relevant to the understanding of the genus in light of the discovery of A. europaeus ML415 from the Early Tithonian of Lourinhã and Allosaurus MNHNUL/AND.001 from Andrés. However, the exact classification and validity of these two specimens has always been controversial. The presence of Allosaurus in Portugal is strong evidence for a North America–Europe Late Jurassic dispersal, later supported by other taxa. A detailed cranial description and specimen-based phylogeny were performed and resolved many of the open questions: (1) The diversity of Allosaurus is limited to three named species: A. fragilis, A. europaeus, and A. jimmadseni. (2) Nine autapomorphies were found in A. europaeus, confirming the validity of the species. (3) Phylogenetic analyses place both Portuguese specimens in the genus Allosaurus, based on the following synapomorphies: jugal bone lateral view, relative heights of quadratojugal prongs, the dorsal prong is equal in height, the jugal bone in lateral view shows shallow accessory pneumatization of the antorbital fossa, the palatine pneumatic recess shape is small, and lacrimal horn morphology has a triangular horn. (4) The Andrés specimen is placed with the A. europaeus and they are considered here to be the same species, which is paleo-geographically and biochronologically congruent. (5) A. europaeus and A. jimmadseni are sister taxa and closer to each other than to A. fragilis. The genus is distributed in occurrences from the United States, Germany, and Portugal, and from the Late Kimmeridgian to the Late Tithonian, while the Cenomanian report from Japan is reidentified as Segnosaurus.

[Wayne Callahan]

Hey Carlo,  hope you and Fi had a great Christmas. Thought you might like this new paper if you haven't already seen it. Hope to get back to AMNH a bit in the new year. 

Doc Callahan 

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From: dinosaurma...@googlegroups.com <dinosaurma...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ben Creisler <bcre...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, December 30, 2024 11:40:31 AM
To: DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com <DinosaurMa...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [DMG] Allosaurus europaeus redescribed (free pdf)

 

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[Mickey Mortimer]

The peer review on this one is pretty funny.

Reviewer 1 wrote "the results of the phylogenetic analyses are not conclusive. I've re-run the analysis using the data set included in the manuscript and note that with just a very few data edits (in particular, setting a few multistate characters as ordered, so accounting for the implicit hierarchical relationships among the states so defined), the scenario suggested by the authors collapses and we cannot definitely assess any topology among the Allosaurus species.

I've also calculated the nodal support of the suggested topologies and obtained a very weak result: only the node Allosaurus is robust enough for not being considered merely due to sampling artifacts.
In summary, although the authors have provided a robust diagnosis for A. europaeus, their phylogenetic analysis is not robust enough for suggesting that such taxon is actually distinct from other Allosaurus taxa."

And the authors' response was "We agree with this comment. However these suggestions require extensive additional analysis and data collection, which would exceed the scope and timeframe of the current study."

So you run the analysis the correct way and a point important enough to be in the abstract is nullified, but the authors already wrote the paper so what ya gonna do?

It's made even worse by the fact Reviewer 2 had three suggestions, one of which was "Please briefly describe the teeth. characters such as general shape, denticles, etc. In most sites only isolated teeth are found and being able to know information about the teeth of the holotype of Allosurus europaeus, however small it may be, is important."

And the authors' answer was to not do this "Since by addressing this issue would acquire to collect more data which is not feasible at this stage of this work."

The specimen is at the Museu da Lourinhã where Mateus works, so it's not like there would be travel or a need to scan it again or anything else time consuming. But paper's written, what ya gonna do?

Overall it makes one question the point of peer reviewing a paper if the authors can just say 'we already did all the work we're going to do'.

Mickey Mortimer

[Russell Engelman]

> Reviewer 1 wrote "the results of the phylogenetic analyses are not conclusive. I've re-run the analysis using the data set included in the manuscript and note that with just a very few data edits (in particular, setting a few multistate characters as ordered, so accounting for the implicit hierarchical relationships among the states so defined), the scenario suggested by the authors collapses and we cannot definitely assess any topology among the Allosaurus species.

That actually is very concerning. It's also something I've seen a number of times before. There are quite a few researchers out there who absolutely refuse to order characters in their phylogenetic matrices under any circumstances. On at least 3-4 separate occasions I have had to mention this in reviews with citations of relevant literature about the necessity of considering ordering multistate characters - every time this has happened it has been ignored. Many times even if you ask the authors to run separate analysis with characters ordered/unordered just to test the effect of ordering on the results the authors will refuse saying it is "beyond the scope of the study".

>  Overall it makes one question the point of peer reviewing a paper if the authors can just say 'we already did all the work we're going to do'.

This is a common author rebuttal you see as a peer reviewer. There are cases where such a response is warranted, like when a reviewer demanded the authors include an unreasonable number of additional taxa in a matrix (several of which were housed in overseas museums, not figured in the literature, and thus inaccessible in a reasonable timeframe), that wouldn't have added much to the analysis. However, many are not. There are cases where spurious data were included an a diversification analysis (read: uncurated age or epoch-level PBDB data resulting in species' stratigraphic ranges far exceeding what most researchers would agree their FAD or LAD was) and the authors responded that fixing the incorrect data and rerunning the analysis would be "too much work" [sic]. There are cases where teeth have been measured using incorrect criteria relative to the standard in the field...and when reviewers raise concerns they are just ignored. There have been cases where authors refuse to report model support and accuracy statistics associated with their predictive regression equations when requested, despite those values actually mattering for researchers intending to use them downstream. There was one case where the authors refused to conduct a phylogenetic analysis for the new taxa being described, saying it was "beyond the scope of this study and if later investigators want to look into this topic they are welcome". This was despite the fact that a well-resolved matrix was available for the group in question, the material was fairly well-preserved, and scoring and testing the position for the new material under study would have taken perhaps an afternoon at most.

But yes, the authors simply shutting down and refusing to play ball with the reviewers/editor is a very common issue in peer review. In fact, in my experience it is more common that the authors will actually try to fight you if you point out places where more work is needed or would help improve the manuscript than attempt to address reviewer concerns, even if you word it constructively or say "this would help support your point here".

Sincerely,

Russell

[Mickey Mortimer]

Those are all sad stories. As you say, there are situations where adding data would be too tedious to bother with, but changing some text in a tnt/nexus file to order some characters is not one of them. In the A. europaeus case it's not even really doing more work, just acknowledging that the species interrelationships are ambiguous. So is it- 1. Laziness, where they have the paper written and don't want to rewrite a part for the correct conclusion; 2- A need for perceived importance where a definite topology is falsely seen as more important than ambiguity, for the clout of Burigo or for acceptance in the journal; 3- pride in not wanting their work corrected?

I for one look forward to trying the timeline excuse. "Well I would correct these issues but I was really only writing this during my vacation, so the timeline for the current study has passed..."

Mickey Mortimer

[Jerry Harris]

I've performed reviews in which I've suggested any changes that would not take entire re-analyses or anything—I've only suggested things that would be relatively easy and quick to fix—and then the resulting paper comes out and it's exactly the same as the version I reviewed. Literally nothing was changed, including grammatical errors. I'm not sure who's more to blame: the authors for thinking their original work was superior and couldn't benefit from any changes, or the editors for allowing something like that to be published without insisting that the author address the suggested changes in one way or another. This has happened enough times to me that I now refuse to waste my time reviewing almost anything, with the exceptions of the works of a very few authors who I know will be receptive to suggestions (even if they don't agree with the changes as suggested, they'll at least address the broader points).

[Russell Engelman]

I remember one review where the authors had consistently spelled "straight" as "strait". This spelling error was pointed out in the review document and was completely ignored. This was not in a small, obscure journal, but one of the bigger-name journals one can hope to publish in in vertebrate paleontology published under a major publisher.

> I've performed reviews in which I've suggested any changes that would not take entire re-analyses or anything—I've only suggested things that would be relatively easy and quick to fix—and then the resulting paper comes out and it's exactly the same as the version I reviewed.

This has been the case for most of my reviews. Indeed, in about ~5-6 cases (maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of all reviews I have done) the authors do not implement any of the suggested changes and do not even bother writing a responses to reviewers document to justify this. It''s utterly infuriating, because it feels like being ghosted as a reviewer. I should do what you do and just refuse to review anything unless it's by someone I trust, but I guess I must be a masochist or an idiot.

And journals wonder why researchers increasingly seem to consider peer review to not be worth their efforts...

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[Mickey Mortimer]

Maybe it's time to start calling out bad editors then, since it's ultimately their fault authors are allowed to ignore peer review critiques? The next time a paper you reviewed makes it through while ignoring your reasonable advice, point it out to the community. With published peer reviews becoming more common, editor and reviewer reputations are going to be increasingly relevant. And if the editor doesn't invite you back to review, that's your time not being wasted.

Mickey Mortimer

[David Fastovsky]

As a current journal science editor (Geosphere) with a total of 15 years’ experience editing GSA journals, I can say with some confidence that although we all surely make mistakes, I (and my colleagues) would be very unlikely to accept a paper with a review such as the one discussed earlier in this thread.  Moreover, given the nature of the error, the authors’ response (“not within the scope…”) would not suffice for acceptance.  Obviously, in the case of this analysis of Allosaurus species, the editorial system used by Diversity failed, perhaps in several places.

 

That said, there are occasions when reviewers (and associate editors, as well as editors) attempt to impose their conception of what a work ought to be upon authors, who would then rightly reply that the suggestions are not within the scope of their study.  The line is a subtle one; editors naturally want to elicit the best papers possible, on behalf of both the authors and the journal; authors want to write their best publications, but they also don’t want to keep refining a single study indefinitely.  There is no objective “red line” to cross in this matter, yet we all recognize it when a standard has been violated.  Regardless, authors are expected to respond meaningfully to critiques raised during the review process.

 

Finally, just an observation about typographical mistakes, such as “strait.”  These are not within the purview of science editors; they are generally(!) caught during the post-acceptance formatting/copyediting stage, either via computer or human copyeditor (or both).  Of course, the authors themselves ought to make such corrections upon the first revision.  

 

Peer review, analogous to Churchill’s comments on democracy, is indubitably the “worst” means of ensuring scientific validity, “except for all those other forms.”  The thing runs on the backs (= integrity, goodwill, and professional commitment) of the (generally unpaid, overworked) reviewers, who in fact are the heroes of this whole process.  I believe I speak for virtually all of my colleagues when I say that we read carefully and take very seriously those hard-bought reviews – and that we expect authors to do the same.

David E. Fastovsky

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David E. Fastovsky, Ph.D.,

Professor Emeritus and Science Editor, Geosphere