- According to USA Today, a number of dinosaur tracks have been found in the Washington, D.C. area by amateur paleontologist Ray Stanford. Stanford has also found including a potentially new species that he will announce with Johns Hopkins paleontologist David Weishampel in the near future, although for now all that is being said of the find is that it's a kind of "Cretaceous Roadkill."
- Greg has the scoop on potential evidence for the "island effect" in Thecodontosaurus. He was kind enough to send me to paper ("The age, fauna and palaeoenvironment of the Late Triassic fissure deposits of Tytherington, South Gloucestershire, UK."), although I haven't had the time to sit down and fully digest the contents of the paper yet.
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Everyone these days knows about the "island effect" where certain animals evolve to a diminutive size because they live on islands. You know this because of the Flores hominid. Now, it has been shown to have operated in a dinosaur.
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Gimmie!
I haven't had a chance to see the paper in question, but _Thecodontosaurus_ is more basal than _Plateosaurus_ and other basal and more closely related sauropodomorphs were also quite small. It seems easier to explain _Thecodontosaurus_'s size as a case of plesiomorphy rather than insular dwarfism.