STL Science Center

STL Science Center

09 October 2012

Papers Of Interesting Origins

The papers written about Bruhathkayosaurus are not hard to find; they're impossible to find. Online at least. There is probably a reason for that, and that reason is mainly that they are just plain not hosted anywhere. Given the scrutiny and negative feedback from the original paper that is certainly not difficult to understand; if I were one of the authors of that paper I would not want my work online where everyone that had been negative toward it could still get at it to rip it apart. The reasons that I believe everyone would in the paleontology community would still, after all these years, have a negative view of the paper is because it included only the aforementioned shoddy artwork and blurry pictures (I read a few days ago that the pictures were not even included in the paper actually) in its rather un-detailed description of what was at the time thought to be a new carnivore from India. The later paper written by Kraus and others reassigned Bruhathkayosaurus as a sauropod, but, sadly, that paper is no more accessible than the original description was. In respect to other materials that a paleo-fiend like myself may have on hand, Greg Paul's newest book only briefly mentions Bruhathkayosaurus (the entire mention, pg 204, states "Poorly documented Indian fossils labeled Bruhathkayosaurus matleyi may or may not be a titanosaur of some 150 tonnes...") and does not show any other information about it. The older copy of The Dinosauria that I own does not even mention it, despite being published about five years after the initial description of the animal.

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