Papers All Over

Riojasaurus and her cousin Plateosaurus
from 2010 South Korean stamps

There are mentions of Riojasaurus in papers all over the internet. Bonaparte's 1969 paper describing and naming Riojasaurus is not among the treasure trove that we find online, but looking back through the archive of this blog you would find very few initial descriptions and new species or genus announcements are to be found online. It is not a problem or a difficulty really, it is just the hard fact that so many of our dinosaurs, and other fossilized animals, that have been discussed were named and described even before the majority of houses had electricity, let alone the internet. Regardless, the citations of papers and the mentions of Riojasaurus in sauropodomorph discussions alone are enormous in quantity. PLoSONE, though relatively new to the internet, hosts four articles that mention Riojasaurus in studies of new dinosaurs or the evolution of sauropodomorphs. A Bonaparte and Pumares paper from 1995 does show up online courtesy of the Ameghiniana journal; a journal put out by the Paleontology Association of Argentina. The paper describes the first complete skull of Riojasaurus, quite a few years after the initial describing and naming of the species. The most unfortunate thing for me is that I never took Spanish and therefore I could not read Bonaparte's papers in their original state regardless of whether or not I found them online. The Ameghiniana paper I cannot read, for instance, and the original naming paper I am sure I would not be able to read. I guess that means it's time I learned Spanish.