Talk:Heterodontosauridae

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Good article Heterodontosauridae has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
March 13, 2007 Good article nominee Listed

Contents

[edit] Frustration

Argh... I rewrote almost this entire article over the last few days and then I lost it all by accident. So now I will re-rewrite it! Sheep81 07:46, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Passed

Based on the criteria listed at WP:WIAGA I am going to pass this article as a Good Article! Congrats! --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:14, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! J. Spencer 05:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Footprints

Can we please have some citations of these prints and published speculation about heterodontosaurs making them? Sheep81 (talk) 03:06, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Olsen, P. & Baird, D. (1986) "Ichnogenus Atreipus and Triassic Biostratigraphy" in Padian, K. The Beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs: Faunal Change Across the Triassic Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521367794 has a small bit on page 77 about the ichnogenus Atreipus having a bird-like tridactyl pes; the authors compare it to Heterodontosaurus.
Pazzaglia, F.J. (2006) Excursions in Geology And History: Field Trips in the Middle Atlantic States Geological Society of America ISBN 0813700086 has an illustration showing the somewhat bird-like fossil footprint of "heterodontosaur Atreipus milfordensis" (but no hallux). They're only discussing the eastern U.S. however.
The Paleobiology Database indicates Atreipus lived in Europe, North America, and South America. I don't know what sources Dysmorodrepanis was using, and don't know anything about the specific ichnogenus mentioned in the new entry, but speculation about Tr/J tridactyl footprints belonging to heterodontosaurs has definitely been published. Let's get some citations for all the new info, though. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 12:27, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Yeah my knowledge of footprints is crappy... wish I knew more. Sheep81 (talk) 19:25, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, if there is some area of paleo that you must be knowledge deficient in, footprints are probably the way to go, Sheep. ;) Firsfron of Ronchester 05:55, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I always suspected that they were bitey little so-and-sos

From a DML post on this year's Palaeontological Association meeting:

"Two studies of heterodontosaurs agree that they were not sexually dimorphic and that the tusks were already present in juveniles. Morphology, wear and the weakness of the lower jaw suggests that the teeth were used for straight biting, but not tearing or slashing. The conclusion was that the tusks were probably not used for intra-species fighting or display, nor for defence, but that heterodontosaurs were omnivores living in semi-arid habitat and used the teeth to kill smallish prey."

I'm hoping for a Tetrapod Zoology post out of this. J. Spencer (talk) 21:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm hoping to at least see the abstract so I can add a little snippet to this article! Sheep81 (talk) 06:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I've found the PalAss abstract volume pdf; the relevant abstracts are p. 45, 79, and 83. J. Spencer (talk) 21:27, 24 December 2007 (UTC)