Dryosaurus elderae and the revenge of Nanosaurus agilis

It's been a busy few days over at The Compact Thescelosaurus, with new alvarezsaurs, nodosaurs, and dryosaurs. For this post, I'm going to focus on Carpenter and Galton (2018), which not only describes new species Dryosaurus elderae, but also is quite important for previous subject Nanosaurus agilis, and in general ticks off several of my boxes anyway ("hypsilophodonts", Morrison Formation, National Park Service areas, etc.).

Figure 2 from Carpenter and Galton (2018), showing the distribution of bipedal Morrison ornithischians. A keen-eyed observer who's familiar with the Morrison fauna might notice the absence of Drinker nisti and Othnielosaurus consors, and an abundance of Nanosaurus agilis...

The first fossils described from Dinosaur National Monument

The first fossils described from Dinosaur National Monument (to the best of my knowledge) were not dinosaurian. They weren't vertebrate. They weren't from the Morrison Formation. They weren't from the Jurassic, or even the Mesozoic. You may not realize it, but the monument has a geologic record extending from the Neoproterozoic to the Quaternary (see for example Untermann and Untermann 1954, Gregson et al. 2010, or Santuci and Kirkland 2010). For this bit of history, we're also going back in geologic time.

Echo Park, at the confluence of the Green and Yampa rivers (NPS/Jacob W. Frank). Why this landmark? Read on!

NPS Paleontology Roundup

In honor of the return of the Park Paleontology newsletter, I thought I'd do a roundup of some recent articles that discuss fossils from NPS lands. First, though, a word about the newsletter itself. The original incarnation was published from 1998 to 2004, and its archives can be accessed here [note, 2017/06/27: no longer available]. It was intended for brief communications about various topics relevant to NPS paleontology, from new finds, to new staff, to new legislation. The new edition follows in that tradition, with articles on a new exhibit at Big Bend National Park, type specimens from NPS units (yet again, sorry), Emily Thorpe's work at Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, which I plugged last post, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument's new Chief Paleontologist Nick Famoso, dinosaur tracks at Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River, and the history of the newsletter itself. If you're curious, yes, the number of fossil species named/possibly named/etc. from NPS units is now at 4,922, thanks in part to the subject of the heading immediately after the jump.

The part and counterpart of University of Minnesota Paleontology Collections 4090, holotype of graptolite Dictyonema minnesotense Ruedemann 1933, collected from the St. Lawrence Formation at a no-longer extant site in Afton, Minnesota, now within Saint Croix National Scenic Riverway.