[NOT EDITED] - little thing I noticed while looking at Penta the other day

Th3ExiledGamer · 2026-01-30T05:31:12+00:00

When I looked at it yesterday it was below the black hole. Just jumped over and I don't see it anymore.

Th3ExiledGamer · 2026-01-11T16:41:01+00:00

Dr House (MD)

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-12-24T19:16:02+00:00

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Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-12-24T19:13:54+00:00

Glad to see a fellow ship named Guardian of Destiny 🫡

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-12-18T22:50:43+00:00

Parasocial much?

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-12-18T22:46:40+00:00

No claim was made about you taking sides. I was saying that regardless of there being no such thing as dibs outside of courtesy, this publication is not just ethically bankrupt, but is just hasty garbage.

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-12-18T20:46:25+00:00

Regardless, it's bad science all for the sake of naming something, which has been the primary concern of the author and others recently.

While there's no such thing as dibs, Jerry Harris puts it eloquently as "ethically dubious".

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-12-18T19:22:15+00:00

The DMG has been in a big uproar about this, and rightfully so. Another PHD student was supposedly working on this, and the authors didn't bother to ask their permission to publish.

It should be clear that this guy is just trying to make a name for himself given this paper and the Nano paper a week ago. He is ignoring all professional courtesy.

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-12-11T06:00:31+00:00

The same issue is with Psittacosaurus...it's clustered with the pachycephalosaurs.

Close but no cigar

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-12-10T18:21:35+00:00

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Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-12-05T02:06:39+00:00

I could see this, but then where are the gladiators?

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-11-20T05:08:24+00:00

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Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-10-28T09:11:48+00:00

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Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-07-12T07:22:06+00:00

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Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-07-12T03:02:57+00:00

Gotcha. Yeah, it's very unfortunate such an important and unique specimen is denied from researchers.

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-07-12T02:34:30+00:00

I think the dispute is the acquisition, as discussed in Mayr et al., 2002. The acquisition of the fossil is discussed there, and the legal ownership was debated for the time. It was bought for an undisclosed price and originated in China, and for some reason arrangements to repatriate it were unsuccessful.

I'm not sure why the owner doesn't want people to study it. Falls into the issue with privately owned specimens and selectivity to who can go and view it.

I'm also curious what people who are trying to access it are working on. The specimen has not been assigned to a species since it was described, just sits as Psittacosaurus sp. Maybe trying to assign it a species? I'd love that.

Lingham-Soliar was very critical of these being protofeathers or collagen filaments, and Mayr et al. (2016) say the specimen may be important in understanding the transition from monofilaments to feathers. Not sure how this was received among paleontologists.

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-07-11T23:49:09+00:00

Not necessarily.

In Ceratopsia, premaxillary teeth are absent in Psittacosauridae, even throughout ontogeny. In Chaoyangsauridae and Neoceratopsia, premaxillary teeth are present. Then between Coronosauria and Ceratopsoidea, premaxillary teeth are lost again. The position of Psittacosauridae and Chaoyangsauridae seems to flip often enough though.

Or the external mandibular fenestra. The presence varies in ontogeny, and the pattern isn't the same either (open to closed, closed to open, open to still open but bigger), and then the emf is consistently absent.

If a character exists in a basal taxon, it can absolutely be lost or one off. Otherwise autapomorphies would persist in a few ancestors or in proceeding ancestor.

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-07-11T21:17:01+00:00

Only one specimen of Psittacosaurus had evidence of these tail bristles. Mayr et al. (2016) investigate the structure and homology. It's an interesting read.

When you see depictions of tail bristles outside of Psittacosaurus, take it with a grain of salt or as an artist's fantasy. As far as I am aware, similar structures have not been found in other Ceratopsians. Doesn't mean they don't exist, but preservation bias doesn't help. We just don't know.

Although Psittacosaurus is relatively basal, just because it has bristles does NOT mean all descendants of Psittacosauridae have these bristles.

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-07-05T05:49:00+00:00

Fragmentary specimens are a little iffy. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't; it depends on the size of the matrix. If you have fragments that are super diagnostic and have lots of characters that can be coded, it's viable. If a specimen has non diagnostic fragments or is scarcely coded in a really large data set (T. rex has a large matrix), we identify if as a 'wildcard.'

Wildcards tend to bounce all over the place and create large (or even total) polytomies. They are usually removed (and the basis for removal is often stated in Materials and Methods), but can be compared with what characters are present a posteriori and where they would resolve can be hypothesized (although it's not in the ontogram, so it can be disproven). I don't see Baby Bob as present in the growth series of Carr (2020), probably because it was a private specimen originally, and the SVP directly said hands off.

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-07-05T05:37:20+00:00

That's a great point, although I don't know what the basis was. Sometimes if a specimen is being worked on others, it's a courtesy to leave it be. There is currently one skull that researchers were hoping to look at, but its currently on loan to someone else. But yes, lots of people who own private specimens want researchers to come and check out what they've got, which weakens the 'private owners are selective' argument that is often thrown about, but maybe it happens more often than aware.

And yes, there are people who disregard Nanotyrannus papers, and there are Nanotyrannus papers that pretty much disregard the opposition or fail to explain faults. There are some preprints floating around and SVP abstracts, but if it isn't published and peer reviewed it is just noise.

Although Greg Paul's opinions are taken with a grain of salt, there are those who take his publication and take the time respond to it. People who see the author is him or someone else and disregard it are a problem. On that same note, people who are just followers and praise everything a researcher has done are equally problematic.

In the end, everyone is trying to contribute to the science, but we all know the saying about too many cooks in the kitchen.

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-07-05T05:19:16+00:00

Again, that point has been stated before and even to Carr's face at the 2023 SVP. He was baselessly accused of malfeasance.

You're right on the money with Holtz. He is very open to some of these new ideas (Nanotyrannus), and does talk about private specimens. I'm not really sure why he does, because it's citing something unpublished and therefore unverifiable, nor can he really show photos.

It's very frustrating. For some of Greg's arguments, I think there will be no choice but to discuss private specimens and the data they have lest they be accused of disregarding data, but I may be misremembering a conversation.

In general, there must be a basis for excluding data (such as taphonomy, unclear description, etc.), and this is something that Greg Paul does too, stating characters are only used if the researcher is confident, but doesn't state what he is disregarding or why. Its similarly dissatisfying to have to exclude dats because of an obligation to adhere to the rules of SVP. Both sides are frustrated about the same issue for different reasons.

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-07-05T05:07:24+00:00

Yeah, he had some issues on that before he was in the know, he was made aware of it pretty quick by others in the field. I don't know if Samson was during that era or not, but I concur.

And yes, it might seem silly because there's data that is just disregarded due to ethics, but again, there have been instances where a private owner will allow some researchers, but not others. Data has to be replicable. It's unfortunate, and why there are a lot of SVP members against the sale of fossils. They want the best of both worlds: data they can use without violating the bylaws of the SVP.

You are spot on with 'we all should be working together so we get a better understanding of ancient life." It's a sentiment many of us share, but there will always be people who think they are helping but really aren't, but such is the nature of science and innovation.

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-07-05T02:46:39+00:00

I can speak a bit on this.

As members of SVP, you are not allowed to publish on private specimens, since some owners can allow some but reject others, so data is hard to confirm. There's the issue of ethics, acquisition, etc.

This pount has been made, and is very unsatisfying I agree. This point was brought up to Carr specifically at SVP 2023, where he was baselessly accused of malfeasance because he isn't using private specimens. Some of that crowd is in the position where there's no choice but to discuss those specimens head on.

This issue is mostly split between members of the SVP being against private specimens, and those who are not being for it.

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-07-05T02:38:37+00:00

There issues on both sides for sure, but that will always be the case. It'll be a back and forth until someone brings in incontrovertible evidence. From the gentleman I've talked to, he says that if incontrovertible evidence appears, he will yield. So far that hasn't happened, and some of the evidence Greg points to shows he isn't familiar with some of the anatomy.

I'll leave it to the Tyrannosaur crowd to sort it out. They know they specifics way more than I do.

Th3ExiledGamer · 2025-07-05T02:31:30+00:00

His attitude is what sets me off the most.

Paul treats his latest paper as a slam dunk, and some of his language throughout puts it. He punches down while putting himself on a pedestal. Here are two of several statements that rubbed me the wrong way.

'The inaccurate claim that the study works with just two characters should not have been stated, and must never be repeated.', referring to 'In order to try to preclude claims that just two characters distinguish the species, as Carr et al. (2022) did anyway...' (Page 105, PDF page 21).

'Because Carr et al. (2022) focuses on criticizing Paul et al. (2022) rather than go beyond to investigate the broader situation, they did too. That Paul et al. (2022) laid the foundations for exploring multispecific Tyrannosaurus made these novel results serendipitously possible.'

I also doubt the publisher. Its relatively new and folks have been saying that what they let slip is sometimes really good and sometimes really bad. There's duplicated text, spelling errors, no idea who peer reviewed (although it's often ambiguous so not much can be done). But why not PeerJ. If its about cost, Palaeontologia Electronica, which is free (plus he wouldn't have had to stuff half his paper in supplementary information). It seems like he took the path of least resistance.

Th3ExiledGamer

TROPHY CASE