I enjoy reading John Hawks' blog for a change of pace away from matters archosaurian. I quite enjoy reading his predictions and seeing how they pan out. So I'm giving it a go here. These are my predictions for the big stories in dinosaurs and dino-related science in 2009. (Some obvious ones are ommited because I have insider knowledge and that would be cheating).
Arranged from most likely to most far out.
1) A new genus in the Tyrannosauridae will be named. There are several contenders floating around, lets hope they will see the light of publication next year.
2) An Early Jurassic tetanuran will be found (several have been claimed but none stand up to scrutiny).
3) The first incontrovertible evidence (e.g. a neck column)for a mamenchisaur outside of Asia.
4) A definitive non-avian dinosaur parasite will be found (probably will be a louse or a mite amongst the feathers or protofeathers of something from Liaoning).
5)A major descriptive monograph from the Sereno stable. Hopefully Eoraptor or Jobaria.
6) A complete well-preserved non-dinosaurian dinosauromorph skull will be found.
7) A Late Norian-Rhaetian herrerasaur will be announced.
8)An incontrovertible proto-pterosaur will be announced (I know there are some supposed contenders but I don't think they qualify as 'incontrovertible').
9) Good evidence that air sac systems are basal to crown group archosaurs will be published.
10) A site spanning the Late Pliensbachian to Aalenian will be found with evidence for a mass extinction.
Feel free to suggest your own or let me know if one or more of these is indeed a reality in the pipeline!
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10) A site spanning the Late Pliensbachian to Aalenian will be found with evidence for a mass extinction.
I have to wonder...what-if there is a site found and the extinction...isn't there. I have to wonder if the TJ (or early J) extinction wasn't just a bad sampling error with the original fauna pushed into marginal habitats and replaced most places without a mass extinction.
That'd make sense if the Cretaceous dicynodont pans out.
I could also be very, very wrong.
Sereno to publish a monograph? Sir, you live in a fantasy land. I really hope your non-dinosaurian dinosaurmorph and stem-pterosaur predictions are correct. Hell, I hope for those two every year!
Here's hoping for 5a, 6, and 7. I'm not too sure about 9.
I have actually prediced in a paper that 8 will probably never happen, so hoping for it in 2009 might be a bit of a stretch. Are these genuine 'expect to happen' or more 'hope to happen' predictions?
Dave
Prediction #1 was a very good chance of coming true, assuming the authors' are/were timely with their revisions.
RE #6: Although it has to be pieced together from several specimens, the skull of Silesaurus is pretty well known now, especially with the new material published by Dzik & Sulej (2007).
Dzik, J., and T. Sulej. 2007. A review of the early Late Triassic Krasiejów biota from Silesia, Poland. Palaeontologia Polonica 64:1-27.
http://www.palaeontologia.pan.pl/PP64/Dzik.pdf
Dave:
I felt rather emboldened by the surprise (to me at least) announcement of Odontochelys. The predictions grade from expect to happen to hope to happen to would be thoroughly blown away if it actually happened.
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