2021/2022 palaeontological wishes and predictions

[Papi-Anon]

-More fossils we can safely attribute to Andrewsarchus beyond the holotype. I mean, I have my own reconstruction of the full skull, but I want to know for certain how wrong my model is, darn it!
-Any other non-tooth fossils of Gigantopithecus. Hell, a fully-complete mandible would even do!
-More Denisovan skeletal remains that can give us a better picture of their anatomy compared to the Neanderthals and us.
-More fossils of Smok to help determine better where it belongs in Archosauria (I love Scott Hartman's dinosaur reconstruction but I honestly think it might've been a rauisuchian).
-More amber-preserved vertebrates.
-Mostly to fully complete set of Paraceratherium neck bones.
-Another 'Big Al'-quality specimen of any other species of prehistoric animal.
-Fossil evidence to show if non-avian theropods possessed lips or not.
-More Pleistocene/Holocene megafauna mummies.
-Soft-tissue remains of a non-H. sapiens human (preferably skin/hair).
-ANY news on the Jarkov Mammoth!

BONUS/INSTANT WINNER:
-Relict population of ground sloths discovered alive somewhere in South America. They don't even need to be Megalotherium-big, I'll take a Megalonyx-sized species.

[triceratops83]

I'm hoping for the discovery of an Australian Stegosaur. There's plenty of Stegosaur footprints in Western Australia and Queensland.

[dinofelid]

I wish for publication of the Lystrosaurus mummies with skin impressions that I've heard rumored in various places, as far as I know there hasn't been any solid evidence so far on what the skin of the synapsids was like (whether they had scales for example) or how close you have to get to mammals before they start having hair.

[Papi-Anon]

I wish for publication of the Lystrosaurus mummies with skin impressions that I've heard rumored in various places, as far as I know there hasn't been any solid evidence so far on what the skin of the synapsids was like (whether they had scales for example) or how close you have to get to mammals before they start having hair.

I recall Estemmenosuchus has some skin impressions that suggest smooth, non-scaly skin. Also, gorgonopsids likely had primitive whiskers based on dimples in the snout that suggest roots for said hairs.

[Newt]

I'd like to see more complete specimens of the archosaurs from the Middle Triassic Moenkopi Formation. Only Arizonasaurus is at all well known and it's still missing a lot of pieces. There are a shuvosaurid-like animal (the "Moenkopi poposauroid") and a huge (7 m plus) rauisuchian-like form (the "Dilia taxon") that are still too incomplete to be named.


Speaking of giant Triassic pseudosuchians, I'd also like to see more complete specimens of Fasolasuchus and Sillosuchus.

[Sim]

I wish for publication of the Lystrosaurus mummies with skin impressions that I've heard rumored in various places, as far as I know there hasn't been any solid evidence so far on what the skin of the synapsids was like (whether they had scales for example) or how close you have to get to mammals before they start having hair.

I recall Estemmenosuchus has some skin impressions that suggest smooth, non-scaly skin. Also, gorgonopsids likely had primitive whiskers based on dimples in the snout that suggest roots for said hairs.

On Wikipedia it says:

If gorgonopsians were inertial homeotherms, it is not impossible that they had hair. The snout is typically riddled with foramina (small holes which confer with blood vessels), which could potentially point to the existence of loose skin (as opposed to scales), hair, various skin glands (such as sweat glands), and whiskers; however, some reptiles present a similar patterning of foramina, which are instead related to dental development rather than skin.

So it seems it's not obvious whether gorgonopsians had whiskers.

As for the integument of non-mammal synapsids, there's also Ascendonanus and other varonopids which are known to have been covered in scales.

[dinofelid]

I wish for publication of the Lystrosaurus mummies with skin impressions that I've heard rumored in various places, as far as I know there hasn't been any solid evidence so far on what the skin of the synapsids was like (whether they had scales for example) or how close you have to get to mammals before they start having hair.

I recall Estemmenosuchus has some skin impressions that suggest smooth, non-scaly skin. Also, gorgonopsids likely had primitive whiskers based on dimples in the snout that suggest roots for said hairs.

For some reason I thought the Estemmenosuchus skin impressions had been lost, but looking through some bookmarks, I think I was misremembering a passage from the National Geographic article here which just says "Unfortunately, though, the original material Chudinov studied hasn't been reevaluated in some time". (I wonder why?) However this entry from the 'Manospondylus' blog suggests that despite Estemmenosuchus' lack of visible hair, it could have descended from ancestors that did have body hair and lost most of it as an adaptation to a semi-aquatic lifestyle, like hippos:

After decades of illustrating early synapsids as scaly reptiles, an interesting discovery was made in 1968. Skin-impressions of Estemmenosuchus, a dinocephalian from the Middle Permian first described in 1960, were found. These showed that the animal was in fact not scaled, at least in the parts found, but instead possessed a smooth, glandular skin, very similar to what you would expect from a hairless mammal. This made sense from an evolutionary viewpoint, as this means it likely possessed a form of sweat-gland, out of which milk-glands would one day evolve (or perhaps already did?). The problem was the question of how representative Estemmenosuchus was for the rest of the early synapsids. As a dinocephalian therapsid it was fairly midway on the road from the first synapsid to the first mammal. It was more closely related to us than to Dimetrodon, however too basal to give much clues about later therapsids like dicynodonts or gorgonopsians. Further compounding was the fact that Estemmenosuchus is theorized to have had a specialized semi-aquatic lifestyle similar to a hippopotamus (to the point where I fear that Estemmenosuchus-Hippo comparisons will one day become one of those cliché paleoart-memes). Its skin-type might have been similarly derived and not representative of the ancestral state. That said, if it descended from a scaled ancestor it would make little sense for it to become scaleless, as many aquatic and marine reptiles keep their scales. However, it is possible that, just like a hippo, it may have descended from a hairy ancestor and secondarily became smooth-skinned. Or all its ancestors simply were already smooth-skinned and there was nothing special about its skin-type.

So if Lystrosaurus turns out to have had hairless glandular skin as well, that would be some further interesting evidence about where body hair evolved on the synapsid tree, since it would seem less likely they were secondarily hairless. And as dicynodonts (members of the larger anomodont group) Lystrosaurs would also be closer to mammals than Estemmenosuchus, which was a dinocephalian--of the major therapsid groups, the chart here indicates that the most widely-accepted phylogeny only has gorgonopsids, therocephalians and cynodonts as being closer to mammals than anomodonts.

As for the integument of non-mammal synapsids, there's also Ascendonanus and other varonopids which are known to have been covered in scales.

The entry from the manospondylus blog I linked to suggested there's now some doubt about whether varanopids were actually synapsids:

on December 23 2019, palaeontologists David P. Ford and Roger B. J. Benson presented a new cladistic analysis of early amniotes. Not only did they conclude that parareptiles were in fact a group of derived diapsids, but that the same was true for varanopids. This is not that surprising, considering that similar results had been produced by earlier studies for individual members of both, but this was the first extensive study that used both groups in their entirety. While at this point it remains to be seen if this becomes consensus, if true, it has many implications for the early evolution of amniotes, but also for the recent reconstructions of stem-mammals. Ascendonanus and its relatives would not be synapsids anymore, its scales being nothing out of the ordinary since it would be more closely related to lizards than to mammals.

[stargatedalek]

Therizinosaurus skull, and it's going to be weird. Deinocheirus weird.

[VD231991]

A more complete specimen of Hatzegopteryx or some other large azhdarchid. With the upcoming monograph on Quetzalcoatlus apparently naming two new species from the "Q." sp. specimens, all we have now is fragmentary remains and informed speculation.

The osteological monograph of Quetzalcoatlus was published last December, and the Quetzalcoatlus species from Big Bend National Park distinct from Q. northropi has been named Q. lawsoni in honor of the very man who coined the name Quetzalcoatlus, Douglas Lawson. The Quetzalcoatlus monograph also coins the name Wellnhopterus brevirostris for the short-snouted azhdarchid specimen TMM 42489-2 (which was informally dubbed "Javelinadactylus sagebieli" in a paper by Hebert Campos that was eventually withdrawn from publication after the editors of the Biologia found some evidence of plagiarism and pointed out that Campos didn't list all of the material of W. brevirostris).

That said, here are you own paleontological predictions for the remainder of 2022:
- "Skaladromeus" and "Saltillomimus" are described as new taxa this year
- Datousaurus is reclassified as a member of either Diplodocoidea or Turiasauria
- New genus erected for "Zanclodon" cambrensis
- "Grusimimus" and IGM 100/14 (informally dubbed "Gallimimus mongoliensis") officially described as new taxa
- "Fendusaurus" described as a new taxon
- Revision of specimens that Cope referred to Coelophysis (AMNH 2721 and AMNH 2725 are now recognized as Dromomeron romeri and an indeterminate shuvosaurid respectively)
- IGM 100/42 officially described as a new taxon
- "Apatosaurus" minimus described as a new genus
- Tenuirostria and Longirostria elevated to full generic rank, and Platypterygius hercynicus renamed
- Street (2016) dissertation published
- "Balaenoptera" ryani renamed as a new genus
- Revision of Squalodon published

Link:
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ujvp20/41/sup1

[Pliosaurking]

I hope to see more discoveries of spinosaurus
More accurate size estimates of pliosaurs in general
And More remains of andrewsarchus, fasolasuchus, and purussaurus