Mirischia

Anyway, Mirischia is enough like Compsognathus – particularly in the detailed anatomy of its pubis – for me to convince myself that it must belong together with Compsognathus in a little clade, and by definition this clade has to be called Compsognathidae.

Archive 2006-06-01 Darren Naish 2006

Back in 2004 I and colleagues named the new Brazilian theropod Mirischia asymmetrica (photo at left).

Archive 2006-06-01 Darren Naish 2006

If Mirischia the Brazilian theropod is one of my little pets, the enormous sauropod represented by the cervical vertebra MIWG. 7306 – affectionately (and unofficially) known to some of us as 'Angloposeidon' – is one of the biggest [the image at left, and that below, are my drawings of the specimen].

‘Angloposeidon’, the unreported story, part I Darren Naish 2006

So in the 2004 paper, Naish et al. argued strenuously that (1) there is a little clade called Compsognathidae, the members of which can be united on the basis of shared derived characters, and (2) in addition to Compsognathus, this clade includes Sinosauropteryx and Mirischia.

Archive 2006-06-01 Darren Naish 2006

Mirischia and Proceratosaurus both tyrannosauroids?

Archive 2006-04-01 Darren Naish 2006

Two characters helped pull Mirischia into Tyrannosauroidea.

Archive 2006-06-01 Darren Naish 2006

The pelvic anatomy of Dilong – an undoubted basal tyrannosauroid – is (like that of Mirischia) rather like that of Compsognathus.

Archive 2006-06-01 Darren Naish 2006

If Mirischia the Brazilian theropod is one of my little pets, the enormous sauropod represented by the cervical vertebra MIWG. 7306 – affectionately (and unofficially) known to some of us as 'Angloposeidon' – is one of the biggest [the image at left, and that below, are my drawings of the specimen].

Archive 2006-07-01 Darren Naish 2006

We were also working on the Mirischia project, the Leedsichthys dig at Whittlesey (Leedsichthys was a giant Jurassic filter-feeding fish, equivalent in size to a small whale), the palaeopathology project, and other stuff.

Archive 2006-07-01 Darren Naish 2006

This is disturbing, as it all but destroys the reasons for thinking that Mirischia can only be a compsognathid.

Archive 2006-06-01 Darren Naish 2006