Finally.....

Have you ever had one of those moments in your life that you thought would never, ever happen? Something people told you you could not do? Something people told you would never amount to anything? Something you spent years of your life working on??

I have. And today hell froze over. That's right, my first paper in a journal that people actually read was published today!

Hunt, ReBecca K. and Thomas M. Lehman. 2008. Attributes of the ceratopsian dinosaur Torosaurus, and new material from the Javelina Formation (Maastrichtian) of Texas. Journal of Paleontology 82(6): 1127-1138.

Excuse me for just a moment....








































Sorry, I had to get that out of my system!

This is how I feel right now:


Symbolism anyone? Yes, Vader is this project. Its all about getting it out of your system and being able to let it go and move on to the next thing. Having this paper finished and actually published is quite the relief.

That being said, I will post a pretty picture from the paper here along with the abstract and I will discuss the paper more at length when I have had time to calm down some.

Enjoy!

ABSTRACT—A bone bed in the middle part of the Javelina Formation (Maastrichtian) in Texas yielded parts of about 37 identifiable ceratopsid dinosaur bones, mostly appendicular and limb girdle elements belonging to one juvenile and two adult individuals of Torosaurus cf. utahensis. The bone bed is a lag assemblage comprising large immobile parts of the skeletons accumulated in an abandoned stream channel. In general form and proportions the postcranial bones are similar to those in Pentaceratops sternbergi and are not as robust as those in Torosaurus latus or Triceratops horridus. A few cranial elements are preserved, including parts of a parietal, squamosal, maxilla, and two dentaries. The form of the parietal fragment is comparable to that of a more nearly complete specimen of Torosaurus cf. utahensis collected nearby at about the same stratigraphic level. The bone bed material provides a basis for the first skeletal reconstruction of this enigmatic horned dinosaur. Most characters used in diagnoses of T. utahensis and T. latus are inadequate. Only the raised bar along the squamosal/parietal suture, present in T. latus; and the midline epiparietal, absent in T. latus, may discriminate the two species.