Announcing The Sauropodomorph Database with Ultrasaurus

This won't be a surprise to you who have followed my Zhao posts, but the Theropod Database is expanding.  When I started the website back in 2004, Mike Keesey's Dinosauricon 2 was in the works so I didn't plan to cover other groups.  But now there's really nowhere to go that has consolidated info on dinosaur taxa, e.g.  if you wanted to find somphospondylan synapomorphies, a list of all Early Jurassic sauropods, or a material list for every taxon (well, Paleofile has the latter, but costs money).  I've been keeping a basic list on my computer all these years, but it's time to update it and put it online.  As with the ex-theropod portion of the site, it holds special interest for me because I'm unfamiliar with most of the data.  It's also interesting because I'll be creating a sauropodomorph matrix to analyze all the taxa.  Most valid Mesozoic theropod taxa have been included in at least one analysis, but I don't think that's true for sauropods, especially the many titanosaurs and basal camarasauromorphs.  Nor have most actually been compared to each other, and there are several messy groups of species like Mamenchisaurus and Omeisaurus that I'd like to have an opinion of.  The format will be the same as the theropod parts, though I'm not sure how it will be integrated yet.  This month I've been creating the backbone of each page by listing the named clades with their definitions, and once that's done I'll upload the extremely partial first version.  None of this means I'll be ignoring theropods of course, as they remain my main interest.  Expect me to switch back and forth between my sub-interests as usual.

For a sample, here's the current Ultrasaurus entry.  The phylogenetic relationships will be considered further once I have a better framework to use.

Ultrasaurus tabriensis holotype proximal humerus (DGBU-1973) in proximal (B) and anterior (C) views.  Scale = 100 mm.  After Lee et al., 1997.

Ultrasaurus Kim, 1983
= "Ultrasaurus" Kim, 1981
U. tabriensis Kim, 1983
Aptian-Early Albian, Early Cretaceous
Gugyedong Formation, South Korea
Holotype- (DGBU-1973) proximal humerus (435 mm wide)
Paratype- ?(DGBU coll.) caudal neural spine
Referred- ? rib fragments (Kim, 1988)
? cervical vertebra (Kim, 1988)
Comments- Discovered in 1977, initially identified as a sauropod femur or tibia (Chang et al., 1982) or a proximal brachiosaurid ulna (Kim, 1981, 1983). Paul (1988) notes it is actually a proximal humerus. All modern authors have considered it an indeterminate sauropod, though as Barrett et al. (2002) note, the absence of a well-developed proximolateral humeral process excludes it from Somphospondyli at least.
References- Kim, 1981. Cretaceous dinosaur fossils discovered from two dinosaur sites of Korea. Journal of the Geological Society of Korea. 17, 297.
Chang, Seo and Park, 1982. Occurrence of a dinosaur limb bone near Tabri, southern Korea. Journal of the Geological Society of Korea. 18, 195-202.
Kim, 1983. Cretaceous dinosaurs from South Korea. Journal of the Geological Society of Korea. 19(3), 115-126.
Kim, 1988. Excavations and studies of dinosaur skeletons of Korea. Abstracts at the Annual Meeting of the Paleontological Society of Korea. 4(2), 168-169.
Paul, 1988. The brachiosaur giants of the Morrison and Tendaguru with a description of a new subgenus, Giraffatitan, and a comparison of the world's largest dinosaurs. Hunteria. 2, 1-14.
Lee, 1997. Reassessment of Ultrasaurus tabriensis, Kim 1983 and the significance of Korean Sauropoda. Abstracts at the Annual Meeting of the Paleontological Society of Korea. pg 14.
Lee, Yang and Park, 1997. Sauropod dinosaur remains from the Gyeongsang Supergroup, Korea. Paleontological Society of Korea, Special Publication. 2, 103-114.
Barrett, Hasegawa, Manabe, Isaji and Matsuoka, 2002. Sauropod dinosaurs from the Lower Cretaceous of eastern Asia: Taxonomic and biogeographic implications. Palaeontology. 45, 1197-1217.