The Boids

[morgan@montereybay.com (Morgan Family)]

>    How about endothermy, the possesion of feathers (not proven for any 
>dinosaurian group no matter what anyone says)

 Just because its not *proven* beyond a shadow of a doubt doesn't mean it 
doesn't exist. I, like most paleontologists and dino enthusiasts on this 
list, think that those two traits were more likely to have existed in NAD's
(my cute little abbreviation for *Non-Avian Dinosaurs.*) than not. Well, 
okay, so more for endothermy than for feathers, but you get my drift.

> and flight?  

Does this mean that now bats are not mammals, just because they are 
specialized for flight and make up a fifth of all mammal species?

>Birds have 
>been going thier own way and doing thier own thing evolutionarily since 
>the Jurassic.  

And the theropods and phytodinosaurians had been doing their (note spelling) 
own thing since the Triassic. Like it or not, _Tyrannosaurus rex_ shares a 
much more common ancestry with my budgie than with a _Triceratops_. If both 
_T.rex_and _T. horridus_ are dinosaurs, than _M. undulatus_ is too.

>LN Jeff

  ______
 /Oo.   \                                _^_^/|  /|
|Oo / \\//    Susie "whaddaya mean     </   | |\/ /
|Oo ||'/\\\    mean the Mesozoic is   <|o \O|_|/_/
|Oo/_ OO '| |  over?" Morgan           <\o \|o\_ \_/|_
 \O\ \\_//\\/     alias                 <\o__Oo ___ o \
  \O\____/\|    DeRaptor                 /V V/v    |__v
   \O \=|           alias                \  |\_______/
                  Tyrannosaura regina     \_|__/
                        alias
        Crazy Insane Schizophrenic Weird Wacko Zany Lunatic 
                         Person.                       

   "Oh, dear. My Imaginary friends are laughing at me again."

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