AMNH PRESS RELEASE ERROR?

["Ray Stanford" <dinotracker@earthlink.net>]

    In paragraph 3 of the AMNH's press release on the feathered theropod,
isn't there an error (or at least wording likely to be misread) that should
not have been allowed in official AMNH press release?

    http://www.amnh.org/science/specials/dinobird.html

    To quote:


"The researchers have identified the fossil animal as a dromaeosaur, a
small, fast-running dinosaur closely related to Velociraptor with a sickle
claw on its middle toe and stiffening rods in its tail."

    Dromaeosaurs have the 'terrible claw' on digit II, and I cannot conceive
of how this can be called "its middle toe" with any precision.

    As to toes on the ground, the 'killer claw'-bearing toe would be the
innermost (relative to a central track-way line) but certainly it should not
be called the middle one.

    Probably, the press release is just using poor wording (as seems
politically correct in the dumbing-of-America trend now pervading the
media), while really intending to say that the 'killer claw'-bearing toe is
the one nearest the mid line (if we ignore the elevated digit I)?

    Whether an outright error or just poor wording (more likely cause),
IMHO, the AMNH should avoid such potentially misleading imprecision.  After
all, we don't want to see a plague of art work with the 'killer claw' on
digit III. :)

    Ray Stanford