Re: Metaves and Coronaves

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

David Marjanovic wrote:

> The famous "heavy-bodied ground bird" :-)

Other studies have found that the base of the Neornithes seems to be 
chock-full of heavy-bodied birds with poor or no flying abilities: 
paleognaths (ratites, tinamous) and galloanserine birds (including ducks and 
geese, screamers, "chooks", probably dromornithids, and maybe even 
gastornithids/diatrymids).

> So one should be tempted to look for different geographic origins of 
> Metaves and Coronaves.

I have to say, I'm not exactly sold on the entire Metaves-Coronaves thing.  
I think we have a long way to go before we thrash out neornithine phylogeny. 
 Molecules certainly help, but they are not the final arbiter.


Tim