Re: flying Archie

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Mike Keesey wrote:

> I was referring to _Rahonavis ostromi_, the only known Late Cretaceous 
> bony-tailed bird (unless
> I'm missing something).

There is _Yandangornis_ - assuming it's (a) a bird, and (b) from the Late 
Cretaceous.  Cai and Zhao (1993) believe (a) to be true, although Unwin and 
Lu (1997), in an article devoted to the associated pterosaur 
_Zhejiangopterus_, say it is "possibly a dromaeosaur".  The Tangshang 
Formation is dated to around 81.5 Ma (Campanian), so (b) would appear to be 
true.  Cai and Zhao also seem to imply that _Yandangornis_ couldn't fly.

Graydon wrote:

> Bats, which are small, roost upside down, are frequently nocturnal, and 
> tend to roost in cold locations, may have an unusual set of selection 
> pressures about tails just on thermal issues.

I don't know about thermal issues, but in some bats the tail is thought to 
serve a tactile/sensory function (molossids and rhinopomatids come to mind). 
 One bat (Natterer's bat) has a tail fringed with hair that is said to be 
used as an insect-catching net, but I don't know if this is true or not.

> This is much the same thing as saying that T. rex was a more effective 
> predator than Coelophysis,
> though -- it's not a comment on the bauplan so much as a comment on the 
> expected results of inter-bauplan competition over a long period of time.

Yes, this is what I was getting at too.   It is difficult to say which is 
the "better" predator, when the respective styles of predation were so 
different.  So to with _Archaeopteryx_ and modern birds, which had/have 
different styles of aerial flight.

Cheers

Tim