Re: weird jurassic dinobird with very weird feathers

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

Forgot to mention that I don't have the book here that describes 
*Scansoriopteryx*. What does its tail look like?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 12:35 PM

>  The mandible in aspect is as similar to *Confuciusornis* as said avian is 
> to an egret.

Didn't you just argue for restricting Aves to the crown-group? :-)

>  There are no pennate feathers. At least even basal dromaeosaurs, 
> oviraptorosaurs, and probably troodontids had true feathers. This places 
> the taxon at least in either 1) a degenerate state, in which case it 
> should lack features associated with a flight apparatus a la 
> therizinosauroids, or 2) it is not as close to birds as the authors of the 
> paper positioned it. The matrix would be better suited to looking at their 
> codings.

Neither are any other feathers or any other soft parts preserved on any of 
the limbs. The whole ventral side appears to lack preserved integument or 
other soft parts -- and the color of the sediment there is different. IMHO 
we're dealing with absence of evidence here rather than evidence of absence.

>  It is entirely possible the manual phalanges represent portions of digits 
> 1 and 3, not 1 and 2, since the second manual ungual in *Epidendrosaurus* 
> is, like *Confuciusornis* of all things, smaller than the other two.

Not true. In *Epidendrosaurus* the claw of the 3rd finger is considerably 
smaller than the other two.