RE: Mesozoic roots of parrots and passerine birds

[Jaime Headden <qi_leong@hotmail.com>]

  It was my interest when it came out to plug this into several large avian 
morph matrices. Problematically, those matrices do not include the diversity of 
sampling nonavian dinosaurs that would be required. There simply isn't an 
analysis that covers both bases, because for the most part, there needn't be at 
this time. Obviously, a super-sized matrix sampling all of the stem of *Aves* 
and many members of *Aves* itself would be grand (using the crown=total clade 
definition for that taxon), and the only reasonable way to test it. Otherwise, 
I'd use Cau and Mortimer's various matrices for their sampling size when it 
comes to nonavialaean theropods and avialaeans separately to test one aspect. 
Combining the two would be a project I do not think any one group could 
attempt, and would have to be done by greatly expanding and sampling one of 
these to include the data in the other. I do not have the time or the means to 
do this, so will choose instead to run the basic analyses.

Cheers,

  Jaime A. Headden
  The Bite Stuff (site v2)
  http://qilong.wordpress.com/

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)


"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a
different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race
has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or
his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion 
Backs)


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> Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 17:17:43 -0300
> From: augustoharo@gmail.com
> To: qi_leong@hotmail.com
> CC: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Re: Mesozoic roots of parrots and passerine birds
>
> What I get from Cau's post (I don't understand Italian too much, and
> Google traslator is not that good), is that the matrix he employed did
> not include parrots, so it looks not to be a good test of Stidham's
> hypothesis.
> Even when it is a good test of the hypothesis that it is not a basal
> avialean (excluding modern birds).
> Cheers,
> Augusto.