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Re: 2 questions: "horizon" in anatomy, and the absurd Nyctosaurus



On 11/24/13, Hammer <hammeris1@att.net> wrote:
> Wiki?  Really?  I tend to avoid it (even though I edit many articles in it)
> as it is thoroughly unreliable minute-by-minute.

Really. The extinct archosaur articles tend to have good curation and
they usually list references you can obtain from the authors. You know
there's an edit history, right?
Failing that there are also previous discussions in mailing list
archives, http://dml.cmnh.org/ , say:
http://dml.cmnh.org/2003Aug/threads.html#00217 . Note that in this
area of science where it relates to the reconstruction of extinct
organisms answers may be a bit thin on the ground and when they exist
not particularly satisfactory depending on your mileage.

>  As far as the whydah bird,
> that's a tail, not a tree branch growing out of its head!  :-)   Thanks for
> the clarification on the horizon term.

All the same it's a structure that creates a handicap by its
proportional unwieldiness.  Here's a recent review on sexual
selection: http://www.rug.nl/research/theoretical-biology/_pdf/ku_eaarees12.pdf
. And you'll likely be able to obtain
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534712001875
from the authors.

-- 
Renato Santos
http://dracontes.deviantart.com