Re: flights of fancy (or "I'm brave, but I'm chicken****")

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 95-12-05 19:27:39 EST, longrich@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
(Nicholas R. Longrich) writes:

>This seems very unlikely, given the fact that it was not evolved 
>this way among other dinosaurs or vertebrates. Wouldn't a camptosaur, 
>hypsilophodontid, duckbill, bonehead, dryosaur, fabrosaur, ceratosaur, 
>allosaur, kangaroo, jerboa, basilisk, or any other animal that spends a 
>lot of time on two legs find folding 
>arms just as useful? Yet none of these have evolved folding arms. None, 
>among all the groups of bipedal predators and herbivores, evolved folding 
>arms except for those closely related to the Archaeopterygians. If you 
>assume that dromaeosaurs had inherited them from flying ancestors, the 
>explanation is easy: the original ancestors evolved folding arms to 
>minimize the resistance caused by the wings when walking, either to wind 
>or to vegetation, and to protect the feathers. Dromaeosaurs simply
>inherited these.       

As the BADD paleontologist might say, "What a coincidence, eh?"