Re: bcf vs. badd

[ornstn@inforamp.net (Ronald Orenstein)]

GO writes:

>>>Proto-avian teeth were unserrated (like those of _Archaeopteryx_)
>>>plesiomorphically. They might have been able to handle bits of meat, but
>>they
>>>certainly weren't the serrated flesh-carvers of the larger theropods.
>>
>>On what taxa (other than Archaeopteryx) are you basing this?
>>--
>
>Pick any Mesozoic toothed bird.
>
>

Mesozoic toothed birds aren't proto-avians, they are birds.  As they
postdate Archaeopteryx both temporally and, in all probability,
phylogenetically, they don't say much about the condition of the teeth in
bird ancestors.  Was the Archaeopteryx tooth primitive in this lineage, or
secondarily simplified by loss of serrations?  The condition in birds like
Hesperornis doesn't answer this.
--
Ronald I. Orenstein                           Phone: (905) 820-7886 (home)
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