Re: Different twist of BCF

["Tim Williams" <T.Williams@cclru.randwick.unsw.edu.au>]

Tracy Ford wrote:

> It is my gut feeling (MGF, is there such an abbreviation? If not, I
> just made it up, kwool, you all can use it) that it is the
> Enantiornithes that gave rise to 'Dino birds', i.e. Dromaeosauridae,
> Oviraptoridae etc and not the Ornithurae. And it is the Enantiornithes
> that are George's BCF and the theropods. The Ornithurae are a branch
> from the Enantiornithes along with the 'Dino birds'.

I'm prepared to take the idea seriously.  There at least two groups of
flightless avians known fromc the Cretaceous - the aquatic 
hesperornithiforms and cursorial patagopterygids.  Both groups 
presumably evolved from volant ornithurines.  There's also 
_Mononykus_, which Luis Chiappe, Perle Altangarel and others believe 
evolved from flying birds.

So maybe, just maybe, some of the coelurosaur groups of the 
Cretaceous evolved from very primitive birds that came to earth - and 
stayed there.  Oviraptorids, dromaeosaurids, and even the 
tyrannosaurids may be the flightless descendents of some 
archaeopterygid-like avian (probably not an enantiornithine) of the 
Late Jurassic.

Tim Williams

P.S. Apologies for the awful raptor joke.
:->