Re: Information on Pelecanimimus

[Jonathon Woolf <jwoolf@erinet.com>]

Dinogeorge@aol.com wrote:
> 
> _Longisquama_, however, shares the characters "furcula present" and
> "featherlike dermal structures present" with theropods--both characters
> surely absent in sauropodomorph and ornithischian dinosaurs, in which the
> clavicles, when present or known, are never fused into a furcula (the
> primitive state), and the dermal structures are bony (the primitive state).
> Furthermore, the _Longisquama_ furcula is remarkably similar to the furcula
> of allosaurid theropods, oviraptorids, and enantiornithan birds. Unless
> >both< characters evolved >together< twice (a long shot, though not
> impossible)--once in an independent _Longisquama_ lineage and once again in
> theropods, _Longisquama_ is a theropod.

I need some help here, please.  I've seen a number of people referring
to this fossil called _Longisquama_, but sometimes it sounds like
they're referring to two different fossils.  One says it's too
fragmentary to tell much of anything, the other says something like the
above.  

What *exactly* is _Longisquama_?  Where and when was it found?  What
formation, what age?  What material do we have from it?  Skull, legs,
pectorals, pelvis, ribs, skin impressions, what?  What percentage of the
whole thing do we have?  Any articulation?  What are the chances that
we're talking about a chimaera or a case of misidentified pieces, as in
when _Allosaurus_ furculae were identified as gastralia?

-- JSW