Re: Birds, dinosaurs, and digit 1

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>]

At 09:38 AM 10/27/97 -0800, Terry Jones wrote:
>There is a lot of talk about Feduccia's very recent paper on the digits in
>birds and dinosaurs.  It seems that most people have already discounted his
>evidence.  Have any of you read it, yet?  Unless you got it electronically,
>I doubt it since it won't be in mailboxes until later this week.

I second Terry Jones' comments: please wait until you see the paper.  Then
you can judge if Feduccia (and coauthors?) have added anything new since
(for example) Hinchliffe's 1985 paper in _The Beginning of Birds_.

In the meantime, people may wish to read pp.74-75 (under "Bird Origins") in
the new Currie & Padian _Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs_ (which finally came in
the mail today).  This will give (very briefly) some of the background of
the debate.

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
Dept. of Geology              Email:th81@umail.umd.edu
University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661