Re: National Public Radio

[Betty Cunningham <bettyc@flyinggoat.com>]

well so Currei has asked Martin to go to Washington to see the fossil as
most of the discussion was Larry saying 'I haven't seen it except in
photos but you're wrong".........

Having been on hold on this radio show today without getting to ask my
question, I'm just going to go ahead and ask it here in hopes that
people from either camp could maybe discuss it...

If birds are dinosaurs......
What happened to the tail?  The therapod uses it's tail as a major
locomotor muscle and Caudipteryx shows this whole structure greatly
reduced while Archeopteryx does not.  What are these animals doing to
take the place of the function of the tail muscles in terrestrial
locomotion?  Modern birds obviously don't use a tail in locomotion to
the extent therapods did.  
What evidence do you have to support a tailess descendant of tailed
therapods?

If birds are NOT dinosaurs but as Larry Martin suggested-descended from
arborial lizards.....
What happened to the legs and tail?  If you have a sprawling,
long-tailed creature like ALL modern arborial lizards, why did the legs
move under the body as they have in modern birds and what happened to
the tail?   Bats fly with legs in a sprawling posture that you might
expect from an animal derived from an arborial sprawler but birds have a
very distinctive legs-under-the-body body structure and no lengthy
tail-just fused vertebrae.  
What evidence do you have to support the development of a
non-sprawling-tailess modern bird from a lizard?


-Betty Cunningham


Phillip Bigelow wrote:
> 
> You read right.
> 
> For those who are lucky to have National Public Radio in their
> area, and for those who are even luckier to get the
> "Science Friday" talk show, be sure to tune in for a one-hour
> radio/call-in discussion featuring Currie, Pat Shipman, and Larry
> Martin on the new avian and non-avian feathered dinosaur fossils.