Tails from Liaoning

["T. Mike Keesey" <tkeese1@gl.umbc.edu>]

Just got back from the National Geographic "Flight of the Dinosaurs"
exhibit (oddly titled, since only one of the four creatures displayed is
supposed to be a flier). I never thought I'd be so glad to live in the
D.C. area!

Anyway, while sketching the fossils there (one _Protarchaeopteryx_, two
_Caudipteryx_, two _Sinosauropteryx_, and two _Confuciusornis_), I noticed
that _Protarchaeopteryx_ seems to have a tail fan very similar to that of
_Caudipteryx_. Are my eyes fooling me here, or is this some kind of
convergent(?) structure? There also appears to be a miniature version of
this on the adult _Sinosauropteryx_ (the one that's supposed to have a
mammal jaw in its gut, although my untrained eyes could not find it).

--T. Mike Keesey                                   <tkeese1@gl.umbc.edu>
DINOSAUR WEB PAGES -- http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~tkeese1/dinosaur/index.htm