The "ideal" Eumaniraptoran arm motion

["Larry Febo" <larryf@capital.net>]

Sunday, Feb 28, 1999, Patrick Norton wrote:

<Just to follow up (I just found the article I was thinking about) Gauthier
(1986) found a pronounced coracoid tuberosity among the Deinonychosauria as
well as Avialae. According to him, that is only one of many synapomorphies
shared by the common ancestor of birds and dienonychosaurs and is related to
the folding and unfolding of the hands and arms during prey capture--motions
that were apparently similar to the flight stroke.>

Yeah,.... I just read the Holtz article(ABC Science News Online), where this
type of arm stroke was somehow beneficial in capturing prey, I`ve seen the
same mentioned in many other places. I don`t want to "play God" and claim I
could`ve come up with something better than the flight stroke for capturing
prey, but come on! To actually claim that this was in some way "ideal" to me
sounds rediculous!
Sure, the things existed like that, T-Rex also existed with those
ridiculously short forearms, We exist with an appendex...for what?....t o
give doctors something else to remove?? It seems MUCH more likely, ...to me,
that many of these "Avian" features are holdovers from a previous flying
ancestor and are actually "proof" that these creatures are secondarily
flightless.
 This arm motion for example, especially with feathers attached, seems the
aerodynamic drag would only tend to hinder the capturing motion of holding
these arms out and bringing them together, (like clapping ones hands with
arms completely outstretched). Try running along, with some pieces of stiff
cardboard in your hands to approximate the surface drag that would be
produced if you had feathers attached (enough for near flight conditions)
and try to catch butterflies (or something)using this type of forearm
motion, see if it improves things. (PS...don`t let the neighbors see
you!).And to think of these feathers getting longer (for some reason) as
some kind of preadaptation for flight without actually hindering Dromie`s
(or pre -flying Eumaniraptoran`s) cursorial existance...I think,  stretches
the imagination.