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Re: Apatornis

To: "Grant Harding" <granth@cyberus.ca>
Subject: Re: Apatornis
From: "Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 13:47:21 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: dinosaur@usc.edu
Reply-to: th81@umail.umd.edu
Sender: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu

At 01:04 PM 6/22/99 -0400, Grant Harding wrote:
>Hi all.
>
>What did _Apatornis_ eat?
>In addition to flying, was it adapted for walking, climbing and/or swimming?

_Apatornis_ is a poorly known ichthyornithiform.  By inference from
_Ichthyornis_, it was a flier, walker, and probably could do a little
swimming/diving (but no real particular adapations for the latter two).

Incidentally, does anyone know what material (and how secure the ID is)
there is for _Apatornis_ in the Judith River Group/Dinosaur Park Formation?
If this ID was done prior to the work on enantiornitines, this material
could well be misidentified.  The type _A. celer_ material is from the older
Niobrara Chalk of Kansas.

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