Apatornis

["John R. Hutchinson" <jrhutch@socrates.berkeley.edu>]

Jacques Gauthier's student Julia Clarke is in the process of clearing up the Ichthyornithiformes mess; I'm not sure but maybe we'll hear about that from her at SVP this year.  I don't know about the Judith River material.  I haven't seen any diagnostic material at museums I've visited, but what do I know?  Don't answer that last part.  :)

--John


Tom Holtz wrote:

> 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