Re: The Continuing Story of Gliders to Dinosaurs

["Grant Harding" <granth@cyberus.ca>]

Stanley Friesen wrote:
>I suspect that a "vertical leaper" like the indri may be closer to the
>ancestral form for at least the theropod dinosaurs.  When in trees this
>form spends most of its time on more or less vertical branches, and it
>often moves by leaping great distances between such branches.  This leaves
>it with a substantial uncoupling between its fore- and hind-limbs, with the
>hind being specialized for support and leaping, and the fore specialized
>for clinging and climbing.  Transfer this to the ground and you get a
>bipedal animal with longish forelimbs and grasping hands!

Perfect!  An indri-like dinosaur would be a perfect ringer for an arboreal
theropod ancestor.  One could well imagine one line of its descendants going
down to the ground, and naturally becoming bipedal, grasping-handed
predators, and another lineage staying up in the trees, adapting its
(already present) display feathers to help it with those long interbranch
leaps, and voila, we have a bird!

This is so cool.

-Grant

--
Grant Harding
High school student/amateur paleontologist
granth@cyberus.ca
Visit Grant Harding's Dinosaur Destination at
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