Re: dinosaur vs. bird locomotion

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Chris Noto and the List:

  I'm not sure if Steve Gatesy is still on the list,
because this is something he has been publishing on
(with a few other coauthers, Dial and Middleton to
name the two most recent) for the last several years.

  But having read several Gatesy (incl. 1990) papers,
and especially enjoying Gatesy and Dial (1996) and
Gatesy and Middleton (1999) [the last a truly novel
piece of work] I have come to understand that bird
locomotion (containing several modes of locomotion) is
only incomparable due to the development of powered
flight, in such that the tail and hindlimbs were
decoupled, and in all living birds (ancestrally), the
forelimbs became a primary thrust generator, whereas
flightlessness reduces this to a secondary system.

  Read up on these papers, they should be pretty well
available:

  Gatesy, 1990. Caudofemoral musculature and the
evolution of theropod locomotion. _Paleobiology_ 16
(2): 170-186.

  Gatesy and Dial, 1996. Locomotor modules and the
evolution of avian flight. _Evolution_ 50: 331-340.

  Gatesy and Middleton, 1999. [I can spout the title
off the top of my head]. _JVP_ 19 (3): ???


=====
Jaime "James" A. Headden

"Come the path that leads us to our fortune."

Qilong---is temporarily out of service.
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