Re: Fossil Discovery Threatens Theory of Birds' Evolution

[Josh Smith <smithjb@sas.upenn.edu>]

NJPharris@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 6/23/00 6:50:24 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
> majestic_cheese@yahoo.com writes:
>
> > "A point that too many people always ignored is that
> >  the most birdlike of the dinosaurs, such as
> >  bambiraptor and velociraptor, lived 70 million years
> >  after the earliest bird, archaeopteryx,"
>
> Now, wait a minute!
>
> This statement is logical crap, anyway, as we all know.  But what about
> _Sinornithosaurus_, one of the very most birdlike dromaeosaurs, which comes
> from  the Yixian formation, which just a few years ago some of these same
> guys were trying to say was Jurassic!
>
> Nick P.

Nick is correct.  There is no way that _Sinornithosaurus_ is 70 million years
younger than _Archaeopteryx_.  Try more like 20-25 million.  And some people
are STILL saying it is Jurassic...


--
Josh Smith
Department of Earth and Environmental Science
University of Pennsylvania
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