Tarsitano's challenges

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

      I am still trying to play "catch up" on the theropod-bird controversy. 
  I am wondering which of the following problems posed by Tarsitano in 1991 
(Archaeopteryx: Quo Vadis) are still problematic, and which have been 
resolved by newer coelurosaur fossils:
      "The following morphological problems involving the theropod ancestry 
of birds must be addressed by those who favor a coelurosaurian ancestry or 
sister-group position for birds:
      (1) the absence of a siphonium and pneumatic quadrate in all 
coelurosaurs;
      (2) the lack of clear evidence of a fenestra rotundum in coelurosaurs;
      (3) nonavian tooth morphology in coelurosaurs;
      (4) reduced coracoids in all coelurosaurs;
      (5) the presence of a massive and specialized pelvis and hindlimbs 
that, biomechanically, seem to argue against the devlopment of flight;
      (6) the presence of the middle temporal arch in coelurosaurs, but its 
absence in birds;
      (7) the presence of lateral basicranial sinus openings in 
coelurosaurs, but their absence in birds.
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