> When I asked what furculae are
actually good for I should have written I know of the spring-like mechanism
in
> recent flying birds;
I mean what they could have been evolved for. Neither boomerang-shaped ones
(Archaeopteryx,
> Sinornithosaurus,
Tyrannosauridae, Confuciusornithidae) nor broad V-shaped ones (the
plesiomorphy, secondarily evolved
> in Dromaeosauridae sensu stricto) could
have been useful for that.
They MIGHT
have been useful as a different sort of spring, but no one has dealt with the
biomechanics of the situation yet.
> - What mammals were there
around in Africa at the time?
Actually, one of the biggest questions in
paleomammology right now!! A good Latest Cretaceous
Mesozoic mammal fauna might go a long way to solve some current problems in
mammalian paleontology & systematics (e.g., phylogenetic
position of and timing of origin of the
tethytheres)
> - Don't you put the Bermuda
Triangle as something mystical. It seems that this is simply an area where
methane
> hydrate is decaying, creating occasional blobs
of methane gushing upwards. Ships can't swim on foam, and planes
get
> serious problems without oxygen, so both
sink and disappear.
URGH!!! Note that this is off topic, but there
is ZERO (count them, zero) evidence for any statistically significantly more
common loss of ships in the "Bermuda Triangle" than anywhere else on the
planet. There are no patterns needing explanation
here.
Where/when/why have the few
ornithomimosaurian teeth I quoted become a complete
skeleton?
What age is the Kimmeridge Clay?
Kimmeridgian?
Yes.
P.S. Finally got to here the They Might Be
Giants song "Mammal" today. To my knowledge, the only song that includes
a reference to multituberculates (under their alternate name
Allotheria).