RE: semilunate carpal

[rbi <rbi@dana.ucc.nau.edu>]

>These are all Late Jurassic or younger. I'm talking about Middle to Late
>Triassic, which is where the common ancestor of Coelophysis and birds is to
>be found. This common ancestor was probably small (crow-size), and likely had
>a featherlike covering, pneumaticized skeleton, large (grasping) four-digit
>forelimbs, prehensile feet, and a long, feathered tail. (Gee--does this sound
>like Chatterjee's reconstruction of Protoavis? Purely coincidental?) All
>these features can be directly inferred from known fossils of Coelophysis
>and, say, Archaeopteryx. Does this animal seem more like a bird or more like
>Coelophysis?

There is only one problem with Protoavis...Chatterjee considered it to be more 
advanced than Archaeopteryx, yet it has more digits than Arch.!  This is a 
problem even if Protoavis is a valid taxon (which we should not discuss here 
because that would be beating a very dead horse).

Randy