Re: Parrots, was RE: (matrilineal dinosaurs, K parrot)

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

Fred Ruhe (fredruhe@xs4all.nl) wrote:

<If Psittacopes is a Parrot, then I think Stidham is wrong in his 
identification, parrots didn't
have a parrot-like beak by that time.
 
It's also possible Gerald Mayr is wrong, and he misidentified his parrot from 
Messel that had a
beak like a Coliidae.
 
I don't believe Gerald Mayr was wrong, and I think you hepetologists can come 
up with enough
species that can fit Stidham's identification. If indeed his specimen is a 
Loriid, we must think
again on Psittaciformes, and Aves as all.>

  "Us" herpetologists (used loosely, most people on the list aren'tm especially 
not me) have other
practices to draw upon. For instance, another option not mentioned above:

  *Psittacopes* may be a basal psittaciform, does not mean it's beak dictates 
the shape of the
beak in _all_ psittaciforms that are not members of the three extant groups, 
just because _they_
have such similar beaks. Certainly the fossil record for psittaciformes is not 
complete nor is it
even relatively known, and that goes triple for skull material to allow us to 
dictate such
features. Stadham's paper, to reiterate, makes only the suggestion that the 
form has similarities
to loriids. Does not mean we must re-think psittaciform or even avian phylogeny 
(not when only one
"order" is being messed with).

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

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