Re: Birds of Russia and Mongolia

["Zoe Heraklides" <z_heraklides@hotmail.com>]

Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com> writes:

> When Kurochkin says "phalanx II-1", does he mean the middle digit or the
> innermost digit of the tridactyl manus?  Is it digit II of I-II-III from 
> the
> ancestral pentadactyl condition (as dinosaur experts interpret the avian
> tridactyl manus), or digit II of II-III-IV (as ornithologists prefer)?


Evgeny Kurochkin was one of the authors of the paper in *Science* that 
claimed that Longisquama's plume-like appendages were feathers (or at least 
ancestral homologs of bird feathers). I don't actually belive it myself. But 
it may mean that Kurochkin favors a non-dinosaurian origin of birds.

ZH
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