Re: New dope on ratites

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

One final post tonight:
     I think the living paleognaths are a holophyletic group, but whether
the ratites are holophyletic is questionable.
     I have a question about emus.  Is it true that emus have claws on
their wings (like the young of hoatzins).  I heard this in an e-mail from
someone who I don't very well, so don't know if it is true or not.
                 -------Ken
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> From: John Bois <jbois@umd5.umd.edu>
> Reply-To: jbois@umd5.umd.edu
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: New dope on ratites
> Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2001 12:48:45 -0400 (EDT)
>
> As earlier noted (a big thanks), this website has the abstracts from NAPC
> 2001 June 26 - July 1 Berkeley, California
> http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/napc/mainabs.html
> This one might be of interest to ratite origins folk.
> (5/23/01)
> HETEROCHRONY SUGGESTS MULTIPLE FLIGHT LOSS EVENTS IN THE RATITES
> MARSHALL, Cynthia L., Museum of the Rockies, Montana State University,
> Bozeman, MT, USA
> Studied wing development/loss in ratite embryos.  Finds very different
> sequence in emus vs. ostriches.
> Proposes that emus and clan were small birds that became big, and
> that ostriches were large fliers.  No indication (from abstract,
> anyway) of when this flight loss may have happened.  Did ostriches become
> flightless in the Miocene?  Is molecular evidence of close relationship of
> all ratites now to be mistrusted?  Dunno.
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