I recently heard
Evgeny Kurochkin give a talk at NAPC here in Berkeley that seemed somewhere in
the middle of BADD and BAND. He claims that there are two lineages of
feathered archosaurs. He used the names Sauriurae and
Ornithurae, but his analysis differs from Feduccia's in that he thinks the
Sauriurae (Archaeopteryx + Enantiornithes) were actually descended from
theropods, while the Ornithurae (Confuciusornidae + Neornithes) were something
else entirely. The animal he claims they descend from is Protoavis,
which he says is a single animal. He presented about 12 synapomorphies
for Ornithurae, and he had a list of similar size for the Sauriurae. In
addition, he claims that all of the shared characters between the two groups
are the result of parallel evolution for flight.
Not being an
expert on birds or much else for that matter, I don't really know what to
believe yet. Though I would like to hear comments if anyone else has
heard his theories before, since I didn't see too many people from this list
at NAPC.
Mike de
[Tracy
Ford] <
I have no problem with this. I
think he is dead on.
Tracy