RE: NEW NEORNITHINE & PTEROSAUR STUFF

["Tracy L. Ford" <dino.hunter@home.com>]

Ah, but do you know about adult hoatzins...

Many adult hoatzins retain the wing-claws of juveniles, but they are buried
in callus and presumably useless.  Similarly, the claws of these early
Cenozoic neornithines might have been vestigial and utterly nonfunctional.<<

And several other birds have been found with claws that are buried in the
callus. In doing research work for Darren Tanke's HUGE Paleopathology
bibliography, I ran across several ornithological papers that describe
'clawed' wings. But they were buried in the skin and useless. I don't know
if Darren's monograph (which will be published next year I think) will refer
to any of those papers or not.

Tracy L. Ford
P. O. Box 1171
Poway Ca  92074