Re: SIMILAR BIRD TRACKS 70 MILLION YEARS APART

["Ray Stanford" <dinotracker@earthlink.net>]

Hi Jaime,

    Can you believe I only noticed your message (below) just now (late
Saturday)!  I guess (living in the D.C. area as I do) the worry about what
terrible thing could happen 'right on top of us' has me a bit too much in a
daze.

    Thanks for your comments and information.  Upon reflection, I am
inclined to agree with you and Ken, that convergence may be the most likely
explanation.

    Your point about comparing environments is a worthwhile suggestion.  As
to the bird tracks from here, the two successive ones are in a coprolite!
The other is actually in a sandstone, not in the siltstone you mention (of
which we have plenty, as well).  So, at least the bird that made the more
recently found track may have been in a rather similar environment to the
Green River Formation track makers.

    As to that first set of Maryland bird tracks, perhaps I could assign
them to a new ichnogenus, evocative of what the bird was walking through.
:)  O.K., I'm just kidding, but one might wonder whether this bird was
hunting maggots as nutritious snacks, because I have some examples of this
same type of coprolite that have interiors full of maggot hollows.

Ray Stanford

"You know my method.  It is founded upon the observance of trifles." --
Sherlock Holmes in The Boscombe Valley Mystery

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 2:05 PM
Subject: Re: SIMILAR BIRD TRACKS 70 MILLION YEARS APART


  >In response to Ray's query about the phylogenetic similarities of the
Green River and his own
Maryland [Early Cretaceous] discoveries...Jaime A. Headden<