Neoflightless Theropods and Roadrunners

[MariusRomanus@aol.com]

I was thinking about the recent roadrunner posts..... Very cool stuff by the 
way..... But, I have a little bit of doubt about all of what this could be 
implying. An animal that is a flyer and already uses wings to change directions 
in the air would easily utilizes this same behavior when evolving a cursorial 
way of life. This same thing goes for....... oh....... let's say... like the 
fact that sea mammals utilized the already in place up and down motion of their 
lumbar regions to power their perpulsion while swimming..... instead of the 
side to side motion of the epaxial muscles that fish utilize and ichthyosaurs 
did. Look at it this way.... The evidence shows the reversed hallux evolved 
very quickly in all of the flying lineages and it serves no purpose that is in 
any way convincing when it comes to a cursorial way of life. The fact of having 
a reversed hallux NOW means little in how these animals live... BUT.... it 
implies a great deal about the evolution of their ancestor!
s.!
 This can be seen in the fact that an animal like the swan has a reversed 
hallux but it does not visit the branches of a tree all too often. I am sure 
that we can all agree that the reversed hallux is a purely arboreal trait in 
all of its merits. This implies more than what can easily be seen when it comes 
to a secondary ground (mostly ground) oriented animal by the presence of it's 
own reversed hallux. What I'm saying is that I don't really see a connection 
between the raodrunner and a non-avian theropod when it comes to the use of the 
arms.... BUT.... If the non-avian theropod had ancestors that once flew.... 
those that already used their arms when it came to directional changes... then 
we could have a winner for what it being implied as with the roadrunner. It 
makes little sense to me when looking at it any other way.

Kris