Re: Thoughts (and concerns) about Epidendro[...]saurus (and the Feduccia paper)

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> The second is that the sclerotic ring shows no sign of being composed of
> separate ossifications, as in typical dinosaurs.  There is no sign of
> segmentation in the ring.  Puzzling.

Not yet ossified???

> I am very dubious of the nature of the "tail impression": no part of the
> tail is preserved, only an apparent impression in (admittedly) the proper
> position between the (unquestionably theropod) hindlimbs.

Maybe it floated to the lake bottom tail-first, and the tail made such a
trace?

> The mandible has large prongs described as the articular, but look for all
> the world to me as the coronoid processes of typical lepidosaurs.  The
broad
> arc of the mandibles, too, reminds me more of lizards and sphenodontians
> than of dinosaurs.

Fits the name (-saurus). :-)

> And the big problem: the manus.  It is not found in articulation.

But the Czerkas specimen is, and the long one is III there.

Interestingly, I have full access to all those papers! The Feduccia &
Nowicki paper says "A deep split between neognathous and paleognathous birds
is evidenced by Lower Cretaceous fossils of the paleognaths *Ambiortus* and
*Otogornis* from Mongolia and China (Kurochkin 1999)." I suppose this
identification is as suspect as his classification of Enantiornithes?

The photos look a lot like the drawings in that old book! A certain Steiner,
in 1934, identified an extra "spike" (slightly visible below that one that
Feduccia & Nowicki interpret as V in their photo of Day 12) as V, and
Feduccia & Nowicki's I as the infamous praepollex. What they identify as V
is level with the other digits in the hand, but not in the foot.

"Kurochkin EN (1999) Relationships of the Early Cretaceous *Ambiortus* and
*Otogornis* (Aves: Ambiortiformes). Smithson Contrib Paleobiol 89:275-288"