Re: the first raptor

["Mickey_Mortimer11" <Mickey_Mortimer11@email.msn.com>]

T. Mike Keesey wrote-

> Unless I'm mistaken, the Barremian is also when the first avians more
> advanced than _Archaeopteryx_ are known from (not counting _Protoavis
> texensis_ at the moment). Seems like there wasn't much preservation of
> eumaniraptors going on in the earliest bit of the Cretaceous.

The earliest pygostylians-
- Noguerornis, Spanish nestling (Late Hauterivian-Early Barremian)
- Holbotia, Ambiortus (Hauterivian-Barremian)
- Confuciusornis sanctus, C. dui, Changchengornis, Liaoningornis,
Eoenantiornis (Middle Barremian)
- Liaoxiornis (Late Barremian)
- "Proornis", Jibeinia, Wyleyia, Concornis, Iberomesornis, Enaliornis
(Barremian)

David Marjanovic wrote-

> Still, there is *Noguerornis* from the Valanginian. It's always put into
> Ornithothoraces and usually into Enantiornithes... is this still correct?

It's pretty fragmentary, but clades as sister to Iberomesornis in the
Enantiornithes in Chiappe's (2001) Ostrom Symposium analysis.  Of course, my
studies are making the monophyly of Enantiornithes sensu lato rather
questionable.

Mickey Mortimer