Re: Bambiraptor complete!

["Fam Jansma" <fam.jansma@worldonline.nl>]

Tim wrote:

>Yep, this has come up before.  Though I doubt if this was such a big deal
>either.  If modern birds are prepared to strike each other using their
wings
>(and some species even have metacarpal spurs expressly for this purpose),
>and risk damage to the remiges, then I don't see why predatory
>"dinobirds" would have hesitated at using their forelimbs for prey capture.

And look at Archaeopteryx for example, it had these big feathers hanging
from it's forelimbs and it seems to survived very well at the isolated
islands that made up Europe in the Jurassic. We have these big specimens to
prove it, like the big Solnhofen specimen (or was this the type of that
other genus that has supposedly lived alongside A.?). There are these
rooster fights, in which, as the name says, two roosters try to peck the
hell out of each other, using their beak, as well as trying to "punch" their
opponent with their wings. Birds can be aggressive too you know...some left
over genes perhaps from their dinosaurian ancestors ;)

Rutger Jansma