Re: Deinonychus restoration

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Nick Pharris (njpharris@aol.com) wrote:

<Looks good, but (and this is a general question) why do I keep seeing
dromaeosaurids reconstructed with long feathers only at the end of the
tail?  I'd imagine they would have flat feathers sticking out to the sides
for the whole length of the tail, as appears to be the case in
_Archaeopteryx_, _Jurapteryx_ (if distinct from the former),
_Microraptor_, and, IIRC, "Dave".>

  Truly pinnate features along the entire sides of the tail are known only
in the *Arechaeopteryx* complex among these taxa. In some taxa, a distal
"fan" is present, but otherwise, as in "Dave"/"Yulong" and
*Sinosauropteryx*, the tail is adorned only by a "sheath" of filaments.
Not pinnaecous ones. It is more parsimoniuous with the multitude of forms
with distal "fans" to propose that this is the condition more likely to
occur in other non-avian taxa.

  Cheers,

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Sign up for SBC Yahoo! Dial - First Month Free
http://sbc.yahoo.com