|
Hi all,
It's me again, now dealing with some questions
about the early Cretaceous Enantiornithid (?) Iberomesornis from Spain and if
anyone could help me, it will be greatly appreciated:
1) Has there been any hand-material discovered
for this genus? The photographs of the specimen has the hands missing, due to
preservation or due to fossilisation, I don't know, point is: they aren't there.
But... L. D. Martin has them reconstructed in his Iberomesornis-reconstruction
from 1995b (The Enantiornithes: Terrestrial birds of the Cretaceous in avian
evolution. Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg, 181: 23- 26). The
reason for this question is that I am doing a reconstruction of this genus and
it is important to know wether the hands should be based on a) L. D. Martin's
reconstruction, b) based on Sinornis (which is a close relative, based on pelvic
similarities) or c) something else...
2) Feduccia's (sorry for mentioning the name :))
book says, again based on L. D. Martin's research, that Iberomesornis was a
juvenile birds, this is certainly possible, mainly due to it's small size (it
was only 8 cm long), but what are the current estimates about how long it was
when it reached adulthood?
3) For this little Spanish genus was an entire
new order erected, the so called Iberomesornithiformes, is this family stil
valid in light of the possibility that it could be a juvenile birds (reasons for
doubt: other thread) ? And if so, are there any new genera included herein and
on what characters is this order funded?
Thanks in advance!
Rutger Jansma
|