Re: neoflightless dinosaurs

["Nick Gardner" <n_gardner637@hotmail.com>]

Greg Paul wrote:
> you know, there are vast numbers of new dinosaurs that I hardly know
> the names for

Ugh... yes, there are sooo many and I cannot even begin to recall them all!

> Caudipteryx (with its small, symmetrical hand feathers) especially is
> in no regard anatomically indicative of being a protoflier and has all the 
> attributes expected in a neoflightless bird. It's not been shown that the 
> skull of Incisivosaurus is over all less avian than
> that of Archaeopteryx, in fact it seems more so in some palatal features.

Could you elaborate on these palatal features?

> This is the sort of flight loss reversal thing that cladistics
> is inherently hard pressed to handle.

Why do you think cladistics are "inherently hard pressed to handle" 
reversals?

> In fact, there is growing evidence that some short tailed flying birds
> from the Jehol have strong oviraptor like features, which may eventually 
> show that the dinosaurs are descended from
> birds more highly derived than even I suggested in DA.

Your book was rather confusing (too many dashes and question marks, my head 
is still reeling from that) regarding this.  Could you please post a more 
precise example (preferably in the form of a cladogram) onlist of what you 
were suggesting?

> I've finished restoring the type Cryptovolans (which might be Microraptor 
> but it's real hard to tell because the latter's
> type is inadequate although its tail is much shorter) in the same flight 
> mode I used in fig 7.4 in DA (ask to see it at SVP).

If we are incapable of seeing it there by lacking sufficient transport and 
funds, may we see it linked to onlist in the weeks post-SVP?

> However, the cladistic evidence that Archy was more avian than dromy is 
> actually weak and badly contaminated by  problems of neoflightless
> reversal, and there is abundant character data that dromys are more
> avian anyway.

Hey, maybe it's just a problem of needing more taxa and better characters to 
sort it all out, because afterall, not everyone is blessed enough to have 
received their copies of the Czerkas volume or gotten the scans from 
individuals who do have this book (I'm the latter though & I like these new 
maniraptorans a lot), and it does take time to add new varmints to a matrix, 
especially those big matrices.  Not that I would know, I'm only a 
palaeoartist and a high-school student, but golly (feeling Cleaver-esque), 
thought it was worth suggesting...


_________________________________________
NICK GARDNER
Palaeoartist
aim CloudRaptor05


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