Raptors Are Not Dinosaurs? Oh, My!

[Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com>]

I'm reading Prum's recent broadside at Feduccia and his buddies:

        RICHARD O. PRUM (2002).  Are Current Critiques of the Theropod
        Origin of Birds Science?  Rebuttal to Feduccia.  The Auk
        120(2):550­561, 2003

Very entertaining.  Those who've been following this thread for the
last few years will know that Fedducia, having long asserted that
birds are not dinosaurs, now accepts that dromaeosaurs are birds,
since they have assymetric pennaceous feathers; but he now claims that
Raptors Are Not Dinosaurs -- Oh My (or RANDOM for short).

My question: is there _any_ stage in the theropod tree where there
could possibly be a break from "true" theropods to non-dinosaur
"theropods" derived from non-dinosaurian birds (which in turn would be
derived from basal archosaurs).  That is, in the fossil record that
runs (roughly) _Eoraptor_ -> _Coelophysis_ -> _Megalosaurus_ ->
Carnosauria -> Tyrannosauria -> "Enigmosaurs" -> Dromaeosauridae ->
Aves, is there any suspiciously wide morphological gulf between known
fossil forms where Feduccia's proposed leap from dinosaur to
non-dinosaurian secondarily flightless bird could take place?

And if there is such a gap, what kind of fossil animal should we now
be predicting is due to turn up and fill it? :-)

 _/|_    _______________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor  <mike@indexdata.com>  http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "Oh no, you mustn't do that ...  They BREED in sewers,
         and then you get huge swarms of evil-smelling twelve-foot
         tall killer-budgies coming at you out of the drains!" --
         Monty Python's Flying Circus.

--
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