POISONOUS BIRDS & HISTORICAL BIOLOGY

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

On poisonous birds, John Bois wrote...

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Not likely.  Poison in archosaurs is vanishingly rare.  I 
believe this (the pitohui) is the _only_ poisonous bird. 
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Note that (while opinions on their systematics differ) there 
is not one species of pitohui, but a few at least. Furthermore, 
_Pitohui_ is not the only toxic bird. See...

Dumbacher, J. P., Spande, T. F. & Daly, J. W. 2000. 
Batrachotoxin alkaloids from passerine birds: a second toxic 
bird genus (_Ifrita kowaldi_) from New Guinea. 
_Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA_ 
97, 12970-12975.

Moving on, the latest issue of _Historical Biology_ arrived 
last week. It of course has Dave Peters' wing paper but there 
are also a couple others of interest. Incidentally the volume 
is dated as December 2001. I suspect that its publication 
was substantially delayed and that actual publication was 
December 2002: can anyone confirm?

Peters, D. 2001 (?). A new model for the evolution of the 
pterosaur wing - with a twist. _Historical Biology_ 15, 277-
301.

Fiorillo, A. R. & Gangloff, R. A. 2001 (?). The caribou 
migration model for Arctic hadrosaurs (Dinosauria: 
Ornithischia): a reassessment. _Historical Biology_ 15, 323-
334.

Maisch, M. W. & Hungerbuhler, A. 2001 (?). New evidence 
for a discrete supratemporal bone in the Jurassic ichthyosaur 
_Temnodontosaurus_. _Historical Biology_ 15, 335-345.

There are also reviews of the Grigg et al. _Crocodilian 
Biology and Evolution_ volume (by Jim Farlow) and 
Benton et al's. _The Age of Dinosaurs in Russia and 
Mongolia_ (by David Fatovsky). Would like to say more on 
the above papers but don't have time.

-- 
Darren Naish
School of Earth & Environmental Sciences
University of Portsmouth UK, PO1 3QL

email: darren.naish@port.ac.uk
tel: 023 92846045