Re: Archie skull pneumatics?

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 4:45 AM

>   Both *Archaeopteryx* and *Bambiraptor* have incomplete preservation of
> the postorbital bar.

Even though generations of paleontologists have assumed they knew what it
looked like in *Archaeopteryx*. Well, the postorbital is there, the
postorbital process on the jugal is there, but whether they met is unknown.

> <There are other non-pygostylian theropods with very short tails, such as
> the avian *Jeholornis* (22), the curious *Protarchaeopteryx* (23), and
> *Caudipteryx* (22).>
>
>   Actually, *Caudipteryx* has 24.

Really? -- Now don't tell me you've adopted my old argument that a)
*Nomingia* has 24, so *Caudipteryx* may have had 24, too, and b) either the
last preserved vertebra which is shown in Vertebrata PalAsiatica is a
pygostyle (22 + 23 +  24) or a pygostyle (23 + 24) has fallen off... :8-)