Re: chicken wing-claws

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

> A few years back when I started to get a little more serious on dinosaurs,
I
> decided to check for myself if chickens would complie with their
dinosaurian
> origin, i. e., if they would have claws like their relative Ophistocomus.

Relative? The hoatzin is not a galliform. (And probably not a cuculiform
either.) Not that anyone would know _what_ it is... turacos (Musophagidae)
and pigeons (Columbiformes) have recently been suggested and have quite some
support from the data.

> In fact Gallus retains wingclaws all through it's life as does the
Muschovy
> duck, Cairina moschata.
> I'm just stating this to find out if anyone here knew about this.

While I don't have your experience, I've seen lots of (fried) chicken and
turkey alulae with small, certainly functionless, usually straight claws. By
far most specimens have these claws. I think I've once seen a claw on a 2nd
finger instead.

These are definitely not metacarpal spurs like seen in anhimids.