Re: "Dinosaurs Died Within Hours After Asteroid Hit Earth..."

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Tim Williams (twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com) wrote:

<(Warning: Rampant speculation ahead...please take with a heavy dose of 
salt).  The only known _Beipiaosaurus_ specimen is not fully grown, so one
 could speculate that in certain non-flighted maniraptorans a pennaceous 
plumage only appeared with the onset of sexual maturity.  This was
certainly not true for flying maniraptorans, since even the smaller
_Archaeopteryx_ specimens are endowed with a full plumage, including the
rectricial "frond" on the tail.>

  I like salt with my speculation!

  The smaller specimens may be either subadults, which in the avian world
have developed pluamge, or the largest specimens, as implicated by
Elzanowski, may belong to different taxa with larger adults than in
"mainstream" *Archaeopteryx.*

  Similarly, the *Beipiaosaurus* centra are fused in an irregular pattern,
with the four distal-most central fused, whereas the neural arches of
several distal vertebrae are fused -- but there is a region between some
which show lack of fusion, indicating possible progressive (yet
incomplete) fusion.

  Cheers,

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)


        
                
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