Re: Penguins (was Re: "Dinosaurs Died Within Hours After Asteroid Hit Earth..." )

[Christopher Taylor <ck.taylor@auckland.ac.nz>]

_Manu antiquus_ is a very fragmentary fossil procellariiform from here in
New Zealand. It used to be included in Diomedeidae, now it's just shuffled
off into Procellariiformes _Incertae  sedis_. I just used it as a random
possibly-basal procellariiform, mainly because I like it's name :).
    The Procellariiformes do include a genus known as the diving petrels
(_Pelecanoides_), which are extremely alcid-like (many a book has commented
on how, from the outside, they are almost indistinguishable from the totally
unrelated little auk). When the evolution of the penguin was mentioned to us
at university a few years ago, we were shown the series (not literal, of
course) petrel --> diving petrel --> penguin as a freakishly strong
convergence to the Northern Hemisphere gull --> puffin --> great auk (the
original 'penguin').
    And found by random when trying to find 'Manu' on the internet - I
believe someone asked for way-out theories a while ago?
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/initial.bipedalism/10.htm - Enjoy :D!

    Cheers,

        Christopher Taylor

On 3/6/04 4:43 am, "Tim Williams" <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com> wrote:

> What is _Manu_?
> 
> AFAIK no pre-flightless pansphenisciform is known.  That would indeed be a
> wonderful discovery (I would guess that the postcranium of these ur-penguins
> would be superficially very puffin-like, with the wings adapted for both
> flying and swimming).  At the moment Pansphenisciformes and Sphenisciformes
> are equivalent in content since all known penguins and their stem relatives
> are flightless.  Sphenisciformes is more inclusive than Spheniscidae because
> certain fossil sphenisciforms appear to lie outside the crown group.
> 
> As Jaime alluded to, the proposed definition of Sphenisciformes ("loss of
> aerial flight homologous with that of extant penguins") is fraught with
> problems.  Even if we had these transitional taxa, would we be able to pin
> down exactly when aerial flight was lost?  It's like Gauthier and de
> Queiroz's proposed definition of Avialae ("having wings associated with
> powered flight") except in reverse.  The same problem applies: defining a
> clade based on a behavior that is unpreservable and based entirely on
> ecomorphological inference.
> 
> 
> 
> Tim
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Looking to buy a house? Get informed with the Home Buying Guide from MSN
> House & Home. http://coldwellbanker.msn.com/
> 
>