Pedopenna daohugouensis n gen sp

[Markus Moser <dml_moser@web.de>]

A new dinosaur with feathered legs called Pedopenna daohugouensis is described 
in Naturwissenschaften, and it is not (!)from Liaoning, but from Nei Mongol. It 
is claimed, that the age of this eumaniraptoran could be as early as Middle or 
Late Jurassic.

Xing Xu and Fucheng Zhang
A new maniraptoran dinosaur from China with long feathers on the metatarsus.

Abstract  The unusual presence of long pennaceous feathers on the feet of basal 
dromaeosaurid dinosaurs has recently been presented as strong evidence in 
support of the arboreal?gliding hypothesis for the origin of bird flight, but 
it could be a unique feature of dromaeosaurids and thus irrelevant to the 
theropod?bird transition. Here, we report a new eumaniraptoran theropod from 
China, with avian affinities, which also has long pennaceous feathers on its 
feet. This suggests that such morphology might represent a primitive adaptation 
close to the theropod?bird transition. The long metatarsus feathers are likely 
primitive for Eumaniraptora and might have played an important role in the 
origin of avian flight.


http://www.springerlink.com/media/M3T1FAWHLG3XQGQHLK1P/Contributions/C/1/C/K/C1CKUT785MH2HQJ8_html/fulltext.html

supplementary material is available for this article at 
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00114-004-0604-y


------------------------
Dr. Markus Moser
Staatliches Museum fuer Naturkunde Stuttgart
Museum am Loewentor (= Rosenstein 1)
D-70191 Stuttgart
Germany






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