Re: Dino/bird amphibians

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

Jura (pristichampsus@yahoo.com) wrote:

<I believe he meant amphibious, as in a semi-aquatic dinosaur.>

  To my knowledge, the only Mesozoic amphibious dinosaurs are
hesperornithiforms, such as *Hesperornis,* *Baptornis,* *Pseudhesperornis,* and
so forth; there may be a few other taxa there, and the most basal hespers are
apparently flight-capable and thus probably not amphibious.

  As for redefining "amphibian" and "amphibious," I tend to think any attempt
at lack of confusion draws from the nature of calling a tank an amphibian, when
in fact it does not resemble a frog, salamander, caecilian, etc. The tanks were
so named, however, because they were capable of land-to-water and vice versa, a
comparison that was obvious to the designers of such amphibious vehicles.

  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)

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the 
experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to 
do so." --- Douglas Adams


                
____________________________________________________ 
Yahoo! Sports 
Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign up for Fantasy Football 
http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com