Re: New bird evolution papers (Acta Zoologica Sinica)

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Jeff Hecht wrote:

> And the PDF files are available for download from
> http://www.actazool.org/issuedetail.asp?volume=50&number=6&issue_id=93

Thanks.  Alas, my downloaded pdf of the Martin paper is missing Fig. 6 
("Life reconstructions of _Longisquama_...").  Thankfully, my pdf does 
include a humorous illustration of _Caudipteryx_ (Fig. 3D), which looks like 
it just walked off the set of "Sesame Street".

Overall, the paper is the same-old same-old.  The usual suspects are back 
(_Cosesaurus_, _Megalancosaurus_, _Longisquama_), all of which supposedly 
constitute a potpourri of basal "archosaurs" that may have given rise to 
birds.  "All of these genera are considered arboreal archosaurs by some 
authors" says Martin; but he omits to say whose these authors are.  
Maniraptorans are not really theropods, etc.

David Marjanovic wrote:

> > And more stuff has been found for _Hesperornis rossica_.
>
> *H. rossicus*. Unlike the Russian and Latin words for bird, the Greek one 
> is masculine.

I had thought the new ICZN rules allowed for bad gramma in scientific names, 
with no recourse for emendation once the animal is officially named.

> > (By "inner fingers" the authors probably mean "inner toes".)
>
> Certainly. There's only one word for both in Russian (...and Latin... and 
> French...).

In a similar vein, the Zhou and Zhang paper refers to "manual toe 
proportions".



Tim