Re: Falcarius utahensis

[Mickey Mortimer <Mickey_Mortimer111@msn.com>]

Tim Williams wrote-

> >                            `--+--+--Patagopteryx
> >                               |  `--Parvicursor
>
> _Parvicursor_ leapfrogs quite a few nodes to get here - out of the
> Alvarezsauridae and right next to _Patagopteryx_.  Very interesting.

Primarily due to the absence of a supracetabular crest and pelvic fusion
(both unlike other arctometatarsalians).  I'm sure once the hindlimb
characters are coded (unfused metatarsus, hyperarctometatarsus, etc.), it
will go back to Alvarezsauridae.

> >The mess between carnosaurs and tyrannoraptorans is cleaning up, with
only
> >basal tyrannosaurs, two coelurids and Therizinosaurus left there.
>
> What's pulling _Therizinosaurus_ out of the Maniraptora, away from the
other
> segnosaurs?

A lot of characters which are for the most part seen in other segnosaurs,
except for the relatively uncompressed manual unguals.  And with very few
segnosaurian forelimb synapomorphies included, it groups basally without
non-forelimb evidence to place it properly.

Mickey Mortimer
Undergraduate, Earth and Space Sciences
University of Washington
The Theropod Database - http://students.washington.edu/eoraptor/Home.html