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Re: Tiktaalik

T. Michael Keesey wrote: 
On 4/6/06, Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com> wrote:

This experimentation lasts until an evolutionary "tipping point" is reached,
when the body plan becomes committed to a given ecomorphology (locomotory
style, in these cases), and there's no way back.


Better examples would be pterosaurs and bats, where there really
wasn't any locomotory reversion  (that we know of, anyway).

I'd take a punt that were flightless pterosaurs somewhere in the Late Jurassic, when pterodactyloids on isolated islands didn't yet face competition from those scampering birds. Doubt they'll be discovered though.


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