Re: bipedal bird question

[Patrick Norton <ptnorton@suscom-maine.net>]

> At 08:50 PM 4/16/2006 -0500, David Peters wrote:
> > If I were to reference the idea that birds were bipeds before they
> > got wings, which reference should I choose?
>
> I'd suggest: Ostrom, J. H. 1974. _Archaeopteryx_ and the Origin of Flight. 
> Quarterly review of Biology 49(1):27-47.

I would offer three papers that are important in 1) first proposing a 
relationship between bipedal dinosaurs and birds and 2) establishing a 
cladistic relationship which supports the idea that modern birds are derived 
maniraptoran theropod dinosaurs.



Huxley noted the relationship between dinosaurs and birds, including 
observations about the similarities in the hip and implications for bipedal 
locomotion in dinosaurs, in 1870 in:



Further evidence of the Affinity between the Dinosaurian Reptiles and Birds. 
QJGS 26 (1870): 12-31; SM 3: 465-86. (Note: This article can be found at: 
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/SM3/Dino-boid.html.)



Ostrom revived this line of thinking in his description of Deinonychus in:



Ostrom, J. H. (1969). "Osteology of Deinonychus antirrhopus, an unusual 
theropod from the Lower Cretaceous of Montana". Peabody Museum of Natural 
History Bulletin 30: 1-165.



And Gauthier's cladistic analysis in 1986 was the first (I believe) to show 
support for the idea that birds are derived bipedal dinosaurs in:



Saurischian Monophyly and the Origin of Birds Gauthier, J.MEMOIRS OF THE 
CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES (No. 8); 1-55 (1986).



> From there, the literature proliferates.



PTN