Re: Bat wing digits (was Re: Tiktaalik)

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

David Peters (davidrpeters@earthlink.net) wrote:

<Everyone looking for transitional forms in bats has been staring too long at
the wings and not looking at all at the rest of the bat. Same thing happened in
pterosaurs awhile back and some guy without a PhD figured out the phylogeny
based on the feet.>

  Dave, the problem with the data on the foot-based phylogeny is that none of
it is published -- and by published, not in _Prehistoric Times_. This would
need to be critically reviewed, and not based on digital line drawings until
THAT method can be proven.

  On the main thesis, most people who have studied bat phylogeny tend to look
at the skull and the teeth (when using morphology). For these researchers, they
know to look only at the wings would be futile, as no other mammal has even any
arms LIKE them, and the high distinction of the limbs obscures all nascent,
primitive features from being trustworthy). Instead, they have identified
rather basal eutherian models in the skull, insectivoran [read: eulipotyphlan]
teeth shape (possibly convergent based on an insect-based diet). Otherwise,
molecular phylogenies place bats closer to artiodactyls, carnivorans, and other
northern-continent related groups, including pangolins. So the wings are not
distracting to these people, as nor should they be to anyone else. Sears' work
is primarily evo-devo, not phylogenetic, with the intention of figuring out how
it happened, not when and where.

  Cheers,

Jaime A. Headden
http://bitestuff.blogspot.com/

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com