Re: Bat wing digits (was Re: Tiktaalik)

[David Peters <davidrpeters@earthlink.net>]

A quick trip to the Field Museum's collections of skins and bones confirmed
earlier hypotheses.

Another overlooked gem waiting to be discovered.

David



"Jaime A. Headden" wrote:

> 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,

Not true.


> 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).

That's a stretch.

> Otherwise,
> molecular phylogenies place bats closer to artiodactyls,

That's a stretch.

> carnivorans,

That's a possibility.

> and other
> northern-continent related groups, including pangolins.

That's another stretch.

> So the wings are not
> distracting to these people, as nor should they be to anyone else.

They seem to be happy just to hit the dart board, rather than the bull's eye.


> Sears' work
> is primarily evo-devo, not phylogenetic, with the intention of figuring out 
> how
> it happened, not when and where.

Well, I'm not surprised to see that a gene was responsible for long fingers in
bats. It would be more interesting, IMHO, to see the evolutionary inbetweeners
that really show how it happened.

dp
stl

>
>
>   Cheers,
>
> Jaime A. Headden
> http://bitestuff.blogspot.com/
>
> "Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)
>
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