Re: Bat wing digits (was Re: Tiktaalik)

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> A quick trip to the Field Museum's collections of skins and bones 
> confirmed
> earlier hypotheses.
>
> Another overlooked gem waiting to be discovered.

Cryptic.

> > 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.

Why? I'd say it's a plesiomorphy.

> > 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.

You misunderstood Jaime. He said "and", not "or". Here's the molecular 
phylogeny of Laurasiatheria:

+--Eulipotyphla
`--+--Chiroptera
  `--+--+--Carnivora
     |  `--Pholidota
     |--Perissodactyla
     `--Artiodactyla

So, according to most or all genes investigated so far, the sister-group of 
Chiroptera is Fereuungulata, which contains Carnivora _and_ Pholidota _and_ 
Artiodactyla. You can't have one "stretch" without the other _and/or_ 
without the "possibility".

(A few analyses find Eulipotyphla and Chiroptera as sister-groups. The rest 
of the tree is identical.)

> > 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.

Which means?

> Well, I'm not surprised to see that a gene was
> responsible for long fingers in bats.

What else! :-)

> It would be more interesting, IMHO, to see the evolutionary inbetweeners
> that really show how it happened.

Sure, but they are still in the ground, if at all...