Re: Sharovipteryx an ornithodiran??

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

> Sure finger V of pteros is tiny, but that goes back to Macrocnemus.

It's not just tiny, it's gone, and so is its metacarpal.

> Finger IV is still a lateral digit. Not THE lateral digit. A lateral 
> digit. In lizards long. In archosaurs small, smaller than III at least.

Indeed it is small in pterosaurs -- not in length, but in the number of 
phalanges (4 instead of 5).

> Toe V in pterosaurs has fewer phalanges because two shorts fused to become 
> one long.

Then where is the ungual? Look at the stepwise reduction of the claw of 
finger III in birds. Never did that finger look like the 5th toe of a 
pterosaur. And where is the evidence for fusion? Where is the suture?

> In archosauriforms, as you know, toe V is always pretty short.

Doesn't prevent them from lengthening it secondarily...

> Benton 1985 did and look what he found.

Based on how many taxa and characters?

> The pattern is so different that, as I think I mentioned before, you put 
> any number of archosaurs into a cladogram, add the basal pterosaur MPUM 
> 6009 and two lizards, Varanus and Iguana, and the pterosaur will nest with 
> the Iguana. You don't even need the usual predecessors. Try it!

If I really get to making an amniote phylogeny as part of my dissertation 
(starting this summer), I will...