Re: More New Papers LIVES!

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

> The usual suspects rear their ugly heads: a ground-up origin of flight is 
> said to be "largely falsified", as is the presence of feathers in 
> non-avian theropods;

Of course, the presence of scales on one small patch of *Juravenator* and 
the absence of any kind of preserved skin on the whole rest of the fossil 
utterly proves its total lack of feathers in life. And of course it is "a 
compsognathid".

> microraptorans are said to have held their legs outward,

And so is Archie. Never mind the fact that it has one of the biggest 
supracetabular crests of all coelurosaurs.

And the temporal paradox still exists.

And in general research on theropods has stopped 20 to 30 years ago, except 
for the discovery (and just the discovery) of new specimens...

Most embarrassing is the authors' simple refusal to accept that Archie did 
not have a retroverted hallux. They actually repeat the famous photo of the 
London specimen where mt I does not even touch mt II. Disarticulation before 
burial? Pressure of 100 m or more of rock for 150 Ma after the burial? No 
such thing ever seems to happen in BizarroWorld. They cite Middleton! But 
they don't even try to say anything against his arguments; they just take 
the photos of the fossils and imply that the preserved position cannot 
possibly differ from the position in life.