Re: What the fossil record tells us about trends in pterosaur diversity

[Augusto Haro <augustoharo@gmail.com>]

For bird experts: how do the Cretaceous bird species richness match
this pattern of taphonomic biases favored for pterosaurs?

Even when the bones of birds seem to be relatively thicker than those
of pterosaurs (I think I read that somewhere), one would think they
are also relatively fragile animals that should be little preserved in
non-Lagerstätte rocks, or at least somewhat as little preserved as
pterosaurs.

So, if the apparent pterosaur species richness drop in the Late
Creteaceous was produced by taphonomic biases, I would expect a
similar drop in bird species richness... does that occur? (I ask about
the preserved record, which should be correlated with the taphonomical
biases, and not the species richness inferred by neornithean ghost
lineages).