Re: [dinosaur] Review of Bois & Mullin (2017)

[Tim Williams <tijawi@gmail.com>]

David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at> wrote:

>> Somehow I was unaware that Messelornis was flightless! I've read an 
>> offhanded mention of it as flightless from a 2010 paper by
>> Larry Martin, but Mayr's Paleogene Fossil Birds claims it had "only 
>> moderate" flight capabilities (citing a German publication
>> from 1990 by Hesse), suggesting it was not entirely incapable of flight.
>
> Oh! That explains a few things. Trust Mayr, not me! He has worked on the 
> specimens, I haven't even read his book.


Mayr's 2016 review paper (Biol. Rev. doi: 10.1111/brv.12274), which
lists the Messel bird species so far described, gives the jay-sized,
long-legged ralloid _Messelornis_ as being terrestrial, but not
flightless.  _Messelornis_ is by the far the most abundant bird from
the Messel site - probably because it hung around the lake.