Re: [dinosaur] Archaeopteryx had active flapping flight ability based on wing bone geometry (free pdf)

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

Gesendet:ÂMittwoch, 14. MÃrz 2018 um 17:25 Uhr
Von:Â"Ruben Safir" <ruben@mrbrklyn.com>

> That is with well evolved modern birds, and not all of them at all.
> Chickens will also do a running take off. Anyway you slice it, unless
> you have sufficient wing power then launching by leaping has zero value.
> A bird will land on its face every time. Geese and grouse will also
> run with wings spread out developing lift.

Having different shoulders from a modern bird, the new paper says, 
*Archaeopteryx* did more of a forestroke than an upstroke, and that was enough 
to eliminate the need for a running start... right?

> The other wrinkle in this conversation is that, if I recall previous
> discussions, modern birds evolved from waterfowl. Is that still the
> working hypothesis?

Nope, not in the last 20 years at minimum. The first member of Neornithes seems 
to have been a chicken-/tinamou-like animal. More aquatic birds 
(Hesperornithes, Ichthyornithes) are close to Neornithes, but farther away the 
closest you get to water is *Yanornis*. *Archaeopteryx* and the like show no 
adaptations to a lifestyle that involved bodies of water.

> So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
> that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
> proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998

I don't know why you keep repeating this. It's still a gross exaggeration. Lots 
of people know that Brooklyn is a part of New York City, but that's it; New 
York is famous "in the mind of the world", not Brooklyn.