Museum Unveils Most Bird-like Dinosaur Yet

Then why is the museum that found it calling it a dromaeosaur?

Sincerely Yours,

<< >DANIA BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Scientists have identified what may be the

First off, nothing from the cretaceous is a link between birds and anything. Bambiraptor is a bird, nothing else. The simple fact is, that only two tiny populations of birds survived the cretacous, and prior to that most birds had teeth.

It's a nifty find, but proves nothing beyond it's existance.

eric l.

Well, you have to understand! Its all a part of that global conspiracy to suppress the obviously correct and essentially undebatable point that birds evolved from . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (What was that, crocs and turtles?) ))

At some point the 'Flat Earth Society' became a joke. Maybe the 'Birds aint Dino's' club will suffer the same fate. Each year they could all get together and make an award for the most insane thesis on how birds have no relation to any 'big lizard'. Then again, maybe not!

Regards

(I believe you're speaking of the maniraptoriform condition

and the first 'birds aint dino's' award goes to CAL KING!!

Unanimous decision, no lo contendre! And to purloin an old phrase, 'This IS for the birds!'!! )))

On a slightly more serious vein, take care, or you too can end up as a name on 'Cal's Corprolite Column' as well! 8-))

Regards

<< >Bambiraptor is a bird, nothing else.

Then why is the museum that found it calling it a dromaeosaur?

Sincerely Yours, Jordan >>

Well, they found a flying bird in madagascar with dromaeosar feet, and thus there is evidence that dromaeosaurs are secondarily flightless birds.

Flightlessness has evolved many times over the eons, and at least twice that everybody agrees about during the cretaceous. A primitive bird with teeth and clawed wings would look like a dinosaur with feathers.

also http://www.bambiraptor.com/

'Bambiraptor'? I hope somebody is kidding. On second thought, I hope it is not a fake! Only half as old as Archeaopteryx? What kind of a link did you say?

Larry Martin is another big-timer along with Feduccia. Regarding your theory <snipped> I finally got around to reading Pat Shipman's _Taking Wing_, and I heartily recommend it. She goes over each such theory bone by bone, flight principle by flight principle.

Too bad, another name for my killfile. It is quite obvious that 'Tony Hedges' is another lay person who has no understanding of biology at all and whose interest is pure ad hominem. 'A cross-over skeleton!' Perhaps this 'Tony Hedges' is the same person masquerading as Bob Keeter/John Brock/Dwight E. Howell/Jordan Bassior or their ally? They certainly are birds of a feather.

Even if feathers are found on a dinosaur, that still does not mean that birds are descended from dinosaurs. It may only mean that feathers are not a uniquely avian character. To give an example, the hepatic piston diaphragm had been thought to be a unique crocodilian character, but it has since been found in a theropod. Does that mean that theropods are crocodilians? Of course not! It only means that crocodilians are closely related to theropods, perhaps more closely related to them than birds are. Now if feathers were found on a dinosaur, that would complicate things a bit for the systematists. They would have to figure out which came first: feather or hepatic piston. But for now, there is no need to speculate on that scenario. No undisputed feathered dinosaur has yet been found, as Storrs Olson of the Smithsonian Institution has pointed out.

We're all different people. You can track my other posts on deja.news, if you care to. I post a lot on rec.arts.sf.written, soc.history.what-if, and alt.tv.daria.

True. But how do you explain all the *other* similarities between avians and theropods (and in particular maniraptorians)?

Sincerely Yours,

That actually strikes me as more plausible than having birds *not* be closely related to dromaeosaurs. The problem is though that some of the early dromaeosaurs don't look very avian at all. Check out Utahraptor, for example. Now, I'm not an anatomical expert, so I could be being fooled by appearances ...

I'm currently of the opinion that both evolved from a common Early to Middle Jurassic ancestor.

Sincerely Yours,