Re: Re: Quo vadis, T. rex

["Nicholas J. Pharris" <pharrinj@PLU.edu>]

On Mon, 5 Feb 1996, th81 wrote:

> >>In fact, tyrannos show innovations in foot structure and neural pathways 
> >
> >>strongly indicating that they are closer to birds than dromaeosaurs are, 
> >
> >>and maybe even closer than _Archaeopteryx_!
> >
> >You mean Bakker was right???
> 
> I remain unconvinced of such a position.  I am among the last of the people
> on this net, it seems, who believes that dromaeosaurids are the sister group
> to the Archie + later bird clade...

Not at all!  Well, not quite.  I remain quite firmly convinced that 
dromaeosaurs and archaeopts are sister groups, and that this group, the 
Archaeopterygiformes, is the sister group to the birds, including arctomets.

> There are questions as to the ornithomimosaur nature of the really scrappy
> Harpymimus type.  I still think it is an ornithomimosaur, myself.
> >

I took another look at the drawings in the _Dinosauria_ (but who knows 
how much those really have to say, given the poor nature of the 
material), and this animal looks like it might possibly be a sister taxon to 
all other ornithomimosaurs, including _Pelecanimimus_.  Or it might be 
some other kind of arctomet, convergent on ornithomimosaurs.  Hard to say 
right now.

> 
> 
> Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
> Vertebrate Paleontologist

Nick Pharris
Pacific Lutheran University
Tacoma, WA 98447
(206)535-8204
PharriNJ@PLU.edu

"If you can't convince them, confuse them." -- Harry S. Truman