Re: Bird origin ref.

[Robert.J.Meyerson@uwrf.edu (Rob Meyerson)]

Adam Yates writes;

>Just got hold of a reprint of this ref. Welman, J. 1995. Euparkeria and
>the origin of birds. South African Journal of Science 91, 533-537.
>In this paper Welman compares the braincases of Euparkeria, Euskelosaurus
>Syntarsus and Sphenosuchus with those of birds. He found that
>the dinosaurs and sphenosuchus share derived characters not seen in
>either birds or Euparkeria and that there were some derived characters
>shared between Euparkeria and birds. He concluded that there was a sister
>group relationship between Euparkeria and Birds! Obviously the principle
>of total evidence was ignored.

This is Welman's interpretation of his data.  Unfortunately, as scientists,=
 we cannot just ignore this interpretation.  We can take another look to see=
 if there are other possible interpretations, but it must be added to the=
 pile of work already done.  Now, I want birds to be dinosaurs myself, but=
 how do we make that fit with the information Welman offers.  The real=
 question I have is: does he see  in birds the same features we see in=
 theropods?  One possible interpretation could be that the theropods are a=
 distict lineage, separate from the ornithischians and sauropodomorphs (a=
 point for BCF George).

Rob

***
"Don't panic."