Re: Big birds on Paleoworld

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 96-01-07 18:44:32 EST, Lightwaves@aol.com writes:

>Mainly I was struck with how much the skeletal remains of the large
>flightless birds looked, to me, like a dino skeleton. If it were not for the
>decidedly bird skull the rest could be a dino. IMHO this is another piece of
>evidence that directly link dinos to birds. 

Indeed. In BCF theory, giant, flightless predatory birds such as
_Phorusrhacos_, _Andalgalornis_, _Onactornis_, etc., are the exact analogues
of giant theropods such as _Allosaurus_ and _Tyrannosaurus_. The only
difference is that the theropods arose from small dino-birds well before they
had progessed to the _Archaeopteryx_ stage, whereas the phorusrhacids arose
from the same kinds of lineages well after the _Archaeopteryx_ stage. That's
why the theropods don't look as modern-birdlike as the phorusrhacids. It's
also interesting that phorusrhacids even managed to convert the vestigial
claws in their ancestors' wings into apparently usable claws.