HOLLOW-BONED ARCHAEOPTERYX

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

On whether or not the bones of _Archaeopteryx_ are hollow, George 
recently wrote..

> Larry Martin told me personally that the limb 
> bones of the London _Archaeopteryx_ were >not< hollow. Wish I could 
> afford to go to London, slice through a limb bone and find out once 
> and for all...

> What an elementary observation to be debating!

As has now been pretty well documented in the literature, 
_Archaeopteryx_ limb bones certainly *are* hollow, contra to claims 
otherwise. An explicit statement and illustrating photo resolving 
this issue can be found in Tarsitano and Hecht's paper 'Reconsidering 
the reptilian relationships of _Archaeopteryx_' (that may not be the 
exact title - this is from memory).

On another matter, Matt Troutman recently said something about the 
evolution of macropods and the presence of arboreality and bipedality 
in this lineage. Haven't got time to go into this, but it's worth 
mentioning that at least _some_ marsupial workers still consider 
arboreality primitive for all kangaroos. Dave Peters has referred to 
this theory on and off over the years - do note that it is 
emphatically not a consensus view however.

"Harry, why is the clock on that 9 ft long nuclear weapon ticking?"

DARREN NAISH
darren.naish@port.ac.uk