Re: Rahona ostromi

["Jaime Headden" <jaemei@hotmail.com>]

<There's another story about Rahona ostromi on Fox News Wire, posted
at 1:20 ET March 19, 1998, which quotes a doubter, Larry Martin of
the University of Kansas, who maintains that it isn't a bird: "What 
they've got there is the rear end of a fairly typical dinosaur. The only 
thing that makes it unique is that it has a fairly typical bird wing." 
He said that because parts of the wing were found apart from the other 
bones, the remains might actually be a composite of a dinosaur and a 
bird.>

He ignores, of course, the very avian pelvis, with the processed 
posterior margin of the ischium virtually identical to Archie and 
*Unenlagia*, not to mention the dorsally pinched ilia (compressed 
towards each other) in an avian manner, along the whole length, or the 
structure of the tibia, more like that of Archie than dromies.

<"It really looks like they have a mixture of animals. It turns out too 
good to be true.">

As if he's just decided it for everyone.

<But David Krause of SUNY Stony Brook, who led the dig which uncovered
the fossils, says that most of the wing was discovered mixed in with
the other remains. "There is always that problem with fossils. But the 
ulna and scapula (bones found in the wing) were found right on top." He 
added that the radius, another bone in the wing, had only drifted a foot 
away and that no other bird fossils were located within four yards of 
Rahona.>

Jaime A. Headden

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com