Re: New alvarezsaurid

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

<<Oh well, it looks like another nail in BCF's coffin.>>

<Au contraire, mon ami. Although I haven't seen the paper yet, what I 
gather from the dinosaur list postings is that Shuuvuia (or however you 
spell it) is a perfect example of a flightless ground-dwelling form 
descended from a flying dino-bird. Fits with BCF precisely. The big 
problem is just where on the bird-theropod cladogram to place it.>

Double atavism. I think I'm being redundant here, saying something 
that's been said before. But if ratites are derived from volant forms, 
which in turn were derived from cursorial forms, then it is highly 
likely so were the Mongolian dinobirds (and all other alvarezsaurids). I 
have no probelem with this.

But when we have a 100 million year gap between *Protoavis* and the 
first feathered fossils (Archie, *Sinornis,* etc.) this is either 
attributable to ghost taxa (all too likely, considering the 
champsosaurs) or that we have some really wierd archosaur (and who 
knows, Greg may be totally right in postulating in PDW that he was a 
herrerasaur, therefore a dinosaur, and that may be *Protoavis'* 
cladistic placement).

The case is open, with both sides having their qualifying points, so I'm 
going to be the good little scientist and wait. (Actually, I'd like to 
see the rest of *Protoavis'* skeleton.)

Jaime A. Headden

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