Re: Birdosaurs

["Matthew Troutman" <m_troutman@hotmail.com>]

>Indeed, there may have been several different kinds of wings (digital
>formulae: four digits, three middle digits, first three digits, two 
digits,
>maybe as few as one) among the early birds, only one of which remained 
by the
>Cenozoic. But there aren't enough specimens available to give us more 
than a
>vague idea of what's going on. You can bet that there were hundreds, 
maybe
>even thousands of species of dinobirds extant at any particular time 
during
>the Mesozoic. We only see a very, very small fraction of them in the 
fossil
>record.
>

   I agree with one thing in this message: we underestimate the 
diversity of dinosaurs. There are 8000 or 9000 species of birds out 
there today, and we assume dinosaurs did not have that much at any time 
during their reign. 


MattTroutman

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