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Re: A therizinosauroid dinosaur with integumentary structures fromChina
On Thu, 27 May 1999, Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. wrote:
> The ilium is more similar to oviraptorosaurs in shape to oviraptorosaurs
> than derived therizinosauroids. What exists of the skull shows that it is
> large for a therizinosauroid (for example, the dentary is 65% of the femur
> length).
There's something I don't understand. Given this phylogeny ...
--+--Compsognathidae (bristles)
`--+--+--Therizinosauria (bristles)
| `--+--_Caudipteryx_ (feathers)
| `--Oviraptorosauria (integument unknown)
`--+--_Protarchaeopteryx_ (feathers)
|--Deinonychosauria (integument unknown)
`--Avialae (feathers)
... true feathers would have evolved twice. Maybe I should wait until I
read the paper, but it seems that ...
a) _Caudipteryx_ lies outside {Oviraptorosauria + Therizinosauria}
(closer to birds).
or
b) There is no {Oviraptorosauria + Therizinosauria}; therizinosaurs share
less recent common ancestry with birds than oviraptorosaurs do.
or
c) Maybe the therizinosaur bristles are degenerate?
ARR! One of the biggest discoveries of the decade and I can't add it to my
site! BTW, I'm still looking for a recent version of taxa.txt or
genera.txt from my currently-dead website -- anything more recent than
April 23rd would be welcome.
--T. Mike Keesey <tkeese1@gl.umbc.edu>
WORLDS <http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~tkeese1>
THE DINOSAURICON <http://dinosaur.umbc.edu>