Re: Feathered dinos

[NJPharris@aol.com]

In a message dated 10/27/99 3:11:18 PM Pacific Daylight Time, Dinogeorge 
writes:

Trying not to get myself in over my head, but...

> Would be interesting to see what Tim (or is it Tom? :-) Rowe might do with 
> CT scans of the Archaeoraptor slab...

IIRC, it was CT scans that suggested (or at least confirmed) the chimaeric 
nature of this specimen.

With regard to Tom H.'s comment about my earlier statements, I could 
certainly believe that only two animals are present in the _Archaeoraptor_ 
specimen--early bird heads, after all, look very like those of dromaeosaurs 
and troodonts.  The feet, however, really do look like they are from a much 
smaller animal than the rest of the specimen, and they appear from the NG 
photos to exhibit an avimimid or mononykine-like hyper-arctomet condition.  
In fact, floating near the lower foot are a pair of bones that look like a 
very short radius and ulna.  Certainly they are rather long for pedal 
phalanges.

--Nick P.