Re: _Sinornithosaurus_

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Mike Keesey wrote:

<The authors claim it as evidence for a "Ground Up"
model of flight evolution for birds, since it had the
"prerequisites" of long arms and an Archie-like
shoulder. But since they claim that it is more
primitive than other members of a non-flying clade
(Deinonychosauria), wouldn't it make sense to
interpret _Sinornithosaurus_, which has more flight
characteristics than more derived deinonychosaurs, as
representative of an intermediate stage in the
evolution from a flying ancestor to secondarily 
flightless deinonychosaurs?>

  Not to rain on anybody's parade, here, but it is
likely that, if *Sinornithosaurus* (a poor choice in
names, by my mind) was not within the Dromaeosauridae
and while yes, it would be in the Deinonyhcosauria?
For one thing, *Sinornithosaurus* could be a distinct
animal from which animals retained their flapping
arms, while dromies dropped the act, and things like
*Unenlagia* and *Rahonavis* (named *Rahona* in the
paper) kept it after the _real_ bird-dromie split. Not
disagreeing with the 2nd-fl scenario, which is really
the first thing I'd thought when I'd read this stuff
come up a few days ago, but just to throw a new
interpretation into the fire. Pardon beforehand,

===
Jaime "James" A. Headden

"Come the path that leads us to our fortune."

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