Re: solnhofen

["Patrick Mellor" <patrickmellor@hotmail.com>]

What happened to Protoavis? (you say no support for BCF) Was it ever proved
to be a chimera, and why is it that Protoavis seems to be completely ignored
and no one ever talks about it.

Patrick Mellor

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Williams" <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>
To: <Dinogeorge@aol.com>; <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 6:27 PM
Subject: Re: solnhofen


>
> Dinogeorge@aol.com wrote:
>
> >Nope. The predatory stroke was co-opted from the wingstroke. Where am I
> > >wrong?
>
> Not wrong, so much.  It's just that BCF* has (at this moment in
> time)absolutely no support in the fossil record.  To my knowledge, there
is
> no evidence of small, especially bird-like theropods in the Triassic.  Not
> even _Saltopus_, which George brought up earlier - is there any proof that
> _Saltopus_ is even a dinosaur?  The incompleteness of the fossil record
> aside, in this case the total absence of Triassic birds may be due to the
> fact that (quite simply) they didn't exist.
>
>
> *To the uninitiated, BCF = Birds Came First.  A scenario proposed by
George
> Olshevsky to explain the morphology and inferred behavior (such as the
> "predatory stroke" of the forelimb) of Jurassic and Cretaceous theropods.
> According to this view, the various groups of theropods we see in the
> Cretaceous, Jurassic (?and Triassic) are in reality secondarily flightless
> birds.  Birds, under the BCF scenario, evolved in the Triassic, and later
> theropods are their descendents.  IMHO, BCF may be true in a limited
context
> (I'm prepared to believe that oviraptorosaurs might be secondarily
> flightless birds) - but ALL ground-dwelling theropods representing birds
> that lost the power of stroke!!!???
>
> (To be honest, I actually hope George is correct.  It would make a LOT of
> sense.  Alas, this far, the available suggests otherwise.)
>
>
> Tim
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Timothy J. Williams
>
> USDA/ARS Researcher
> Agronomy Hall
> Iowa State University
> Ames IA 50014
>
> Phone: 515 294 9233
> Fax:   515 294 3163
>
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