Re: protoavis

["T. Mike Keesey" <tmk@dinosauricon.com>]

On Thu, 26 Apr 2001, Patrick Mellor wrote:

> As of 1997 his 'Rise of Birds' book relies completely on Protoavis for its
> BCF hypothesis

Chatterjee is not, at least as of the writing of _The Rise of the Birds_,
a BCFer -- that is, he doesn't consider any non-avialan dinosaurs as
secondarily flightless. Where he shares common ground with BCF is in
adhering to the "Trees Down" model.

Yes, he thinks that _Protoavis_ is a Late Triassic avian, but that doesn't
mean he thinks birds came first -- he just thinks that other lineages
started even earlier! Except for the inclusion of _Protoavis_ as an avian,
his phylogeny is fairly non-controversial, AFAIK.

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