Re: Protoavis & Drepanosauridae (sensu Renesto, 1999)

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> This business about Protoavis being part megalancosaur, part theropod,
> part prolacertiform, part lots of other stuff is just nonsense. Like any
> early archosaur, it probably had some features of all these kinds of
animals;

Well, possible, but I wouldn't expect that in a bird...

> and it also had heterocoelous cervicals, which are strictly an advanced
avian
> feature among vertebrates, as far as I know.

They are actually _too_ advanced among birds, many Early Cretaceous birds
don't have them AFAIK. IMHO it is well possible that the neck, and possibly
the skull, are from a drepanosaurid (the neck is too large and doesn't
really fit the rest of *Protoavis*). However, other features are much harder
to discuss away. I have the famous "1999" Pal. Abt. A paper here and _will_
write Part 3 of my Details On -- as soon as I have figured out where to get
the time from... :.-(

> If there were more than one kind
> of animal mixed into the material, one would expect to find things like
two
> or more differently shaped humeri, or left and right limb elements that
don't
> match, and so forth. Nothing like this was found.

True.