Re: "real" opisthopuby (very speculative)

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

Dear All,
    Is it possible that the prepubic process is a primitive character in 
Ornithischia, and that its gradual loss is derived.
    And here's some wild speculation to chew on (spit it out if you don't 
like the taste)----- what if the prepubic process IS homologous to the pubes 
in other dinosaurs, and that the postpubic process is the real neomorph?  
The postpubic process could have gradually lengthened in parallel to the 
ischium.
    If so, ornithischians would be very propubic, and they would have never 
exhibited either mesopuby or opisthopuby (in the sense of the pube rotating 
backwards).  That way the pubes would have never been sticking into their 
big herbivorous guts.  And those ornithischians with extremely reduced pubes 
may have just gradually lost the original (prepubic) process and never have 
developed the postpubic process at all.
        --- Just an idea,
                   Ken Kinman

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