Re: alvarezsaurid arms

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

> Didn't they also have beaks?

Don't think so. Anyway, those with somehow known skulls (*Mononykus*,
*Shuvuuia*) had teeth.

> Would this have helped to get through mounds?

The skull seen in *Shuvuuia* is a rather weak affair (somehow like seen in,
say, anteaters).
Luis M. Chiappe, Mark A. Norell & James M. Clark: The skull of a relative of
the stem-group bird *Mononykus*, Nature 392, 275 -- 278 (19 March 1998)

Chiappe promises 3 papers on, among other things, the phylogenetic position
of alvarezsaurs in the much-awaited book Mesozoic Birds: Above the Heads of
Dinosaurs. W4tP...

Digging in "symmetrodonts"? Still haven't read the paper on
*Zhangheotherium* (the only one known from more than teeth and lower jaw
fragments). But I'm sure neither alvarezsaurs nor compsognathids were suited
to real digging in the ground.