Re: Limenavis patagonica

["Mickey_Mortimer11" <Mickey_Mortimer11@email.msn.com>]

ekaterina A wrote-

> Has there been any suggestion regarding the ecological
> niche of Limenavis patagonica. If I recall correctly
> Mr. Mortimer mentioned that it was nested inbetween
> the Ichthyornithids and the Neornithines. Feduccia
> seems to have totally overlooked this one and even
> Lithornis. What struck me as wierd was that eventhough
> the author was the same for Limenavis and Apsaravis
> they were never included in their respective analysis.
> Has any update been done throwing in all these taxa to
> understand the Cretaceous Ornithurine radiations?

It's probably difficult to determine the ecological niche of Limenavis, as
it is based only on partial forelimb material.  It does appear volant, but
besides that I couldn't say.  No one has done a good analysis of basal
euornithines (Ornithurae is Hesperornis + Neornithes; Euornithes is
everything closer to Neornithes than to Enantiornis), but I did add
Yanornis, Vorona and Yixianornis to the Apsaravis analysis to find-
|-Enantiornithes
|-Vorona
`-+-Patagopteryx
  `-+-+-Yanornis
    | `-Yixianornis
    `-+-Apsaravis
      `-+-Hesperornithiformes
        `-+-Ichthyornis
          `-Neornithes
Add the Limenavis paper's results-
|-Enantiornithes
`-+-Ichthyornis
  `-+-Limenavis
    `-+-Lithornis
      `-Neornithes
And Chiappe's results from the Ostrom Symposium volume-
|-Enantiornithes
`-|-Vorona
  |-Patagopteryx
  `-+-Hesperornithiformes
    `-+-Ambiortus
      `-+-Ichthyornis
        `-Neornithes
And we arrive at the following concensus (with Otogornis added as sister to
Ambiortus, after Kurochkin, 1999)-
|-Enantiornithes
`-+-Vorona
  `-+-Patagopteryx
    `-+-+-Yanornis
      | `-Yixianornis
      `-+-Apsaravis
        `-+-Hesperornithiformes
          `-+-+-Ambiortus
            | `-Otogornis
            `-+-Ichthyornis
              `-+-Limenavis
                `-+-Lithornis
                  `-Neornithes
Adding Chaoyangia, Songlingornis and Liaoningornis to the Apsaravis matrix
resulted in polytomies with the following positions for the taxa-
Chaoyangia- More derived than Patagopteryx but less than Apsaravis +
Ornithurae.
Songlingornis- A non-enantiornithine ornithothoracine outside the Apsaravis
+ Ornithurae clade.
Liaoningornis- An ornithothoracine outside the Apsaravis + Ornithurae clade.
Note the latter two aren't neccessarily euornithines at all.

Mickey Mortimer