harpymimids; more terror bird stuff

[Nick Longrich <longrich@alumni.princeton.edu>]

> > I'm making a cladogram section on my webpage and I have a problem with the
> > Harpymimidae.  I'm trying to find a place in this chart, a place in this
> > chart... for them.  Are they oddball ornithomimes?  Or therizinosaurs?  If
> > they are therizinosaurs, where do they fit?
>
> i never heard they should be related to therizinosaurs
> the skeleton of harpymimus (quite uncomplete) resembles a primitive 
> ornithomimid, like the resting cladograms show, so it would be the 
> safest to leave it in ornithomimosauria untill something else is 
> known.
> The term 'harpymimidae' could allso be safe to let go

Yeah, I think Harpymimus is pretty safe in Ornithomimosauria. Sure 
the jaw looks similar, but I think that's more than outweighed by 
everything else. The hand is pretty classic ornithomimid- elongate 
first metacarpal, elongate third metacarpal subequal with II, 
hyperelongate phalanx I-1, digit III elongate and subequal with II. 
The metatarsus is too elongate for anything we've seen in 
therizinosaurs, the pedal phalanges aren't massive enough, and the 
pedal unguals are too short and broad (in therizinosaurs they are 
elongate and laterally compressed, particularly in the derived guys), 
and the fourth pedal digit isn't elongate- the pes is symmetrical 
about III, as in primitive coelurosaurs but not advanced maniraptora 
where digit IV is elongate(oviraptors being a reversal here). 
Therizinosaurs are pretty clearly Maniraptora (wacky phylogenetic 
analyses placing them with Ornithomimosauria notwithstanding); 
Harpymimus doesn't show any characters that suggest Maniraptora. 
Probable convergences relating to herbivorous habits, I'd guess (I 
doubt that "filter-feeding" stuff is going to hold up against five 
minutes of comparative anatomy...)

--------------------------

> > > Here are some references which describe the manual claws in these large
birds:
http://www.exoplaneten.de/voegel/titanis.jpg

http://www.terrorvogel.de/

http://www.terrorvogel.de/nachricht01.html

http://www.terrorvogel.de/nachricht02.html<<<<<<

Nope, "artist's interpretation" doesn't count as a reference, and the 
other stuff is just pop-sci writing which just talks about the 
carpometacarpus again, talking about the hypothesis of claws without 
mentioning any actual, preserved claws. We need a referenced article 
citing ungual material, a published figure, or a specimen number. 
Glad to see people are looking this stuff up tho, and glad to hear 
I'm not alone in wondering about this.
	Maybe the wings had some unusual development or 
specializations in phorusrhacids but that doesn't mean they had to be 
grasping anything. Some flightless birds had big wings because they 
were pounding the crap out of each other- the solitaire (giant 
flightless pigeon from Rodriguez Island) males had nasty, gnarled 
knobs of bone the size of small marbles on the extensor process of 
the carpometacarpus. Strikingly similar, but much smaller knobs are 
known in steamer ducks and even to an extent canada geese; in life 
they are covered by thick, leathery pads of skin. These parts of the 
wing are used as sort of brass knuckles; geese apparently can hit 
pretty hard with the wings, steamer ducks will attack each other in 
the wild and attack and beat to death other species of ducks- they're 
mean SOBs- if there was an avian Mafia, steamer ducks would be the 
muscle (for a bag full of birdseed a month we can make sure nothing, 
ah, unfortunate, happens to this nice little nest ya got here... if 
ya knows what I mean). Screamers meanwhile are sort of avian ninjas, 
with these inch-long bone daggers on the extensor process and smaller 
ones at the end of the hand, keratinous sheaths made them even 
longer. Hm. Maybe you could make an action movie.... "From the 
director of the action classic _The Legend of Drunken Master_ and the 
fight choreographer of _Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon_ and _The 
Matrix_ comes a kung-fu extravaganza:  _Iron Extensor Process, Flying 
Carpometacarpus_!! ...starring an Irate Falklands Steamer Duck, 
co-starring a Very Large Screamer. Also starring Jackie Chan."
	The crazy thing is, from what I've read about them, the 
steamer duck might actually take Chan on. In captivity one once 
attacked an emu... or was it a rhea.
	And spur-winged plovers are, well, self-explanatory. Grasping 
claws is just one of many possible uses for a bird wing besides 
flying, and not necessarily the most likely.