TREE-CLIMBING DROMAEOSAURS

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

On a recent article about tree-climbing dinosaurs (Naish 2000), David 
Marjanovic wrote....

> And the drawings that show Chatterjee & Palm's scansorial             
> dromaeosaurs are very beautiful, 

Thanks, but not sure if 'beautiful' is the word I'd use.

> just Chatterjee always illustrates his
> "protodromaeosaurs" with the head facing upwards and the tail used
> like the stiff feathers of woodpeckers. I haven't read the papers by
> Palm, however.

I've put discussion of the 'vertical clinger' model into the 
_Archaeopteryx_ MS [in press] together with comparisons with 
parulids, campephilin woodpeckers and pygmy parrots - Chatterjee's 
and Palm's proposal that dromaeosaurids were well-suited for trunk 
clinging is poorly founded. Palm's diagrams show little 
dromaeosaurids climbing down tree-trunks head-first: that's why the 
animals in my drawing are doing the same thing. BTW the 
_Archaeopteryx_ MS is another rambling historical discussion.. it 
does not include any real science.

There is apparently an old restoration of a climbing sloth-like 
_Deinocheirus_, perhaps in a French publication. Has anyone seen it?

RE: the Tarsitano et al. paper, I was suprised to see Anthony Russell 
as second author. So far as I know he supports theropod ancestry for 
birds.

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DARREN NAISH 
PALAEOBIOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP
School of Earth, Environmental & Physical Sciences
UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH
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