Re: feather tracts (and spiny tails?)

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Ken Kinman (kinman@hotmail.com) wrote:

<And I am certainly not talking about Velociraptor or Oviraptor,
which are Cretaceous (way too late), too large, and dependent on
running to make a living.>

  Both these animals had subcursorial proportions and it is
unlikely based on their arms and heads that they ran for a
living.

<Most your arguments seem to be based on a Cretaceous world, not
the Triassic world of primitive dinosaurs.>

  Since when were we talking about the Triassic and primitive
dinosaurs?

  My arguments are based on the fossil data. Of the Cretaceous,
only non-scaly integumental structures are known therein and in
one Jurassic species. To opt for any other taxa for which such
structures are not known would be pure speculation. Your
argument appears to be based on an hypothetical animal which is
not known from the Triassic, based on a model that has only been
formally proposed by proponents who argue against the
dinosaurian origin of birds (see works by Feduccia, Martin,
etc.; esp. outlined in Feduccia's book, 1996 and 1999 editions)
and is hypothetical to its core.

  See works by Gatesy, Gatesy and Middleton, Gatesty and
Hutchinson, and Hutchinson by himself, on the development of the
trunk, hip, leg, and tail in dinosaurs from *Coelophysis* to
*Arhcaeopteryx* and even *Passer*, then perhaps this may become
clearer. The papers above have been discussed onlist, and their
refs are therein, so searching the archives will yield much fruit.

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhr-gen-ti-na
  Where the Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Pampas!!!!

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