Re: Archaeopteryx flight

["Tim Williams" <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

David Marjanovic wrote:

> however, looking at recent
> ecosystems, there are always plenty of potentially competing fish eaters.
> I've seen dolphins on TV hunting a large swarm of IIRC anchovis just below
> the surface -- gulls took advantage of this and picked some fish up from
> above, and a few seals joined in too. [snip] So it seems like there 
> normally are >enough fish to share around.

The waterways that separated the islands of the European archipelago were a 
lot different to the open ocean.  Also, _Archaeopteryx_ probably not have 
the aerial prowess that gulls have to coast above the sea and dive down 
whenever it spotted a fish.  _Archaeopteryx_ would probably have had to hunt 
for fish close to the shore - and the hypoxic lagoons that the specimens 
came to grief in were probably rather short on biomass (at least of the 
oxygen-breathing vertebrate variety).


> * Paul also shows that it was a considerably worse runner than most other
> theropods -- the ilium and various muscle attachment sites (cnemial crest
> etc.) are very small.

Yes, but _Archaeopteryx_ did not need to run that fast - faster than a 
lizard or a cockroach or whatever little critters it ate...


> I disagree: the fingers flexed, and the claws pointed, more or less at a
> right angle to the wing feathers. The exceptional development of finger III
> in *Confuciusornis* shows that it was still used for something.

Climbing.  Holding onto branches.


> Indeed he thinks (or thought in 1988) that *Archaeopteryx* had a similar
> locomotory repertoire to young hoatzins. I think that climbing is largely
> ruled out, however.

And on what evidence why do you rule this out?


Tim

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