Re: Bird flight once more

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> [Jaime A. Headden] wrote:
>
> <<First, it would be good to clarify that dorsoventral movement of the
wrist only occurs if the
> arm is held outward, level to the horizon.>>
>
> Chris Fisher (killerraptor20@hotmail.com) wrote:
>
> <Imagine a traffic cop waving cars past - this is the movement of the hand
I meant. same
> orientation of the arm too. Could a maniraptor direct traffic? :)>
>
>   probably not. The first maniraptoran with the ability to level the elbow
to the height of the
> shoulder was *Unenlagia*, thus only Avialae among Dinosauria can do this.

AFAIK lots of theropods (PDW fig. 9-6 p. 217 shows *Coelophysis* could bring
their elbows a lot higher than the shoulder, though AFAIK not laterally. The
description of *Sinornithosaurus* says, however, that *S.* was capable of
the same as *Unenlagia*, and that *Deinonychus* had been _misinterpreted_
into being unable to do that, so all deinonychosaurs were capable of it,
like *Archaeopteryx*. Little research has AFAIK been done on that.

So a maniraptoran could direct traffic, but only with its whole arms, not
the hands alone. Wing feathers would be very useful for this :-P