Re: My Phylogeny: Now Slowly Comes Science

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

Measured off the screen at
http://www.geocities.com/strangetruther/otherdroms.html:

*Bambiraptor* femur length: 2.2 cm trunk length: 3.3 leg length 6.6 tail
length: 7.3

In terms of proportions *Bambiraptor* is somehow transitional between
*Archaeopteryx* and Dromaeosauridae. The legs are even longer relative to
the trunk, though. Among those I have measured only the pigeon reaches this
2 : 1 ratio and only *Sinornithoides* and probably *Caudipteryx* surpass it.

I'm really interested in what will be said about the following at the SVP
meeting. On page 107A of this year's abstracts a new specimen of *Shuvuuia*
is announced:

"The new specimen preserves a number of anatomical features, importantly in
the caudal series, and the manus and pes, previously unknown for *Shuvuuia*
and all other alvarezsaurids.
    In particular, the alvarezsaurid tail was poorly known. Previously
discovered specimens preserved an underestimation of the actual tail length
(having vertebral counts less than 25 caudals). In the new specimen the tail
is nearly complete, and shows that the tail of *Shuvuuia* comprised at least
35 caudals."

35 is more than in any "enigmosaur" I know and requires a nasty reversal if
I want to keep the topology ("Enigmosauria" + (Alvarezsauria + *Avimimus* +
(*Yandangornis* + Pygostylia)))...

Also, I finally had a look at
http://www.dinosaur.org/news/news01-04-25bird04.html. So there are really
dromaeosaurs with arctometatarsalian feet. Is it slowly becoming more
parsimonious that this is a synapomorphy of most people's Maniraptoriformes
(my Eumaniraptora) and was lost several times? But then, *Archaeopteryx*
does not have this condition, despite its very long and gracile metatarsi...
but then, *Caudipteryx* has extremely thin mt III... ~:-S

I should measure some hands to get more characters for analysis. HP Mickey
Mortimer uses lots of characters like "phalanx I-1 extending not / further
than the end of mc II"... yesterday I had a look at drawings the hands of
*Deinonychus* and *Archaeopteryx* at
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol280/issue5362/images/large/se1486399001
.jpeg (strange, Science lets me into the full text of the article that
includes this, http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/280/5362/355a!!!
Have a look!!!) -- they look quite different from those of *Velociraptor*
and *Archaeopteryx* on p. 198 in the SciAm book of dinosaurs. Therefore I am
in trouble... looks like I'll need real specimens for measuring...

**********************************************************
Let justice prevail even if the world crashes down
        Jim Garrison (my $&§&$ retranslation from German)