Re: the first raptor

["Mickey_Mortimer11" <Mickey_Mortimer11@email.msn.com>]

Brad McFeeters wrote-

> Is Archaeopteryx a deinonychosaur, as implied in the original question?

Maybe, maybe not.  Current consensus is no, which I'd agree with at this
time.  The whole eumaniraptoran group (dromaeosaurids, "utahraptorines",
Adasaurus, Unenlagia, Sinornithosaurus, Bambiraptor, Microraptor, Rahonavis,
Archaeopteryx) is a big mess right now.  I can only hope my revised matrix
will clear things up once it's done in a month or so...

> How old is Phaderolosaurus ilikensis, and is it still classified as a
> deinonychosaur?

Go here- http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/2000Oct/msg00076.html for
more than has ever been published on Phaedrolosaurus.  Basically, it's from
the poorly dated Lianmugin Formation (Early Cretaceous) and is based on a
tooth that MAY be eumaniraptoran, but may also be from a basal coelurosaur.
It needs to be described or illustrated better to be sure.  Referred
material includes a probably non-maniraptoran femur and a possibly
ornithomimosaurian tibiotarsus.

Aspidel wrote-

> And what about _Rahonavis_ (again!) with its sicle-claws? (maybe a bit
> later)

Rahonavis may not be avian (though I think it's a definite possibility) and
is from the Campanian Maevarano Formation, much later than the Early Aptian
Upper Yixian Formation that Boluochia was found in.

Mickey Mortimer