Re: Caenagnathiformes (toothlessness)

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

Ken Kinman (kinman@hotmail.com) wrote:

<... if Oviraptor's true nature (mother bird brooding her nest of eggs)
had been known earlier, perhaps Oviraptor  would have been immediately
transferred to Aves, rather than vice versa (i.e., Caenagnathus being
transferred to dinosaurs).  Oh, how our perceptions can adversely affect
our classifications.

  I am especially delighted that Caenagnathiformes was named so early, 
and I will henceforth call them caenagnathiforms, rather than that
horrible misnomer "oviraptorosaurs".  We are apparently stuck with
Oviraptoridae at family level, but this will hopefully end the creeping of
this misnomer into the names of more inclusive clades.>

  I'm glad people now look at the fossils instead of their associations to
prove the inappropriateness of names. No, this is not intended to focus on
what Ken said, but it reflects a greater problem I have written on before
and will be publishing on soon. I wrote an unpresented abstract for the
2001 meeting of the SVP (financial problems forbade my getting to Bozeman)
that I am presently working the full piece out. Essentially, the abstract
points at the apparent idea that because an oviraptorid was found atop a
nest, it meant that "no, it did not eat eggs." This is dumb science, sorry
if this offends anyone. Analysis of the jaws presented by Barsbold in 1977
(paper available from me or Tracy if anyone wants it, it's in Russian,
though) and mechanics examined (but not elaborated upon) by Smith in 1992
(Neues Jaerhbuch, Abh.) show that the jaw was fully capable of a range of
mechanical crushing-related properties. Instead of looking at the jaws,
the pop-sci boys looked at the nest and made their minds up about it's
dietary habits. One looks at _jaws_ to find out how an animal eats (well,
okay, in myrmecophages, you look at the sternum, too :) ).

  Sorry for the rant,


=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

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