Re: small dinosaurs with feathers

[StephanPickering@cs.com]

     I could not help but smile in mild bemusement over the semantic tap-dancing re: "birds" and "feathered dinosaurs". We are speaking of dinosaurs, not third-grade machinations with Our Gang re-runs. Feathered dinosaurs, of various biozones, existed at different times, Archaeopteryx and its clade, other taxa and their clades. Some of these coelurosaurs existed before Archaeopteryx and its allies, and were, likely, not necessarily related. We are speaking of dinosaurs. Although well-entrenched in the "popular literature", "bird" cannot be defined without the use of the word "dinosaur". If we are to discuss, with clarity, dinosaur taxa with feathers (not all of whom flew, not all of whom survived the K/T boundary events), then we must define what it is we are discussing. And this is, indeed, the purpose of the taxonomic revisions being form!
ul!
!
ated by Jacques Gauthier and others. In a forum such as this, the word "bird" is meaningless.