2 x Re: small dinosaurs with feathers

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

 

Although well-entrenched in the "popular literature", "bird" cannot be defined without the use of the word "dinosaur".

Of course it can. What about "the most recent common ancestor of Archaeopteryx lithographica and Passer domesticus"? (Not that I'd like that definition, but it's the most common one.) Doesn't change the fact that both mentioned species are dinosaurs.

In a forum such as this, the word "bird" is meaningless.

Not if we equate it with a defined clade name (or give it a definition otherwise).

----- Original Message -----

From: Mickey Mortimer

 

The age of the feathered coelurosaurs is probably Middle Barremian (125.34-125.59 mya),

Such narrow error margins? Have they used U/Pb in zircons -- are there zircons there?

Birds in the form of Archaeopteryx first appear in the Early Kimmeridgian

In case you mean the "cf. Archaeopteryx" teeth from Guimarota, these can't be dated more exactly than Kimmeridgian, despite earlier efforts to do that, according to the book Guimarota -- A Jurassic Ecosystem.