Re: Sickle-claws, theropod infanticide and Valerian

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

> Gk oinos = wine.  Oenology (or enology) is the study of wine.  I'm about
to
> do some studying myself, actually.

Ah, forgot that. Compares better to other languages in the surroundings (it
was woynu somewhere... Hittite?) (No, I haven't studied linguistics. I just
picked up a paper once about where the indo-europeans might have come from;
it concludes something like Armenia and uses loan words such as wine as
evidence.)

> > The Mycenaean kings were called wanax. Compare *Saurophaganax*.
>
> How does "(w)anax" compare to "basileus"?

No idea. But as *Saurophaganax* is translated as "master of the lizard
eaters", the meaning has hardly changed IMHO.

> But back to the sickle-claw... It's presence in dromaeosaurids,
troodontids
> and _Rahonavis_ suggests to me that it is primitive for the clade
embracing
> all three taxa.  That means it was secondarily lost in _Archaeopteryx_ and
> Pygostylia. (Unless _Archaeopteryx_ and Pygostylia is basal to a
> dromaeosaurids-troodontid-_Rahonavis clade - an idea that I suspect has
some
> adherents).

Or unless Pygostylia alone is somehow outside this assemblage. :-)

> I've wondered if the enlarged sickle-claw was an impediment to
> perching.

Hm. *Archaeopteryx*, *Rahonavis* and *Microraptor* seem to me to have pretty
similar first toes; I don't think Archie perched better or more frequently
than at least *Rahonavis*.