Yixian Protoavians -- When they strike back...

["Nicholas Gardner" <n_gardner637@hotmail.com>]

After noticing no response, I'm concerned that my post was somehow ignored 
in the process of getting through to the list...I never received it, so I'm 
re-posting from a copy I sent myself:

"Has GMV2124 (?="Sinosauropteryx") been published yet?  If so, is the paper 
available on the internet?

I went to the GMU Library to find dinosaur-related papers and got my paws on 
a copy of Zhang et Zhou, 2000 ("A primitive enantiornithine bird and the 
origin of feathers") and so I'm on page 1956 and something caught my eye.  
Figure 2A seems to show that Protopteryx had a plume of feathers on the back 
of the skull.  When (not "if", I'm being positive) I get around to drawing 
this bird, how should I draw this?  Am I wrong and these are just fluffed-up 
feathers aren't a crest?

Also, regarding Protopteryx, the strange lines that are surrounding the
body.  Are these traces of the feather tips?  Curiously, they look like a 
body bag...humorous note...perhaps the Yixian was the morgue of Dinosauria.

And finally regarding Protopteryx, page 1957, how do you have an unfused 
carpometacarpus?  Does this mean that the metacarpals are just closely 
appressed?  I've heard that Oviraptor has this condition.  Is it present in 
other forms?  Wondering the same thing about the unfused tibiotarsus...

And to close this post, Confuciusornis has a hole in its deltopectoral
crest.  Why?  I'm confused after having seen this over and over again in 
reconstructions.

Oh...and if anyone has a [skeletal] reconstruction of Confuciusornis or 
Protopteryx, could they please reply offlist?"

THANKS IN ADVANCE AND MAZEL TOV

Nicholas Gardner
n_gardner637@hotmail.com

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