Re: Yixianosaurus longimanus, a Peculiarly Normal Yixian Theropod

[Luis Rey <luisrey@ndirect.co.uk>]

Let's see if I'm lucky now...


   Jaime Headden wrote:

   >All in all, this form seems to be a basal maniraptoran, possibly
more
   >basal, even though the hand is protracted to such a length.


One thing that so far I don't think has been stressed enough is that the
overall length of the arms is extremely short . It may be compared to
the
actual hands, but .... And those claws... enormous!  I have the PDF of
the paper and it is just remarkable.
I do think it is important because this is yet another variant missing
from the puzzle. We have seen it all (almost) in the enormous mosaic of
bird
evolution that is coming from the Liaoning Province. Long tails and
incipiently fused digits, fully functional clawed hands and pygostiles,
beaks
and jaws with teeth mixed with primitive and advanced bird features;
aye aye-like creatures (with elongated third finger),  four winged
creatures
and now typical dinosaurian long hands and short arms.  The more
discoveries the more the picture of avian evolution gets complicated.

For any evolutionist this apparent 'nightmare' is a dream come true!



--
Luis Rey

Visit my website on http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~luisrey