Eoenantiornis and Re: achillobator

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

> >(pubis directed roughly "ventro-vertically", is there another word for 
> >this?) 
> 
> Dosoventrally. 
 
Ventrally. :-) (Because it isn't _directed_ both dorsally and ventrally 
from the acetabulum.) 
 
---------------------- 
 
I've now read several times that *Eoenantiornis* had a claw on its 3rd 
finger. For example, 
 
Zhou Zhonghe, Wang Xiaolin, Zhang Fucheng & Xu Xing: Important features of 
*Caudipteryx* -- Evidence from two nearly complete new specimens, 
Vertebrata PalAsiatica 38(4), 241 -- 254 (October 2000) 
 
says (p. 248): "It is also noteworthy that the ungual of the third digit 
is lost. Primitive birds [like] *Archaeopteryx*, *Confuciusornis* and 
*Eoenantiornis* (Hou et al., 1999) all retained three unguals in the wing 
as in their theropod ancestors." 
 
However, in the original description 
 
Hou Lianhai, Larry D. Martin, Zhou Zhonghe & Alan Feduccia: 
*Archaeopteryx* to opposite birds -- missing link from the Mesozoic of 
China, Vertebrata PalAsiatica 37(2), 88 -- 95 (April 1999) 
 
, the authors say it probably does not and probably has only one phalanx 
there. Even though it would have offered evidence for the basal 
phylogenetic position they think *Eoenantiornis* has. (Of course they call 
it the 4th finger because they're BANDits, but I don't think this was not 
noticed by the authors of the *Caudipteryx* paper.) It seems that further 
preparation of *E.* has taken place before it was photographed for chapter 
11 of Mesozoic Birds, but there there is no mention of its hands at all. 
If the claw is there, it could be evidence that *E.* is outside 
Ornithothoraces. Can someone clear this up? Many thanks in advance. 

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