Re: Feathered Dragons: Studies on the Transition from Dinosaurs to Birds

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

> _Caudipteryx_ looks about as comfortable sitting on a tree branch as an
emu.

Not that this would stop Chatterjee. To him, ornithomimosaurs are arboreal
browsers, or at least were in 1997. Ceratosaurs are "terrestrial cursors",
but not much else.

>   I'm all for putting _Microraptor_ and _Archaeopteryx_ up in the trees -

I'm not. Evidence against a retroverted hallux in the latter, no evidence
either way in the former, phalangeal proportions not impressive, no special
adaptations like sprawling ability in either... apart from not too basal
birds (Confuciusornithidae or probably *Sapeornis* onwards), I'd only put
Scansoriopterygidae in the trees. (Their feet are pretty unequivocal, and
their hands are hard to explain differently.)