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


Jaime A. Headden wrote:

the feathers
also show the same increasing distal symmetry of their brachial remiges,


Do you mean "asymmetry"?

  Tucking the legs up underneath the body preserves the inferred narrow
pelvis of basal deinonychosaurs (as in *Sinovenator* and *Microraptor*),
the short femoral neck of basal deinonychosaurs, and the arrangement of
the  leg feathers in *Microraptor* for aerodynamic purposes. To get to
such a posture, most likely, a leap from a tree would be best.

I'm not sure what you mean here. The legs would have to be "untucked" and extended in order to generate sufficient impulse for the leap.


Tim

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