Re: Feduccia on MANIAC

["Michael Mortimer" <mickey_mortimer111@msn.com>]

SeanSt8579@aol.com wrote-

> I havent seen any sort of actual phylogeny (I only had access to the text 
> of
> the Omni article, but I see there is supposed to be a diagram), but I 
> remember
> it suggesting something like,
>
> -Aves was derived from the sorts of "avimorphs" Feduccia et al love,
> Longisquama and Megalancosaurus as examples
>
> -there was a monophyletic "herbivore" radiation, composed of ornithischians
> and sauropods from that avian stock and
>
> -theropod lineages represent independent flightless radiations from
> increasingly derived birdies.

I can post his Omni phylogeny Sunday when I get back to campus (where I have 
a pdf), but it's basically the standard topology with a few odd aspects (eg. 
Phytodinosauria).  Olshevsky's basal "birds" wouldn't be called birds by 
almost anyone else.  They are just hypothetical small basal archosauromorphs 
that are arboreal/scansorial and quadrupedal.  Archaeopteryx, 
enantiornithines and such are still theropods in his view.  Olshevsky also 
has a broad/incorrect definition of flight if I recall, including gliding.  
He doesn't believe flapping flight came about until Maniraptora.

> Are there other papers he's written on it that spell it out better?

I don't think so, not in the scientific literature at least.  Maybe in some 
obscure Japanese magazines.  But he's a member of Pickering's Yahoo! group 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/paleo_bio_dinosaur_ontology/ and regularily 
tries to defend BCF against critiques by Marjanovic, Williams and others.  
So you can learn more there by asking him yourself.

Mickey Mortimer

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