Re: Unwin's cladogram - long

["Chris Bennett" <cbennett@bridgeport.edu>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Peters" <davidrpeters@earthlink.net>
To: "dinosaur list" <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 2:08 PM
Subject: Unwin's cladogram - long


> David Peters wrote:
>
> .....
>
> Pterodactyloidea ? Pteranodon > Quetzalcoatlus
>
> 24. Narial and antorbital fenestrae confluent.
>
> I used to believe this old saw until I took a much closer look at the
> situation. The naris and AOF are not confluent in the new ctenochasmatid
> that Chris Bennett is studying. It's big enough to clearly discern. Get
> closer and you'll find the same situation in other ctenochasmatids and
> azhdarchids.

The specimen of Ctenochasma that I am describing most certainly does have
confluent naris and antorbital fenestra.  There is no trace of a 'secondary
naris" or whatever Peters imagines he sees on his computer.  Get closer?  I
stared at that specimen for hours and hours through a microscope--any closer
and I would have been licking the thing, which I suspect Rupert Wild would
not have appreciated.

Chris


S. Christopher Bennett, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Basic Sciences
College of Chiropractic
University of Bridgeport
Bridgeport, CT  06601
http://www.bridgeport.edu/~cbennett

"Savor the sun--but when the clouds come make animals"  (Hexum)