Re: How are columbiformes (doves and pigeons) related to psittaciformes?

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

David Marjanovic (david.marjanovic@gmx.at) wrote:

<I'll look it up... was a Nature comment & reply...>

  Well, that would be cool, but if it was the comment and reply, then I
have that too in pdf format.

<no evidence whatsoever either way -- except that it's toothless>

  There is a lot more to say of the jaw as a neornithine based on the thin
walls, trabecular architechture, and vascularization, with the highly
porous mesial margin of the symphyseal edge, than just that it is
toothless. That this is avian and probably not from the galloanseran or
procellariiform based on the shape of the jaw is more likely than not, and
in that case was probably a landbird. As Stidham noted, the bone structure
and internal anatomy are avian, and would not occur in another form of
reptile as known.

<Would imply pretty weird fossilization conditions for them... and all
Neornithes older than Eocene.>

  Not neccessarily. Supposedly there is a "loon" from the Cretaceous of
Antarctica (I personally have yet to see this proven aside from similar
data that Chatterjee used to support gaviiform relationships with
hesperornithiforms), so not entirely unlikely. In fact, the presence of an
extensive lineage wouldn't be unheard of. Some analyses point to a basal
relationship for some higher landbirds, among them parrots, so this could
also be less "extreme" than Mayr implies. Morphology comes first, before
the incredulity of the 30+ mya prior to the first verified psittaciform
fossil. This is why I was never convinced by Mayr's argument in reply to
Stidham.

----------

<I assume it (via analogy from Latin and from other scientific names), but
I don't know it -- I haven't learned Greek.>

  This rule is similar to Latin, to my understanding. The root of _kleos_
is also found in Cleopatra, Hercules/Herakles, and Sophocles, and declines
to _kleo-_, at which the "o" is modified as is typical to form an
intervening vowel with the affixed stem. _kleo-_ + _-idae_ is "-cleidae."
Nick can probably chime in, as I've missed a few grammatical rules, and
this is a hasty research burn through my books and a few net resources.

  Cheers,

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)


        
                
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