Re: Our current understanding of Mesozoic bird phylogeny

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

> What about _Yungavolucris_? The specimen does not look
> like it walked a lot but IIRC it's neither too well
> adapted for perching. Is there anything Mesozoic
> around which has similar proportions? (Is there
> *anything* with similar proportions?)

Some think it may have been a foot-propelled diver. In any case the 
extra-broad mt II is unique.

> Crown avisaurids -> functional convergence to gripping
> feet of Falconiformes maybe?

What do you mean by "crown"? By definition, there is none, because they're 
all dead. -- I do think those feet are convergent to those of birds of prey 
(...*Boluochia* has rather long claws, too, IIRC...) and may mean that we 
have here a clade of Cretaceous predatory flying birds. With teeth -- or so 
I used to think based on the older interpretations of *Cuspirostrisornis*...

> Mmmh, it certainly would expand confuciornithine
> diversity to a point where one would have to assume
> the fossil record to be VERY imperfect/misassigned

Well, it _is_ very imperfect. :-)

> And then there is the question of size - if Lectavis
> was simply scaled up, the issue of whether it wasn't
> actually flightless arises. But it seems to have been
> long-legged rather than big - and this, in turn, would
> suggest a cursorial lifestyle,

Or a wading one.

> Many thanks for the work (finally we seem to be
> getting *somewhere* as regards Enantiornithes internal
> phylogeny!)

Yes. And just in time, too -- I'm expanding and updating my M. Sc. thesis 
for publication :-)