Re: Oryctos Is Back

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

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "evelyn sobielski" <koreke77@yahoo.de>
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 5:45 AM

> I would not bet on half of the traits. Maybe they're good, but I would not 
> bet on them. For now.
> 3rd finger and carpometacarpus seem too good to be wrong. The rest...

I would not bet on any single trait. Nor did Hennig. That's why cladistics 
was invented.

Total-evidence approach. Throw it all together and see which signal is 
strongest.

> > Contradictory evidence (keywords: Saururae,
> > Sauriurae)
>
> Bah! as if we had the means to even remotely understand it when these 
> theories were born.

That's not what I'm talking about -- I'm talking about how the BANDits still 
cling to it, long after it has been refuted.

> Like with _Longisquama_ (why oh why _Longisquama_?)

Because BANDits don't read the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 
including the paper by Senter (2005) that showed it's not even a crown-group 
diapsid.

> The differences between enantis and euornis [thx] are peculiar - them 
> having evolved from closely related *non-volant* (maybe fluttering) 
> mid-late Jurassic ancestors would make sense of that.

Not if you compare *Jibeinia*, confuciusornithids and *Sapeornis*.

> Take the scapulacoracoid: with the right genes present, it just needs to 
> happen - and bone fusions are not that uncommon, only they're ofter 
> prenatally lethal. Not this time apparently. So with the right genetic 
> framework and the right kind of anatomy and lifestyle, and feathers of 
> course, you're rather liable to get a scapulacoracoid sooner or later.

What do you mean? Fusion in adults is the plesiomorphic condition here, and 
a joint the derived one. (Also found in *Rahonavis* and some or all of the 
Chinese long-tailed "birds", I forgot which ones. Not found in *Sapeornis* 
or confuciusornithids.)