RE: Nemicolopterus

[don ohmes <d_ohmes@yahoo.com>]

"Yes, I think so too.  And maybe, too, the beak was
used to pluck big
 juicy parasites off the backs of sauropods." -- TW.

Now you're talking. Sauropod backs make a convenient
and safe roost/launch site, too. Especially when said
sauropods were belly-deep in their favorite swamp...
-- Don

--- Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> Dann Pigdon wrote:
> 
> 
> > Nemi's beak looks more like that of a generalist
> to me (somewhere between
> > 'blackbird' and 'miniature stork'). It would
> appear to be just as useful for
> > prying out grubs as for plucking small fruit or
> foraging in leaf litter.
> 
> 
> Yes, I think so too.  And maybe, too, the beak was
> used to pluck big juicy parasites off the backs of
> sauropods.
> 
> 
> 
> Nick Pharris wrote:
> 
> > True. Also, even if the authors' ecologial
> interpretations are all correct, their contention
> that "[t]he 
> > phylogenetic position of Nemicolopterus crypticus
> suggests that the Ornithocheiroidea originated 
> > from crestless and toothless small insectivorous
> arboreal forms" is tenuous, since it's just as 
> > parsimonious to hypothesize that pterosaurs were
> big honkers all the way back to the base of 
> > Pterodactyloidea, with _N._ representing a
> specialized arboreal lineage with reduced body size.
> 
> 
> That scenario seems a lot more likely to me too. 
> It's funny how late it is in the Mesozoic before we
> find a "specialized arboreal lineage" of pterosaurs.
>  Ditto for birds.
> 
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Tim
>
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