RE: AW: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the New Papers

[Michael Mortimer <mickey_mortimer111@msn.com>]

koreke77@yahoo.de wrote-

>> Yuan, C. 2008. A new genus and species of Sapeornithidae
>> from Lower Cretaceous in western Liaoning, China. Acta
>> Geologica Sinica 82(1):48-55.
>>
>> ABSTRACT: Sapeornithidae is a basal pygostylian family of
>> Early Cretaceous primitive birds, in which only one genus
>> and species, Sapeornis chaoyangensis, was reported before.
>> This paper deals with a new genus and species of this
>> family, Didactylornis jii gen. et sp. nov., which was
>> unearthed from the Early Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation in
>> western Liaoning. According to our phylogenetic analyses,
>> both Didactylornis gen. nov. and Sapeornis form a sister
>> group, which is basal to the clade formed by Confuciusornis
>> and all the more derived birds, and more closely related to
>> the short-tailed pygostylian birds than to the long-tailed
>> avialian birds. The early history of pygostylian birds is
>> poorly documented except for the studies of Confuciusornis
>> and Sapeornis. The discovery of Didactylornis jii gen. et
>> sp. nov. adds the new material for the study on the early
>> evolution of birds.
>
> So it's closer to _Sapeornis_ than to _Omnivoropteryx_, or what? Anyways, 
> does anyone have this already? My licence covers issue 3 and 4, but strangely 
> 1+2 are not listed at all (as of yet).

No, Yuan ignores Omnivoropteryx, as have pretty much all authors since its 
description.  I wouldn't be surprised if both Didactylornis and Omnivoropteryx 
were synonyms of Sapeornis.  The differences between Didactylornis and 
Sapeornis are basically more manual fusion in the former and a crazy 2-3-4-4-0 
pedal formula like Wellnhoferia.

Mickey Mortimer