Re: Ah ha! That's where therizinosaurs came from

[Tim Williams <tijawi@gmail.com>]

Mike Keesey <keesey@gmail.com> wrote:


> That's only a problem if you assume that "trees-down" is an essential
> part of the neoflightless hypothesis.


http://gspauldino.com/JVP01.pdf

(Entitled: "Increasing evidence for an arboreal origin of
dinosaur-avian flight, and for losses of flight in post-urvogel
dinosaurs")


Sam Barnett <sam.horus@gmail.com> wrote:

> I may be going out on a limb here but are we looking at Archaeopteryx
> expecting features indicative of an arboreal biped when we should be looking
> for an arboreal quadruped? Those forelimb claws must have come in handy for
> something.



I agree on one point - there's no doubt that the forelimb claws of
_Archaeopteryx_ were handy for something.  Predation?  Defense?
Climbing?  But when it comes to branch-grasping, the hand was not very
useful at all.  Neither the manus nor the pes of _Archaeopteryx_ was
capable of much prehension.





Cheers

Tim