Re: tiny dinosaur

[Tim Williams <tijawi@gmail.com>]

Jonas Weselake-George <ee555@ncf.ca> wrote:


> My reference to bauplans was within one group or the other - basically,
> if there is a family of morphologically and ecologically similar
> species, and they are experiencing similar pressures they are likely to
> stumble down different routes. So a half-dozen flight evolution events
> within the same family of species is quite likely.


Yes, I can see that happening in paravians.  If small unenlagiines
like _Rahonavis_ could glide, it is possible their aerial abilities
evolved independently of microraptorines.  Personally, I think the
common ancestor of all paravians was capable of climbing and gliding,
and these behaviors were primitive for Paraves (and lost multiple
times - by velociraptorines, large unenlagiines, etc).


> Thanks for the more complete list of mammalian gliders - I wasn't aware
> of a number of them.


The total of nine groups I came up with excluded sifakas
(_Propithecus_), probably unjustifiably.  But I wanted to stick to
full patagial gliders, not mammals that solely use incipient patagia
or their pelage to create lift.





Cheers

Tim