Re: Perching, climbing, roosting was Re: 11th specimen of Archaeopteryx

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

> > -- As someone mentioned, goats are fairly highly specialized rock
> > climbers. Seeing them in a tree isn't any more surprising than
> > seeing 300-lb rednecks in a tree. And apparently the tree kangaroos
> > are the sister-group of the rock wallabies (*Petrogale*).
>
>  I've seen alternate phylogenies that place tree-kangaroos
>  (_Dendrolagus_) as the most basal taxon of extant Macropodidae
>  (sensu stricto; i.e., separate from Potoroidae, Hypsiprymnodontidae,
>  Balbaridae etc within the greater kangaroo clade, Macropodoidea).

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2011/10/17/tree-kangaroos-come-first/

> > -- *Zhongornis*? Underrated? Isn't it rather an overrated juvenile
> > *Confuciusornis*?
>
>  I've not heard this suggested before.

I think I have right here on this list.

>  If _Zhongornis_ is a juvenile _Confuciusornis_, it means that the
>  latter had a 'free' tail as a juvenile that only fused into a
>  pygostyle with ontogeny.

Wouldn't terribly surprise me if that actually happened.