RE: Brodavis, new freshwater Late Cretaceous hesperornithiform from Asia and North America

[Jaime Headden <qi_leong@hotmail.com>]

Oh, yes.... another mono"generic" family. Yay. What's more, it's going to be 
certainly validated on the seeming "uniqueness" of the morphology, and the 
species being named will largely vary in area and size. While we can sample 
species today through these criteria, they will tend to be more variable due to 
sampling sizes and population restrictions (allopatry) rather than _just_ due 
to these criteria. But, what do I know?


Cheers,

  Jaime A. Headden
  The Bite Stuff (site v2)
  http://qilong.wordpress.com/

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)


"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a
different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race
has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or
his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion 
Backs)


----------------------------------------
> Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:04:53 -0800
> 
From: bcreisler@gmail.com
> To: 
dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Brodavis, new freshwater Late 
Cretaceous hesperornithiform from Asia and North 
America
>
> From: Ben Creisler
> 
bcreisler@gmail.com
>
> A new paper and taxon 
(Brodavis) out for a few weeks but not yet
> mentioned on 
the DML:
>
>
> Larry D. Martin, 
Evgeny N. Kurochkin & Tim T. Tokaryk (2012)
> A new 
evolutionary lineage of diving birds from the Late Cretaceous of
> 
North America and Asia.
> Palaeoworld (advance online 
publication)
> 
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.palwor.2012.02.005
> 
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871174X12000066
>
>
 A new family, Brodavidae, with one new genus and four species, 
is
> described from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of 
Asia and North
> America. These include the first freshwater 
occurrences and latest
> records of the order Hesperornithiformes, 
an extinct group of diving
> birds whose marine members had 
probably lost their powers of flight by
> the end of the Early 
Cretaceous. Minimal pachyostosis in the
> freshwater form suggests 
the possibility of volant 
abilities.
>
>
> (link to abstract 
has preview illustrations of bones)