RE: Scansoriopteryx, a non-dinosaurian bird (?)

[dale mcinnes <wdm1949@hotmail.com>]

That's cruel Tim. 

Sometimes the sky in some peoples' world is just a little different color.

Sometimes a lot. 
 

> Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2014 10:22:34 +1000
> From: tijawi@gmail.com
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Re: Scansoriopteryx, a non-dinosaurian bird (?)
> 
> Good for a laugh.
> 
> On Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 12:34 AM, Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Ben Creisler
>> bcreisler@gmail.com
>>
>> A new online paper:
>>
>> Stephen A. Czerkas & Alan Feduccia (2014)
>> Jurassic archosaur is a non-dinosaurian bird.
>> Journal of Ornithology (advance online publication)
>> DOI: 10.1007/s10336-014-1098-9
>> http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10336-014-1098-9
>>
>> Re-examination utilizing Keyence 3D digital microscopy and low angled
>> illumination of the fossil Scansoriopteryx, a problematic sparrow-size
>> pre-Archaeopteryx specimen from the Jurassic Daohugou Biotas, provides
>> new evidence which challenges the widely accepted hypothesis that
>> birds are derived from dinosaurs in which avian flight originated from
>> cursorial forms. Contrary to previous interpretations in which
>> Scansoriopteryx was considered to be a coelurosaurian theropod
>> dinosaur, the absence of fundamental dinosaurian characteristics
>> demonstrates that it was not derived from a dinosaurian ancestry and
>> should not be considered as a theropod dinosaur. Furthermore, the
>> combination in which highly plesiomorphic non-dinosaurian traits are
>> retained along with highly derived features, yet only the beginnings
>> of salient birdlike characteristics, indicates that the basal origins
>> of Aves stemmed from outside the Dinosauria and further back to basal
>> archosaurs. Impressions of primitive elongate feathers on the
>> forelimbs and hindlimbs suggest that Scansoriopteryx represents a
>> basal form of “tetrapteryx” in which incipient aerodynamics involving
>> parachuting or gliding was possible. Along with unique adaptations for
>> an arboreal lifestyle, Scansoriopteryx fulfills predictions from the
>> early twentieth century that the ancestors of birds did not evolve
>> from dinosaurs, and instead were derived from earlier arboreal
>> archosaurs which originated flight according to the traditional
>> trees-down scenario.