RE: Changyuraptor, new big microraptorine theropod from Early Cretaceous of China

[Jason Brougham <jaseb@amnh.org>]

Of course I mean co-ossification, or fusion, of skeletal elements. My apologies.

________________________________________
From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu] on behalf of Jason 
Brougham [jaseb@amnh.org]
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2014 8:04 PM
To: mickey_mortimer111@msn.com; dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: RE: Changyuraptor, new big microraptorine theropod from Early 
Cretaceous of China

Interesting. I wonder if Foth et al. examined the Balaur material in detail. 
Characters like ossification or digit reduction, of course, happen as 
autapomorphies in other dinosaur clades. So some of us may conclude that, in 
fact, intensive study of the fossils, rather than novelty of the results, might 
be objectively better.


________________________________________
From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu] on behalf of Mickey 
Mortimer [mickey_mortimer111@msn.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2014 7:43 PM
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: RE: Changyuraptor, new big microraptorine theropod from Early 
Cretaceous of China

Jason Brougham wrote-

> I was interested to see that the new cladogram disagrees with that of the
> recent Foth et al. Archaeopteryx paper in two important respects: It moves
> Balaur back to the Velociraptorinae, within Dromaeosauridae, and recovers
> the Deinonychosauria as a monophyletic clade.

That's because Han et al. just added Changyuraptor to Turner's very flawed 
analysis ( 
http://theropoddatabase.blogspot.com/2012/08/turner-et-al-2012-great-review-sloppy.html
 ) which had a dromaeosaurid Balaur and monophyletic Deinonychosauria, whereas 
Foth et al. combined Turner et al.'s data with Senter's, Rauhut's and Agnolin 
and Novas' to form a more extensive and novel analysis.  So Foth et al.'s 
analysis is objectively better than Turner et al.'s, though it should be noted 
that Foth et al. seem to have not coded taxa for analyses they weren't 
previously published in.  For instance, Turner et al. only used Alxasaurus, 
Segnosaurus and Erlikosaurus from Therizinosauria, so Foth et al. didn't code 
e.g
 Turner et al.'s characters, leaving them unknown.

Mickey Mortimer