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So, Jinguofortisidae can't be the correct way to formulate the family name, right? Shouldn't it be 'Jinguofortidae' or something? Doesn't matter, since according to ICZN Article 29.4, "if after 1999 a new family-group name is based on a generic name which
is or ends in a Greek or Latin word or ends in a Greek or Latin suffix, but its derivation does not follow the grammatical procedures of Articles 29.3.1 or 29.3.2, its original spelling must be maintained as the correct original spelling." But still, are
Wang, Stidham, Zhou and the hypothetical reviewers that ignorant of Latin or am I wrong?
Also, the phylogenetic definition is "the most inclusive clade containing Jinguofortis perplexus and Chongmingia zhengi Wang et al., 2016, but not Sapeornis chaoyangensis Zhou and Zhang, 2002, or Confuciusornis sanctus Hou et al., 1995",
so if jinguofortisids are one node closer to crown Aves than they recovered, all ornithothoracines fall into the clade. Should have used Passer or Vultur as an external specifier...
Mickey Mortimer
From: dinosaur-l-request@usc.edu <dinosaur-l-request@usc.edu> on behalf of Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2018 1:03 PM To: dinosaur-l@usc.edu Subject: [dinosaur] Jinguofortis, new pygostylian bird from Early Cretaceous of China Ben Creisler
A new paper:
Jinguofortis perplexus gen. et sp. nov.
Min Wang, Thomas A. Stidham, and Zhonghe Zhou (2018)
A new clade of basal Early Cretaceous pygostylian birds and developmental plasticity of the avian shoulder girdle.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (advance online publication)
Significance
We report the second most basal clade of the short-tailed birds (Pygostylia) from the Early Cretaceous. The new family Jinguofortisidae exhibits a mosaic assembly of plesiomorphic nonavian theropod characteristics, particularly of the fused scapulocoracoid
and more derived flight-related features, further increasing the known ecomorphological diversity of basal avian lineages. We discuss the evolution of the scapula and coracoid in major tetrapod groups and early birds and hypothesize that the fused scapulocoracoid
in some basal avian lineages, although rare, results from an accelerated rate of ossification and that the avian shoulder girdle likely was transformed by developmental plasticity along an evolutionary lineage leading to the crown group of birds.
Abstract
Early members of the clade Pygostylia (birds with a short tail ending in a compound bone termed "pygostyle") are critical for understanding how the modern avian bauplan evolved from long-tailed basal birds like Archaeopteryx. However, the currently limited
known diversity of early branching pygostylians obscures our understanding of this major transition in avian evolution. Here, we describe a basal pygostylian, Jinguofortis perplexus gen. et sp. nov., from the Early Cretaceous of China that adds important information
about early members of the short-tailed bird group. Phylogenetic analysis recovers a clade (Jinguofortisidae fam. nov.) uniting Jinguofortis and the enigmatic basal avian taxon Chongmingia that represents the second earliest diverging group of the Pygostylia.
Jinguofortisids preserve a mosaic combination of plesiomorphic nonavian theropod features such as a fused scapulocoracoid (a major component of the flight apparatus) and more derived flight-related morphologies including the earliest evidence of reduction
in manual digits among birds. The presence of a fused scapulocoracoid in adult individuals independently evolved in Jinguofortisidae and Confuciusornithiformes may relate to an accelerated osteogenesis during chondrogenesis and likely formed through the heterochronic
process of peramorphosis by which these basal taxa retain the scapulocoracoid of the nonavian theropod ancestors with the addition of flight-related modifications. With wings having a low aspect ratio and wing loading, Jinguofortis may have been adapted particularly
to dense forest environments. The discovery of Jinguofortis increases the known ecomorphological diversity of basal pygostylians and highlights the importance of developmental plasticity for understanding mosaic evolution in early birds.
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