Comments on: Guest Post: your Thanksgiving / Christmas theropod

By: What Kind of Dinosaur is Coming to Dinner? | Dinosaur Tracking

What Kind of Dinosaur is Coming to Dinner? | Dinosaur Tracking — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 15:01:22 +0000

[...] Not everyone agrees with the new proposal. For now, Archaeopteryx is still widely regarded to be at the base of the bird family tree, recently branched off from a deinonychosaur ancestor. Nevertheless, the argument underscores the point that many traits thought to be exclusively avian evolved much earlier in dinosaurian history than we previously expected. The more dinosaurs we find, the smaller the difference between the earliest avian dinosaurs and their non-avian ancestors. I know the pudgy kid in Jurassic Park called Velociraptor as “six foot turkey” as a put-down, but the comment isn’t too far of the mark. When you pick at the bird on your plate tonight, you’re devouring the dressed remains of a distant Deinonychus cousin. [...]

By: David Marjanović

David Marjanović — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 22:23:40 +0000

…”No unguals on manus” is often untrue in turkeys and chickens, however.

By: David Marjanović

David Marjanović — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 22:23:06 +0000

Thanks for using the name Euornithes! So many people act as if it didn’t exist, presumably because it was published in a small German journal (though by Sereno and in English).

By: Back to that pterosaur sacrum / pelvis « Dave Hone’s Archosaur Musings

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 02:01:54 +0000

[...] The fossil here is exceptionally well preserved and while there are some missing bits, it’s one of the best pelves going and well worth a good look. As you can see from the other photos I have managed to cobble together by holding the various parts in place, the bones fit together incredibly snugly with each other and the sacrum to form a very solid unit. For all that pterosaurs are lightly built, they do tend to have a very robust pelvis and while I’m not aware of any explicit studies the assumption for this has long been, rather reasonably, that it’s to do with the forces of landing, which can be pretty hard going. Plenty of birds have very robust pelves for the same reason, take a look at your turkey over Christmas for a great example (or indeed this post). [...]