Friday, December 17, 2010

The Basic Picture

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The basic picture is that during the Cretaceous, separate primitive bird lines were established, each within its particular niche. And then...
2 comments:
Sunday, December 12, 2010

Bird Groupings

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Here is one study of how modern birds can be classified. Hackett et al. cladogram http://www.owlpages.info/downloads/A_Phylogenomic_Study...
Saturday, December 4, 2010

Filling in the picture (2)

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Consider all the taxa (gold bars) that extend to near the K/T extinction (65 mya). Those are Oviraptorids, Troodontids, Dromaeosaurids...

Filling in the picture (1)

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To repeat an important point, consider the time-based cladogram (above) that we saw earlier Note that the group labeled "Modern birds...
Friday, December 3, 2010

Additional fossils

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Here are some additional fossils. http://www.oceansofkansas.com/Pteranodon.html Notice the pteroid bone. In both pictures the pteroid bone i...
Thursday, December 2, 2010

The primitive bird 1st metacarpal.

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Here is the primitive bird Deinonychus hand: http://www.pnas.org/content/96/9/5111/F3.large.jpg http://www.pnas.org/content/96/9/5111.full...

Revised total progression

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Total progression 2 -3-4-4-x Pterosaur x-2-3-4-x Primitive bird (maniraptors that are not modern birds) Note: http://www.seaworld.or...
10 comments:

Pterosaur wrist (5)

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More on the pterosaur wrist. http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content-nw/full/210/10/1663/ Fig. 4. (A) Lateral view of the right medial...

Pterosaur wrist (4)

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http://bigcat.fhsu.edu/biology/cbennett/pteroid-articulation.html "The medial aspect of the left preaxial carpal is visible (upper ...

Pterosaur wrist (3)

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enlarge figure "FIGURE 2. Skeletal reconstruction of Anhanguera (modified from Wilkinson et al., 2006 ) showing a medially...

Pterosaur wrist (2)

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Pterosaur wrist (1)

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http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/210/10/1663/ "Fig. 1. Skeletal reconstruction of the Cretaceous pterosaur Anhangu...
Saturday, November 20, 2010

* Comparing dinos to birds

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Many people think that birds evolved from dinosaurs. To be more precise their claim is that birds evolved from non-maniraptoran coelurosaur...
8 comments:

Pterosaur Hand

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Here is a great drawing of a pterosaur It shows the "pteroid bone" which is a neomorph. It shows the other fingers including ...
Friday, November 19, 2010

Primitive to Modern Birds

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Here is a first cut at the development of primitive bird groups to modern bird groups. See the updated version here: http://pterosaurnet....
Friday, November 12, 2010

Prow Beaks

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I have been analyzing the pterosaurs to see if they actually had beaks as we use the term "beak". Rhamphorhynchoid stands for ...
Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Protofeathers on the wing membrane

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Here is a reference to the "pycnofibres"    - e ven as early as the  Rhamphorhynchus . If they are  related to feathers they cor...
Monday, November 1, 2010

Painten Pelican

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Here is a reference to a very interesting picture: http://pterosaur-net.blogspot.com/20...-throwing.html "An unusual pterosaur skull, ...
4 comments:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Questions

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If anyone has questions, comments or objections, feel free to post them. I will do my best to answer them
85 comments:
Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Two Dimensions

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In situations where we see contradictions, the answer is often that there are two dimensions that are involved but we are only acknowledgin...