Posted on 02/15/2002 6:20:27 PM PST by green team 1999
Fossil Strengthens Dinosaur-Bird Link
"The similarities in the skeleton between animals like Sinovenator and Archaeopteryx are very striking,"said Makovicky.
Sinovenator was a two-legged predator like the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex but it was the size of a large chicken with a skeleton less than three feet (one meter) long.
It had a bird-like shoulder joint, a wishbone and a pelvic bone that points backward, similar to modern birds and was found in the fossil beds in northeastern China's Liaoning Province, an area that has yielded other important fossils.
"It demonstrates that major structural modification toward birds occurred much earlier in the evolutionary process than previously thought," said Makovicky, who reported the findings in the science journal Nature.
Paleontologists have been strongly divided over whether birds evolved from dinosaurs. But Makovicky, who co-authored the Nature report with colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and the American Museum of Natural History in New York, said the dinosaur fossil should resolve the issue.
"These findings help counter, once and for all, the position of paleontologists who argue that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs," he said.
EVOLUTIONARY TREE
Scientists weren't sure exactly where troodontids were placed in the evolutionary tree because they had features that are present in birds and others found in different dinosaur groups.
Sinovenator will help eliminate some of the confusion, said Makovicky, adding that the fossil also cuts the time gap between the appearance of birds and dinosaurs that are closely related to them.
"The discovery of Sinovenator is important because it is the earliest troodontid dinosaur yet discovered," said Dr. Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History.
"It is very close to the age of Archaeopteryx. This means that any perceived problem about differences in age between the origin of birds and the occurrence of small bird-like theropods disappears," he added in a statement.
Theropod dinosaurs, two legged predators such as Sinovenator, and birds have more than 100 similar anatomical features including a wishbone, swiveling wrists and three forward pointing toes.
"Our study suggests that dromaeosaurs (swift running theropods) and troodontids are each others' closest relatives and that those two groups share a close common ancestor with birds," said Makovicky.
for information and discusion only,not for profit etc,etc.
... The problem is that your charm and wit are so attractive ...Well, something bloody caught your interest. Whatever it is I wish I could make it stop. I've had rashes that were more pleasant and interesting, and certainly less tenacious.
We didn't all do that, Brainiac!
It's the pathology of these threads that fascinates me. Last night I had a guy turning into Mister Twitchy asking me the same the same question for about three pages of replies, ignoring all attempts to drive the answer into his brain with a mallet.
Tonight, here's you, fresh from nowhere, diagnosing me as a burned-out flower child for following the evidence and ignoring the Witch Doctors. It's a carnival freak show.
Well, don't I feel like a dope? If I had known that, I wouldn't have made such a fuss about support for his assertions, him being credentialed and all...
I donno where this is leading. I think I don't want to know.
If you'd quit trying to change the subject and evade the issue I wouldn't have to keep repeating myself, eVadeRetro. I did get a laugh from your comment about getting me fired for posting on FR. Can you snap your fingers and change your sex to female? There's more chance of that happening then you're pathetic attempts of ridicule actually getting me fired. Even for you that was way out there.
He apparently mistakes experiment for threat. If he had been fired, it would have been for his own actions, not mine. For the easily amused only (it's the same thing over and over and over as I experiment with typing s-l-o-w-l-y, big font, more detail, less detail, links, etc.), and not for those who want to remember scripter as a sane character, the thread is here. Jekyll/scripter becomes Hyde/Twitchy after I answer his point, when he originally makes it to Heartlander. IOW, he only starts asking me after I've already answered him once.
We now return you to the back-from-the-dead thread in progress, in which a mostly new-to-these-discussions crew display their pathologies.
Actually, there are a number of highly educated, multiple-degree individuals on these threads. You'd be very surprised.
Very true. However, circumstantial evidence suggests that "the brain" has no particular expertise in this area - therefore I think my request for evidence to support the assertions made is not out of line.
I wouldn't go there, Vade. I post a lot at work. Of course, I work on a computer helpdesk, and we occasionally have downtime between calls. Most employers are pretty lenient as long as it doesn't interfere with the work.
It's not just that, which doesn't apply to my situation at all. Work schedules became very flexible in the 1990s and are even more so today. Some folks work from home, some from home and the office, and some don't have the luxury of either.
I've never mentioned my employer on this forum or what I do for a living. My employer could be anybody or nobody. How am I paid? Salary, hourly, commission, by the job? What are my hours?
My situation could be any, a combination, or none of the above. Not knowing any of the above, or limiting my situation in any way without prior knowledge and making any comments about it, IMO, show desperate tactics, tactics that failed miserably.
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