Abstract
No abstract.
Highlights
This book’s author is at home in the paleontology, anatomy, physiology, and behavior of birds
Figure six in Ostrom (1979) suggest that its feet are more like those of terrestrial than perching birds. Ostrom concluded from these resemblances that Archaeopteryx was cursorial, that feathers first evolved for insulation (Ostrom 1974), and that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs
Feduccia raised three objections to Ostrom’s view: 1. Most of the fossils used to support the theropod ancestry of birds are 20 million or more years younger than Archaeopteryx
Summary
This book’s author is at home in the paleontology, anatomy, physiology, and behavior of birds. Archaeopteryx, like the earlier Aurornis (Godefroit et al 2013), Anchiornis (Hu et al 2009), and Xiaotingia (Xu et al 2011), had a robust furcula (wishbone), as do almost all modern flying birds, whereas it is reduced in most flightless birds and entirely lacking in Deinonychus (Ostrom 1979). Ostrom concluded from these resemblances that Archaeopteryx was cursorial, that feathers first evolved for insulation (Ostrom 1974), and that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs.
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