Abstract
The avian status of Mononykus is refuted in this paper through a detailed analysis of its supposed avian characters. An extensive comparison between it and fossorial mammals (especially moles), as well as various bipedal archosaurs, indicates that some of its resemblances to extant birds are digging adaptations. Most of the others can be explained either by its digging adaptation or by its obligatory bipedalism, in addition, many of its features, as compared with birds (including Archaeopteryx), seem to be too primitive for avian night, and there is no evidence indicating that the absence of night in Mononykus was secondarily lost.
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