Talk:Avisaurus
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[edit] Material?
"It had teeth and lacked a true beak, making their face similar to those of Dromaeosaurids" - has the cranial skeleton of Avisaurus actually been found, or is this just an assumption? Dysmorodrepanis 19:14, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- It must be an assumption, or a ref from after 2004 that no one else has seen. The "Basal Avialae" chapter of The Dinosauria (2nd ed., 2004) states that Avisaurus, with its two species, is known from three tarstometatarsi. J. Spencer 20:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- Yup, somebody probably assumed this based on it's original phylogenetic position (it was originally described as a non-avian, right?). Dinoguy2 21:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- Looking at the Page history, several other section were added by the same contributor:
- "Palentologists think that enantiornithines had a long growing period, but left the nest soon after hatching (Cambra-Moo et al. 2006). Consequently, Avisaurus individuals likely occupied different ecological niches in different periods of their lifespan rather than immediately starting of as predators of vertebrates" and
- "These were the equivalent to the birds of prey of our time in the Late Cretaceous Americas, which at that time were still separated by a branch of the Tethys Ocean. The avisaurids had probably few species, in contrast with the roughly 300 species of today's Falconiformes."
- The comparison to modern Falconiformes does not seem to have any supporting evidence and so is ver suspect. The section regarding growth has no direct bering on this article at all being based off the 2006 Cambra-Moo article which talks about the completely different enantiornithine species Iberomesornis romeralli which is in a different order all together. Kevmin 23:59, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
- Yup, somebody probably assumed this based on it's original phylogenetic position (it was originally described as a non-avian, right?). Dinoguy2 21:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
