Comment on "narrow primary feather rachises in Confuciusornis and Archaeopteryx suggest poor flight ability"

Science

Volumn 330, Issue 6002, 2010, Pages

  Paul, Gregory S ^a  

^a NONE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARCHAEOPTERYX; BIRD; CONFUCIUSORNIS; FEATHER; FLIGHT; FLIGHT MUSCLE; NONHUMAN; NOTE; PRIORITY JOURNAL; SKELETON; ANIMAL; BIOMECHANICS; BODY WEIGHT; FLYING; FORELIMB; FOSSIL; HISTOLOGY; PHYSIOLOGY;

ARCHAEOPTERYX; AVES; CONFUCIUSORNIS;

ANIMALS; BIOMECHANICS; BIRDS; BODY WEIGHT; FEATHERS; FLIGHT, ANIMAL; FOSSILS; WING;

EID: 77957951724     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: 10959203     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.1192963     Document Type: Note

References (14)

1. R. L. Nudds, G. J. Dyke, Science 328, 887 (2010).
2. G. S. Paul, Dinosaurs of the Air (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore, 2010).
3. G. S. Paul, Predatory Dinosaurs of the World (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1988).
4. That the volumetric mass estimates in (2) and (3) incorporate high specific gravities of 0.85, large flight muscles, and feathers reduces the possibility that they are too low. Using the method of Christiansen and Farina (14), the mass estimate for the Munich specimen is a similar 135 g.
5. D. W. Yalden, Zool. J. Linn. Soc. 82, 177 (1984).
6. A. Elzanowski, in Mesozoic Birds: Above the Heads of Dinosaurs, L. M. Chiappe, L. M. Witmer, Eds. (University of California Press, Berkeley, 2002), pp. 129-159.
7. The visible rachises of the Berlin specimen primaries are up to 1.3 mm in diameter, but they taper strongly proximally, so their maximum widths are probably much higher.
8. Mass estimates based on extrapolations from skeletal dimensions as used by Nudds and Dyke regarding Confuciusornis are less reliable than volumetric estimates because of very large variations in mass/dimension ratios in different animals (2, 3, 9, 10). The mass estimate in (2) for Confuciusornis is too high for specimens of the size examined herein.
9. G. S. Paul, Dinofest International, D. L. Wolberg, E. Stump, G. D. Rosenberg, Eds. (The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, 1997), pp. 129-154.
10. The wings of Confuciusornis are exceptionally large relative to mass (Fig. 1), perhaps an adaptation for achieving sustained flight with its grade of flight adaptations (2).
11. S. L. Olson, A. Feduccia, Nature 278, 247 (1979).
12. M. Chang, The Jehol Biota (Shanghai Scientific and Technical Publishers, Shanghai, 2003).
13. Preservation of large numbers of nonaquatic, nonflocking flying vertebrates over large areas of lake bottoms is rare at best, while this taphonomic event is fully compatible with power flying in groups.
14. P. Christiansen, R. A. Farina, Hist. Biol. 16, 85 (2004).