very interesting thread. I that in this forum some times the thing turns out from creationism and deals with real science in a way that is a bit hard to find usually in aonther forums...
Anyway, somewhere someone said about the possibilty of a very early origin of feathers, if Longisquama really possessed feathers. But then feathers on present day birds (i’m not saying that Longisquama would be a bird, I’m out of the taxonomical arguments) would be a sort of reactivation of long-disabled genes. But would not had been these genes disabled for way too long time? They could have been preserved by alternative splicing or something else, anyway, but seems odd to me. Also, if Longisquama were really feathered, which other predictions on the distribution of feathers could be done? Closely related groups should also have feathers in different stages, should not them?
About secondary flightlessness, where the supporters of this hypothesis place exactly the dromaeosaurs that would be birds? I’ve found once proposed "cladogram", which placed them after Archaeopteryx, but is this a necessary assumption of the hypothesis?
A bit related to that was the creationist claim that could be that Archie was a good flier. Actually he was not, but I think that even if he was, it does not take the transitional status from him. But the relation with the earlier issue... there is a possibility that Archaeopteryx is rather than a species in which avian flight is just beginning, a descendant from an unknown bird with more developed flight?
Other point a bit related is on warm-bloodness of dinosaurs. It was the first time I read that they might be all warm blooded, and as far as I heard of the implications of that, it sounds a bit difficult to be true. Such as the ammount of food required for sustain a high metabolism in large sauropods. Also, I found much interesting the nearly extreme opposite point of view, that not even the early birds would be as warm-blooded as the present day birds. I’ve read a paper on that some time ago, but sadly I can’t remember anything. A bit consistent with that hypothesis, or at least seems to me, is the state of the Alvarezsaurids, if considered as flightless birds, the nature of their anatomy and comparison with the loss of flight in present day birds.
It’s explained more detailed here in the site palaeos.com
Palaeos: Page not found
Other interesting thing in this whole topic in general, is that Archaeopteryx, accoriding with some recent studies, is yet more dromaeosaur than ever. First, no reversed halux; also, he’d have had the sickle claw too. Something else I don’t know exactly in the anatomy of the head was also more similar to dromaeosaurs than what was previously known.
Also about the sickle claws, I’ve read recently (I guess was on DML) the suggestion that these could have been used as a climbing tool rather than as a weapon of any kind. If archie has them, it makes a lot of sense, or so it appears to me. Maybe they could make comparisons on how the size of these claws vary from species to species according to weight of the animal. But anyway it does not impedes that after reaching some size the claws were used as weapons, since is a bit weird to picture Utahraptor climbing in a trunk.
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