On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 12:04:59 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 8:44:33 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > On 9/23/21 2:49 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 4:54:48 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > >> On 9/23/21 1:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > >>> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 1:19:50 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > >>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 7:33:25 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > >>>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10:11:18 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > >>>>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:44:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>>>>> You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
> > >>>>>>> if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
> > >>>>>>> also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
> > >>>>>>> absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
> > >>>>>>> the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
> > >>>>>>> copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
> > >>>>>>> in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
> > >>>>>>> that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
> > >>>>>>> thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.
> > >>>
> > >>>>> Erik, I suppose the following one-liner of yours could come under the "Dogmatism" rubric. :)
> > >>>
> > >>>>>> Haven't we seen this movie before?
> > >>>
> > >>>>> Never. Nothing at all like it. Have you ever seen Harshman's main group about which Feduccia
> > >>>>> was allegedly saying inconsistent things evolved like this in the space of ONE WEEK?
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Dromaeosauridae ------> Coelurosauria -----> Maniraptora -----> Deinonychus
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> You really need to get skeptical about your memory, Erik.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> To save readers trouble: Maniraptora is a subclade of Coelurosauria, while Dromaeosauridae is a subclade of Maniraptora, and Deinonychus is a genus in Dromaeosauridae. Apparently "deinonychids" is a synonym
> > >>>>> for that one iconic genus, the sickle-clawed Deinonychus.
> > >
> > >
> > > This post is focused on an on-topic issue of phylogeny, for which the above provides context.
> > >
> > >>> Harshman has claimed "deinonychids" included more, specifically *Utahraptor*,
> What I had earlier wanted to know whether "deinonychids" [see above]
> was a synonym for *Deinonychus*. Note the lack of the -idae ending which would have
> made such a question sound naive.
> > >>> but the two phylogenetic
> > >>> trees at the bottom of the following webpage strongly contradict this:
> > >
> > >> Given that neither tree contains a node labeled Deinonychidae, I'm
> > >> puzzled how you think they contradict anything.
>
> > > Both have a branch tip labeled "Deinonychus," and both have one in a very different
> > > place labeled "Utahraptor." Scroll down to the bottom of the web page.
>
> > Not sure what your point is here.
> The point was further down in this same post. Once you saw it, it should
> have become obvious that the following comment completely missed the point:
> > Unless you have a definition for
> > Deinonychidae you can't say whether that very different place is within
> > it or not.
> You always seem to be in a hurry, preventing you from scrolling up and deleting inappropriate comments.
> Why? do you have a job that is more consuming than mine as a full-time Professor?
> > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae
> > >
> > > Really, now, how could anything be clearer than this?
>
> > You imagine clarity, but the clarity is the result of your confusion
> > about the issue.
> There was no confusion, as you should have seen if you had
> bothered to read to the end before typing this.
> My comment was a tad premature, that's all.
> > >>> About an hour ago, I've asked Harshman whether the analyses that produced these trees
> > >>> have been superseded. He completely ignored the question in his shoot-from-the-hip reply,
> > >>> and moved the goalposts.
> > >
> > >> I answered the question as it deserved, by rejecting it as based on a
> > >> false assumption.
> > >
> > > Illogically rejecting it: take a look at the two trees and ponder the implications of what you see there
> > > for your next comment. My questions below should help you.
>
> > Sure, though I'm not optimistic.
>
> > >> Deinonychidae is a family name once proposed for
> > >> Deinonychus and some of its close relatives.
> > >
> > > Did it swallow up the subfamily Dromaesaurinae, as the first tree shows it would do?
> > >
> > > Did it swallow up both Dromaesaurinae and Velociraptorinae, as the second tree shows it would do?
> > >
> > > If you combine the swallowing-ups, the trees will have it include all of Eudromaeosauria,
> > > and the genus Tsaagan. Is this really what you meant by "some of its close relatives"?
>
> > I can't answer the question. I don't know the proposed definition of
> > Deinonychidae. The only thing I could find out about it quickly was that
> > Utahraptor was another proposed member.
> "quickly" again suggests that something is making you do things in a big hurry.
> What is it?
> >And of course the name may have
> > assumed a different tree from either of the ones shown.
> Do you know anyone who could help you find out? Or is it just that you
> can't be bothered to find out more?
>
> Anyway, you seem to have answered a question that I was hoping Erik
> would ask you, since you ducked it when I asked you: Do you know whether
> either tree has been superseded by some new analysis?
>
> And the answer is, you don't. One tree goes back to 2015, one to 2017.
> And that's a problem, given the big discrepancies.
> > > Remainder deleted, lest it distract you from the above questions.
>
> > This is a trivial point having nothing to do with phylogeny.
> That's because you missed the real point I was building up to, but
> it should have been obvious from the big discrepancies.
>
> It is very much a problem of phylogeny to ascertain which, if either of these
> trees, is the "true to the best of our data" tree. If you can't see that even now,
> then I have to wonder how seriously you have thought about the trees that
> challenge the conventional "wisdom" that dromeosaurs [as in "Eudromaeosauria"]
> are not secondarily flightless birds.
>
>
> <snip nasty, irrelevant, insincere personal remark by yourself>
>
> If you claim to be innocent of these charges, expect a thorough, many-faceted rebuttal.
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
> University of So. Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

I can't tell if you're actually interested in this sort of thing, but:

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1134/S1028334X21070047.pdf

presents another, later (2021) phylogenetic tree. Note that Deinonychus appears, but no "deinonychidae". The same tree in a
slightly more familar format is displayed in the Wiki entry on Deinonychus. Your quest for a "true" tree
is confusing to me. Trees are produced using data. DIfferent data, different trees. They're hypotheses, right?
As far as paleontology goes, "truth" and certainty is only possessed by creationists and fools. At some
fine-grained level it's problematic to identify exact relationships between organisms that have been
extinct for ten of millions of year, particularly from only morphological evidence.

On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 2:12:01 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:
> On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 12:04:59 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 8:44:33 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > On 9/23/21 2:49 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 4:54:48 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > >> On 9/23/21 1:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > >>> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 1:19:50 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > >>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 7:33:25 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > >>>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10:11:18 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > >>>>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:44:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > >>>
> > > >>>>>>> You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
> > > >>>>>>> if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
> > > >>>>>>> also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
> > > >>>>>>> absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.
> > > >>>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>> Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
> > > >>>>>>> the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
> > > >>>>>>> copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
> > > >>>>>>>
> > > >>>>>>> I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
> > > >>>>>>> in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
> > > >>>>>>> that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
> > > >>>>>>> thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.
> > > >>>
> > > >>>>> Erik, I suppose the following one-liner of yours could come under the "Dogmatism" rubric. :)
> > > >>>
> > > >>>>>> Haven't we seen this movie before?
> > > >>>
> > > >>>>> Never. Nothing at all like it. Have you ever seen Harshman's main group about which Feduccia
> > > >>>>> was allegedly saying inconsistent things evolved like this in the space of ONE WEEK?
> > > >>>>>
> > > >>>>> Dromaeosauridae ------> Coelurosauria -----> Maniraptora -----> Deinonychus
> > > >>>>>
> > > >>>>> You really need to get skeptical about your memory, Erik.
> > > >>>>>
> > > >>>>> To save readers trouble: Maniraptora is a subclade of Coelurosauria, while Dromaeosauridae is a subclade of Maniraptora, and Deinonychus is a genus in Dromaeosauridae. Apparently "deinonychids" is a synonym
> > > >>>>> for that one iconic genus, the sickle-clawed Deinonychus.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > This post is focused on an on-topic issue of phylogeny, for which the above provides context.
> > > >
> > > >>> Harshman has claimed "deinonychids" included more, specifically *Utahraptor*,
> > What I had earlier wanted to know whether "deinonychids" [see above]
> > was a synonym for *Deinonychus*. Note the lack of the -idae ending which would have
> > made such a question sound naive.
> > > >>> but the two phylogenetic
> > > >>> trees at the bottom of the following webpage strongly contradict this:
> > > >
> > > >> Given that neither tree contains a node labeled Deinonychidae, I'm
> > > >> puzzled how you think they contradict anything.
> >
> > > > Both have a branch tip labeled "Deinonychus," and both have one in a very different
> > > > place labeled "Utahraptor." Scroll down to the bottom of the web page.
> >
> > > Not sure what your point is here.
> > The point was further down in this same post. Once you saw it, it should
> > have become obvious that the following comment completely missed the point:
> > > Unless you have a definition for
> > > Deinonychidae you can't say whether that very different place is within
> > > it or not.
> > You always seem to be in a hurry, preventing you from scrolling up and deleting inappropriate comments.
> > Why? do you have a job that is more consuming than mine as a full-time Professor?
> > > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae
> > > >
> > > > Really, now, how could anything be clearer than this?
> >
> > > You imagine clarity, but the clarity is the result of your confusion
> > > about the issue.
> > There was no confusion, as you should have seen if you had
> > bothered to read to the end before typing this.
> > My comment was a tad premature, that's all.
> > > >>> About an hour ago, I've asked Harshman whether the analyses that produced these trees
> > > >>> have been superseded. He completely ignored the question in his shoot-from-the-hip reply,
> > > >>> and moved the goalposts.
> > > >
> > > >> I answered the question as it deserved, by rejecting it as based on a
> > > >> false assumption.
> > > >
> > > > Illogically rejecting it: take a look at the two trees and ponder the implications of what you see there
> > > > for your next comment. My questions below should help you.
> >
> > > Sure, though I'm not optimistic.
> >
> > > >> Deinonychidae is a family name once proposed for
> > > >> Deinonychus and some of its close relatives.
> > > >
> > > > Did it swallow up the subfamily Dromaesaurinae, as the first tree shows it would do?
> > > >
> > > > Did it swallow up both Dromaesaurinae and Velociraptorinae, as the second tree shows it would do?
> > > >
> > > > If you combine the swallowing-ups, the trees will have it include all of Eudromaeosauria,
> > > > and the genus Tsaagan. Is this really what you meant by "some of its close relatives"?
> >
> > > I can't answer the question. I don't know the proposed definition of
> > > Deinonychidae. The only thing I could find out about it quickly was that
> > > Utahraptor was another proposed member.
> > "quickly" again suggests that something is making you do things in a big hurry.
> > What is it?
> > >And of course the name may have
> > > assumed a different tree from either of the ones shown.
> > Do you know anyone who could help you find out? Or is it just that you
> > can't be bothered to find out more?
> >
> > Anyway, you seem to have answered a question that I was hoping Erik
> > would ask you, since you ducked it when I asked you: Do you know whether
> > either tree has been superseded by some new analysis?
> >
> > And the answer is, you don't. One tree goes back to 2015, one to 2017.
> > And that's a problem, given the big discrepancies.
> > > > Remainder deleted, lest it distract you from the above questions.
> >
> > > This is a trivial point having nothing to do with phylogeny.
> > That's because you missed the real point I was building up to, but
> > it should have been obvious from the big discrepancies.
> >
> > It is very much a problem of phylogeny to ascertain which, if either of these
> > trees, is the "true to the best of our data" tree. If you can't see that even now,
> > then I have to wonder how seriously you have thought about the trees that
> > challenge the conventional "wisdom" that dromeosaurs [as in "Eudromaeosauria"]
> > are not secondarily flightless birds.
> >
> >
> > <snip nasty, irrelevant, insincere personal remark by yourself>
> >
> > If you claim to be innocent of these charges, expect a thorough, many-faceted rebuttal.
> > Peter Nyikos
> > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
> > University of So. Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
> > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> I can't tell if you're actually interested in this sort of thing, but:
>
> https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1134/S1028334X21070047.pdf
>
> presents another, later (2021) phylogenetic tree. Note that Deinonychus appears, but no "deinonychidae". The same tree in a
> slightly more familar format is displayed in the Wiki entry on Deinonychus. Your quest for a "true" tree
> is confusing to me. Trees are produced using data. DIfferent data, different trees. They're hypotheses, right?
> As far as paleontology goes, "truth" and certainty is only possessed by creationists and fools. At some
> fine-grained level it's problematic to identify exact relationships between organisms that have been
> extinct for ten of millions of year, particularly from only morphological evidence.

On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 2:58:45 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:
> On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 2:12:01 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 12:04:59 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 8:44:33 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > On 9/23/21 2:49 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 4:54:48 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > >> On 9/23/21 1:14 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > >>> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 1:19:50 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > >>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 7:33:25 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > >>>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 10:11:18 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > > >>>>>> On Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 6:44:17 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>>>>>> You've made allegations about Feduccia of a magnitude that would make you highly indignant
> > > > >>>>>>> if a similar allegation were made of you. And he isn't even here to defend himself -- and it
> > > > >>>>>>> also gets your dander up when I say something the least bit negative about an
> > > > >>>>>>> absent person whom you don't have a bad opinion of, yourself.
> > > > >>>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>>> Try behaving like a responsible adult and QUOTING something that backs up something along
> > > > >>>>>>> the lines of one of your claims about the earlier article. How long does it take to dig up the article,
> > > > >>>>>>> copy and paste one passage out of it and then another, incompatible passage?
> > > > >>>>>>>
> > > > >>>>>>> I don't think it would take much longer than it took me to dig up the the post that was
> > > > >>>>>>> in the middle of our earlier discussion, figure out two of the three lines of documentation
> > > > >>>>>>> that I posted up there, and to paste them in. And to save you time, I'm even telling you that the last
> > > > >>>>>>> thirteen lines of text in it are all you need to look at.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>>>> Erik, I suppose the following one-liner of yours could come under the "Dogmatism" rubric. :)
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>>>>> Haven't we seen this movie before?
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>>>> Never. Nothing at all like it. Have you ever seen Harshman's main group about which Feduccia
> > > > >>>>> was allegedly saying inconsistent things evolved like this in the space of ONE WEEK?
> > > > >>>>>
> > > > >>>>> Dromaeosauridae ------> Coelurosauria -----> Maniraptora -----> Deinonychus
> > > > >>>>>
> > > > >>>>> You really need to get skeptical about your memory, Erik.
> > > > >>>>>
> > > > >>>>> To save readers trouble: Maniraptora is a subclade of Coelurosauria, while Dromaeosauridae is a subclade of Maniraptora, and Deinonychus is a genus in Dromaeosauridae. Apparently "deinonychids" is a synonym
> > > > >>>>> for that one iconic genus, the sickle-clawed Deinonychus.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > This post is focused on an on-topic issue of phylogeny, for which the above provides context.
> > > > >
> > > > >>> Harshman has claimed "deinonychids" included more, specifically *Utahraptor*,
> > > What I had earlier wanted to know whether "deinonychids" [see above]
> > > was a synonym for *Deinonychus*. Note the lack of the -idae ending which would have
> > > made such a question sound naive.
> > > > >>> but the two phylogenetic
> > > > >>> trees at the bottom of the following webpage strongly contradict this:
> > > > >
> > > > >> Given that neither tree contains a node labeled Deinonychidae, I'm
> > > > >> puzzled how you think they contradict anything.
> > >
> > > > > Both have a branch tip labeled "Deinonychus," and both have one in a very different
> > > > > place labeled "Utahraptor." Scroll down to the bottom of the web page.
> > >
> > > > Not sure what your point is here.
> > > The point was further down in this same post. Once you saw it, it should
> > > have become obvious that the following comment completely missed the point:
> > > > Unless you have a definition for
> > > > Deinonychidae you can't say whether that very different place is within
> > > > it or not.
> > > You always seem to be in a hurry, preventing you from scrolling up and deleting inappropriate comments.
> > > Why? do you have a job that is more consuming than mine as a full-time Professor?
> > > > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae
> > > > >
> > > > > Really, now, how could anything be clearer than this?
> > >
> > > > You imagine clarity, but the clarity is the result of your confusion
> > > > about the issue.
> > > There was no confusion, as you should have seen if you had
> > > bothered to read to the end before typing this.
> > > My comment was a tad premature, that's all.
> > > > >>> About an hour ago, I've asked Harshman whether the analyses that produced these trees
> > > > >>> have been superseded. He completely ignored the question in his shoot-from-the-hip reply,
> > > > >>> and moved the goalposts.
> > > > >
> > > > >> I answered the question as it deserved, by rejecting it as based on a
> > > > >> false assumption.
> > > > >
> > > > > Illogically rejecting it: take a look at the two trees and ponder the implications of what you see there
> > > > > for your next comment. My questions below should help you.
> > >
> > > > Sure, though I'm not optimistic.
> > >
> > > > >> Deinonychidae is a family name once proposed for
> > > > >> Deinonychus and some of its close relatives.
> > > > >
> > > > > Did it swallow up the subfamily Dromaesaurinae, as the first tree shows it would do?
> > > > >
> > > > > Did it swallow up both Dromaesaurinae and Velociraptorinae, as the second tree shows it would do?
> > > > >
> > > > > If you combine the swallowing-ups, the trees will have it include all of Eudromaeosauria,
> > > > > and the genus Tsaagan. Is this really what you meant by "some of its close relatives"?
> > >
> > > > I can't answer the question. I don't know the proposed definition of
> > > > Deinonychidae. The only thing I could find out about it quickly was that
> > > > Utahraptor was another proposed member.
> > > "quickly" again suggests that something is making you do things in a big hurry.
> > > What is it?
> > > >And of course the name may have
> > > > assumed a different tree from either of the ones shown.
> > > Do you know anyone who could help you find out? Or is it just that you
> > > can't be bothered to find out more?
> > >
> > > Anyway, you seem to have answered a question that I was hoping Erik
> > > would ask you, since you ducked it when I asked you: Do you know whether
> > > either tree has been superseded by some new analysis?
> > >
> > > And the answer is, you don't. One tree goes back to 2015, one to 2017.
> > > And that's a problem, given the big discrepancies.
> > > > > Remainder deleted, lest it distract you from the above questions.
> > >
> > > > This is a trivial point having nothing to do with phylogeny.
> > > That's because you missed the real point I was building up to, but
> > > it should have been obvious from the big discrepancies.
> > >
> > > It is very much a problem of phylogeny to ascertain which, if either of these
> > > trees, is the "true to the best of our data" tree. If you can't see that even now,
> > > then I have to wonder how seriously you have thought about the trees that
> > > challenge the conventional "wisdom" that dromeosaurs [as in "Eudromaeosauria"]
> > > are not secondarily flightless birds.
> > >
> > >
> > > <snip nasty, irrelevant, insincere personal remark by yourself>
> > >
> > > If you claim to be innocent of these charges, expect a thorough, many-faceted rebuttal.
> > > Peter Nyikos
> > > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
> > > University of So. Carolina -- standard disclaimer--
> > > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> > I can't tell if you're actually interested in this sort of thing, but:
> >
> > https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1134/S1028334X21070047.pdf
> >
> > presents another, later (2021) phylogenetic tree. Note that Deinonychus appears, but no "deinonychidae". The same tree in a
> > slightly more familar format is displayed in the Wiki entry on Deinonychus. Your quest for a "true" tree
> > is confusing to me. Trees are produced using data. DIfferent data, different trees. They're hypotheses, right?
> > As far as paleontology goes, "truth" and certainty is only possessed by creationists and fools. At some
> > fine-grained level it's problematic to identify exact relationships between organisms that have been
> > extinct for ten of millions of year, particularly from only morphological evidence.
> Oops, that link no longer works. Try
>
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7099077/pdf/41598_2020_Article_61480.pdf

On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 4:25:56 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/24/21 12:04 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 8:44:33 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 9/23/21 2:49 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> On Thursday, September 23, 2021 at 4:54:48 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:

> >>>> Deinonychidae is a family name once proposed for
> >>>> Deinonychus and some of its close relatives.
> >>>
> >>> Did it swallow up the subfamily Dromaesaurinae, as the first tree shows it would do?
> >>>
> >>> Did it swallow up both Dromaesaurinae and Velociraptorinae, as the second tree shows it would do?
> >>>
> >>> If you combine the swallowing-ups, the trees will have it include all of Eudromaeosauria,
> >>> and the genus Tsaagan. Is this really what you meant by "some of its close relatives"?
> >
> >> I can't answer the question. I don't know the proposed definition of
> >> Deinonychidae. The only thing I could find out about it quickly was that
> >> Utahraptor was another proposed member.
> >
> > "quickly" again suggests that something is making you do things in a big hurry.
> > What is it?

> Another question based on a false assumption.

What's false about it? I see no sign of you trying to find out in all the time that elapsed since then.

> >> And of course the name may have
> >> assumed a different tree from either of the ones shown.
> >
> > Do you know anyone who could help you find out? Or is it just that you
> > can't be bothered to find out more?

> The latter.

Then my comments near the end below take on added importance.

<snip for focus>

> >> This is a trivial point having nothing to do with phylogeny.
Here, you were still hung up on the point about what was and was not
in Deinonychidae. Evidently, you temporarily forgot about the big discrepancies,
otherwise you would have realized that they have very much to do with phylogeny.

> > [You say that] because you missed the real point I was building up to, but
> > it should have been obvious from the big discrepancies.

Let me qualify that "should have been": obviously, if you ARE in a big hurry
to answer my posts and be done with it, there is no offense meant,
because you didn't have time to reflect on the implications of what I was writing.

> You really have to start actually saying what you mean

False assumption here: I had another point that I wanted to be clarified before going on.
I did not want you to be distracted if you were too rushed for time to clarify the question
of what you meant by "close relatives."

Closeness is a relative concept; that is why I wanted to know how you were using
it on this occasion.

> rather than
> dropping little hints, assuming you want anyone to understand you.

You understood me just fine: you seem to be complaining because you
weren't able to foretell the future, but there could be a valid reason for that,
as suggested above ["didn't have time to reflect"].

> > It is very much a problem of phylogeny to ascertain which, if either of these
> > trees, is the "true to the best of our data" tree. If you can't see that even now,
> > then I have to wonder how seriously you have thought about the trees that
> > challenge the conventional "wisdom" that dromeosaurs [as in "Eudromaeosauria"]
> > are not secondarily flightless birds.

> I had no idea you were interested in the differences between the trees.
> You never said so until just now.

I'm surprised YOU, a systematist, don't seem to have been interested in the numerous
discrepancies. But perhaps you were too rushed for time to actually take a look
at the trees. Believe me, they are well worth a look, even individually, apart from
there being big discrepancies.

>So far, this has all been about
> whether Deinonychidae should include Utahraptor.

As you can see, it hasn't been about it for at least one post.
[Is this really what you meant by "some of its close relatives"?]

> Now, if you have any questions about the phylogenies, I suggest you consult the papers from
> which the trees were taken, look at their data matrices, and try to
> determine what caused the differences.

Don't you ever want to get back in the business of publishing phylogenies?
This could be a good opportunity; you could be doing the field a big service.
And you are far better at THAT than I am, or could become in the foreseeable future;
I am too busy with my own mathematical research.

> > <snip nasty, irrelevant, insincere personal remark by yourself>

> You accuse me of being insincere?

Yes.

> On what basis?

Unless you claim that you were sincere, there is no point in me telling you.

> > If you claim to be innocent of these charges, expect a thorough, many-faceted rebuttal.

> What charges?

Insincerity, nastiness, irrelevance. Are you deliberately playing dumb? I'd prefer not
to add *that* to these three charges.

> I can't claim innocence unless I see some actual charges.

If you've already forgotten what you wrote and are too rushed for time to
bother looking, I'll gladly repost the words I snipped. Once you do look,
I think you will be able to decide to claim whether you are innocent of one or more
of the three charges, or not.

> I certainly have no interest in your thorough, many-faceted rebuttal.

Unless you claim innocence, there is no reason to be interested in a nonexistent rebuttal.
Did you misunderstand my qualifier "If you claim to be innocent..." ?

Concluded in separate reply to this post, soon after I see that this one has posted.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of So. Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 4:25:56 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:

Picking up where I left off:

> You are very confused about many things,

What you say next does not provide evidence for this gratuitous insult; quite the contrary.

> among them whether trees can
> tell you whether a given group is secondarily flightless.

You are trolling. I've known since 1996 that trees like these are based on cladistic analyses.
The systematists you've insulted as being "fringe" all used them.

In fact, a lot of your contempt for Feduccia is based on him considering some characters
to be far more important than others. Asymmetrical flight remiges are of paramount
importance to him, while you and everyone you have a good opinion of simply leaves them
off the cladistic analyses.

I've complained about this omission many times over the years. Hence my charge of you trolling,
something you have done many times in the past decade in talk.origins, and since early 2018
in sci.bio.paleontology.

> Again I
> mention Greg Paul, who places the origin of flight deep in the theropod
> tree without altering the topology of that tree from the usual one.

You are just intensifying your trolling, in the form of what I call a Phantom Error
Correction Scam. This consists of lecturing someone about something about
the scammer as though correcting some error by the target of the scam,
yet without any sign of any such error anywhere.

Sometimes, like here, the scammer knows full well that the one being lectured to
knows more than enough to make the lecture a sham.

> Whether birds are theropods is a completely separate question from
> whether various maniraptorans are secondarily flightless or whether
> flight happened from the ground up or trees down or a host of other
> possible questions.

"belaboring the obvious" is all I would have said if you hadn't insulted
me by your trolling.

Peter Nyikos

On 9/24/21 4:04 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 4:25:56 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:

Sorry, but I can't respond to either of those two posts, as they consist
almost entirely of accusatory bullshit. If you strip all that out and
start talking about paleontology, I'll be glad to respond. There does
seem to be a bit of paleontology buried in there, but the noise to
signal ratio is just too high.

On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 5:59:58 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 2:58:45 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 2:12:01 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:

It feels a little funny to be talking to "the Ghost of Erik Two Posts Past," Erik,
but you brought up a number of different issues which it is important to clarify,
that I thought it best to handle each one separately.

> > > On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 12:04:59 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:

As you can see from what I wrote here, I withdraw my earlier request to you:

> > > > Anyway, you seem to have answered a question that I was hoping Erik
> > > > would ask you, since you ducked it when I asked you: Do you know whether
> > > > either tree has been superseded by some new analysis?
> > > >
> > > > And the answer is, you don't. One tree goes back to 2015, one to 2017.
> > > > And that's a problem, given the big discrepancies.

> > > > > > Remainder deleted, lest it distract you from the above questions.
> > > >
> > > > > This is a trivial point having nothing to do with phylogeny.
> > > > That's because you missed the real point I was building up to, but
> > > > it should have been obvious from the big discrepancies.
> > > >
> > > > It is very much a problem of phylogeny to ascertain which, if either of these
> > > > trees, is the "true to the best of our data" tree. If you can't see that even now,
> > > > then I have to wonder how seriously you have thought about the trees that
> > > > challenge the conventional "wisdom" that dromeosaurs [as in "Eudromaeosauria"]
> > > > are not secondarily flightless birds.

I left in the above, because you mention only the first word I put in "scare quotes" in your response:

<snip for focus>

> > > I can't tell if you're actually interested in this sort of thing, but:

I am very interested, more so than Harshman seems to be. I have another request for you,
one I hope you won't have to act on, for a similar reason as for that earlier request; see below.

> > > https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1134/S1028334X21070047.pdf
> > >
> > > presents another, later (2021) phylogenetic tree. Note that Deinonychus appears, but no "deinonychidae". The same tree in a
> > > slightly more familar format is displayed in the Wiki entry on Deinonychus.

It also presents one of the trees, by DePalma et al in 2015, that I was telling Harshman about, in:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae

The 2021 tree is a lot closer to the other, 2017 tree in the above webpage. The two agree on the topology
of the subtree containing Deinonychus, Velociraptor, Tsagaan, and Linheraptor.

There are two noteworthy differences: Saurorntholestes is outside the smallest subclade that contains these
four genera in the 2021 analysis, while it is well inside it in the 2017 analysis. In fact, it's the sister taxon of Deinonychus in the 2017 analysis.

The other is a "role reversal" concerning Adasaurus: well inside the subclade in the 2021 analysis, in fact
the sister taxon of Velociraptor; and well outside the subclade in the 2017 analysis.

The "wild card" seems to be the inclusion of Kansaignathus in the 2021 tree. It is missing from both of
the earlier trees, possibly because it was being described for the first time in 2021.

> > > Your quest for a "true" tree
> > > is confusing to me. Trees are produced using data. DIfferent data, different trees.

If you hadn't left off the qualifier "to the best of our data", I think there would only have been confusion
in your mind as to what the phrase meant.

It means that as much data as possible would be taken into account in the scoring
of characters, etc. The "different data" available to the people programming to produce the "different trees"
could be brought together, and then the data would be carefully sifted for redundancies
and discrepancies in the setting up of the data matrices.

Doing this for the three analyses could be a rewarding project for someone with the right background in setting
these things up. All I can suggest is that the 2017 data matrix be compared with the 2021 matrix first, especially
focusing on the "wild card" to see what difference its removal could make in the 2021 tree and its addition
to the 2017 tree. I'd only suggest the two be compared to the 2015 tree after some of the discrepancies
had been ironed out.

> They're hypotheses, right?

Yes, cladistics is almost as much of an art as it is a science. You do the best you can with
all the relevant data. That's what Ockham's Razor is all about, you know: it isn't just using
the information you have at your fingertips, or go with the simplest of competing hypotheses.

In the end, there may still be differences of opinion as to the setting up of the matrices,
but once the respective matrices are published, the specialists in the area at least don't
have the problem of comparing completely different setups, as with the trees in that Wiki entry that I was talking about:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae

> > > As far as paleontology goes, "truth" and certainty is only possessed by creationists and fools.

Yes, but without taking that qualifying "to the best of our data" into account, the above comments of yours are just GIGO.

For years, one of your favorite claims about the things I wrote was, "you are being unclear" or words to that effect.
Harshman is still at it in his reply to the post of mine to which you are replying.

Here you have gone to the opposite extreme: it's clear from what you wrote that you couldn't make head
nor tail of the qualifier that followed "true" and instead of asking about it, you simply ignored it.

> > > At some fine-grained level it's problematic to identify exact relationships between organisms that have been
> > > extinct for ten of millions of year, particularly from only morphological evidence.

Obviously! especially with the incomplete skeletons that almost every species is known to us by.
Plus, sometimes skeletons are so disarticulated, and some of the bones so broken up, that
mis-identifications are almost inevitable. But, as I said, we do the best we can with as much of
the data as we can scrape together.

> > Oops, that link no longer works. Try
> >
> > https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7099077/pdf/41598_2020_Article_61480.pdf

> And scratch that, copy-paste error. Sorry

No problem. If you do find a link, I am very interested, more so than Harshman seems to be. I hope you
you encourage him to do what I suggested after you had done this post, since he seems to have turned a blind eye to it.

"Don't you ever want to get back in the business of publishing phylogenies?
This could be a good opportunity; you could be doing the field a big service.
And you are far better at THAT than I am, or could become in the foreseeable future;
I am too busy with my own mathematical research."

This refers to the kind of analysis I was suggesting above, now enriched by your contribution
of the 2021 information, for which I thank you.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of So. Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

The following travesty by Harshman, and my response, should be compared with
my reply to Erik a bit over an hour ago, especially the end where I make a request of Erik to suggest
that Harshman carefully consider some advice to which he (Harshman) has turned a blind eye
below, that may result in Harshman being hired as a systematist if he does a good job of it.

On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 8:01:32 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:

> Sorry, but I can't respond to either of those two posts, as they consist
> almost entirely of accusatory bullshit.

Are you really this incapable of making absolutely elementary distinctions?
The former post of mine was devoid of fresh accusations, and you responded to the real accusations
that had been made a post earlier without this kind of scurrilous charge or this kind of asinine boycott.

If what you just wrote is sincere, then you are exhibiting a serious degree of paranoia.

Is the reason you have falsely accused me of paranoia hundreds of times
that you want to be able to exhibit REAL paranoia? That is what you are exhibiting
with respect to the first of the two posts. Are you counting on Oxyaena
pretending your hundreds of accusations were true, and trolling "Mote beam eye"
like she loves to do?

Don't try to attack me for bringing Oxyaena into this; you are aping
her with the false charge of "bullshit." As you probably know, she has deleted
many a carefully written and reasoned presentation by me and replaced
it with "[snip mindless bullshit]". You've snipped everything, and called it
"bullshit" when it is nothing of the sort.

That is also true of second post, accusatory though it most certainly was:
it is thoroughly deceitful to call it "bullshit." I justified my accusation of trolling twice over,
and if that doesn't satisfy you, I can do it several times MORE over.

But I suppose that would be counterproductive. What I said once to a relative of
mine probably applies to you:

"There is only one thing you hate more than being falsely accused,
and that is being truthfully accused."

> If you strip all that out and
> start talking about paleontology, I'll be glad to respond.

The punch line to a well known Aesop fable goes: "You didn't dance when I piped to you,
and it is too late for you to start dancing now."

But in your case it is a bit different: you didn't want to discuss paleontology, [1]
and it's too late to pretend [2] that you want to discuss it now.

[1] You kept preferring to badger me to read an article by Feduccia about which
you kept making allegations highly insulting to him, yet you refused to document them
again and again and again. A responsible adult would consider him/herself to
be bound by a sense of duty to back up such allegations, but behaving like a responsible
adult would cramp your style, wouldn't it?

[2] There was plenty of paleontology (also some cladistics, which you love) in plain sight
in a long paragraph I quoted from an article by Feduccia,
and I explicitly recommended that we discuss it, but you did nothing of the sort.
Instead, you indulged in a mindless broken record routine about the first sentence in the long paragraph.
I showed you in two ways how mindless it was, but that didn't stop you from continuing to
ignore the invitation to discuss the rest of the paragraph.

> There does seem to be a bit of paleontology buried in there, but the noise to
> signal ratio is just too high.

You've pulled this stunt dozens of times: finding yourself justly accused
of dishonesty or hypocrisy, or gross favoritism, or cowardice, you sometimes
cajoled, sometimes almost demanded that I return to posting on paleontology.

If you could magically eliminate the thousands of times you've indulged in deceitful, hypocritical,
etc. personal attacks over the last decade, that would produce a major improvement
of your signal to noise ratio. Magically eliminate also myriads of uses of cunning flamebait [the old
name for trolling of the sort that falls short of actual attack] and ...

Oh, what a change there'd be!
The world would see
A new Johnny Boy.
[sung to the tune of "Georgy Girl"]

Peter Nyikos

On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 6:37:23 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 5:59:58 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 2:58:45 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:
> > > On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 2:12:01 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:
> It feels a little funny to be talking to "the Ghost of Erik Two Posts Past," Erik,
> but you brought up a number of different issues which it is important to clarify,
> that I thought it best to handle each one separately.
> > > > On Friday, September 24, 2021 at 12:04:59 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> As you can see from what I wrote here, I withdraw my earlier request to you:
> > > > > Anyway, you seem to have answered a question that I was hoping Erik
> > > > > would ask you, since you ducked it when I asked you: Do you know whether
> > > > > either tree has been superseded by some new analysis?
> > > > >
> > > > > And the answer is, you don't. One tree goes back to 2015, one to 2017.
> > > > > And that's a problem, given the big discrepancies.
>
> > > > > > > Remainder deleted, lest it distract you from the above questions.
> > > > >
> > > > > > This is a trivial point having nothing to do with phylogeny.
> > > > > That's because you missed the real point I was building up to, but
> > > > > it should have been obvious from the big discrepancies.
> > > > >
> > > > > It is very much a problem of phylogeny to ascertain which, if either of these
> > > > > trees, is the "true to the best of our data" tree. If you can't see that even now,
> > > > > then I have to wonder how seriously you have thought about the trees that
> > > > > challenge the conventional "wisdom" that dromeosaurs [as in "Eudromaeosauria"]
> > > > > are not secondarily flightless birds.
> I left in the above, because you mention only the first word I put in "scare quotes" in your response:
>
>
> <snip for focus>
> > > > I can't tell if you're actually interested in this sort of thing, but:
> I am very interested, more so than Harshman seems to be. I have another request for you,
> one I hope you won't have to act on, for a similar reason as for that earlier request; see below.
> > > > https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1134/S1028334X21070047.pdf
> > > >
> > > > presents another, later (2021) phylogenetic tree. Note that Deinonychus appears, but no "deinonychidae". The same tree in a
> > > > slightly more familar format is displayed in the Wiki entry on Deinonychus.
> It also presents one of the trees, by DePalma et al in 2015, that I was telling Harshman about, in:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae
>
> The 2021 tree is a lot closer to the other, 2017 tree in the above webpage. The two agree on the topology
> of the subtree containing Deinonychus, Velociraptor, Tsagaan, and Linheraptor.
>
> There are two noteworthy differences: Saurorntholestes is outside the smallest subclade that contains these
> four genera in the 2021 analysis, while it is well inside it in the 2017 analysis. In fact, it's the sister taxon of Deinonychus in the 2017 analysis.
>
> The other is a "role reversal" concerning Adasaurus: well inside the subclade in the 2021 analysis, in fact
> the sister taxon of Velociraptor; and well outside the subclade in the 2017 analysis.
>
> The "wild card" seems to be the inclusion of Kansaignathus in the 2021 tree. It is missing from both of
> the earlier trees, possibly because it was being described for the first time in 2021.
> > > > Your quest for a "true" tree
> > > > is confusing to me. Trees are produced using data. DIfferent data, different trees.
> If you hadn't left off the qualifier "to the best of our data", I think there would only have been confusion
> in your mind as to what the phrase meant.
>
> It means that as much data as possible would be taken into account in the scoring
> of characters, etc. The "different data" available to the people programming to produce the "different trees"
> could be brought together, and then the data would be carefully sifted for redundancies
> and discrepancies in the setting up of the data matrices.
>
> Doing this for the three analyses could be a rewarding project for someone with the right background in setting
> these things up. All I can suggest is that the 2017 data matrix be compared with the 2021 matrix first, especially
> focusing on the "wild card" to see what difference its removal could make in the 2021 tree and its addition
> to the 2017 tree. I'd only suggest the two be compared to the 2015 tree after some of the discrepancies
> had been ironed out.
>
>
> > They're hypotheses, right?
>
> Yes, cladistics is almost as much of an art as it is a science. You do the best you can with
> all the relevant data. That's what Ockham's Razor is all about, you know: it isn't just using
> the information you have at your fingertips, or go with the simplest of competing hypotheses.
>
> In the end, there may still be differences of opinion as to the setting up of the matrices,
> but once the respective matrices are published, the specialists in the area at least don't
> have the problem of comparing completely different setups, as with the trees in that Wiki entry that I was talking about:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dromaeosauridae
> > > > As far as paleontology goes, "truth" and certainty is only possessed by creationists and fools.
> Yes, but without taking that qualifying "to the best of our data" into account, the above comments of yours are just GIGO.
>
> For years, one of your favorite claims about the things I wrote was, "you are being unclear" or words to that effect.
> Harshman is still at it in his reply to the post of mine to which you are replying.
>
> Here you have gone to the opposite extreme: it's clear from what you wrote that you couldn't make head
> nor tail of the qualifier that followed "true" and instead of asking about it, you simply ignored it.
> > > > At some fine-grained level it's problematic to identify exact relationships between organisms that have been
> > > > extinct for ten of millions of year, particularly from only morphological evidence.
> Obviously! especially with the incomplete skeletons that almost every species is known to us by.
> Plus, sometimes skeletons are so disarticulated, and some of the bones so broken up, that
> mis-identifications are almost inevitable. But, as I said, we do the best we can with as much of
> the data as we can scrape together.
> > > Oops, that link no longer works. Try
> > >
> > > https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7099077/pdf/41598_2020_Article_61480.pdf
>
> > And scratch that, copy-paste error. Sorry
> No problem. If you do find a link, I am very interested, more so than Harshman seems to be. I hope you
> you encourage him to do what I suggested after you had done this post, since he seems to have turned a blind eye to it.
> "Don't you ever want to get back in the business of publishing phylogenies?
> This could be a good opportunity; you could be doing the field a big service.
> And you are far better at THAT than I am, or could become in the foreseeable future;
> I am too busy with my own mathematical research."
> This refers to the kind of analysis I was suggesting above, now enriched by your contribution
> of the 2021 information, for which I thank you.
>
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> Univ. of So. Carolina in Columbia
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

The 2021 paper was one of those now you see it, now you don't. Unfortunately, I missed
the chance to download the PDF. You could yourself, I imagine. The abstract:

"A new dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur, Kansaignathus sogdianus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on a dentary from the Yalovach Formation (Santonian) at Kansai locality in northern Fergana Valley (Tajikistan) collected by Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963–1964. Dentary has 12 tooth alveoli and not downturned anterior end.. There is a chin prominence. Dorsal margin is concave and ventral margin is convex. There are two rows of vascular foramina on the labial side and irregular intermediate foramina in the anterior part of a dentary. The interdental plates are not discernable. Kansaignathus is one of the most basal members of the subfamily Velociraptorinae. It fills the gap in the fossil record of the Velociraptorinae between the Early Cretaceous Deinonychus and more derived Campanian–Maastrichtian velociraptorines of Asia and North America."

On 9/24/21 7:56 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

Sorry, that was just more of the same. Let me know when you want to try
something different.

On Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 12:21:26 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/24/21 7:56 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
> Sorry, that was just more of the same. Let me know when you want to try
> something different.

When was the last time you started a thread on sci.bio.paleontology, Herr Doktor Kibitzer?

Peter Nyikos

Erik! Help! This theropod could possibly have been a genetic precursor to modern ducks?
Was it a biped with long boney tail and teethy jaws with protruding chin? Could ducks have then lost/shrunk the tail, teeth and chin bone when they adopted arboreal upright tensional perching with hind limb tendon locking, in parallel with pterosaurs, avians and hominoids?

Chins are found in species which habitually lift to drink water above the surface, humans and gibbons by scooping, and elephants by trunk-suction. Ducks have to lift their water-filled mouths vertically to drink, they can't drink it straight from the surface like a cat. They lack kansaignathus chins because they lost their dentition for weight-saving flight, like pterosaurs, while hominoids became flat-faced. Humans developed dense-boned chins only after becoming obligate orthograde striding ground bipedalists, no other hominids developed chins. Kansaignathus sogdianas SHOULD HAVE NO CHIN PROMINENCE unless it lifted water above surface level during drinking.

Thoughts?

DD
-

> The 2021 paper was one of those now you see it, now you don't. Unfortunately, I missed
> the chance to download the PDF. You could yourself, I imagine. The abstract:
>
> "A new dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur, Kansaignathus sogdianus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on a dentary from the Yalovach Formation (Santonian) at Kansai locality in northern Fergana Valley (Tajikistan) collected by Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963–1964. Dentary has 12 tooth alveoli and not downturned anterior end.. There is a chin prominence. Dorsal margin is concave and ventral margin is convex. There are two rows of vascular foramina on the labial side and irregular intermediate foramina in the anterior part of a dentary. The interdental plates are not discernable. Kansaignathus is one of the most basal members of the subfamily Velociraptorinae. It fills the gap in the fossil record of the Velociraptorinae between the Early Cretaceous Deinonychus and more derived Campanian–Maastrichtian velociraptorines of Asia and North America."
>
> In other words, a single bone. Do you think it sheds light on whatever point you've been
> hinting at? Or do you think they're using this specimen to investigate a different point? I doubt
> you're in a position to answer that question, based on your unfamiliarity with trees.

On 10/8/21 8:41 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
> Erik! Help! This theropod could possibly have been a genetic precursor to modern ducks?

No. Birds are monophyletic. Ducks are birds. Different birds do not
derive from different non-avian theropods.

> Was it a biped with long boney tail and teethy jaws with protruding chin? Could ducks have then lost/shrunk the tail, teeth and chin bone when they adopted arboreal upright tensional perching with hind limb tendon locking, in parallel with pterosaurs, avians and hominoids?
>
> Chins are found in species which habitually lift to drink water above the surface, humans and gibbons by scooping, and elephants by trunk-suction. Ducks have to lift their water-filled mouths vertically to drink, they can't drink it straight from the surface like a cat. They lack kansaignathus chins because they lost their dentition for weight-saving flight, like pterosaurs, while hominoids became flat-faced. Humans developed dense-boned chins only after becoming obligate orthograde striding ground bipedalists, no other hominids developed chins. Kansaignathus sogdianas SHOULD HAVE NO CHIN PROMINENCE unless it lifted water above surface level during drinking.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> DD
> -
>
>> The 2021 paper was one of those now you see it, now you don't. Unfortunately, I missed
>> the chance to download the PDF. You could yourself, I imagine. The abstract:
>>
>> "A new dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur, Kansaignathus sogdianus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on a dentary from the Yalovach Formation (Santonian) at Kansai locality in northern Fergana Valley (Tajikistan) collected by Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963–1964. Dentary has 12 tooth alveoli and not downturned anterior end. There is a chin prominence. Dorsal margin is concave and ventral margin is convex. There are two rows of vascular foramina on the labial side and irregular intermediate foramina in the anterior part of a dentary. The interdental plates are not discernable. Kansaignathus is one of the most basal members of the subfamily Velociraptorinae. It fills the gap in the fossil record of the Velociraptorinae between the Early Cretaceous Deinonychus and more derived Campanian–Maastrichtian velociraptorines of Asia and North America."
>>
>> In other words, a single bone. Do you think it sheds light on whatever point you've been
>> hinting at? Or do you think they're using this specimen to investigate a different point? I doubt
>> you're in a position to answer that question, based on your unfamiliarity with trees.

On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 12:05:08 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 10/8/21 8:41 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
> > Erik! Help! This theropod could possibly have been a genetic precursor to modern ducks?
> No. Birds are monophyletic. Ducks are birds. Different birds do not
> derive from different non-avian theropods.

That does not answer my question, afaict.

Is it at all possible (consider *ALL* possible scenarios, no matter how nonparsimonious iyo) that K. sogdianus was genetically a direct predecessor of modern ducks? (Phylogenetics be damned)

> > Was it a biped with long boney tail and teethy jaws with protruding chin? Could ducks have then lost/shrunk the tail, teeth and chin bone when they adopted arboreal upright tensional perching with hind limb tendon locking, in parallel with pterosaurs, avians and hominoids?
> >
> > Chins are found in species which habitually lift to drink water above the surface, humans and gibbons by scooping, and elephants by trunk-suction. Ducks have to lift their water-filled mouths vertically to drink, they can't drink it straight from the surface like a cat. They lack kansaignathus chins because they lost their dentition for weight-saving flight, like pterosaurs, while hominoids became flat-faced. Humans developed dense-boned chins only after becoming obligate orthograde striding ground bipedalists, no other hominids developed chins. Kansaignathus sogdianas SHOULD HAVE NO CHIN PROMINENCE unless it lifted water above surface level during drinking.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> > DD
> > -
> >
> >> The 2021 paper was one of those now you see it, now you don't. Unfortunately, I missed
> >> the chance to download the PDF. You could yourself, I imagine. The abstract:
> >>
> >> "A new dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur, Kansaignathus sogdianus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on a dentary from the Yalovach Formation (Santonian) at Kansai locality in northern Fergana Valley (Tajikistan) collected by Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963–1964. Dentary has 12 tooth alveoli and not downturned anterior end. There is a chin prominence. Dorsal margin is concave and ventral margin is convex. There are two rows of vascular foramina on the labial side and irregular intermediate foramina in the anterior part of a dentary. The interdental plates are not discernable. Kansaignathus is one of the most basal members of the subfamily Velociraptorinae. It fills the gap in the fossil record of the Velociraptorinae between the Early Cretaceous Deinonychus and more derived Campanian–Maastrichtian velociraptorines of Asia and North America."
> >>
> >> In other words, a single bone. Do you think it sheds light on whatever point you've been
> >> hinting at? Or do you think they're using this specimen to investigate a different point? I doubt
> >> you're in a position to answer that question, based on your unfamiliarity with trees.

On Friday, October 8, 2021 at 8:41:01 PM UTC-7, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
> Erik! Help! This theropod could possibly have been a genetic precursor to modern ducks?
> Was it a biped with long boney tail and teethy jaws with protruding chin? Could ducks have then lost/shrunk the tail, teeth and chin bone when they adopted arboreal upright tensional perching with hind limb tendon locking, in parallel with pterosaurs, avians and hominoids?
>
> Chins are found in species which habitually lift to drink water above the surface, humans and gibbons by scooping, and elephants by trunk-suction. Ducks have to lift their water-filled mouths vertically to drink, they can't drink it straight from the surface like a cat. They lack kansaignathus chins because they lost their dentition for weight-saving flight, like pterosaurs, while hominoids became flat-faced. Humans developed dense-boned chins only after becoming obligate orthograde striding ground bipedalists, no other hominids developed chins. Kansaignathus sogdianas SHOULD HAVE NO CHIN PROMINENCE unless it lifted water above surface level during drinking.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> DD
> -
> > The 2021 paper was one of those now you see it, now you don't. Unfortunately, I missed
> > the chance to download the PDF. You could yourself, I imagine. The abstract:
> >
> > "A new dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur, Kansaignathus sogdianus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on a dentary from the Yalovach Formation (Santonian) at Kansai locality in northern Fergana Valley (Tajikistan) collected by Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963–1964. Dentary has 12 tooth alveoli and not downturned anterior end. There is a chin prominence. Dorsal margin is concave and ventral margin is convex. There are two rows of vascular foramina on the labial side and irregular intermediate foramina in the anterior part of a dentary. The interdental plates are not discernable. Kansaignathus is one of the most basal members of the subfamily Velociraptorinae. It fills the gap in the fossil record of the Velociraptorinae between the Early Cretaceous Deinonychus and more derived Campanian–Maastrichtian velociraptorines of Asia and North America."
> >
> > In other words, a single bone. Do you think it sheds light on whatever point you've been
> > hinting at? Or do you think they're using this specimen to investigate a different point? I doubt
> > you're in a position to answer that question, based on your unfamiliarity with trees.

Unless phylogentic indications are spectacularly wrong, no, it's not even a stem duck. Its placement
amoung dromaeosaurids might move around if more of the skeleton were known, and it might not
even be a dromaeosaurid at all (although I defer to the judgement of authors in that regard).

On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 12:35:28 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Friday, October 8, 2021 at 8:41:01 PM UTC-7, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
> > Erik! Help! This theropod could possibly have been a genetic precursor to modern ducks?
> > Was it a biped with long boney tail and teethy jaws with protruding chin? Could ducks have then lost/shrunk the tail, teeth and chin bone when they adopted arboreal upright tensional perching with hind limb tendon locking, in parallel with pterosaurs, avians and hominoids?
> >
> > Chins are found in species which habitually lift to drink water above the surface, humans and gibbons by scooping, and elephants by trunk-suction. Ducks have to lift their water-filled mouths vertically to drink, they can't drink it straight from the surface like a cat. They lack kansaignathus chins because they lost their dentition for weight-saving flight, like pterosaurs, while hominoids became flat-faced. Humans developed dense-boned chins only after becoming obligate orthograde striding ground bipedalists, no other hominids developed chins. Kansaignathus sogdianas SHOULD HAVE NO CHIN PROMINENCE unless it lifted water above surface level during drinking.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> > DD
> > -
> > > The 2021 paper was one of those now you see it, now you don't. Unfortunately, I missed
> > > the chance to download the PDF. You could yourself, I imagine. The abstract:
> > >
> > > "A new dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur, Kansaignathus sogdianus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on a dentary from the Yalovach Formation (Santonian) at Kansai locality in northern Fergana Valley (Tajikistan) collected by Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963–1964. Dentary has 12 tooth alveoli and not downturned anterior end. There is a chin prominence. Dorsal margin is concave and ventral margin is convex. There are two rows of vascular foramina on the labial side and irregular intermediate foramina in the anterior part of a dentary. The interdental plates are not discernable. Kansaignathus is one of the most basal members of the subfamily Velociraptorinae. It fills the gap in the fossil record of the Velociraptorinae between the Early Cretaceous Deinonychus and more derived Campanian–Maastrichtian velociraptorines of Asia and North America."
> > >
> > > In other words, a single bone. Do you think it sheds light on whatever point you've been
> > > hinting at? Or do you think they're using this specimen to investigate a different point? I doubt
> > > you're in a position to answer that question, based on your unfamiliarity with trees.
> Unless phylogentic indications are spectacularly wrong, no, it's not even a stem duck.

No, I know it was not a duck, a stem duck or a root duck. But could the bone have come from an ancient reptile ancestor of ducks, long before anything duck-like was alive?

Its placement
> amoung dromaeosaurids might move around if more of the skeleton were known, and it might not
> even be a dromaeosaurid at all (although I defer to the judgement of authors in that regard).
So we don't know.

On 10/8/21 9:13 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
> On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 12:05:08 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 10/8/21 8:41 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
>>> Erik! Help! This theropod could possibly have been a genetic precursor to modern ducks?
>> No. Birds are monophyletic. Ducks are birds. Different birds do not
>> derive from different non-avian theropods.
>
> That does not answer my question, afaict.

You're wrong about that.

> Is it at all possible (consider *ALL* possible scenarios, no matter how nonparsimonious iyo) that K. sogdianus was genetically a direct predecessor of modern ducks? (Phylogenetics be damned)

I'm unable to interpret that. Of course if you consider all possible
scenarios, anything could be true. Ducks could be directly descended
from walruses or dragonflies. There are no limits. But why should we
consider absurdly unparsimonious hypotheses?

>>> Was it a biped with long boney tail and teethy jaws with protruding chin? Could ducks have then lost/shrunk the tail, teeth and chin bone when they adopted arboreal upright tensional perching with hind limb tendon locking, in parallel with pterosaurs, avians and hominoids?
>>>
>>> Chins are found in species which habitually lift to drink water above the surface, humans and gibbons by scooping, and elephants by trunk-suction. Ducks have to lift their water-filled mouths vertically to drink, they can't drink it straight from the surface like a cat. They lack kansaignathus chins because they lost their dentition for weight-saving flight, like pterosaurs, while hominoids became flat-faced. Humans developed dense-boned chins only after becoming obligate orthograde striding ground bipedalists, no other hominids developed chins. Kansaignathus sogdianas SHOULD HAVE NO CHIN PROMINENCE unless it lifted water above surface level during drinking.
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>>
>>> DD
>>> -
>>>
>>>> The 2021 paper was one of those now you see it, now you don't. Unfortunately, I missed
>>>> the chance to download the PDF. You could yourself, I imagine. The abstract:
>>>>
>>>> "A new dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur, Kansaignathus sogdianus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on a dentary from the Yalovach Formation (Santonian) at Kansai locality in northern Fergana Valley (Tajikistan) collected by Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963–1964. Dentary has 12 tooth alveoli and not downturned anterior end. There is a chin prominence. Dorsal margin is concave and ventral margin is convex. There are two rows of vascular foramina on the labial side and irregular intermediate foramina in the anterior part of a dentary. The interdental plates are not discernable. Kansaignathus is one of the most basal members of the subfamily Velociraptorinae. It fills the gap in the fossil record of the Velociraptorinae between the Early Cretaceous Deinonychus and more derived Campanian–Maastrichtian velociraptorines of Asia and North America."
>>>>
>>>> In other words, a single bone. Do you think it sheds light on whatever point you've been
>>>> hinting at? Or do you think they're using this specimen to investigate a different point? I doubt
>>>> you're in a position to answer that question, based on your unfamiliarity with trees.

On 10/8/21 9:55 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
> On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 12:35:28 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>> On Friday, October 8, 2021 at 8:41:01 PM UTC-7, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
>>> Erik! Help! This theropod could possibly have been a genetic precursor to modern ducks?
>>> Was it a biped with long boney tail and teethy jaws with protruding chin? Could ducks have then lost/shrunk the tail, teeth and chin bone when they adopted arboreal upright tensional perching with hind limb tendon locking, in parallel with pterosaurs, avians and hominoids?
>>>
>>> Chins are found in species which habitually lift to drink water above the surface, humans and gibbons by scooping, and elephants by trunk-suction. Ducks have to lift their water-filled mouths vertically to drink, they can't drink it straight from the surface like a cat. They lack kansaignathus chins because they lost their dentition for weight-saving flight, like pterosaurs, while hominoids became flat-faced. Humans developed dense-boned chins only after becoming obligate orthograde striding ground bipedalists, no other hominids developed chins. Kansaignathus sogdianas SHOULD HAVE NO CHIN PROMINENCE unless it lifted water above surface level during drinking.
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>>
>>> DD
>>> -
>>>> The 2021 paper was one of those now you see it, now you don't. Unfortunately, I missed
>>>> the chance to download the PDF. You could yourself, I imagine. The abstract:
>>>>
>>>> "A new dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur, Kansaignathus sogdianus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on a dentary from the Yalovach Formation (Santonian) at Kansai locality in northern Fergana Valley (Tajikistan) collected by Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963–1964. Dentary has 12 tooth alveoli and not downturned anterior end. There is a chin prominence. Dorsal margin is concave and ventral margin is convex. There are two rows of vascular foramina on the labial side and irregular intermediate foramina in the anterior part of a dentary. The interdental plates are not discernable. Kansaignathus is one of the most basal members of the subfamily Velociraptorinae. It fills the gap in the fossil record of the Velociraptorinae between the Early Cretaceous Deinonychus and more derived Campanian–Maastrichtian velociraptorines of Asia and North America."
>>>>
>>>> In other words, a single bone. Do you think it sheds light on whatever point you've been
>>>> hinting at? Or do you think they're using this specimen to investigate a different point? I doubt
>>>> you're in a position to answer that question, based on your unfamiliarity with trees.
>> Unless phylogentic indications are spectacularly wrong, no, it's not even a stem duck.
>
> No, I know it was not a duck, a stem duck or a root duck. But could the bone have come from an ancient reptile ancestor of ducks, long before anything duck-like was alive?

No. Again, ducks do not have separate ancestry from other birds. The
sister group of ducks is screamers. The sister group of ducks and
screamers is galliforms. The sister group of ducks, screamers, and
galliformes is Neoaves. The sister group of ducks, screamers,
galliforms, and Neoaves is Paleognathae. And all these are nested within
various additional clades of birds. The fossil in question can't be
ancestral to ducks unless it's ancestral to all modern birds.

> Its placement
>> amoung dromaeosaurids might move around if more of the skeleton were known, and it might not
>> even be a dromaeosaurid at all (although I defer to the judgement of authors in that regard).
> So we don't know.
>
Don't be confused about what we do or don't know. We may not know just
what that fossil is, but we know much about what it isn't. It isn't a
mammal. It isn't a fish. And it isn't a duck ancestor.

On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 9:23:21 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 10/8/21 9:13 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
> > On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 12:05:08 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 10/8/21 8:41 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
> >>> Erik! Help! This theropod could possibly have been a genetic precursor to modern ducks?
> >> No. Birds are monophyletic. Ducks are birds. Different birds do not
> >> derive from different non-avian theropods.
> >
> > That does not answer my question, afaict.
> You're wrong about that.
> > Is it at all possible (consider *ALL* possible scenarios, no matter how nonparsimonious iyo) that K. sogdianus was genetically a direct predecessor of modern ducks? (Phylogenetics be damned)
> I'm unable to interpret that. Of course if you consider all possible
> scenarios, anything could be true. Ducks could be directly descended
> from walruses or dragonflies. There are no limits. But why should we
> consider absurdly unparsimonious hypotheses?

In part because the evidence is so limited, one dentary. In part because it contains a chin prominence which is very rare in modern animals afaict, though I don't know if rare in dinosaurs.

> >>> Was it a biped with long boney tail and teethy jaws with protruding chin? Could ducks have then lost/shrunk the tail, teeth and chin bone when they adopted arboreal upright tensional perching with hind limb tendon locking, in parallel with pterosaurs, avians and hominoids?
> >>>
> >>> Chins are found in species which habitually lift to drink water above the surface, humans and gibbons by scooping, and elephants by trunk-suction. Ducks have to lift their water-filled mouths vertically to drink, they can't drink it straight from the surface like a cat. They lack kansaignathus chins because they lost their dentition for weight-saving flight, like pterosaurs, while hominoids became flat-faced. Humans developed dense-boned chins only after becoming obligate orthograde striding ground bipedalists, no other hominids developed chins. Kansaignathus sogdianas SHOULD HAVE NO CHIN PROMINENCE unless it lifted water above surface level during drinking.
> >>>
> >>> Thoughts?
> >>>
> >>> DD
> >>> -
> >>>
> >>>> The 2021 paper was one of those now you see it, now you don't. Unfortunately, I missed
> >>>> the chance to download the PDF. You could yourself, I imagine. The abstract:
> >>>>
> >>>> "A new dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur, Kansaignathus sogdianus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on a dentary from the Yalovach Formation (Santonian) at Kansai locality in northern Fergana Valley (Tajikistan) collected by Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963–1964. Dentary has 12 tooth alveoli and not downturned anterior end. There is a chin prominence. Dorsal margin is concave and ventral margin is convex. There are two rows of vascular foramina on the labial side and irregular intermediate foramina in the anterior part of a dentary. The interdental plates are not discernable. Kansaignathus is one of the most basal members of the subfamily Velociraptorinae. It fills the gap in the fossil record of the Velociraptorinae between the Early Cretaceous Deinonychus and more derived Campanian–Maastrichtian velociraptorines of Asia and North America."
> >>>>
> >>>> In other words, a single bone. Do you think it sheds light on whatever point you've been
> >>>> hinting at? Or do you think they're using this specimen to investigate a different point? I doubt
> >>>> you're in a position to answer that question, based on your unfamiliarity with trees.

On 10/9/21 9:21 AM, Daud Deden wrote:
> On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 9:23:21 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 10/8/21 9:13 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
>>> On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 12:05:08 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 10/8/21 8:41 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
>>>>> Erik! Help! This theropod could possibly have been a genetic precursor to modern ducks?
>>>> No. Birds are monophyletic. Ducks are birds. Different birds do not
>>>> derive from different non-avian theropods.
>>>
>>> That does not answer my question, afaict.
>> You're wrong about that.
>>> Is it at all possible (consider *ALL* possible scenarios, no matter how nonparsimonious iyo) that K. sogdianus was genetically a direct predecessor of modern ducks? (Phylogenetics be damned)
>> I'm unable to interpret that. Of course if you consider all possible
>> scenarios, anything could be true. Ducks could be directly descended
>> from walruses or dragonflies. There are no limits. But why should we
>> consider absurdly unparsimonious hypotheses?
>
>
> In part because the evidence is so limited, one dentary. In part because it contains a chin prominence which is very rare in modern animals afaict, though I don't know if rare in dinosaurs.

One dentary is enough to distinguish a galloanserine from a non-avian
theropod. You still seem to think that if we don't know everything we
therefore know nothing. You are wrong.

>>>>> Was it a biped with long boney tail and teethy jaws with protruding chin? Could ducks have then lost/shrunk the tail, teeth and chin bone when they adopted arboreal upright tensional perching with hind limb tendon locking, in parallel with pterosaurs, avians and hominoids?
>>>>>
>>>>> Chins are found in species which habitually lift to drink water above the surface, humans and gibbons by scooping, and elephants by trunk-suction. Ducks have to lift their water-filled mouths vertically to drink, they can't drink it straight from the surface like a cat. They lack kansaignathus chins because they lost their dentition for weight-saving flight, like pterosaurs, while hominoids became flat-faced. Humans developed dense-boned chins only after becoming obligate orthograde striding ground bipedalists, no other hominids developed chins. Kansaignathus sogdianas SHOULD HAVE NO CHIN PROMINENCE unless it lifted water above surface level during drinking.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>>
>>>>> DD
>>>>> -
>>>>>
>>>>>> The 2021 paper was one of those now you see it, now you don't. Unfortunately, I missed
>>>>>> the chance to download the PDF. You could yourself, I imagine. The abstract:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "A new dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur, Kansaignathus sogdianus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on a dentary from the Yalovach Formation (Santonian) at Kansai locality in northern Fergana Valley (Tajikistan) collected by Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963–1964. Dentary has 12 tooth alveoli and not downturned anterior end. There is a chin prominence. Dorsal margin is concave and ventral margin is convex. There are two rows of vascular foramina on the labial side and irregular intermediate foramina in the anterior part of a dentary. The interdental plates are not discernable. Kansaignathus is one of the most basal members of the subfamily Velociraptorinae. It fills the gap in the fossil record of the Velociraptorinae between the Early Cretaceous Deinonychus and more derived Campanian–Maastrichtian velociraptorines of Asia and North America."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In other words, a single bone. Do you think it sheds light on whatever point you've been
>>>>>> hinting at? Or do you think they're using this specimen to investigate a different point? I doubt
>>>>>> you're in a position to answer that question, based on your unfamiliarity with trees.

On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 9:31:03 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 10/8/21 9:55 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
> > On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 12:35:28 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >> On Friday, October 8, 2021 at 8:41:01 PM UTC-7, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
> >>> Erik! Help! This theropod could possibly have been a genetic precursor to modern ducks?
> >>> Was it a biped with long boney tail and teethy jaws with protruding chin? Could ducks have then lost/shrunk the tail, teeth and chin bone when they adopted arboreal upright tensional perching with hind limb tendon locking, in parallel with pterosaurs, avians and hominoids?
> >>>
> >>> Chins are found in species which habitually lift to drink water above the surface, humans and gibbons by scooping, and elephants by trunk-suction. Ducks have to lift their water-filled mouths vertically to drink, they can't drink it straight from the surface like a cat. They lack kansaignathus chins because they lost their dentition for weight-saving flight, like pterosaurs, while hominoids became flat-faced. Humans developed dense-boned chins only after becoming obligate orthograde striding ground bipedalists, no other hominids developed chins. Kansaignathus sogdianas SHOULD HAVE NO CHIN PROMINENCE unless it lifted water above surface level during drinking.
> >>>
> >>> Thoughts?
> >>>
> >>> DD
> >>> -
> >>>> The 2021 paper was one of those now you see it, now you don't. Unfortunately, I missed
> >>>> the chance to download the PDF. You could yourself, I imagine. The abstract:
> >>>>
> >>>> "A new dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur, Kansaignathus sogdianus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on a dentary from the Yalovach Formation (Santonian) at Kansai locality in northern Fergana Valley (Tajikistan) collected by Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963–1964. Dentary has 12 tooth alveoli and not downturned anterior end. There is a chin prominence. Dorsal margin is concave and ventral margin is convex. There are two rows of vascular foramina on the labial side and irregular intermediate foramina in the anterior part of a dentary. The interdental plates are not discernable. Kansaignathus is one of the most basal members of the subfamily Velociraptorinae. It fills the gap in the fossil record of the Velociraptorinae between the Early Cretaceous Deinonychus and more derived Campanian–Maastrichtian velociraptorines of Asia and North America."
> >>>>
> >>>> In other words, a single bone. Do you think it sheds light on whatever point you've been
> >>>> hinting at? Or do you think they're using this specimen to investigate a different point? I doubt
> >>>> you're in a position to answer that question, based on your unfamiliarity with trees.
> >> Unless phylogentic indications are spectacularly wrong, no, it's not even a stem duck.
> >
> > No, I know it was not a duck, a stem duck or a root duck. But could the bone have come from an ancient reptile ancestor of ducks, long before anything duck-like was alive?
> No. Again, ducks do not have separate ancestry from other birds.

But that is not at issue. I'm specifying ducks only because I personally witnessed my muscovy duck drink water by lifting its head, I don't know if all birds do that, so I limited the question to ducks.

What is at issue is that ducks/birds might have descended from a reptile ancestor which had to lift its head (2" - 20"+) above the water surface in order to drink (like ducks have to).

Modern animals which have chins do this, modern animals that don't have chins do not typically do this (except ducks/birds which lost teeth and perhaps boney chin due to strong selection for aerodynamic lightening).

The
> sister group of ducks is screamers. The sister group of ducks and
> screamers is galliforms. The sister group of ducks, screamers, and
> galliformes is Neoaves. The sister group of ducks, screamers,
> galliforms, and Neoaves is Paleognathae. And all these are nested within
> various additional clades of birds. The fossil in question can't be
> ancestral to ducks unless it's ancestral to all modern birds.

No argument there. But did the LCA of all modern birds likely have a *very general resemblance* to today's waterfowl? Or did it look like a canary, an eagle, a moa, all very different from typical waterfowl?

(I recall mentioning my surprise when I noticed unexpected similarities in a pigeon and a mallard, which I had never even imagined before.)

> > Its placement
> >> amoung dromaeosaurids might move around if more of the skeleton were known, and it might not
> >> even be a dromaeosaurid at all (although I defer to the judgement of authors in that regard).
> > So we don't know.
> >
> Don't be confused about what we do or don't know. We may not know just
> what that fossil is, but we know much about what it isn't. It isn't a
> mammal. It isn't a fish.

Agree.

And it isn't a duck ancestor.

Palognathae ancestor?

On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 12:38:18 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 10/9/21 9:21 AM, Daud Deden wrote:
> > On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 9:23:21 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 10/8/21 9:13 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
> >>> On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 12:05:08 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> On 10/8/21 8:41 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
> >>>>> Erik! Help! This theropod could possibly have been a genetic precursor to modern ducks?
> >>>> No. Birds are monophyletic. Ducks are birds. Different birds do not
> >>>> derive from different non-avian theropods.
> >>>
> >>> That does not answer my question, afaict.
> >> You're wrong about that.
> >>> Is it at all possible (consider *ALL* possible scenarios, no matter how nonparsimonious iyo) that K. sogdianus was genetically a direct predecessor of modern ducks? (Phylogenetics be damned)
> >> I'm unable to interpret that. Of course if you consider all possible
> >> scenarios, anything could be true. Ducks could be directly descended
> >> from walruses or dragonflies. There are no limits. But why should we
> >> consider absurdly unparsimonious hypotheses?
> >
> >
> > In part because the evidence is so limited, one dentary. In part because it contains a chin prominence which is very rare in modern animals afaict, though I don't know if rare in dinosaurs.
> One dentary is enough to distinguish a galloanserine from a non-avian
> theropod. You still seem to think that if we don't know everything we
> therefore know nothing. You are wrong.

Please see my clarification re, muscovy duck drinking.

> >>>>> Was it a biped with long boney tail and teethy jaws with protruding chin? Could ducks have then lost/shrunk the tail, teeth and chin bone when they adopted arboreal upright tensional perching with hind limb tendon locking, in parallel with pterosaurs, avians and hominoids?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Chins are found in species which habitually lift to drink water above the surface, humans and gibbons by scooping, and elephants by trunk-suction. Ducks have to lift their water-filled mouths vertically to drink, they can't drink it straight from the surface like a cat. They lack kansaignathus chins because they lost their dentition for weight-saving flight, like pterosaurs, while hominoids became flat-faced. Humans developed dense-boned chins only after becoming obligate orthograde striding ground bipedalists, no other hominids developed chins. Kansaignathus sogdianas SHOULD HAVE NO CHIN PROMINENCE unless it lifted water above surface level during drinking.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thoughts?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> DD
> >>>>> -
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> The 2021 paper was one of those now you see it, now you don't. Unfortunately, I missed
> >>>>>> the chance to download the PDF. You could yourself, I imagine. The abstract:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> "A new dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur, Kansaignathus sogdianus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on a dentary from the Yalovach Formation (Santonian) at Kansai locality in northern Fergana Valley (Tajikistan) collected by Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963–1964. Dentary has 12 tooth alveoli and not downturned anterior end. There is a chin prominence. Dorsal margin is concave and ventral margin is convex. There are two rows of vascular foramina on the labial side and irregular intermediate foramina in the anterior part of a dentary. The interdental plates are not discernable. Kansaignathus is one of the most basal members of the subfamily Velociraptorinae. It fills the gap in the fossil record of the Velociraptorinae between the Early Cretaceous Deinonychus and more derived Campanian–Maastrichtian velociraptorines of Asia and North America."
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> In other words, a single bone. Do you think it sheds light on whatever point you've been
> >>>>>> hinting at? Or do you think they're using this specimen to investigate a different point? I doubt
> >>>>>> you're in a position to answer that question, based on your unfamiliarity with trees.

On 10/9/21 9:46 AM, Daud Deden wrote:
> On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 9:31:03 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 10/8/21 9:55 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
>>> On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 12:35:28 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>> On Friday, October 8, 2021 at 8:41:01 PM UTC-7, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>> Erik! Help! This theropod could possibly have been a genetic precursor to modern ducks?
>>>>> Was it a biped with long boney tail and teethy jaws with protruding chin? Could ducks have then lost/shrunk the tail, teeth and chin bone when they adopted arboreal upright tensional perching with hind limb tendon locking, in parallel with pterosaurs, avians and hominoids?
>>>>>
>>>>> Chins are found in species which habitually lift to drink water above the surface, humans and gibbons by scooping, and elephants by trunk-suction. Ducks have to lift their water-filled mouths vertically to drink, they can't drink it straight from the surface like a cat. They lack kansaignathus chins because they lost their dentition for weight-saving flight, like pterosaurs, while hominoids became flat-faced. Humans developed dense-boned chins only after becoming obligate orthograde striding ground bipedalists, no other hominids developed chins. Kansaignathus sogdianas SHOULD HAVE NO CHIN PROMINENCE unless it lifted water above surface level during drinking.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>>
>>>>> DD
>>>>> -
>>>>>> The 2021 paper was one of those now you see it, now you don't. Unfortunately, I missed
>>>>>> the chance to download the PDF. You could yourself, I imagine. The abstract:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "A new dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur, Kansaignathus sogdianus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on a dentary from the Yalovach Formation (Santonian) at Kansai locality in northern Fergana Valley (Tajikistan) collected by Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963–1964. Dentary has 12 tooth alveoli and not downturned anterior end. There is a chin prominence. Dorsal margin is concave and ventral margin is convex. There are two rows of vascular foramina on the labial side and irregular intermediate foramina in the anterior part of a dentary. The interdental plates are not discernable. Kansaignathus is one of the most basal members of the subfamily Velociraptorinae. It fills the gap in the fossil record of the Velociraptorinae between the Early Cretaceous Deinonychus and more derived Campanian–Maastrichtian velociraptorines of Asia and North America."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In other words, a single bone. Do you think it sheds light on whatever point you've been
>>>>>> hinting at? Or do you think they're using this specimen to investigate a different point? I doubt
>>>>>> you're in a position to answer that question, based on your unfamiliarity with trees.
>>>> Unless phylogentic indications are spectacularly wrong, no, it's not even a stem duck.
>>>
>>> No, I know it was not a duck, a stem duck or a root duck. But could the bone have come from an ancient reptile ancestor of ducks, long before anything duck-like was alive?
>> No. Again, ducks do not have separate ancestry from other birds.
>
> But that is not at issue. I'm specifying ducks only because I personally witnessed my muscovy duck drink water by lifting its head, I don't know if all birds do that, so I limited the question to ducks.
>
> What is at issue is that ducks/birds might have descended from a reptile ancestor which had to lift its head (2" - 20"+) above the water surface in order to drink (like ducks have to).
>
> Modern animals which have chins do this, modern animals that don't have chins do not typically do this (except ducks/birds which lost teeth and perhaps boney chin due to strong selection for aerodynamic lightening).
>
> The
>> sister group of ducks is screamers. The sister group of ducks and
>> screamers is galliforms. The sister group of ducks, screamers, and
>> galliformes is Neoaves. The sister group of ducks, screamers,
>> galliforms, and Neoaves is Paleognathae. And all these are nested within
>> various additional clades of birds. The fossil in question can't be
>> ancestral to ducks unless it's ancestral to all modern birds.
>
> No argument there. But did the LCA of all modern birds likely have a *very general resemblance* to today's waterfowl? Or did it look like a canary, an eagle, a moa, all very different from typical waterfowl?
>
> (I recall mentioning my surprise when I noticed unexpected similarities in a pigeon and a mallard, which I had never even imagined before.)
>
>>> Its placement
>>>> amoung dromaeosaurids might move around if more of the skeleton were known, and it might not
>>>> even be a dromaeosaurid at all (although I defer to the judgement of authors in that regard).
>>> So we don't know.
>>>
>> Don't be confused about what we do or don't know. We may not know just
>> what that fossil is, but we know much about what it isn't. It isn't a
>> mammal. It isn't a fish.
>
> Agree.
>
> And it isn't a duck ancestor.
>
> Palognathae ancestor?
>
Most birds have to lift their heads to drink, but I'm wondering if you
mean the same thing I do by that. There are a few exceptions. Pigeons,
if I recall. And sandgrouse? No, it's not a paleognath ancestor either;
again, birds are monophyletic, Neornithes is monophyletic, and so are
several groups in between. There is no room for this theropod jaw to be
ancestral to any group of birds separately, and of course it's unlikely
to be the ancestor of anything.

On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 6:10:40 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 10/9/21 9:46 AM, Daud Deden wrote:
> > On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 9:31:03 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >> On 10/8/21 9:55 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
> >>> On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 12:35:28 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>> On Friday, October 8, 2021 at 8:41:01 PM UTC-7, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
> >>>>> Erik! Help! This theropod could possibly have been a genetic precursor to modern ducks?
> >>>>> Was it a biped with long boney tail and teethy jaws with protruding chin? Could ducks have then lost/shrunk the tail, teeth and chin bone when they adopted arboreal upright tensional perching with hind limb tendon locking, in parallel with pterosaurs, avians and hominoids?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Chins are found in species which habitually lift to drink water above the surface, humans and gibbons by scooping, and elephants by trunk-suction. Ducks have to lift their water-filled mouths vertically to drink, they can't drink it straight from the surface like a cat. They lack kansaignathus chins because they lost their dentition for weight-saving flight, like pterosaurs, while hominoids became flat-faced. Humans developed dense-boned chins only after becoming obligate orthograde striding ground bipedalists, no other hominids developed chins. Kansaignathus sogdianas SHOULD HAVE NO CHIN PROMINENCE unless it lifted water above surface level during drinking.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thoughts?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> DD
> >>>>> -
> >>>>>> The 2021 paper was one of those now you see it, now you don't. Unfortunately, I missed
> >>>>>> the chance to download the PDF. You could yourself, I imagine. The abstract:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> "A new dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur, Kansaignathus sogdianus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on a dentary from the Yalovach Formation (Santonian) at Kansai locality in northern Fergana Valley (Tajikistan) collected by Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963–1964. Dentary has 12 tooth alveoli and not downturned anterior end. There is a chin prominence. Dorsal margin is concave and ventral margin is convex. There are two rows of vascular foramina on the labial side and irregular intermediate foramina in the anterior part of a dentary. The interdental plates are not discernable. Kansaignathus is one of the most basal members of the subfamily Velociraptorinae. It fills the gap in the fossil record of the Velociraptorinae between the Early Cretaceous Deinonychus and more derived Campanian–Maastrichtian velociraptorines of Asia and North America."
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> In other words, a single bone. Do you think it sheds light on whatever point you've been
> >>>>>> hinting at? Or do you think they're using this specimen to investigate a different point? I doubt
> >>>>>> you're in a position to answer that question, based on your unfamiliarity with trees.
> >>>> Unless phylogentic indications are spectacularly wrong, no, it's not even a stem duck.
> >>>
> >>> No, I know it was not a duck, a stem duck or a root duck. But could the bone have come from an ancient reptile ancestor of ducks, long before anything duck-like was alive?
> >> No. Again, ducks do not have separate ancestry from other birds.
> >
> > But that is not at issue. I'm specifying ducks only because I personally witnessed my muscovy duck drink water by lifting its head, I don't know if all birds do that, so I limited the question to ducks.
> >
> > What is at issue is that ducks/birds might have descended from a reptile ancestor which had to lift its head (2" - 20"+) above the water surface in order to drink (like ducks have to).
> >
> > Modern animals which have chins do this, modern animals that don't have chins do not typically do this (except ducks/birds which lost teeth and perhaps boney chin due to strong selection for aerodynamic lightening).
> >
> > The
> >> sister group of ducks is screamers. The sister group of ducks and
> >> screamers is galliforms. The sister group of ducks, screamers, and
> >> galliformes is Neoaves. The sister group of ducks, screamers,
> >> galliforms, and Neoaves is Paleognathae. And all these are nested within
> >> various additional clades of birds. The fossil in question can't be
> >> ancestral to ducks unless it's ancestral to all modern birds.
> >
> > No argument there. But did the LCA of all modern birds likely have a *very general resemblance* to today's waterfowl? Or did it look like a canary, an eagle, a moa, all very different from typical waterfowl?
> >
> > (I recall mentioning my surprise when I noticed unexpected similarities in a pigeon and a mallard, which I had never even imagined before.)
> >
> >>> Its placement
> >>>> amoung dromaeosaurids might move around if more of the skeleton were known, and it might not
> >>>> even be a dromaeosaurid at all (although I defer to the judgement of authors in that regard).
> >>> So we don't know.
> >>>
> >> Don't be confused about what we do or don't know. We may not know just
> >> what that fossil is, but we know much about what it isn't. It isn't a
> >> mammal. It isn't a fish.
> >
> > Agree.
> >
> > And it isn't a duck ancestor.
> >
> > Palognathae ancestor?
> >
> Most birds have to lift their heads to drink, but I'm wondering if you
> mean the same thing I do by that. There are a few exceptions. Pigeons,
> if I recall. And sandgrouse?

https://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2010/07/09/anatomy-how-birds-drink/
Doves & pigeons can drink with beak lowered. Nectarivores can too. Sandgrouse lift but do not tilt back their heads while drinking.
Do all long-necked avians (eg. waterfowl, ostriches) lift water above the surface to drink?
Did all long-necked dinosaurs lift water and tilt head before drinking?

No, it's not a paleognath ancestor either;
> again, birds are monophyletic, Neornithes is monophyletic, and so are
> several groups in between.

I don't know the latest proper technical name that includes all modern avians. But I meant to compare all living birds to the long-necked bipedal dinosaur.with the prominent chin.

There is no room for this theropod jaw to be
> ancestral to any group of birds separately, and of course it's unlikely
> to be the ancestor of anything.

The jury is still out on that claim, imo.

On 10/9/21 5:15 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
> On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 6:10:40 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 10/9/21 9:46 AM, Daud Deden wrote:
>>> On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 9:31:03 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>>>> On 10/8/21 9:55 PM, Daud Deden wrote:
>>>>> On Saturday, October 9, 2021 at 12:35:28 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
>>>>>> On Friday, October 8, 2021 at 8:41:01 PM UTC-7, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>>>> Erik! Help! This theropod could possibly have been a genetic precursor to modern ducks?
>>>>>>> Was it a biped with long boney tail and teethy jaws with protruding chin? Could ducks have then lost/shrunk the tail, teeth and chin bone when they adopted arboreal upright tensional perching with hind limb tendon locking, in parallel with pterosaurs, avians and hominoids?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Chins are found in species which habitually lift to drink water above the surface, humans and gibbons by scooping, and elephants by trunk-suction. Ducks have to lift their water-filled mouths vertically to drink, they can't drink it straight from the surface like a cat. They lack kansaignathus chins because they lost their dentition for weight-saving flight, like pterosaurs, while hominoids became flat-faced. Humans developed dense-boned chins only after becoming obligate orthograde striding ground bipedalists, no other hominids developed chins. Kansaignathus sogdianas SHOULD HAVE NO CHIN PROMINENCE unless it lifted water above surface level during drinking.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thoughts?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> DD
>>>>>>> -
>>>>>>>> The 2021 paper was one of those now you see it, now you don't. Unfortunately, I missed
>>>>>>>> the chance to download the PDF. You could yourself, I imagine. The abstract:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> "A new dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur, Kansaignathus sogdianus gen. et sp. nov., is described based on a dentary from the Yalovach Formation (Santonian) at Kansai locality in northern Fergana Valley (Tajikistan) collected by Paleontological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1963–1964. Dentary has 12 tooth alveoli and not downturned anterior end. There is a chin prominence. Dorsal margin is concave and ventral margin is convex. There are two rows of vascular foramina on the labial side and irregular intermediate foramina in the anterior part of a dentary. The interdental plates are not discernable. Kansaignathus is one of the most basal members of the subfamily Velociraptorinae. It fills the gap in the fossil record of the Velociraptorinae between the Early Cretaceous Deinonychus and more derived Campanian–Maastrichtian velociraptorines of Asia and North America."
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In other words, a single bone. Do you think it sheds light on whatever point you've been
>>>>>>>> hinting at? Or do you think they're using this specimen to investigate a different point? I doubt
>>>>>>>> you're in a position to answer that question, based on your unfamiliarity with trees.
>>>>>> Unless phylogentic indications are spectacularly wrong, no, it's not even a stem duck.
>>>>>
>>>>> No, I know it was not a duck, a stem duck or a root duck. But could the bone have come from an ancient reptile ancestor of ducks, long before anything duck-like was alive?
>>>> No. Again, ducks do not have separate ancestry from other birds.
>>>
>>> But that is not at issue. I'm specifying ducks only because I personally witnessed my muscovy duck drink water by lifting its head, I don't know if all birds do that, so I limited the question to ducks.
>>>
>>> What is at issue is that ducks/birds might have descended from a reptile ancestor which had to lift its head (2" - 20"+) above the water surface in order to drink (like ducks have to).
>>>
>>> Modern animals which have chins do this, modern animals that don't have chins do not typically do this (except ducks/birds which lost teeth and perhaps boney chin due to strong selection for aerodynamic lightening).
>>>
>>> The
>>>> sister group of ducks is screamers. The sister group of ducks and
>>>> screamers is galliforms. The sister group of ducks, screamers, and
>>>> galliformes is Neoaves. The sister group of ducks, screamers,
>>>> galliforms, and Neoaves is Paleognathae. And all these are nested within
>>>> various additional clades of birds. The fossil in question can't be
>>>> ancestral to ducks unless it's ancestral to all modern birds.
>>>
>>> No argument there. But did the LCA of all modern birds likely have a *very general resemblance* to today's waterfowl? Or did it look like a canary, an eagle, a moa, all very different from typical waterfowl?
>>>
>>> (I recall mentioning my surprise when I noticed unexpected similarities in a pigeon and a mallard, which I had never even imagined before.)
>>>
>>>>> Its placement
>>>>>> amoung dromaeosaurids might move around if more of the skeleton were known, and it might not
>>>>>> even be a dromaeosaurid at all (although I defer to the judgement of authors in that regard).
>>>>> So we don't know.
>>>>>
>>>> Don't be confused about what we do or don't know. We may not know just
>>>> what that fossil is, but we know much about what it isn't. It isn't a
>>>> mammal. It isn't a fish.
>>>
>>> Agree.
>>>
>>> And it isn't a duck ancestor.
>>>
>>> Palognathae ancestor?
>>>
>> Most birds have to lift their heads to drink, but I'm wondering if you
>> mean the same thing I do by that. There are a few exceptions. Pigeons,
>> if I recall. And sandgrouse?
>
> https://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2010/07/09/anatomy-how-birds-drink/
> Doves & pigeons can drink with beak lowered. Nectarivores can too. Sandgrouse lift but do not tilt back their heads while drinking.
> Do all long-necked avians (eg. waterfowl, ostriches) lift water above the surface to drink?
> Did all long-necked dinosaurs lift water and tilt head before drinking?

What do you mean by "long-necked"? Almost all birds do it. We don't know
about the behavior of extinct species.

> No, it's not a paleognath ancestor either;
>> again, birds are monophyletic, Neornithes is monophyletic, and so are
>> several groups in between.
>
> I don't know the latest proper technical name that includes all modern avians. But I meant to compare all living birds to the long-necked bipedal dinosaur.with the prominent chin.

The term is either Neornithes or Aves, depending on who's talking.

> There is no room for this theropod jaw to be
>> ancestral to any group of birds separately, and of course it's unlikely
>> to be the ancestor of anything.
>
> The jury is still out on that claim, imo.

Your opinion, I'm afraid, is not informed.