STRIKE THAT, REVERSE IT, STILL PROVES MY POINT (via bboys):

Early Birds Had Dinosaur Feet (Bjorn Carey, 12/01/05, Fox News)

Modern bird feet have a hind toe that points backward and helps the birds perch on branches, power lines and pirates' shoulders.

Until a recent discovery of an extremely well preserved skeleton of the earliest known bird species, Archaeopteryx, scientists believed it too had a "perching toe." [...]

But the Thermopolis specimen, discovered in the Solnhofen region of southeastern Germany, clearly shows that Archaeopteryx's first toe extends from the side of its foot, like a human thumb, instead of backwards. The middle toe could be extended, and it had a large claw at its tip.

This configuration is similar to some late Jurassic dinosaur families, including the claw-footed Velociraptor and its cousins. As scientists consider Archaeopteryx as the first bird, this discovery strengthens the argument that modern birds evolved from dinosaurs.

This new interpretation will force scientists to rethink how Archaeopteryx got around, however.

Scientists previously thought that it and other early dino-birds such as Microraptor gui climbed to tree tops, hopped off, and glided to nearby trees. But in lacking the hind toe, Archaeopteryx would have had a hard time perching on a branch and might have made a clumsy show of hopping off and gliding away.

Which would explain why WASPs came to rule the world despite being devoid of rhthym--natural selection chooses for clumsiness and vulnerability.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 1, 2005 11:01 AM