Talk:Iberomesornis

Alula?

A recent edit removed reference to Iberomesornis having an alula. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Eoalulavis a more derived Enantiornith? If this is the case, unless the alula evolved multiple times, it must have been present in at least the common ancestor of Eoalulavis and modern birds, wich would include Iberomesornis by bracketing.Dinoguy2 13:47, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, almost no hand material for Iberomesornis has been described. Phylogenetic bracketing is a valid but not very reliable method. Unless there is an obvious need to prevent misunderstandings with the reader, we should abstain from filling in unknown traits. E.g., in this article it had been correctly remarked that processus uncinati were absent in the fossil; this might lead to the misunderstanding that they were absent completely, which however is very unlikely, so I added the caveat that cartilaginous processes were probably present.--MWAK (talk) 11:12, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, to respond to myself five years ago, I agree that discussing an alula being present due to bracketing is unnecessary and not really verifiable, citation wise. Flight-related characters like that could easily have evolved more than once (in fact Microraptor has an alula-like plume of vaned feathers on its digit I, but more derived groups like Confuciusornis clearly lack this structure). MMartyniuk (talk) 12:17, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's one of the more interesting characteristics of Microraptor. :o)--MWAK (talk) 13:42, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Measurements

"Iberomesornis was quite small - growing to a wingspan of 10-15 centimeters and weighing 2 ounces. [56 g] "

How accurate is this? For such a tiny wingspan this woould be a really heavy bird: the relatively short-winged Goldcrest has a wingspan of 13.5–15.5 cm and weighs 4.0–7.7 g; whereas Bohemian Waxwing has a weight of 45–70 g with a span of 32–35 cm. The length of Iberomesornis has been reported at 8 cm, which seems reasonable with the above wingspan – so it would appear to be slightly smaller than Goldcrest (length 8.5–9.5 cm) in linear measurements, yet ten times as heavy. --Anshelm '77 (talk) 23:24, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

This is not accurate :o). Indeed the weight had been estimated by Sanz & Bonaparte at 15-20 grammes. However, the size of Iberomesornis is also somewhat larger than had been indicated. It is almost impossible that wingspan were below eighteen centimetres. The length too is more considerable: 87 millimetres is the preserved axial length. To this half of the neck and the skull should be added bringing total length to about eleven centimetres.--MWAK (talk) 11:12, 4 June 2011 (UTC)