Talk:Nomingia

hAGRYPHUS AND nOMINGIA

The picture on Nomingia is not Nomingia it's Hagryphus. Please remove the picture.

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--408.965.879.065.765.216.519.296.848.4 15:28, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Elmo12456, Michael Skrepnick, the image's author, lists it in his site as Nomingia [1]. So I'd guess the image upload would have to have its tag corrected and the caption on Hagryphus changed to reflect this.

Dracontes 13:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Skrepnick originally painted it of Nomingia, and later he allowed it to be re-used as an illustration of Hagryphus. Both are known from very incomplete remains, so it's basically just a generalized oviraptorid (even though Hagryphus is a caenagnathid...)Dinoguy2 22:35, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I have added the remark that the tail-fan is probably wrong. Nomingia had a rod-shaped pygostyle which is only found in taxa that have no or at maximum 2 elongated tail feathers. Rod-shaped pygostyles, as opposed to the plough-shaped ones of modern birds and relatives, seem to have been associated with a general lack of tail feathering. Will add ref. Dysmorodrepanis 13:39, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

There are two known oviraptorosaurians with feather impressions around the tail, and both show tail fans. This should be taken into account when figuring out the function of Nomingia pygostyles, especially since it is most likely not homologous to the pygostyles of modern birds. Does your ref discuss oviraptorosaurs at all? Dinoguy2 14:07, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

"especially since it is most likely not homologous to the pygostyles of modern birds" - that is precisely the point, the issue was not the "fan" but the "modern birds". Hence I have changed "modern birds" to Caudipteryx. The tail fanning ability of modern birds is due to the rectricial bulbs which at least as far as anyone can tell don't work with a rod-shaped pygostyle. Or if Nomingia had found a means, the contact surfaces should be visible alongsides the pygostyle which is sort of the anchoring plate in modern birds' tail fanning. Or the tissue chould use its own bulk (or that of the other side's bulb) as an anchor, but that would mean that Nomingia had a club-like sturucture at the tail tip, which would hardly be without consequences for the tail thickness and rigidity in general, and again, there seems nothing peculiar about it.

This would argue for the pygostyle having evolved thrice (and counting).

I also suppose there is something having become lost in translation. Modern birds don't have a tail fan, they can fan their tails. There is for example no indication (IIRC) that Caudipteryx' tail feathers were significantly moveable, so it seems in these dinos it was the other way around. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 22:36, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

That makes sense. However, the little that's been published on this genus asserts that it's a pygostyle and it had a tail fan. Not sure if the paper mentions anything about homology with modern birds (unlikely unless it was written by authors who agree with the hypothesis that ovis are closer to birds than dromaeosaurs). Further discussion would be OR. Dinoguy2 (talk) 02:48, 5 December 2007 (UTC)