Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Chilesaurus and Avian Arm Folding

Chilesaurus diegosuarezi by the impeccable Jaime Headden
Ever since the publication of supreme oddball Chilesaurus (eat your heart out, Halszkaraptor), I’ve been dying for somebody out there to do a full description of the critter’s unusual skeleton. As Chilesaurus may hold the key to our understanding of early ornithischians (or not), this is an animal in dire need of detailed study. This past Sunday, a paper was published in a journal that I can’t pronounce—Ameghiniana—and it is not that description. However, it is very interesting, and since I imagine many of you don’t have access to, uh, Ameg-HEE-ana (?), I thought I might summarize the juicy parts here.