Newsgroups: sci.bio
Path: utzoo!rising
From: rising@utzoo.uucp (Jim Rising)
Subject: What Archaeopteryx ate
Message-ID: <1989Apr5.125417.24500@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 89 12:54:17 GMT

The truth of the matter is that we really do not know what
Archaeopteryx ate.  The dentition suggests a diet of insects
and other small animals.  What we do know is the the earliest
known fossil birds (e.g. Archaeopteryx, Hesperornis, Baptornis,
Ichthyornis) had teeth, as did their probable archosaurian
ancestors.  Believe it or not, it has, nonetheless, been 
suggested that the presence of teeth in birds is a derived
character state in the Aves.
--Jim Rising
-- 
Name:     Jim Rising
Mail:     Dept. Zoology, Univ. Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada    M5S 1A1
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