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Submitted: June 1, 2012
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The Origins of 'Avian' Characteristicsby ~Albertonykus

Traditional Art / Drawings / Animals

What the heck? They used to allow double quotation marks in deviation titles!

It's very easy to overestimate or underestimate when certain characteristics present in modern birds evolved when depicting stem birds (any extinct taxon closer to birds than to any other extant taxa). Science marches on aside, it is not uncommon to see enantiornithines shown with tail fans and deinonychosaurs shown without pennaceous feathers, for instance. Here I've drawn a phylogenetic tree of Archosauria showing where ancestral characteristics of modern birds (with most traits basal to Archosauria as a whole also being present in modern crocodilians, of course) evolved. Many of these are internal features though and aren't readily visible in life. I've mostly chosen to depict basal members from each group pictured to highlight their similarities. Heavily referenced from the cladograms Dr. Thomas Holtz's dinosaur course syllabus.

Characteristics marked with a question mark are those where it's not clear whether they were first present at that point in the tree. In many cases said traits may have already evolved long before the point marked. (Feathers are the obvious example; in recent years the idea that feathers may be a characteristic basal to all dinosaurs or even beyond has been gaining support. My personal suspicions at this point are that some sort of feather homologue was indeed present at the base of Dinosauria at least, and was independently developed into an extensive insulating coat by several lineages. And even if feathers turn out not to extend that far back in the tree, evidence of feathers being present in theropods outside of Coelurosauria is probably due to be published any moment now...)

I've only labeled characteristics where they are actually homologous with the condition in modern birds. Therizinosaurs for example have a first toe that touches the ground like modern birds, but this is almost certainly convergent, to say nothing of the numerous lineages that have evolved rhamphotheca independently.

~SpongeBobFossilPants Jun 10, 2012

Any chance parental care is actually a crurotarsan trait?

~Albertonykus Jun 10, 2012

Entirely possible, though I'm not aware of any evidence of it in phytosaurs (or other non-archosaurian archosauromorphs).

~SpongeBobFossilPants Jun 5, 2012

Do any of these represent specific genera?

~Albertonykus Jun 5, 2012

There's Ichthyornis and Scleromochlus of course, but most of the others aren't really intended to be all that specific. Some are more heavily inspired by real genera then others though. (The deinonychosaur is essentially Microraptor without iridescent coloring, for instance.)

~SpongeBobFossilPants Jun 10, 2012

Allow me to identify them (excluding the two already identified):

Saurosuchus
Lagerpeton
Eocursor
Saturnalia
Coelophysis
Yangchuanosaurus
Compsognathus
Beipiaosaurus
Similicaudipteryx
Microraptor
Confuciusornis
Sinornis
Yanornis
Agelastes

~Albertonykus Jun 10, 2012

Based the pseudosuchian more on ornithosuchids and the neornithine on tinamous, but otherwise you're more or less on the mark with those.

~iherduleikdragonites Jun 2, 2012

Great job. I always look forward to seeing your artwork. It seems so comical, yet so realistic and informative.

~Albertonykus Jun 2, 2012

Thanks!

~MatsukazeYuka Jun 1, 2012 Student Digital Artist

...@_@

~demonraptorwulf Jun 1, 2012

nice bit of usful information for refrence you got there

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