ewilloughby:Another diagram for the upcoming evolution book!Everything but pigeon referenced from Gr
ewilloughby:Another diagram for the upcoming evolution book!Everything but pigeon referenced from Greg Paul diagrams; pigeon referenced from various photographs of pigeon skeletons I could find. The position of metatarsal III on the Deinonychus pes is modeled after Fowler et al. 2011.Two interesting points as an animal becomes more “birdlike”: the hallux moves towards greater mobility, and the tarsometatarsus fuses. The tarsometatarsus of Archaeopteryx represents a unique semi-fused “transition” state between unfused and totally fused metatarsal bones. -- source link