
Originally Posted by
atlanto-med
I was referring to flightlessness in ratites, the penguins being related to Gaviids and to tubenoses. Some types of bird become flightless more often than other birds do, like the rails, and its not known wether ratites had an ancestor that could fly, or was already flightless.
Now theropod phylogeny is uncertain and I can't say I'm an expert on that, but Protoavis seems to be a mix of different animals and Archeopteryx seems to be similar to flying Cretaceous dromaeosaurs. And, Archeopteryx really isn't much older than the fathered dinosaurs of China.
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