Carliro
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Notes for an Enantiornithes spec project
🕑 Added 2022-03-13 15:59:35 +0000 UTCDue to the extremely erratic and unpredictable Enantiornithes phylogeny a full project probably ain't gonna be possible in the immediate future. Still, here's some ideas I decided to go with:
- Basic layout similar to that of The Speculative Dinosaur Project, with Avisauridae, a clade analogous to the Enabaptiformes (descending from Lectavis), a clade analogous to the Gondwanaviformes (descending from Elsornis), a clade analogous to the Twitiaviformes (descending from Yuornis) and a clade analogous to the Allospiziformes (descending from Gobipteryx). These five clades seem stable enough and the candidates seem to be perfectly fit to survive in an alternate KT event, since most are generalistic.
- Elsornithiformes, already semi-flightless from the get-go, produce the first wave of megafaunal dinosaurs, like ratites except with teeth. Most tend towards more herbivorous niches, developing cusped teeth like those of polyglyphanodontian lizards and early pterosaurs and actually chewing food! Juveniles may still be volant, so they are capable of colonising island systems; others neotenically retain the ability to fly and occupy niches ackin to those of hoatzins on the trees and geese on the ground. Some carnivorous taxa may evolve, both flightless and neotenically volant, but only find success as cursorial predators.
- Gobipterygids mostly diversify as seed eaters, using their robust beaks much in the same way as parrots and finches. Some become terrestrial and fowl-like, with some possibly even going on to occupy duck and seagull like niches. Others become large terrestrial herbivores, the Gastornithiformes to the Elsornithiformes' ratites. A few become woopecker-like, and others specialise on hardshelled crustaceans. As with Elsornithiformes, flight may be lost and acquired multiple times thanks to neotenic fuckery.
- Yuornithiformes remain much as their Spec analogues, largely insectivores and nectivores with the occasional raven-like omnivore or toucan-like frugivore. In a deviation, however, several become probing shorebird/ibis-like species thanks to cranial kinesis, something no other opposite bird has. These latter may in turn become tinamou-like terrestrial animals and give rise to yet more ratite-wannabees.
- Lectaviformes nonetheless remain the dominant aquatic birds, ranging from plove-like waders to flamingo-like filter feeders to grebe-like divers to forms analgous to pelicans, albatrosses, gannets and even penguins. Some also produce stork and crane-like forms flying inland.
- Avisaurids mostly remain as predatory birds, mostly aerial raptors with the odd form with flightless adults like enantiornithean Deinonychus. Diversify both as owl analogues as well as pelagic seabird analogues stemming from fishing-eagle-like forms. Some inversely become frugivorous and oilbird-like.
