English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

The evolution of birds from dinosaurs is a subject that has received great attention among vertebrate paleontologists. Nevertheless, the early evolution of the paravians, the group that contains birds and their closest non-avian dinosaur relatives, remains very poorly known. Even the most basal members of one paravian lineage, the Dromaeosauridae, already show a body plan that differs substantially from their closest non-paravian relatives. Recently, the dromaeosaurid  Halszkaraptor escuilliei  was described from the Cretaceous of Mongolia.  Halszkaraptor  possesses numerous unserrated premaxillary teeth, a platyrostral rostrum with a developed neurovascular system, an elongate neck, bizarrely-proportioned forearms, and a foreword-shifted center of mass, differing markedly from other paravians. A reevaluation of the anatomy, taphonomy, environmental setting, and phylogenetic position of  H .  escuilliei  based on additional comparisons with other maniraptorans suggests that, rather than indicating it was a semiaquatic piscivore, the body plan of this dinosaur bears features widely distributed among maniraptorans and in some cases intermediate between the conditions in dromaeosaurids and related clades. I find no evidence for a semiaquatic lifestyle in  Halszkaraptor . A phylogenetic reevaluation of Halszkaraptorinae places it as the sister clade to Unenlagiinae, indicating the bizarre features of unenlagiines previously interpreted as evidence of piscivory may also represent a mosaic of plesiomorphic, derived, and intermediate features. The anatomy of  Halszkaraptor  reveals that dromaeosaurids still possessed many features found in more basal maniraptoran and coelurosaur clades, including some that may have been tied to herbivory. Rather than being a semiaquatic piscavore,  Halszkaraptor  was a basal dromaeosaurid showing transitional features.

Halszkaraptor escuilliei and the evolution of the paravian bauplan