rising@utzoo.uucp (Jim Rising) (04/05/89)
The truth of the matter is that we really do not know what Archaeopteryx ate. The dentition suggests a diet of insects and other small animals. What we do know is the the earliest known fossil birds (e.g. Archaeopteryx, Hesperornis, Baptornis, Ichthyornis) had teeth, as did their probable archosaurian ancestors. Believe it or not, it has, nonetheless, been suggested that the presence of teeth in birds is a derived character state in the Aves. --Jim Rising -- Name: Jim Rising Mail: Dept. Zoology, Univ. Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A1 UUCP: uunet!attcan!utzoo!rising BITNET: rising@utzoo.utoronto.bitnet