Stuart S. Sumida

TL;DR: Current evidence strongly suggests that birds are theropod dinosaurs, and that the most primitive known feathers are found on non-flying animals, which suggests that feathers did not evolve as flight structures.

TL;DR: Using a phylogeny representing the current consensus in the literature, the major locomotory strategies that have been posited for Paleozoic amniotes are investigated by optimizing the major Locomotory styles identified for these taxa onto the consensus tree in order to present an overview of the pattern of evolution of locomOTory strategies inherited and adopted by various amniote lineages.

TL;DR: Observed histovariability appears to record the transition from the proximal to the distally protruding portion of the spine, and independent pathological evidence support the existence of a short dorsal crest in Sphenacodon and possibly other basal sphenacodontids.

TL;DR: The axial neural spine is large, and its anterior projection between the paired halves of the atlantal neural arch may have aided in preventing them from occluding the foramen magnum during rotation of the cranium relative to the vertebral column.

TL;DR: The skeletal anatomy of the Early Permian eureptile Thuringothyris mahlendorffae from the Bromacker Quarry, Germany, is redescribed on the basis of several new specimens, finding that the swollen neural arches of captorhinids and araeosceloids might have evolved independently.