Had one looked at the furcula in Allosauroidea, one would see that it is quite literally a distal fusion of two splint-like clavicles--there is no more basal form for a furcula. Considering that the clavicles of which furculae are comprised are alreadly splintlike in the basal Tetanurae, the sort of distal fusion of the clavicles yielding an incipient furcula seen in allosaurs, is precisely what should be seen, and is the intermediary stage from unfused clavicles to the first par-avian furcula. If this is not satisfactory, then perhaps you should explicitly detail what a proto-furcula or incipient furcula SHOULD look like.

What gap are you talking about? What anatomical disparity? Explicitly isolate the osteological characters which you feel produce a "gap" between the members of the clades I delineated, so as to preclude their presentation as a "single line" of neotetanuran descent, in which the furcula from basal condition, was subsequently modified to the avian condition. You utterly failed to refute any of the synapomorphies underwriting holophyly of the clades listed (which is precisely what one must do to discredit the validity of presenting furculae as neotetanuran traits), and moreover you failed to demonstrate how a pattern of punctuational as opposed to gradualistic change is seen in these material.

Needless to say, such a list will be most interesting to see, since a list so damning to the standard phylogenetic map of Neotetanurae has yet to be uncovered by multiple reviews of the taxon. Perhaps you have more insightful cladistic analyses to offer.

Vindex Urvogel