In defense of Mononykus's status as a bird, we must remember that many of our modern birds do not fly either, and many of them have strange looking wings. The ratite birds (ostriches, emus, and rheas) all have tiny wings that are useless for flying. And penguins have greatly enlongated wing bones that they use for "flying" through the water. Mononykus's discoverers have postulated that it may have arisen from a group of flighted birds, and its ancestors may have then re-developed the ability to fly.
For more information about Mononykus, read "A new limb on the avian family tree," by Mark Norell, Luis Chiappe, and James Clark, the paleontologists who have worked on this fossil, in the September 1993 issue of Natural History.
An interview with Louis Luis Chiappe, one of the discoverers of Mononykus
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