Re: labels are imaginary

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 96-02-06 01:31:12 EST, scot1556@elmhcx9.elmhurst.edu
(Scott Kowalke) writes:

>While I agree with Pharris that evolutionary dispairty between species is
>more
>important than sheer numbers, consider this perspective:  The figure of
>10,000
>species of bird comes from the fact that there are roughly 10,000 living
>species.  However, all of my books,_Dinosaur Heresies_, _Discovering
>Dinosaurs_,
>_Hunting Dinsaurs_, et. al, convey (at least by my recollection) that only
3%
>of
>skeletons have a chance of being fossilized.  Thus, though it may be
>inappropriate to extend this to a species level, if we take your 200 species
>as 3%, then we end up with about 6,000 species of Non-avian Dinosaurs, a
>figure
>quite readily comparable to your 10,000 - quite a nice bush.
>
>

If you're going to start adding up all the species yet unknown, then how
about all the rest of the birds from the Cenozoic and Mesozoic, which had
virtually NO chance of being fossilized? There may have been more than
100,000 bird species that ever existed since their ?Jurassic origin.