Re: di-NO!-tyrannus

["T. Michael Keesey" <mightyodinn@yahoo.com>]

--- Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Dinogeorge@aol.com wrote:
> 
> >I would strongly disagree(!) with making Daspletosaurus and Tarbosaurus 
> >subgenera of Tyrannosaurus.
> 
> I have to agree with George here.  In general,  I think erecting subgenera 
> is bad policy for fossil taxa; if a species is good enough to be a subgenus, 
> why not go the whole hog and give it its own genus?

Because most well-known Mesozoic dinosaur genera are already monotypic. It's
kind of ridiculous that almost everything has two names.

I think erecting subgenera is bad policy for another reason: I'd like to just
use clades and (grudgingly) species as formal taxa. Subgenera present a problem
when converting to clades: namely that a lot of them are homonymous with
another taxon (the genus).

Clades within clades that were converted from genera, though -- that's fine.

=====
=====> T. Michael Keesey <keesey@bigfoot.com>
=====> The Dinosauricon <http://dinosauricon.com>
=====> BloodySteak <http://bloodysteak.com>
=====> Instant Messenger <Ric Blayze>
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