RE: Allosauroid cladogram

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> Caleb Lewis
>
> All,
>
>     I would like to know, too, if you all wouldn't mind. Thanks.
>
>
>                                                       Caleb Lewis
>
> --On Friday, July 11, 2003 2:12 AM +0000 Tommy Bradley
> <htomsirveaux@mybluelight.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi there everybody,
> >     Can somebody send me (or tell me where I can find) a
> decent, and recent
> > Allosauroid cladogram?  I've found a couple conflicting versions online,
> > and am hoping someone on the DML can help.  Thanks in advance,
> >     Tommy :-)

Holtz et al. (in press: the basal tetanuran chapter of Dinosauria II) has an
analysis with many allosauroid taxa, but we'll have to Wait For The Paper.

Rauhut's recent (2003) paper finds Allosauroidea as a polytomy of Allosaurs,
Sinraptoridae, Afrovenator, Siamotyrannus, and a
Carcharodontosauridae-Neovenator clade.

My 2000 paper had fewer taxa, and had the form Monolophosaurus + ((Sinraptor
+ Yangchuanosaurus) + ((Allosaurus + Neovenator) + (Acrocanthosaurus +
(Giganotosaurus + Carcharodontosaurus)))).

Sereno et al.'s 1996 phylogeny similarly had a polytomy: Sinraptoridae,
Cryolophosaurus, Monolophosaurus, Allosaurus, and Giganotosaurus +
(Acrocanthosaurus + Carcharodontosaurus).

So, as you can see, fully resolved cladograms from phylogenetic analyses of
the allosauroids are rare.  Some people have fully resolved cladograms with
multiple species in some genera posted online, but it is doubtful these are
the products of numerical analyses.

Resolution and accurate depictions of the current state of the data are
sometimes different things...

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796