Re: Strange thoughts on PN - was Re: BAD vs. BADD

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Tommy Tyrberg wrote:

> "Pulchrapollia" does not mean "beautiful parrot" but simply "Pretty Polly". 
> At least that is the information I got from one of the authors.

This is what the paper says:

"Derivation of name. From the Latin pulchra, beautiful, and the English 
?Polly?, a common name for a parrot."

So although "Pretty Polly" is humorous, the paper gives a blander and more 
prosaic derivation of the name: "beautiful parrot".

Interestingly, Dyke and Cooper (2000) also discuss _Palaeopsittacus_, 
another fossil bird from the same London Clay as _Pulchrapollia_; the 
authors conclude that the former is based on unassociated material (with no 
evidence that it's actually a psittaciform), while the latter is a primitive 
psittaciform (sister taxon to Psittacidae).  Thus, _Palaeopsittacus_ is 
polyphyletic, and _Pulchrapollia_ is pollyphyletic (sensu Taylor, 2006).  
Hey, Mike's pun was bad, but that doesn't stop it from being funny IMHO.

Cheers

Tim





Cheers

Tim


> Tommy Tyrberg
>
>
>
> At 20:08 2006-09-03, Tim Williams wrote:
>
> > Mike Taylor wrote:
> >
> > > No, but parrots are Pollyphyletic.
> >
> > Incidentally, this pun isn't as bad as you might think (though it is 
> > pretty bad).  In 2000, Gareth Dyke and Joanne Cooper named a new fossil 
> > parrot _Pulchrapollia_ ("beautiful parrot").  Thus, "Polly" (for parrot) 
> > officially entered the scientific nomenclature.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Tim