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Re: Magnapaulia, "new" lambeosaurine from Baja California, Mexico
On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 4:18 PM, <tyazbeck@comcast.net> wrote:
> Tsk, tsk-too much splitting. This material does not represent a new genus, at
> least from my point of view.
Unfortunately, personal points of view are usually the only criteria
we have for delimiting genera.*
> I wish that more existing genera should be bolstered by adding species,
I sort of agree. This could easily have been Velafrons laticaudus. But
it's not a huge issue. Or at least, it's not a scientific issue.
> rather than over-exaggerating dinosaur diversity by creating excess genera.
The key there is to remember that genera are a terrible unit of
diversity. Nobody should use them as such, ever.
* Except for those which have been phylogenetically defined, but
that's not the case for the vast majority of dinosaur genera. In fact,
I can only think of one example off the top of my head -- Sereno's
(1998) definition of Archaeopteryx, which he later used instead for
Archaeopterygidae, anyway:
http://www.taxonsearch.org/dev/taxon_edit.php?Action=View&tax_id=29
--
T. Michael Keesey
http://tmkeesey.net/