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Re: [dinosaur] New Konzhukovia species (temnospondyl) from Permian of South America + Early Triassic polar coprolites + more papers



Mickey Mortimer <mickey_mortimer111@msn.com> wrote:


> Except that Phylocode doesn't officially exist yet.  There have been seven 
> proposed phylogenetic definitions for Tyrannosauridae, for instance.

PhyloCode may not exist, but phylogenetic nomenclature does.
Tyrannosauridae and Tyrannosauroidae are clades, and have been defined
as such (more than once, as you note).  Deinodontidae and
Deinodontoidea have not been defined as clades - and nor is there any
reason to.

The conflict is between ICZN and phylogenetic nomenclature more
broadly (not just its prospective codification, PhyloCode).


> None are official, but three define the same clade in Brusatte et al.'s 
> (2016) topologies.  I'm sure some if not most break at least one Phylocode 
> rule as well.  So you'd ignore the current rules for another system which is 
> supposed to work in conjunction with
> them, and may not be enacted for years if ever.

The fact remains that Tyrannosauridae has been defined
phylogenetically as a clade.  This should make it immune to being
changed to something else (such as Deinodontidae), simply because of
some arcane ICZN rule of priority regarding coordinated family-level
taxa.  _Deinodon_ is a nomen dubium, so it should be ruled out of
consideration when naming clades.


> Ah, but what if different people pick different names?  Are you actually 
> arguing for a populist anarchy in nomenclature?

Firstly, these ICZN rules only apply to suprageneric groups that are
coordinated family-level taxa.  Diplodocidae and Diplodocoidea and
Tyrannosauridae and Tyrannosauroidea are affected by ICZN rules;
Diplodocimorpha and Tyrannoraptora are not.  My argument is that
clades ending in -idae, -oidea etc shouldn't be treated as special
cases.  For non-family-level-coordinated taxa, there is no "populist
anarchy" when coming to naming clades - so why do you think this would
happen with family-level-coordinated taxa?


> There's still Ceratopsidae and Ceratopsoidea.

I haven't given up on _Ceratops montanus_ being valid.  :-)