Re: Removing segnosaurs from Theropoda

[head@lust.isem.smu.edu (Jason Head)]

At 11:41 AM 8/29/95, Dinogeorge@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 95-08-29 11:13:00 EDT, jdharris@lust.isem.smu.edu (Jerry
>D. Harris) writes:
>
>>       Just out of curiousity, George:  _Archaeopteryx_ has interdental
>>plates, if I recall correctly, and if you're postulating that birds arose
>>from some "thecodontian" ancestor even earlier than _Herrerasaurus_, then
>>one could just as easily argue that this early appearance of interdental
>>plates is a synapomorphy linking therizinosaurs and birds, making them
>>sister taxa.  Do you want to go that far, as well?  ;-)
>
>That's only half the story. Along the lineage from thecodontians to birds,
>all the dinosaurs from brontosaurs to theropods arise as divergent side
>groups. Birds are not separate from theropods and theropodomorphs in
>BCF--they're right in the middle of it, literally.

        "Thecodontian"??  Me thinks that more modernized terminology would
be appropriate.





jjh