Theropod taxonomy (repost for those with SMALL screens)

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

>>When this message came back to me, the sublime beauty of the theropod
cladogram was lost because the branches were too long for my screen. Hence my
"condensed" version. Let's hope this works this time.

J.R. Wagner writes:

<<My page's URL is http://faraday.clas.virgninia.edu/~jrw6f/>>

Well, once you spell virginia correctly, it works. I went there and >>SIGH<<
indeed found yet another theropod cladogram. This prompted me to work up a
"consensus cladogram" of all known theropod cladograms published to date. Not
surprisingly, the resolution dropped somewhat (for best results, use a
monospaced font):

                  |-------------------Herrerasauria
                  |-------------------Lagosuchia
                  |-------------------Ceratosauria
                  |-------------------Neoceratosauria
                  |-------------------Alvarezsauria
                  |-------------------Spinosauria
                  |-------------------Carnosauria
Theropoda---------|-------------------Coeluria
                  |-------------------Ornithomimosauria
                  |-------------------Tyrannosauria
                  |-------------------Avimimiformes
                  |-------------------Oviraptorosauria
                  |-------------------Deinonychosauria
                  |-------------------Archaeopterygiformes
                  |-------------------Protoaviformes
                  |-------------------Avialae

(No taxonomic significance is to be attributed to the ordering of the subtaxa
down the page; it is >>entirely<< arbitrary...)