Re: How to make cladiograms....

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>]

At 12:32 PM 12/15/97 +0100, Jo Vaagan wrote:
>OK..here I am again...
>
>My ambission is to make a complete dinosaur cladiogram. I know that it`s
>impossible, but I want to give it a try.
>But, there is a LARGE but... I have not done any cladiogram work
>before..
>So now I need some help. If any of you nice souls at this superb list
>could send me an e-mail with some good advices of how to do this, and
>maybe some examples of some clads I would be very pleased..

I STRONGLY urge you to read up on the basics of the process and procedure
first before attempting to do a dinosaur cladogram.

I don't know if J.O. Farlow & M.K. Brett-Surman's 1997 _The Complete
Dinosaur_ (Indiana University Press) is available where you are now, but
Ralph Chapman has a chapter on "Technology and the Study of Dinosaurs" that
discusses the operational end of things.  (The chapter by myself and
Brett-Surman on "Taxonomy and Systematics of the Dinosaurs" discusses
cladistic classification).

There are some GREAT websites out there talking about phylogenetic
systematics in general and dinosaurs in particular.  A good starting point
is the University of California Museum of Paleontology's website on
phylogeny.  Go to:

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/

and look around there.  (I think that is the proper URL).

Hope this helps.

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
Dept. of Geology              Email:th81@umail.umd.edu
University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661