SERENO'S NEW DINOSAUR PAPER

[Tetanurae@aol.com]

Hello All,

I actually, as of yet, have not recieved this paper yet, because it seems
that someone can't quite take it upon themselves to RETURN THE VOLUME TO THE
LIBRARY ON TIME.  Yes, there is my mini-rant, anyways, onto what I'm talking
about, some notes on his new names:

PARAVES is a junior subjective synonym of MANIRAPTORIFORMES, or so it seems
based on what people describe.  It seems so far, that Paraves is NOT
described as {_Dromaeosaurus_ + _Corvus_}, but as {Deinonychosauria +
_Corvus_}, ie: {_Dromaeosaurus_ + _Troodon_ + _Corvus_}.  This has exactly
the same membership as Maniraptoriformes Holtz 1996 {_Ornithomimus_ +
_Corvus_}, and so is a junior subjective synonym of the above.  So not to
fret, that name for the node uniting dromaeosaurs and birds still does not
have a name, and now someone can think up a better name for it than Sereno
did (no offense intended).

NEORNITHISCHIA, while a name I hate, is unfortunately valid as the node
uniting {_Triceratops_ + _Lambeosaurus_} within the stem-based taxon CERAPODA
{_Lambeosaurus_ > _Stegosaurus_ | _Ankylosaurus_}.  I had to look through
Sereno 1996 to check and see if Cerapoda was in fact stem based, but in so
many words he states that it is the sister group to Thyreophora, and thus
stem-based.

Another rant follows:  If any of you on this list name a taxon as NEO- this
or EU- that I will personally hunt you down and flog you.  ENOUGH ALREADY
with the NEO-/EU- names.  They are undescriptive, unimaginative, and just
plain annoying.  Enough of Neotetanurae, Neoceratosauria, Neotheropoda,
Neosauropoda, Neornithischia, Neoceratopia, Eusauropoda, Euornithopoda,
Euiguanodontia etc etc etc.......  Ok, enough of that.

Peter Buchholz
Tetanurae@aol.com

*Again in this post, I have used my own brand of cladistic short-hand which
differs from Jon Wagners.

Node based:
"The most recent common ancestor of A B and C and all of its descendants"
Mine:  {A + B + C}
Wagner's:  {+A, +B, +C}

Stem based:
"All those organisms that share a more recnt common ancestor with A than with
either B or C"
Mine:  {A > B | C}
Wagner's:  {+A, -B, -C}