Re: What is a dromaeosaurid?

["T. Mike Keesey" <tkeese1@gl.umbc.edu>]

On Thu, 27 Nov 1997, Christopher Straughn wrote:

> As far as I know, there is no Deinonychosauria. 
I may be wrong, but doesn't Sereno or somebody use a Deinonychosauria that
is defined by (+_Deinonychus_, -Neornithes)?

> If there was, it would be named the Dromaeosauria, since Dromaeosaurus
> is the first known Dromaeosaurid. 
This rule would only apply to family-based taxa (e.g. Dromaeosauroidea),
wouldn't it?

>  Anyway, you must be thinking of the Velociraptorini, a subfamily of the
> Dromaeosauridae, which includes (of course) Velociraptor and its closest
> relatives. 
(Velociraptorinae -- Velociraptorini would be a tribe)
I seem to remember Tom Holtz once talking about someone coming up with a
preliminary phylogeny wherein dromaeosaurids were paraphyletic, and there
was a Velociraptoridae. Haven't heard of it since.

>       Also, I today saw the illustration of "Megaraptor" in Nat'l Geo.  
> The illustration makes it look about the size of Albertosaurus.  I 
> have a hard time believing that a Dromaeosaur body frame could hold 
> all that mass.
Tyrannosaurs are pretty gracile themselves, aren't they?

--T. Mike Keesey
tkeese1@gl.umbc.edu
http://umbc.edu/~tkeese1 -- Dinosaur Web Pages