Re: DEFINE BIRD

["John R. Hutchinson" <jrhutch@socrates.berkeley.edu>]

About Aves/Neornithes:
        Read beyond Gauthier.  Cracraft was out there using cladistics (at
least in its early form) in 1981; see "Toward a phylogenetic classification
of the Recent birds of the world (Class Aves)," Auk 98: 681-714, in which
he uses Aves in a phylogenetic sense to include {_Archaeopteryx_ +
Ornithurae -- node-based); and Ornithurae to include {Hesperornithiformes +
Carinatae}, and Neornithes as the crown group.  He also does this in
several papers in 1982, then his 1986 paper in Paleobiology 12(4).  L.D.
Martin even uses the traditional forms of Aves and Ornithurae in his
semi-phylogenetic papers in 1983 (Curr.Ornithol. 1:105-129 and
_Perspectives in Ornithology_ pp.291-338).  I think a strong case can be
made for priority of this usage of Aves and Ornithurae over Gauthier's
later formalization.

                        John R. Hutchinson
                 Department of Integrative Biology
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