Re: PELYCOSAURIA

[Jonkeria@aol.com]

In a message dated 98-06-17 14:01:12 EDT, Rachel wrote:

<<  I was under the impression that mammals evolved from pelycosaurs.  This
would
 mean that I am a pelycosaur.  Well, since I have virtually no knowledge about
 the origin of our quirky clade of furballs, perhaps you could enlighten me,
 Darren? >>

Although I should probably wait to see what Darren is going to say about the
recent papers, I'll interject here and say that based on all the synapsid
phylogenies I've seen you are not a pelycosaur. Like Chris said earlier,
pelycosaur is an informal adjective term to describe a paraphyletic
assemblage, it is to non-therapsid synapsid like "fish" is to non-tetrapod
vertebrate. You are a eupelycosaur, and a sphenacodontoid, and a therapsid,
but not a "pelycosaur". Those are just the bottom end of our quirky clade of
lissamphibian-style-skinned amniotes some of which later developed hair.

-Christian Kammerer