Re: Paraphyletic Dinosaurs

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

You know, why we would have to coin a taxonomic unit
to represent this or that paraphyletic group is beyond
me when everyone could (and for the most part does)
use vernacular terms, then this would be just as good.
For instance, instead of calling 'em
"Nontyrannosauria", one could just use
"nontyrannosaurs;" it's simpler, more efficient, and
one simply clarifiy definition before proceeding. Greg
Paul (1988) did this with "paleodinosaurs,"
"paleotheropods," etc. One term, "avetheropods," was
established (Holtz, 1996) as a valid monophyletic
taxon when it was used as such. Further, while the
term "paleotheropods" was presented phylogenetically
as herrerasaurs, *Staurikosaurus*, and all other
theropods, it could (and I believe has, on this list)
been used to denote very primitive theropods, which I
guess would be things like *Procompsognathus*,
*Segisaurus*, etc. and herrerasaurids should they ever
prove to be dinosaurs.

  My Y300.

===
Jaime A. Headden

"May I lure us, ere the mote ends us?"

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