Re: Air sacs in extant non-avian reptiles?

[Ronald Orenstein <ornstn@home.com>]

At 09:36 AM 31/07/00 -0400, ELurio@aol.com wrote:

> The convention of naming groups is a highly political activity, and the
> change of the term "reptile" is an example of this. The preferred term is
> "amniote." A chicken is as much of a reptile as you are.


Here Mr Lurio is wrong.  First of all, naming only becomes political if you 
let it do so, and there is no need for this (creationists aside).  But 
since there seems to be a very good argument for excluding Synapsida from 
Reptilia on the grounds that they were separately derived from early 
tetrapods, a chicken is considerably more of a reptile than you are because 
some of its ancestors were reptiles, while none of yours (or mine, or even 
Mr Lurio's) were.  We are, of course, all amniotes (or tetrapods, if you like).

--
Ronald I. Orenstein                           Phone: (905) 820-7886
International Wildlife Coalition              Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116
1825 Shady Creek Court
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5L 3W2          mailto:ornstn@home.com