Re: PRISTICHAMPSIDS etc

[christopher brochu <cbrochu@fieldmuseum.org>]

>Incidentally, Rossman has also argued that _Quinkana_ is not a
>mekosuchin but a pristichampsid (I'm following Willis there in having
>mekosuchins as a subfamily-level group of crocodylines and following
>Rossman in regarding pristichampsids as a family-level taxon).


Rossmann makes this argument from a purely functional standpoint; every
phylogenetic analysis done to date on Quinkana makes it a mekosuchine.
I've seen Pristichampsus, and I've seen Quinkana - Paul Willis is right.
Quinkana is not a pristichampsine, but a mekosuchine.  Paul regards
mekosuchines as crocodyloids, but not necessarily crocodylids (or
crocodylines).  They come out as crocodylids in my analyses, but just
barely - the difference between Paul's tree and mine is one node.

You're still using Linnean ranks?

chris



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Christopher A. Brochu
Department of Geology
Field Museum
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