JEHOLOSAURUS ADDITIONS

[Tetanurae@aol.com]

Ok, at the risk of offending everyone, I am going to re-post the last portion 
of my last email where AOL, for some reason, decided to gradually increase 
the font size I used so that the trees and text became un-readible.

Also, I forgot to add that the matrix without Thescelosaurus came up with 
eight equally parsimonious trees, rather than the 51 with Thescelosaurus.

Consensus tree:

-+--Lesothosaurus
 |--Jeholosaurus
 |--Agilisaurus
 |--THYREOPHORA
 |--+--"Y" multidens
 |  +--Zephyrosaurus
 |--+--HETERODONTOSAURIDAE
 |  +--MARGINOCEPHALIA
 +--+--Hypsilophodon
    +--+--Tenontosaurus dossi
       +--+--T. tilletorum
          +--+--Gaspirinisaura
             +--+--Dryosaurus
                +--ANKYLOPOLLEXIA

But a phylogeny that might be a little closer to the truth is:

-+--Lesothosaurus
 +--+--THYREOPHORA
    +--+--Jeholosaurus
       +--+--Agilisaurus
          +--+--+--HETERODONTOSAURIDAE
             |  +--MARGINOCEPHALIA
             +--+--+--"Y" multidens
                |  +--Zephyrosaurus
                +--+--Hypsilophodon
                   +--+--Tenontosaurus tilletorum
                      +--+--T dossi
                         +--+--Gaspirinisaura
                            +--+--Dryosaurus
                               +--ANKYLOPOLLEXIA

I believe this because many of the characters linking Agilisaurus and 
Marginocephalians are likely to be convergences, so the trees favoring 
Agilisaurus outside of Cerapoda carry a little more weight in my subjective 
mind, see the following for an explanation of Agilisaurus Marginocephalian 
convergences:

http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/2001Jun/msg00378.html
http://www.cmnh.org/fun/dinosaur-archive/2001Jun/msg00519.html

That's it for now... keep finding these ornithischians, they're super cool 
:-)  Much more exciting that theropods any day of the week.