Re: Feduccia's delusion

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/30/01 10:04:00 PM EST, ELurio writes:

<< Why is that a fringe? If you imagine a feathered dromeosaur, then you'd 
get a really nasty ostrich. Overpators would look like birds, not dinosaurs. 
It makes more sense to imagine them as birds. As for other theropods, 
sauropods and orthnipods, that's another story all together. >>

Nah, they're all birds. Sauropods are pentadactyl, quadrupedal birds; 
ornithischians are quadrupedal or facultatively bipedal birds; theropods are 
obligatorily bipedal birds; and so on.

My name for the clade of modern birds would be Aves, the Latin name; my name 
for the stem group that is all animals more closely related to Aves than to 
modern crocs would be Ornithes, the Greek name. And we would also have 
Crocodylia (Latin) be the clade of modern crocs, and Suchia (Greek) be the 
stem group of all animals more closely related to Crocodylia than to Aves 
(this would include Rauisuchia and those various other pre-croc suchians). 
Naturally, the clade that consists of Suchia, Ornithes, and their common 
ancestor would be Ornithosuchia. Archosauria would be the stem group that 
consists of all animals closer to Ornithosuchia than to modern lizards 
(Lacertilia) and snakes (Serpentes), Lepidosauria would be the stem group 
that consists of all animals closer to modern lizards and snakes than to 
Ornithosuchia. And so on. The trick is to use a Latin name for the crown 
group, a Greek name for the stem group, and a combo name for the node-stem 
triplet. Dunno yet whether this can be made to work for all the vertebrates.