Re: Dietary factors & giant land mammals - birds

["T. Mike Keesey" <tmk@dinosauricon.com>]

On Tue, 8 May 2001 MarkEShelly@aol.com wrote:

>   I wish we had a word to seperate the bulk of dinosaurs from the
> feathered, toothless, tailess, handclaw-less dinosaurs, similar to
> what the semi-scientific term dinosaur used to mean!

Which of the traits?

non-feathered: non-maniraptoran _Dinosauria_ (so far as we know)
pygostyle-less*: non-pygostylian _Dinosauria_
handclaw-less: non-ornithuran _Dinosauria_

(*I assume this is what you mean by "tailess".)

> I do not understand why redefining dinosauria means the word dinosaur
> must also be redefined.

Can you imagine the confusion otherwise?

> If man evolved from bacteria, I would not like to hear the
> statement (men are bacteria -or fish for that matter)

We are not bacteria or fish -- we are _Biota_ and _Craniata_.

>   Mammal was origionally defined to include bats.  As bats and
> flightless mammals both exist today, it is a great combination.  The
> term dinosaur has the element of extinction to it, meant to classify
> an extinct group with a common trait.

What common trait is that? I'd like to hear one.

In discussing extinction, the terms non-neornithean _Dinosauria_ and
Mesozoic _Dinosauria_ are handy.

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