Neotheropoda history (was RE: hidden "cladistic" ranks)

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> T. Mike Keesey
> Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 1:25 AM
> To: -Dinosaur Mailing List-
> Subject: RE: hidden "cladistic" ranks
>
>
> On Wed, 17 Oct 2001, Ken Kinman wrote:
>
> > Mike and Tracy,
> >       I must say that Mike's post surprised me a little when I saw
> > Coelophysoidea now being excluded from Neotheropoda-----I guess
> more of that
> > stability of content being sacrificed for stability of definition.
>
> _Neotheropoda_ is anchored on _Ceratosaurus_, not _Coelophysis_. In fact,
> unless I'm mistaken, the original usage did exclude _Coelophysis_ et al.

Precisely.  Neotheropoda was originally introduced by Bakker (in The
Dinosaur Heresies).  In his phylogeny, "Podokesaurids" (coelophysoids of
modern usage) were outside a group called Neotheropoda, which was comprised
of ceratosaurs and "Dinoaves" (e.g. Avetheropoda or Tetanurae), which was
composed of allosaurs and coelurosaurs (there unnamed), which contained an
ornithomimid-tyrannosaurid clade and a dromaeosaurid-bird clade.

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796