Re: Benton and Kinman (long)

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

>     Note that I have dropped "rank" names by completing the trend toward
> standardized endings above family level[...]

But this way you cement names to ranks. Suppose someone uses your system and
disagrees with your use of Sarcopterygii instead of Osteichthyes as a class.
Will s/he have to publish Osteichth...yea or whatever as a new name, as is
the case with family-group names at the moment? In phylogenetic taxonomy
this problem doesn't exist...
(Benton uses Subclass Petromyzontiformes.)

> [...] this same coded clade will remain even if
> Rhizodontiformes split off before Osteolepiformes (I will just have to
> switch the order of those two Orders if that topology is confirmed).

It's worse than that. AFAIK Rhizodontiformes did split off first, but
Osteolepiformes is highly paraphyletic. This wasn't yet known in 1996 AFAIK.