Re: My Phylogeny: Growing Science...

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

> > are they just treated like question marks by PAUP*
> > etc.?)
>
> No, I've tested this and seen they give different results.  Not sure why.

Strange, like everything these days.

> > > *Avimimus* is unknown in regards to the temporal bones,
> > > as they are broken and have eroded tips, and the jugal is not
> > > complete, so this was indicted with a "-" to indicate missing data.
> >
> > So the drawing in PDW, which shows the part of the jugal that should
have
> > borne the ascending process as a rod, is interpretative?
>
> Jaime puts the dorsal jugal process way far forward.  Looks ridiculous in
my
> opinion, like several other aspects of his Avimimus cranial
reconstruction.
> :-)

IMHO the postorbital bar has quite an odd shape in this reconstruction. Its
absence seems more plausible to me.

> > Do caenagnathoids really have the derived condition?
>
> I have them coded as being primitive, but this was probably from a data
> matrix.

Impossible to tell from http://www.dinosaurclass.com/dino0905.htm, isn't it?

> > 4 -- Just found out I gave state 1 to ornithomimosaurs, while I don't
> > actually know that. Is it true?
>
> Yes.

Great :-)

> Dromaeosaurids (Dromaeosaurus and Velociraptor at least) have
single-headed
> quadrates.  Jaime apparently coded them as double-headed accidentally.  I
> can't tell in Erlikosaurus, but it's usually coded as single-headed too.
>
> [...] Bambiraptor's is covered by the squamosal
> dorsally, but Sinornithosaurus' looks to have a single head.

So 0 for Dromaeosauridae and *Sinornithosaurus*, ? for Segnosauria and
Bambiraptor?

> > 10 -- According its description (Science 1998 as *Rahona*), *Rahonavis*
> > doesn't have an antitrochanter. I coded one as present in *Avimimus*,
> which
> > is wrong, isn't it?
> >         I'm surprised to see that "enigmosaurs", ornithomimosaurs and
> > tyrannosaurs have antitrochanters, too (is that why it's often coded as
> > "prominent antitrochanter absent/present"?).
>
> One of the many characters that need to be examined in more detail.
> Caudipteryx, Nomingia and Chirostenotes have small, slightly developede
> antitrochantors.  Segnosaurus seems to have a good-sized antitrochantor,
as
> might Nanshiungosaurus, though Alxasaurus' seems dorsoventrally
compressed.
> I'm not sure about ornithomimosaurs, none have been been illustrated well.
> Gorgosaurus doesn't seem to have much of one.

So "Antitrochanter absent (0), small (1), big (2)"? Or is there a need to
quantify that?

> > 18 -- Do we know *Avimimus* has no interdental plates?
>
> Only the premaxillae and dentary tip have been found with "dentigerous"
> margins.  The lack of teeth is associated with the lack of unfused
> interdental plates as far as I know.  But it has been recently suggested
> Avimimus had premaxillary teeth, which could complicate the issue.

Another wait-for-the-paper issue?

Thanks for the other info!