Re: Paraphyletic Prosauropods

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Mickey Mortimer (Mickey_Mortimer111@msn.com) wrote:

<No one thinks prosauropods are polyphyletic anymore, there have certainly
been no phylogenetic analyses that support it.  Sereno (1999) and Galton
(2001) find Prosauropoda to be monophyletic, while Langer (2001) and Yates
(2001) find it to be paraphyletic to sauropods.>

  Funny, Yates (2001) as i recall found prosauropods in and of themselves
to be paraphyletic, and several other concepts of prosauropod monophyly
questioned in in the last five years. That *Thecodontosaurus* is not a
prosauropod (Prosauropoda being a paraphyletic assemblage within which
only Plateosauria [Plateosauridae <- Sauropoda] seems to be monophyletic)
with small groups of other "prosauropods" forming successive outgroups ...

--+--Saturnalia
  `--+--Thecodontosaurus
     `--+--Anchisaurus
        `--+--Plateosauria
           `--+--Melanorosauridae (limited)
              |--Blikanasaurus
              `--Sauropoda

  Cheers,

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