Re: BCF (was New Article in Experimental Zoology)

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

> << However, this is inclusive of taxa that no one, not anyone but perhaps
two
> people, choose to consider birds. >>
>
> Have a look at Ax, 1989:
>
> Ax, P., 1989. "The integration of fossils in the phylogenetic system of
> organisms," in Schmidt-Kittler & Willmann, eds., 1989: 27â43.

Well. Have a look at Ax, 1999: Das System der Metazoa, Band 3. I'll look up
the publisher.

In this thick volume Ax tries to classify all _living_ "Nemathelminthes" (he
doesn't _believe_ in Ecdysozoa...), "Tentaculata" and Deuterostomia. Because
he uses very small numbers (at most 10 or so) of hand-chosen characters as
synapomorphies, and no computer or anything, some of his results are
suspect. The difference between this volume and the preceding two is that
the former don't contain any fossils at all, while number 3 has _a few_
selected _vertebrate_ fossils. Ax is a pure neontologist, and a rather
dogmatic one IMHO. For the few fossil vertebrates that there are in that
book, he uses stem-group names and doesn't discuss why anyone would like
that or not. He does consider *Dimetrodon* a mammal. (BTW, by far most clade
names of his are not defined -- what for, recent biodiversity of Metazoa is
pretty well known. IIRC he defines Aves and Mammalia, but not very
explicitely.)

Same arguments as against the crown-groupers: Relies on the coincidence of
extinction (imagine sauropods were alive today... nobody would consider them
birds, and Ax would certainly define Aves with sauropods, not crocs, as the
external anchor), and disrupts current usage pretty much. Further argument:
Does the latter even more extremely than a crown-grouper.