Re: ornithomimosaur

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Darryl Jones" <dinoguy@sympatico.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, July 02, 2002 9:05 PM

> Here's a throw away, is it possible that the type of O. velox is a
juvenile
> tyrannosaur?  It has a (relatively) short metatarsus.  Brown(?) thought
> that the juvenile Albertosaurus specimens in the bone bed were
> ornithomimids. Man, would that ever mess up ornithomimid phylogeny.
> Would that kill the name Ornithomimus?

Wow! Actually, I'd like that confusion*. It might make *Struthiomimus* the
oldest name in that clade... it fits much better, as is already lamented in
PDW. :-)
        It might not kill *Ornithomimus*. It might make it a senior synonym
of *Albertosaurus* or whatever it would be. But I'm sure people would apply
to the Commission which would certainly rule either to conserve the
tyrannosaur name (the only possibility to kill *Ornithomimus*) or to look
for a neotype for *Ornithomimus*.
        Anyway, I'm waiting that JP4 will show the biggest baddest deadliest
dinosaur ever... *Ornithomimus grandis*. :-P

* "Order is something for idiots -- only a genius rules the CHAOS!!!" (That
proves it then. My desk rules me, and I try hard to ignore it.)

Oh, BTW, here's the most extreme classification of apes I've found so far:

Hominidae
  Hylobatinae (gibbons)
  Homininae
    Pongini
      *Pongo* (orang-utan)
      *Sivapithecus*
      *Gigantopithecus*?
    Hominini
      Gorillina (yes, a subtribe)
        *Gorilla*
      Hominina
        *Pan*
          *Pan troglodytes* (chimp)
          *Pan paniscus* (bonobo)
        *Homo*

Full circle, eh? _*Homo troglodytes* Linné, 1758_. =8-) Second species
described in _Systema naturae_. Now I'm waiting for subgenera and
superspecies.

I can't remember a name for a group that includes *Homo* and
*Australopithecus* but not *Orrorin*. It wouldn't be wise to name such an
assemblage, given how much is unknown about the phylogeny of what's called
Hominina above. The discoverers of *Orrorin* say, after all, that it is more
closely related to *Homo* than (to) *Australopithecus*, and that
*Ardipithecus* is closest to *Pan*. And then there's *Kenyanthropus*.

There are only two species of *Pan*, but *P. troglodytes* has 4 subspecies,
1 of which (*P. t. verus*) has sometimes been hailed as an extra species.