Re: Megalosaurids

["T. Michael Keesey" <mightyodinn@yahoo.com>]

> Ah, thanks for pointing that out. The reason I conflated Avetheropoda
> with the Tetanurae is because in Paul's own footnote in PDW, he mentions
> that he was trying to figure out a term for 'advanced theropods of this
> general mold', and he says that he decided to come up with his own name,
> Avetheropoda, because Gauthier had named Tetanurae and Bakker had named
> Dinoaves, and it wasn't clear which had priority.

I believe under Gauthier's original phylogeny megalosaurids, etc. were
considered carnosaurs, and hence tetanurans. Under that phylogeny, the
node-based group (_Avetheropoda/Neotetanurae_) and the stem-based group
(_Tetanurae_) would be identical in content, so Paul may have assumed Gauthier
meant _Tetanurae_ to be a node-based taxon, and then removed the forms he
considered to be more basal (now widely accepted).

I believe Sereno also used _Tetanurae_ as a node-based clade (anchored on
_Torvosaurus_? I forget).

> So I think he can be forgiven for not going to great
> lengths to keep 'Neotetanurae' separate from 'Tetanurae'

Yes, especially since _Neotetanurae_ would not be named for another 6 years.

I had forgotten about Dinoaves -- I need to have another look at _Heresies_. I
wonder if it could (should?) be resurrected for some clade....

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=====> T. Michael Keesey <keesey@bigfoot.com>
=====> The Dinosauricon <http://dinosauricon.com>
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