FERUGLIOTHERIUM, MAYR ON TROGONS

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

João Simões Lopes Filho wrote:

---------------------- 
What is the current status of South American Cretaceous 
ex-multituberculate mammal Ferugliotherium ?
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Well, it's still a ferugliotheriid gondwanathere right? The 
question now is 'what are gondwanatheres?', seeing as most 
workers seem to be saying that they're not multituberculates. 
I haven't seen much discussion of the xenarthran theory in 
recent papers (though of course there is always the 
unofficial idea that gondwanatheres are the morphological 
'bridge' showing that xenarthrans are actually derived 
multituberculates:)). 

By the way, the following is out..

Mayr, G. 2003. On the phylogenetic relationships of trogons 
(Aves, Trogonidae). _Journal of Avian Biology_ 34, 81-88.

As noted before on this list, research in the last few years 
really has meant that the neornithine tree is slowly coming 
together. This is an important new contribution. Feduccia's 
derived 'alcediniform' columella morphology is found to be 
present in steatornithids BUT analysis of other characters 
supports monophyly of a steatornithid-trogonid clade 
separate from alcediniforms minus trogonids. That 
steatornithids are closer to trogons than other 
'caprimulgiforms' partly explains why they didn't group with 
other 'caprimulgiforms' in the Livezey & Zusi supertree. 
Further evidence for 'caprimulgiform' paraphyly is 
presented (see Mayr 2002 - _J. Ornith_. 143, 82-97) and 
non-steatornithid 'caprimulgiforms' are found to group with 
apodiforms. This means that Huxley's 1867 
Cypselomorphae is resurrected, and strigiforms are 
postulated as the sister-taxon to Cypselomorphae + 
(Steatornithidae + Trogonidae). 

-- 
Darren Naish
School of Earth & Environmental Sciences
University of Portsmouth UK, PO1 3QL

email: darren.naish@port.ac.uk
tel: 023 92846045