Re: ptero and bat origins

[Nick Pharris <npharris@umich.edu>]

Quoting Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>:

> >Cetartiodactyla?  Totally unnecessary.  Cetacea is a subclade of
> >Artiodactyla (or Paraxonia)--it's not even clear that artiodactyls as
> >traditionally conceived share a special relationship exclusive of whales.
> 
> Recent discoveries (esp. from southern Asia) have reinforced the 
> Cetacea-Artiodactyla link.

I'm not arguing that whales are not related to those species traditionally 
included in Artiodactyla (see above: "Cetacea is a subclade of 
Artiodactyla").  What I meant in the second sentence was:  if Artiodactyla is 
actually *paraphyletic* with respect to Cetacea, as seems possible, 
then "Cetartiodactyla" as a name is unnecessary:  Cetacea would merely be 
subsumed under Artiodactyla.

Even if traditional Artiodactyla and Cetacea are sister-groups, I think 
Paraxonia sounds better than Cetartiodactyla :-)

Nick Pharris
Department of Linguistics
University of Michigan