Re: Archaeopteryx (rant)

["Tim Williams" <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Nick Pharris <npharris@umich.edu> wrote:

> Quoting Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>:
>
> > Here's a more specific example of how flawed your definition is.  
> Rhinos,
> > hippos and elephants can all claim descent from the same hoofed 
> ancestor;
>
> Well, to tell the truth, yeah, they all have a common ancestor, but it
> wouldn't have been anything we would recognize as a "hoofed" mammal (after
> all, it would be our ancestor as well!)

You don't think hyraxes, perissodactyls, artiodactyls, cetaceans and 
elephants could belong to a clade of mammals that excludes primates?  I 
think they can.  Further, the common ancestor of the aforementioned 
ungulates and "subungulates" probably would have had unguals that were 
"hoof-like".  (I was using "hoofed" in a very general sense - the way 
hyraxes and elephants are.)



Tim

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