Re: Coelurosaur phylogeny

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

--- "Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Mickey Mortimer (Mickey_Mortimer111@msn.com) wrote:
> 
> <Enigmosauria is just as valid as Dromavialae, Tyrannoraptora or
> Theropoda.>
> 
>   Though it hasn't been used much, Tyrannoraptora was not named in a
> graphic tree that represented an idea, but the result of a specific set of
> data that provided an arrangement. The thesis behind the Naish and Martill
> figure has never been explained, and its use has never been elaborated on.
> If one would recall the extensive debate of naming taxa, especially those
> that are not species or "genera" in figures, then using Ji and Ji's
> undefined or diagnosed or in anyway explained usage of "Dromavialae" to
> defend the use of another quoted name as being unquoted, then applied to a
> structure to which has not been defined, then one has defined a strawman.
> By using one to defend the other, and trying to support it with defined
> and better used names like Tyrannoraptora and Theropoda, is in this
> person's mind a fallacy.

My own stance on this is that there are two types of taxonomic names:
1) Those that have been properly defined in peer-reviewed literature.
2) Those that have not.

_Theropoda_ and _Tyrannoraptora_ belong to (1). Enigmosauria and Dromavialae
belong to (2). Properly defined taxa may be distinguished in text by italics,
or underlines, or an ASCII convention (underscores, asterisks, etc.) The rest,
then, can be unadorned, like any other vernacular term.

(Incidentally, when I asked Mickey, horrified, where Dromavialae had been
named, he pointed me to my own post reporting it to the list not 2 years ago. I
must have really wanted to forget it!)

=====
=====> T. Michael Keesey <keesey@bigfoot.com>
=====> The Dinosauricon <http://dinosauricon.com>
=====> BloodySteak <http://bloodysteak.com>
=====> Instant Messenger <Ric Blayze>
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