Re: Laelaps and Brontosauria (was Re: Resending)

["T. Michael Keesey" <keesey@gmail.com>]

On 8/24/05, Jay <sappororaptor@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Why not just abandon Brontosauria? It's original announcement was because of 
> a purported
> relationship between therizinosaurs and sauropodomorphs. Clearly, no one is 
> realistically
> advocating that anymore.
> Also, it's based on Brontosaurus, itself invalid by synonymy.

*Subjective* synonymy. (But seemingly pretty solid.)

But we still use _Caenagnathidae_, for example. And, let's face it,
"Brontosauria" sounds a lot cooler than "Apatosauria". (But see
below....)

> We already have the names Plateosauridae, Plateosauria, Prosauropoda, 
> Anchisauria - The topologies
> of all of which could change following a revision in cladistics. Eg. 
> Anchisauria originally
> proposed in 2004 for the Anchisaurus + Melanorosaurus clade assumed a close 
> relationship between
> these taxa; now 1 year latter, Anchisauria could include Anchisaurus and all 
> other sauropodomorphs
> excluding Saturnalia, Thecodontosaurus, Plateosauridae, & Massospondylus. See
> http://dml.cmnh.org/2005Aug/msg00240.html for this.
> 
> If topolgies are changing all the time, i'd take that to mean that the 
> relationships aren't
> stable. Until they become stable, i see little point in introducing new names 
> or
> reusing/redefining redundant names beyond their original context.

Hear, hear. I, for one, would not like to see _Brachiosaurus_,
_Diplodocus_, _Saltasaurus_, etc. become "anchisaurs" or
"plateosaurs". Talk about confusion....

—Mike Keesey