RE: New Papers

[Michael Mortimer <mickey_mortimer111@msn.com>]

Jerry Harris wrote-

>    BTW, to ruin the surprise, the "new lineage" isn't named but includes 
> (_Yanornis_ + (_Yixianornis_ + _Songlingornis_)).

You know, I get it when authors don't want to create new clade names because 
the clade's especially provisional, or just to protect against an abundance 
of names, but Yanornithiformes, Yanornithidae and Songlingornithidae already 
exist.  At SVP 2002, I think Clarke used Yanornithidae for the clade.  I 
wonder why she didn't follow through in the publication.
The paper itself is pretty cool, although the data matrix is missing.  One 
odd thing about Yixianornis is that the cervical centra vary from having 
partial heterocoely to none at all.  Strange for such a derived bird.  
Updated its codings yesterday.  Now for Dapingfangornis.

Mickey Mortimer