Re: Question(s) about Cladistics and PhyloCode

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

David Marjanovic wrote:

> We won't escape "birds" being equated with "Aves". The Latin word for 
> "birds" _is_ "aves", and this persists in Spanish and Portuguese. People 
> will keep misusing Aves unless it approximates the concept of "birds".

If it turns out that dromaeosaurids, troodontids, oviraptorosaurs, etc are 
actually secondarily flightless and/or closer to modern birds than is 
_Archaeopteryx_, then I have no problem calling these theropods "birds".  I 
absolutely adore the ancient Romans, but I don't think their vernacular 
concept of "bird" should influence our phylogenetic definition of the clade 
Aves.  (After all, for a long time the Romans thought they could tell the 
future by reading the entrails of birds.)

> The simplest way to avoid this problem, IMHO, is to give Aves a stem-based 
> definition with dromaeosaurids, troodontids, oviraptorosaurs etc. as 
> external anchors.

Even if it means excluding _Archaeopteryx_ from Aves?

And to Mike Taylor... yep, you're right: Chiappe gets credit for defining 
Aves as MRCA of _Archaeopteryx_ and modern birds, and all its descendents 
(even if he didn't use a specific genus as the internal specifier for 
"modern birds").

Cheers

Tim