RE: Pterosaur diversity (was: Re: Waimanu)

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

David Marjanovic wrote:

> Why borrow it into Latin and not just keep it Greek? After all I've hardly 
> ever seen a genus name ending in -opsis.

There's actually quite a few genus names that end in 'opsis'.  Just search 
for 'opsis' at:

http://www.ubio.org/NomenclatorZoologicus/

And that's just the animals.  Anybody involved in plant genetics knows of 
_Arabidopsis_.

There's at least one dinosaur that ends in 'opsis': the sauropod 
_Ornithopsis_.

Nick Pharris wrote:

> Now if someone would get out there and name the genera *Ceratopsis*, 
> *Protoceratopsis*, and *Leptoceratopsis*, on which the families 
> Ceratopsidae, Protoceratopsidae, and Leptoceratopsidae could be based, we'd 
> be in good shape.

_Ceratopsis_ is actually a pre-existing genus (a crustacean).  Oh well.  ;-)

_Ceratops_ (the nominative genus for Ceratopsidae) is probably an invalid 
genus (nomen dubium).  Sereno (2005) is confident that _Ceratops montanus_ 
belongs to the Chasmosaurinae, based on the size of the horn cores.  In 
fact, he is so confident that he renames this subfamily the Ceratopsinae.  
Let's hope that big brow horns are limited to chasmosaurines/ceratopsines 
among ceratopsians.

Cheers

Tim