Re: Ceratops (was RE: Pterosaur diversity (was: Re: Waimanu))

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Jay (sappororaptor@yahoo.com) wrote:

<Another minor detail to note is that the group Dinosauria was named by Owen
first, when there was no Dinosaurus. Dinosaurus was named in 1845. The naming
of higher level taxa without a name-giving genus is a common thing (Saurischia,
Ornithischia, Theropoda, Predentata, Oviraptorosauria to name a few) has always
been a common practice.>

  All of the names fall under the above mentioned category, save for the last,
which Barsbold named for *Oviraptor*, though it was named as an order. He used
it to split *Oviraptor* from *Ornithomimus* in preparation for the erection of
new genera in both Oviraptoridae and Ornithomimidae, the former of which he had
named just a year earlier. This was done to split *Oviraptor* from
ornithomimids in which taxon it had been included for the some odd decades
before this nomenclatural act. Good move I'd say in retrospect.

  Cheers,

Jaime A. Headden
http://bitestuff.blogspot.com/

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)

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