Re: Hanson 2006, Mortimer, Baeker response

[mike@miketaylor.org.uk (Mike Taylor)]

David Peters writes:
>>> As in dinosaurs, in pterosaurs we've gotten to the point where
>>> very few really strange lineages are showing up. Most, if not all,
>>> dinos and pteros found today can be placed into existing slots.
>> 
>> I don't buy this, at least for dinosaurs.  In the sauropods alone,
>> you have _Tendaguria_, _Agustinia_ and at least one more as-yet
>> unnamed taxon, none of which fit at all convincingly into any of
>> the established clades less inclusive than Neosauropoda.  I think
>> there is _a lot_ still to be discovered -- not just minor tweaks on
>> the taxa we know and love already, but dramatic departures.
> 
> Ah, but they are sauropods, as you said. That's all I'm saying.
> 
> It's a category.

Eh?  Are you saying that, because we can tie them down to level of
referral to Sauropoda, that is enough resolution for you?  If so, then
BY DEFINITION there can be no "really strange lineages" of sauropods;
and, by analogy, this would also be true of theropods, ornithischians
and pterosaurs.  In that case, yes, I concede that by your own
criteria for what constitutes a "really strange lineage", there are no
really strange linages to be discovered among dinosaurs or pterosaurs.

But if you're casting your net _that_ wide, why even bother?  Why not
just refer eveything to Biota incertae sedis and leave it at that?

 _/|_    ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor  <mike@miketaylor.org.uk>  http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die" -- Dietrich
         Bonhoeffer.