Re: Juravenator; or How not to perform a phylogenetic analysis

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

>  Display a majority rule consensus in PAUP (contree "" majrule = yes)

I thought you had to type "contree all /majrule=yes" (except that the amount 
of whitespace doesn't matter)?

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> Keep in mind that some reviewers (and journal editors) are now strongly
> pressuring authors to at least do lip service to phylogenetics when a new
> taxon is described.  Pressure is even put on paleontologists who do not
> "specialize" in the subject.  The result is, for the sake of expediency
> in getting the new animal to press, a less than complete cladogram.
>
> The solution to this problem?  Stop pressuring those who's specialty is
> something other than cladistics to include cladistic phylogenies in their
> papers.

The solution to this problem? Get yourself a coauthor who knows how to 
conduct a phylogenetic analysis and has done that before as a publication in 
its own right. Such as... judging from his work on birds... Chiappe himself. 
~:-|

Its place in the tree, and the changes to the tree that its addition causes, 
are among the most interesting questions produced by the discovery of 
something as rare as a Jurassic coelurosaur. *Juravenator* did need a 
cladogram in its description even if we ignore its scales.