Re: Livezey and Zusi's big bird morph analysis and Archaeopteryx 10

[Nick <nick.gardner@gmail.com>]

On 1/27/07, Michael Mortimer <mickey_mortimer111@msn.com> wrote:
> Finally, the Livezey and Zusi's long-awaited morphological analysis of Aves
> is published!  And the pdf is freely available.
> http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/zoj/149/1
>
> Livezey and Zusi, 2007. Higher-order phylogeny of modern birds (Theropoda,
> Aves: Neornithes) based on comparative anatomy. II. Analysis and discussion.
> Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 149 (1), 1-95.
>
> "Thirty-five outgroup taxa encompassing Crocodylia, predominately
> theropod Dinosauria, and selected Mesozoic birds were used to root the
> trees. Based on study of specimens
> and the literature, 2954 morphological characters were defined; these
> characters have been described in a companion
> work, approximately one-third of which were multistate (i.e. comprised at
> least three states), and states within more
> than one-half of these multistate characters were ordered for analysis."

Admittedly though, their topology is a little unusual in the outgroups
though...

(Crocodylia((Ornithischia,Sauropodomorpha)(Herrerasaurus and EVERYTHING ELSE))

I'd love to see the charater support for Ornithischia+Sauropodomorpha,
honestly, and I wonder what they scored their OTUs after.

Nick Gardner