Re: Marjanovic: Wait for the papers: Hone, Atannasov

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

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "david peters" <davidrpeters@earthlink.net>
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 6:52 PM

> Here's why the wait will be disappointing.

And you can say that without having read either thesis?

> In an abstract Atanassov (2001) proposed a new Dockum Group archosaur as a 
> pterosaur ancestor, but basal pterosaurs do not exhibit several characters 
> cited by him: recurved serrated teeth, sculptured spine tables, a broad 
> triangular snout and a high iliac blade.

Excuse me -- score four autapomorphies for Pterosauria. If two taxa are 
indistinguishable, they aren't sister-groups, they are identical.

> The appressed metatarsus said to resemble Dimorphodon weintraubi (figure 
> 6c) would also resemble that of Scleromochlus.

Which of course would fit the orthodoxy perfectly.

> Hone's first paper conclusion is as follows [my comments in brackets]:
>
> The results of the re-analyses of the supermatrix suggest that the 
> Prolacertiformes should be considered the sister group to the Archosauria. 
> [TRUE, if Hone meant the Archosauriformes. Otherwise he is saying 
> Prolacertiformes would be closer to Archosauria than Proterosuchus and 
> Erythrosuchus.]

Benton, who was among the authors, still doesn't like the use of Archosauria 
for the crown-group and keeps using it the traditional way.

> The Pterosauria are not closely related to the Prolacertiformes  [TRUE, 
> not closely related to Prolacerta and kin, but still closely related to 
> Tanystropheus and kin ] and should instead remain among the Archosauria 
> [but where?] and probably [with what degree of certainty and on what 
> evidence?] among the derived archosaurs [but where? There should be a 
> series of sister taxa of descending similarity if a cladogram has been 
> used]. However, the large amount of missing data for many taxa [which 
> taxa? so vague is this statement] makes it difficult to confirm their true 
> position [and so the card is played. Hone doesn't know, but, in the 
> absence of evidence falls back on tradition].

He knows full well. We just need to wait for the publication of his thesis, 
to repeat myself for the 10th time.

> PS I also wrote to D. Marjanovic and asked him to send those tracing back 
> for reexamination. I have no idea what he is talking about, but I'm sure I 
> will when the images jog my memory.

Well, I mean the post below, which I reposted maybe a year later, but 
recently the files all got deleted from my webspace, and I can't figure out 
how to upload them again. The web-publishing assistant integrated in Windows 
wants to hook me up to MSN, and I have Office 2003 on this laptop -- Office 
2003 doesn't include Frontpage anymore, for completely unfathomable reasons.

http://dml.cmnh.org/2005Aug/msg00123.html

Here are a few comments I made about some tracings of yours a few hours 
earlier:

http://dml.cmnh.org/2005Aug/msg00113.html

While I am at it, let me repeat this suggestion 
http://dml.cmnh.org/2006Jun/msg00318.html, too.