Re: New name for Megalosaurus hesperis

["T. Michael Keesey" <keesey@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 5:56 PM, Tim Williams <tijawi@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> _Duriavenator_ is assigned to the Megalosauridae, which is in turn assigned 
> to the Spinosauroidea.  But under ICZN rules, Megalosauroidea has priority 
> over Spinosauroidea for the Megalosauridae-Spinosauridae clade.  This is 
> because Spinosauroidea is a coordinate family-group taxon, and Megalosauridae 
> was named before Spinosauridae.  This entire issue could be bypassed if this 
> clade (Spinosauroidea/Megalosauroidea) was shorn of its '-oidea' suffix, and 
> renamed Megalosauria or Spinosauria - or any other name that is not 
> coordinate with a family name (and therefore exempting it from the purview of 
> the ICZN).  Paul's Intertheropoda would work too.

It's much easier than that -- just say that Spinosauroidea is an
infraorder (or any non-family group rank -- or even just say it's
unranked). The suffix "-oidea" appears on may taxa that are not
superfamilies (e.g., Asteroidea).
-- 
T. Michael Keesey
Technical Consultant and Developer, Internet Technologies
Glendale, California