Re: Notarium question

[David Peters <davidpeters@att.net>]

On Feb 13, 2009, at 3:22 AM, Mike Taylor wrote:

> David Peters writes:
> > Question is, when is it valid to call the structure a notarium? What
> > Rubicon must be crossed?
> >
> >   Is there such a thing as a pre-notarium? or proto-notarium?
> >
> > And if such a structure evolved more than once, should we
> > differentiate these? Should we score them differently?
>
> If you score them differently on the assumption that they are separate
> apomorphies, then you're assuming what you're setting out to prove.

---------------

It's a query, Mike. Not a statement of intention. You're missing the  
point: When is it an official notarium? And when is it not?

---------------

> Just score the morphology, and let the cladistics program sort out
> what is the most parsimonious optimisation of the characters.
>
> (But wouldn't notarium fusion by very ontogenetically dependent
> anyway?)

---------------

Only if pterosaurs were archosaurs. Unfortunately, no one can come up  
with a genus-based archosaur sister taxon that isn't seriously  
flawed. and out of the running.

Maisano 2004 reports that you can throw out the old rules if  
pterosaurs are not archosaurs.



---------------
>  _/|_	  
> ___________________________________________________________________
> /o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <mike@indexdata.com>    http:// 
> www.miketaylor.org.uk
> )_v__/\  "You try to tell foreigners how big it is, but if they  
> haven't
> 	 experienced it, they won't get it." -- Freddie Ljungberg
> 	 (Swedish), on the FA Cup.

David Peters
davidpeters@att.net