Re: The cladogram from the supp. inf. of the *Anchiornis* paper

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

>  Keep in mind this is just the Epidexipteryx analysis with Anchiornis
>  added, and the Epidexipteryx analysis was just Senter's (2007)
>  analysis with Epidexipteryx added.

The character list does contain lots of refinements such as plenty of 
added states. Still, though, it seems that all characters were 
unordered. :-(

>  Anchiornis may very well be a troodontid, but note the matrix doesn't
>  include Mahakala, Yixianosaurus, Shanag, Austroraptor, Sinusonasus
>  or Jinfengopteryx.

True, these are highly relevant omissions.

>  Also note that the original Anchiornis matrix
>  included 48 characters from Xu's thesis that are useful for basal
>  paravian phylogeny.  These are not present in the new Anchiornis
>  matrix

Ouch.

>  My modified version of Senter's
>  analysis already includes all of the data from both of these studies
>  except I haven't added the new Anchiornis codings yet.  My site
>  should be updated before the new year with those results (after the
>  upcoming update with ornithuromorphs).

:-) :-) :-)

>  Also notice the new taxon in the supplementary info-
>  Alvarezsauroidea.

Wow, I didn't notice... I basically skipped the nomenclature section 
except for Avialae and Aves, because it seemed unremarkable.

>  Unfortunately, it has an equivalent definition to
>  previous definitions of Alvarezsauridae, except it uses the eponymous
>  genus at last (the others used Shuvuuia).

<headdesk>

>  To counter that compliment
>  though, the authors use Deinonychus for Dromaeosauridae and
>  Ornithomimus edmontonicus for Ornithomimosauria.

Yeah. Suboptimal.