Re: Sinosauropteryx filament melanosomes challenged

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

On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 1:42 PM, Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 7th, 2010 at 5:38 AM, vultur-10@neo.tamu.edu wrote:
>
>> I think the word 'reptile' (or 'Reptilia', etc.) should just be dropped from 
>> any phylogenetic
>> system; it just confuses the public to make Reptilia include birds. 
>> "Reptile" is a perfectly good
>> word for "ectothermic amniote";
>
> Yet crocs are also archosaurs, and only secondarily ectothermic. By your 
> definition that would
> make them secondarily reptilian as well.

Or at least that's a possibility.

Naked mole rats might also be "secondarily reptilian" (unless you
consider them "endothermic poikilotherms"--although this at least
raises the point that endothermy/ectothermy is not a binary issue).

>  So much for attempting to avoid confusion... :-)

Quite!

-- 
T. Michael Keesey
Technical Consultant and Developer, Flex Specialist
Glendale, California
http://tmkeesey.net/