Re: Sinosauropteryx filament melanosomes challenged

[Augusto Haro <augustoharo@gmail.com>]

Following the creators of Cetartiodactyla, what about "Saurornithischia"?
Or, if we like fishes (oops...) what about Dinosauroidei (or
Dinosauroidea)? : )
It seems Dinosauria has no possibility of being discarded...
Cheers...

2010/12/7 T. Michael Keesey <keesey@gmail.com>:
> On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 3:14 PM, Matthew Martyniuk <martyniuk@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 3:37 AM,  <vultur-10@neo.tamu.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>> Since there's no clade "turtles + snakes + lizards + crocodiles + tuataras" 
>>> (all the scaly, egg-laying cold-blooded animals) to the exclusion of birds, 
>>> which is what 'reptile' has meant for at least a couple centuries, using 
>>> Reptilia as a clade *at all* just seems designed to confuse.
>>>
>>
>> Just to play devil's advocate, why is this true of Reptilia but not
>> Dinosauria? "Dinosaur" had meant saurischians and ornithischians (plus
>> various non-dinosaurian ornithodirans and crurotarsans) to the
>> exclusion of birds for over a century before it was re-defined to
>> include birds in the '80s. What's the cutoff time for declaring that a
>> name is salvageable due to tradition? Why is "birds are dinosaurs" ok
>> but "birds are reptiles" is not? (Or "birds are fish", for that
>> matter?)
>
> This is a good question.
>
> I think the biggest issue here is alternative names. Many paraphyletic
> groups already have names for their corresponding clades, so it
> doesn't make sense to convert the name of the paraphyletic group.
> "Pisces" has Vertebrata and "Reptilia" has Amniota or Sauropsida
> (depending on usage). "Dinosauria", on the other hand, has no
> alternative. (Unless there's some obscure term buried in the
> historical literature that I've overlooked.)
>
> --
> T. Michael Keesey
> Technical Consultant and Developer, Flex Specialist
> Glendale, California
> http://tmkeesey.net/
>