RE: Sauropodz r kewl WAS: silly conversation on 2012 US presidential race

[Anthony Docimo <keenir@hotmail.com>]

----------------------------------------
> Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2012 08:56:12 -0700
> From: keesey@gmail.com
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Re: Sauropodz r kewl WAS: silly conversation on 2012 US presidential 
> race
>
> On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 8:01 AM, Anthony Docimo <keenir@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > We've demolished groups such as Pachyderma, relocating its members (rhinos, 
> > elephants, etc) to their true relatives...and yet the tuatara, aardvark and 
> > pangolin are set aside in their own groups with no near extant relatives.
> >
> > so, if there is no way to quantify it, why do we keep them separate?
>
> But they aren't "separate". Sphenodon* is in Lepidosauria, along with
> its extant sister group, Squamata.

 

 But Sphenodon gets a number of (ranks?) above Genus to itself, was more my 
point; apologies if anyone read my "separate" more in the vein of Darwin's "a 
separate creation".

 

 

> The fact that they have large extant sister groups is simply an
> artifact of which groups went extinct.

 

I'm not worried about their sister groups.

 

> The fossil record has
> stem-tuataras, stem-aardvarks, and stem-pangolins.

 

*nods*

 

 

> > (I don't know if there are any dinosaur equivilents of the aardvarks and 
> > pangolins, cladistically speaking)
>
> Being a small extant taxon

 

...with several higher-than-Genus names to itself...

 

> with a much larger sister group? There are
> plenty of dinosaurian taxa like that.

 

> How about Struthio (sister to
> the rest of Palaeognathae), Anhimidae (sister to Anseres), or Coliidae
> (sister to the rest of Dendrornithes)? Or Palaeognathae (sister to
> Neognathae)?
>
> --
> T. Michael Keesey
> http://tmkeesey.net/