Re: [dinosaur] Dinosaur records

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

> I don't think the categories "Smallest known adult non-avian dinosaur" and 
> "Latest non-avian dinosaurs" make a whole lot of sense, either. Exactly what 
> the word "non-avian" refers to is going to depend on (1) which of the 
> existingÂdefinitions of "Aves" you decide to use

Oh, that has become very easy: Aves is defined in Phylonyms â as the crown 
group.

> in which case Iberomesornis easily supersedes Microraptor.

I'm sure it would, but the known specimen of Iberomesornis is a baby; adults 
might have been twice as big or something.

> It's a word game that doesn't provide any biological insight. What does 
> provide it is analyzing body size evolution in a phylogenetic comparative 
> framework, in which birds are explicitly treated as one lineage of dinosaurs 
> (Benson et al. 2014; Lee et al. 2014; Puttick et al. 2014).

On this, and the pseudo-extinction issue, I very much agree.