Re: What is a dinosaur?

[Thomas_R_HOLTZ@umail.umd.edu (th81)]

>
>Dinogeorge wrote (01/11/96; 5:01p):
>
>>In a message dated 96-01-11 12:56:49 EST, nking.ucs@smtp.usi.edu (King, 
>Norm) writes:
>
>>>I like Colin McHenry's (posting of 01/11/96; 12:10a) suggestion that 
>all 
>>>of these large, extinct reptiles could be called saurians.  But is 
>>>saurian (as in "Sauria") used already to refer to a formal taxonomic 
>>>category? 
>
>>Sauria is often used as the name of the clade formed by the common 
>ancestor
>>of lepidosaurs and archosaurs plus all its descendants.
>
>So saurian would work!

NOT if you include Dimetrodon, a genus sharing a more recent common ancestor
with you and me than with crocs or dinos or snakes or turtles.

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist
Dept. of Geology
University of Maryland
College Park, MD  20742
Email:Thomas_R_HOLTZ@umail.umd.edu (th81)
Fax: 301-314-9661
Phone:301-405-4084