Re: Re: Re: DEFENSIVE RINGS AGAIN

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

>Maybe Thos. here thinks by "carnivora" that I mean the mammalian order
>Carnivora, a Meateater-with-a-proper-name, as opposed to the generalized 
>"meat-eater" with a lower-case c.
>
>I meant a meat-eater with a lower-case c, which in upper Mesozoic times 
>would be a theropod of some sort, rather than a cat, dog, hyaenid, etc.  
>If one uses a capital C here, one means a mammalian meat-eater of a 
>certain order.  
>
>There were no such animals in the Mesozoic, but there were plenty of very 
>efficient carnivora, believe you me!

Not that I'm one to quibble about details (Hah!), but the name in English
for a "generalized 'meat-eater'" is 'carnivore', not 'carnivora'.

Those of us who work on noncarnivoran carnivores have tried for generations
to keep people who work on Carnivora to use the lower case form "carnivoran"
or "carnivora" for their critters.  For many years before that, it was
standard to use "carnivores" for the Carnivora, even though there are many
noncarnivoran carnivores.

Anyone still with me? :-)

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