Re: dinosaur taxonomy

[pwillis@ozemail.com.au (Paul Willis)]

>As far as I am able to tell Greg Paul was the first person to seriously
>attempt to make dinosaur taxonomy comport with that of living species.  Is
>this an incorrect characterization?

Way off base I'ld say. The taxonomy of all fossil has attempted to match
that of living organisms pretty much since Linneaus. There have been
various attempts to make the palaeontological species concept match that of
the biological species concept and some of these have involved dinosaurs.
Theoretically, there should be conformity  between the two concepts anyway,
but it is difficult demonstrating reproductive isolation in extinct
oganisms.

>It seems to me that many of the synonymies Greg proposed have been
>essentially ignored, with no justification given.  Does anyone really
>question that Tyrannosaurus rex and T. bataar are congeners?  I continue to
>see Tarbosaurus used as if Greg's book never existed.  We have all of these
>monospecific dinosaur genera with apparently no basis in biology.

The lumping of Tyrannosaurus and Tarbosaurus is not universally accepted
but it does have considerable support. The problems of generic level
definitions are evven more subjective in palaeontology than in modern
organisms. It's not simply a case of some people ignoring Paul's, or
anybody elses work. There are questions here of subjective judgements of
proper generic definitions.

>Is this an unfair analysis?  I hope so.  But Weishampel et al.'s The
>Dinosauria does not even cite Greg's book.

I'm prepared to be corrected here but I don't think that Paul's book was
peer reviewed. This would explain why it has been omitted from Weishample
et al..

>Please tell me that I have
>overlooked lots of literature which explains why Deinonychus, Gallimimus,
>and Daspletosaurus should be considered valid genera.  I have this nagging
>feeling that paleontologists want to avoid biology, and I want to be shown
>the error of my intuitions.

Ignore biology? That's a bit difficult when dealing with organisms (even if
they are dead). No, it seems that you have strayed into the murky area of
palaeotaxonomy with out realising that the sloppy rules of modern taxonomy
become even sloppier in palaeontology. Definitions, particularly at generic
level and higher, will depend on the palaeontologist doing the taxonomy.
Paul is a lumper but see some of Bakker's work for an example of a
splitter. Most palaoentologists tend to lay within these two extremes.

Cheers,

Paul


Dr Paul M.A. Willis
Consulting Vertebrate Palaeontologist
Quinkana Pty Ltd
pwillis@ozemail.com.au

Interesting fact:
Lorne Greene had one of his nipples bitten off by an alligator while he was
host of "Lorne Greene's Wild Kingdom.