RE: Re-emergence of lost features

["Matthew Troutman" <m_troutman@hotmail.com>]

><Can anyone tell me the meaning of the root words phorus and rhaco?>
>
>*Rhaco* is combinative of *rhacus* or more properly, *rhakos* 
>[*rhakhos*]. It's Greek for "spine" or "spike".
>
>*Phorus* from Greek *phorein* [*phorhein*] means "to bear" or 
"bearing", 
>as in Thyreophora, "shield bearers," the *phora* being a plural Latin 
>form of the Greek.
>
>*Phorusrhacus*, the bird, thus equals "bearing spines" or "bearer of 
>spines", and the frog, *Rhacophorus*, means "spine bearer", or 
bascially 
>the same as above - the difference is that one is Latinized Greek (the 
>frog), the other is Greek rewritten into a Latin format without 
>switching the terms (the bird).

   Actually, Ameghino orginally thought that the lower mandible of the 
original Phorusrhacus was the jaw of an edentate ( sloth ). The name, 
following the purported lifestyle, actually means " branch ". 

MattTroutman

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