Re: Dinosaur Art & Q's

["T. Mike Keesey" <tkeese1@gl.umbc.edu>]

On Thu, 22 Apr 1999, Bill Adlam wrote:

> T. Mike Keesey wrote:
> 
> > Kind of unfair to pit one species (subspecies, even) against a
> > huge,
> > diverse taxon like Dinosauria. Now if you compare, say, Mammalia to
> > Dinosauria, it evens out a bit (as they've both been around about
> > the same
> > amount of time).
> 
> Dinosaurs (including birds) are almost certainly a clade, meaning
> originally there was one dinosaur species.  This species was so
> successful it became a huge, diverse taxon.  The only unfair bit is
> judging the clades before their histories are over.
> 
> The human (hominine) clade, on the other hand, has only lasted a few
> million years.  It has produced a handful of species which are all,
> with one exception, extinct.

But what an exception! I don't see dinosaurs travelling to the moon,
painting masterpieces, pondering the meaning of existence, communicating
by e-mail, etc. 

Anyway, it's unfair to compare extant clades with vaaastly different times
of origin. Dinosaurs have over had 220 million years. Hominines have had a
few million years. It's like comparing the accomplishments of an infant to
those of an adult.

Compare the success (whatever that means) of Dinosauria to that of
Mammalia, not Homininae.

--T. Mike Keesey                                    <tkeese1@gl.umbc.edu>
WORLDS                                  <http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~tkeese1>
THE DINOSAURICON                               <http://dinosaur.umbc.edu>