Re: a rose is a rose (Philidor's questions)

["T. Mike Keesey" <tmk@dinosauricon.com>]

On Sun, 3 Dec 2000, Jaime A. Headden wrote:

>   Aves: the most recent common ancestor of *Archaeopteryx* and
> Neornithes, and all of it descendants, including Archie and crown-group
> birds.
>   ?: all members of Aves more closely related to Neornithes than to
> *Archaeopteryx*. [So far, this stem occupies the same space as the node
> Metornithes, unless that node becomes preoccupied by the Coelurosauria,
> which it will if Sereno is right

Indeed, Metornithes probably should have been defined as
(Neornithes <-- _Archaeopteryx) ...

> -- or by the node Avialae (birds > ornithomimosaurs)

Avialae == (Neornithes <-- _Deinonychus_)
(And Gauthier's definition was the same as the current popular definition
of Aves.)

> if it lies just outside Aves, another possible conclusion]

I think Gauthier applied the name "Ornithurae" to this clade, although
that is not a very popular usage. "Ornithurae" is more commonly applied to
(Neornithes + _Hesperornis_).

>   Sauriurae?: I don't agree that Archie is an sauriurine, as has been
> described by Hou, Zhou, Feduccia, and others, but one could offer the
> name Sauriurae as the stem opposing the intra-Aves stem described above
> as the last of the triplet.

One could also call this clade Archaeornithes (the old subclass composed
only of _Archaeopteryx_) or Archaeopterygiformes, or Archaeopterygoidea,
or Archaeopterygidae (or any of those many redundant Linnaean taxa).
 
>   Mainly, there is a succinct separation of Archie from birds and
> dinosaurs, but it is a bird simply because it has more features in
> common with birds than with some theropod dinosaurs, like Rahonavis,
> dromaeosaurids, etc. This gap is closing, and rapidly. Soon, there will
> be a new archaeopterygid or something to justify that taxon (in my
> mind's eye, I prefer two genera at least in suprageneric taxa like
> "families" or higher, as a calibration) at the rate things are going.
> No, I know of no "new" bird being described, but I'm predicting it....

There's always _Jurapteryx_ (the proposed genus for _A. bavarica_).
There're some possible Korean and Romanian remains, too. And some have
placed _Rahonavis_ and _Unenlagia_ as possible members.
 
_____________________________________________________________________________
T. MICHAEL KEESEY
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