Re: Air sacs in extant non-avian reptiles?

[ELurio@aol.com]

In a message dated 7/31/00 11:02:33 AM, ornstn@home.com writes:

<< Here Mr Lurio is wrong.  First of all, naming only becomes political if 
you 
let it do so, and there is no need for this (creationists aside).  But 
since there seems to be a very good argument for excluding Synapsida from 
Reptilia on the grounds that they were separately derived from early 
tetrapods, a chicken is considerably more of a reptile than you are because 
some of its ancestors were reptiles, while none of yours (or mine, or even 
Mr Lurio's) were.  We are, of course, all amniotes (or tetrapods, if you 
like). >>

No there isn't. We don't know that they were seperatley derived from early 
tetropods, are you saying the aminiotic egg evolved more than once? The 
simple fact is that the earliest diapsids are from the same carboniferous 
strata as the earliest synapsids.

I distinctly remember a cover story in Nature about how they found a turtle 
ancestor. This was before some cladist decided that it must be a diapsid and 
then the beastie was all of a sudden surpressed. 

typical.

eric l