Re: Dromaeosauridae names, please!

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

On Sun, 8 Oct 2000, dbensen wrote:

> deinonychosaurid clan

Nit pick: There's no such thing as a "deinonychosaurid", or even a
"deinonychid". The taxa are:

Dromaeosauridae == (_Dromaeosaurus_ + _Velociraptor_) *
Deinonychosauria == (_Deinonychus_ <-- Neornithes) **
Velociraptorinae == (_Velociraptor_ <-- _Dromaeosaurus_) ***
Dromaeosaurinae == (_Dromaeosaurus_ <-- _Velociraptor_)

* This definition would turn out pretty badly if, say, _Velociraptor_
shared more recent ancestry with birds than with _Dromaeosaurus_ ....

** Has also been defined as (_Deinonychus_ + _Troodon_), but under a
number of phylogenies this would have the undesirable effect of including
birds and sometimes other traditionally non-deinonychosaurian Theropoda.

*** Would also turn out bad if _Velociraptor_ were closer to birds than
_Dromaeosaurus_. In this case, I think some people use Velociraptoridae,
which is actually equivalent to Deinonychosauria.

The lists I've seen seem to correspond more to non-avian Paraves or
Eumaniraptora than to Deinonychosauria or Dromaeosauridae. Under some
phylogenies, Troodontidae should also be included.

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