Re: Feduccia's delusion

[Michael Bruce Habib <mbh3q@cms.mail.virginia.edu>]

On Sat, 1 Dec 2001 14:13:43 EST Dinogeorge@aol.com wrote:

> I intended to use Sauria (Greek for "lizards") for the stem group that 
> includes Lacertilia (Latin for "lizards") and all animals more closely 
> related to Lacertilia  (modern, i.e., crown-group, lizards) than to snakes 
> (Serpentes: Latin for snakes). Ophidia (Greek for "snakes") would be the 
> complementary stem group comprising Serpentes and all animals more closely 
> related to modern snakes than to modern lizards.

Sounds like a decent naming scheme to me, but I'd be 
careful when denoting Ophidia as you do, since some of the 
"modern lizards" would actually be in Ophidia (ie. closer 
to snakes than other "modern lizards".  Then again, working 
with paraphyletic groups like lizards is always difficult.

Michael Habib
habib@virginia.edu
University of Virginia