Re: Pterosaur Help

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/5/01 4:26:38 PM EST, david.marjanovic@gmx.at writes:

<< I've seen mega-, giga- and grandfamilies, but what is a parafamily? >>

A term I invented in Mesozoic Meanderings #2 for a paraphyletic family. At 
that time, I called Archosauria a "parainfraclass": paraphyletic because it 
did not include birds. If you partition a taxon into subtaxa all at a 
particular rank, then at least one of the subtaxa will have to be 
paraphyletic, because it will contain the latest common ancestor of the 
partitioned taxon but not all of its descendants. That subtaxon is, or those 
subtaxa are, signaled by the prefix "para." Nobody, however, has rushed to 
adopt this (to me) sensible alternative to the potentially infinite rank 
subdivisions of cladistic taxonomy. Instead they're doing away with ranks 
altogether; should have thought of that myself, although I find ranks quite 
helpful and I probably won't stop using them for "important" taxa.