Re: Phytodinosauria status

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

--- Dinogeorge@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 6/6/01 6:19:09 PM EST, j_mallon@hotmail.com
> writes:
> 
> << I'm just curious as to whether or not anyone still
> subscribes to Bakker's 
>  "Phytodinosauria", as mentioned in his _Dinosaur Heresies_? 
> This topic 
>  doesn't seem to have been brought up within the past few
> years or so, and as 
>  I'm currently discussing the subject with a fellow
> dino-enthusiast, I 
>  thought I might bring it to the attention of the list once
> again.  Bakker's 
>  Phytodinosauria doesn't really seem to have caught on, but
> are there any 
>  legit reasons for this?  Is the clade considered to be
> monophyletic?  Just 
>  curious. >>
> 
> Most dinosaur paleontologists think Saurischia and
> Ornithischia are the 
> fundamental dichotomy of Dinosauria, but the 17 or so
> characters that 
> supposedly support this seem very equivocal to me. Just a
> little nudging of 
> the cladogram would move Ornithischia into Saurischia as
> prosauropod 
> descendants (Prosauropoda is a paraphyletic group, I think,
> and may number 
> both ornithischians and herrerasaurians among its Late
> Triassic descendants) 
> closely related to Massospondylidae--which makes a great deal
> more sense to 
> me than leaving ornithischians to evolve a lot of dinosaurian
> features on 
> their own, independently of "saurischians." Then the
> fundamental dichotomy of 
> Dinosauria would be into Phytodinosauria (sauropods,
> prosauropods, 
> ornithischians) and Aves (herrerasaurians, theropods, and
> birds). 
> Phytodinosauria Bakker 1986 was earlier named
> Ornithischiformes by Michael 
> Cooper in 1985.


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