RE: Shoehorning (Augury and Alvarezsauria)

["Williams, Tim" <TiJaWi@agron.iastate.edu>]

Mike Keesey wrote:
 
> >  This goes back to the pre-1990's debate that still suggested that
> > Dinosauria was polyphyletic.
>
> Might he be saying that it's paraphyletic? (Which it is, if you exclude
> _Aves_.) I don't think he's saying that Reptilia is polyphyletic.

That was my impression too.  The exclusion of birds renders Reptilia and
Dinosauria PARAphyletic.  Cladistic (but not Linnaean hierarchical)
classifications put the Aves _within_ the Dinosauria, which then becomes
monophyletic.  Of course, it's all just an evil plot by paleos and herps to
"take over" the Aves.   Bwahahahaha!!!!


Jaime Headden wrote:

> Mike Keesey adds a very nice hyper-arctomet pes refered to 
> *Ornithomimus* as *O. minutus*, but this is a mononykine. 

I'm not so sure the alvarezsaurid/mononykine identity for _Ornithomimus
minutus_ is certain.  Other identifications might be possible - after all,
it's only known from a single partial metatarsus, and other coelurosaurs
show a similar "hyper-arctomet" design.

> There was some question of what I was talking about at the end, and 
> because Tim and I pretty much blew the lid off of it already, we can 
> mention *Rapator ornitholestoides*, 

Yep, that's one of the dangers of tossing ideas around on this list,
especially regarding possible identities for obscure fossil bones... some of
them are bound to turn out to be correct.  And somebody, somewhere, might
already have put pen to paper (or digit to keyboard...)   On the subject of
my compatriot _Rapator_, I'll promptly shut my cakehole.



Tim

------------------------------------------------------------ 

Timothy J. Williams 

USDA-ARS Researcher 
Agronomy Hall 
Iowa State University 
Ames IA 50014 

Phone: 515 294 9233 
Fax:   515 294 3163