Re: Fw: synapsids are reptiles

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

George Olshevsky (dinogeorge@aol.com) wrote:

<It does exist. It was proposed as a justifed emendation as long ago as
Steel, 1969.>

  So does the Martill and Frey, 1996 Manuraptora. It was justified, based
on the nature of the stem in use and its application: manus = manu- in the
appropriate tense. But this has received a renowned rejection on the basis
of issues of priority. It is no longer of ease of communication to
reformulate names because it has an extra letter than is logical, or the
wrong vowel in the right place.

  Ceratopia (I guess from Steel, 1969) is not justified though well-meant,
because it violates concepts of priority and favored use. Publication of
this term this way has followed very limitedly. Since, Makovicky, Sampson,
Forster, and Dodson, workers on these taxa, have not used the term, but
rather the original Cope monicker. I think a clear case of priority would
therefore reject Ceratopia Steel as an objective junior synonym of
Ceratopsia.

  In this way, stems follow the structure of Ceratopsidae, not *Ceratops,*
except where originally used by Cope and Marsh, as a result of the
formulation of the etymology. Hence, the given stem for ceratopsian clades
has become Ceratops-, as in:

  [Ceratops]omorpha
  [Ceratops]oidea
   Proto[ceratops]idae
   Lepto[ceratops]idae
   Archaeo[ceratops]idae
   Neo[ceratops]ia

  Unfortunately, avoiding opportunity (as in the first two taxa) upon
discussion of this problem [has Steel discussed the issue?] to create a
proper stem gives us the use of these names whether we like them or not.

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

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