Re: Amniota to Mammalia in four easy steps

[John Conway <john_conway@mac.com>]

The problem I have here is consistency, I have to include the outgroups 
to be consistent with the style. This is only one of over seventy 
cladograms I am doing for this project, which will all be linked 
together, so being consistent is important.

I have to admit to being a little overwhelmed by your complete synapsid 
cladogram. It's so long! I need simple pictures, synapsids are just a 
bunch names to me.

I was a little more confident on the sauropsid side (although if you 
think I should replace/add something feel free to tell me). Leaving off 
_Eoraptor_ was a conscious decision, each genus/terminating clade on 
these cladograms has a page and illustrations devoted to it, and being a 
one man show and having a deadline to meet, I had to make cuts. More 
than I'd like, to be honest. But that's why I haven't covered 
_Lagerperton_ etc.

The tetratomy is my way of cheating, and adding more clades than I have 
named. It's just to save space, but I think it will give the right 
"impression" to your average schmoe.

The Herrerasauridae is also included on the Theropoda cladogram, do you 
think I should remove it from this one? What is current thinking on it 
position? I know Sereno thinks it is a theropod, but how certain is this?

All these cladograms are breaking my head. :-)

http://homepage.mac.com/john_conway/amniota.html

On Wednesday, April 17, 2002, at 02:52  AM, T. Michael Keesey wrote:
> > .
>
> The diagram looks great! But you're not going to be able to do it in 
> that style without a lot of
> omissions. I think it would be best to show the major clades between 
> _Synapsida_ and _Mammalia_
> (i.e, _Therapsida_ and _Cynodontia_, adding _Eupelycosauria_, 
> _Sphenacodontia_, _Thriodontia_,
> _Eucynodontia_ and/or _Mammaliformes_ if you wish) and not worry too 
> much about including all the
> outgroups. (It's not like the sauropsid half has everything -- it's 
> missing _Batropetidae_,
> _Bolosauridae_, _Captorhinidae_, _Protothyrididae_, _Endennasauridae_, 
> _Mesenosauridae_,
> _Araeoscelida_, _Choristodera_, _Coelurosauravidae_, _Thalattosauria_, 
> _Trilophosaurus_,
> _Rhynchosauridae_, _Prolacertiformes_. _Proterosuchidae_, 
> _Erythrosuchidae_, _Euparkeria_, and
> others. Which isn't to say it's not a good simplified cladogram! 
> Although the _Saurischia_ +
> _Herrerasauridae_ + _Lagosuchus_ + _Ornithischia_ tetratomy is a bit 
> odd -- _Lagosuchus_ is
> definitely outside the other three, and if you're going to show 
> _Herrerasauridae_ you ought to put
> _Eoraptor_ there, too.)
>
> Here's a cladogram of _Synapsida_: 
> http://dinosauricon.com/taxa/synapsida.html
>
> My $0.02 -
>
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John Conway, Palaeoartist

"All art is quite useless." - Oscar Wilde

Protosite: http://homepage.mac.com/john_conway/