Re: begging behaviour among theropods

["Jordan Mallon" <j_mallon@hotmail.com>]

> From: StephanPickering@cs.com

> Can you define "birds" without "dinosaur"? I don't think so.

Can you define "dinosaur" without "archosaur"?
Can you define "archosaur" without "diapsid"?
Can you define "diapsid" without "amniote"?
Can you define "amniote" without "tetrapod"?

Your point is moot.  I trust my excercise was also self-explanatory.

Jordan Mallon

Undergraduate Student, Carleton University
Vertebrate Paleontology & Paleoecology

Website: http://www.geocities.com/paleoportfolio/
AIM: jslice mallon

"Bird" is a
> vernacular word, and, however popular throughout the centuries, its
> scientific definition is inseparable from Theropoda within Dinosauria, a 
> case
> proven well over a decade ago. I still delight in Tom Holtz's description 
> of
> them being "stump-tailed swell-brained flying theropods"...and, when you 
> say
> "birds", your word remains nebulous (everyone may think they know what a
> "bird" is, but trying sitting down with a piece of paper and pen and 
> defining
> the word). For me, extant theropods = Avifilopluma Avialae Carinatae
> Ornithurae Aves, i.e., living stumped-tailed swell-brained, flying and
> secondarily flightless, theropod dinosaurs. I trust this little exercise is
> self-explanatory!

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