Re: Recoded Aves eliminates polyphyly

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

    I understood that Mickey's post was making a certain point (not sure I 
would call it a joke), but ironically it convinced me even more that I am on 
the right track.  The evidence he provided just confirmed what I was already 
suspecting---that caenagathiforms are closer to modern birds than 
Archaeopteryx.  I've repeatedly expressed my suspicions that enigmosauria 
was not a clade, and if you give less weight to characters that are subject 
to considerable convergent pressures, I think even a moderately "weighted" 
parsimony analysis would show it is polyphyletic.  If you want to know more 
about "weighted" parsimony, you might try Mayr and Ashlock, 1991 (Principles 
of Systematic Zoology), although I'm not sure if they use that exact phrase.
     And according to a post by Mickey, Caudipteryx does have a convex 
coracoid glenoid (so it satisfies the first criterion according to him).  
And it's "semilunate" is enlarged and fused (and I noted that it and 
Protarcheopteryx have modified the distinctive shape somewhat).  That is why 
I put semilunate in quotation marks.  So I don't see how Caudipteryx fails 
this definition on either criterion.
    Thanks for the constructive criticism in any case.   [Tim's peanuts, on 
the other hand, give me indigestion].
       --------   Ken  :-)


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