Re: Ornithopsida (was Re: Dinosauria---Rejected Name?)

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

    Unfortunately the -opsida is the standard suffix for botanical class 
names (see the ICBN).  You are likely to irritate a lot of botanists.
    And if you want standardized endings, you are just converging on my 
system of reptilian orders ending in -iformes (an ending already in use for 
bird and fish Orders):
    Pterosauriformes, Crocodyliformes, Squamatiformes, Testudiniformes, 
Mesosauriformes, Ichthyosauriformes, Sauropterygiformes, etc.
     I still recognize two dinosaur orders, Saurischiformes and 
Ornithischiformes.  But if they are to be united (as I probably will do in a 
second edition), then Order Dinosauriformes would be a lot more preferable 
than a totally new name like Ornithopsida (which would not sit well with 
most zoologists, and as I stated above the botanists would not look kindly 
on it either).  My Dinosauriformes will be very close in content to the 
cladistic taxon of the same name, except mine is obviously paraphyletic 
(although there will be the appropriate marker for exgroup Aves).   Dinosaur 
is not all that horrible a name, and I think we are stuck with it, like it 
or not.
          -----  Ken
*****************************************
Nick P. wrote:
> I like the -opsida system of stem-based clades because it starts from the 
> groups we know best (i.e. the living ones) and provides a blueprint for 
> naming additional clades should they prove necessary to cover fossil taxa 
> not classified under the system I outlined (e.g. Mesosauropsida, 
> Ichthyosauropsida, Pterosauropsida, etc.).






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