Re: Class AVES expanded (preliminary classification)

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/23/02 4:23:04 PM EST, kinman@hotmail.com writes:

<< I have thought about this long and hard for well over a year, and have 
 come to the conclusion that Class AVES should be expanded to include 
 maniraptors which possess so many bird characteristics that they should be 
 called birds.  It will be an apomorphy-based taxon that is approximately 
 equivalent to the cladistic stem-based "Maniraptora". >>

You're just inching down toward the BCF taxonomy here...

I think we should restrict the name Aves (from Latin for birds) to the 
smallest node-based clade that includes all extant birds (this is its 
original and traditional usage), and create a name Ornithes (from Greek for 
birds) for the largest stem-based clade that includes Aves. Ornithes would 
then include all the dinosaurs and dino-birds, as well as any other 
archosaurs more closely related to extant birds than to extant crocodylians.

We already have a name for the maniraptors (including avian birds), and its 
name is...Maniraptora! It's a clade within Ornithes and Theropoda, of course.