Re: Class AVES expanded (preliminary classification)

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mickey_Mortimer11" <Mickey_Mortimer11@email.msn.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2002 6:17 AM


> Isn't the largest stem-based avian clade already named Ornithosuchia?

Bad name. Won't stay under PhyloCode anyway.

> David Marjanovic wrote-
>
> > Big semilunate carpal: apparently a synapomorphy of *Ornitholestes*,
birds
> > and everything in between (whatever that is). Is that an idea?
>
> No carpus known for Ornitholestes.  Coelurus, [...] have similar
non-enlarged semilunates.

What have I done with my memory? ~:-| ~:-| ~:-| I thought there was one
famous hand of one of those with a big, famous semilunate?

> No, Parvicursorinae was NEVER published to my knowledge.  Karhu and
Rautian
> (1996) named Parvicursoridae and specifically excluded Mononykus from it,
> although they viewed them as closely related.

Ah. That happens when I don't read primary literature.

> > Plesia for *Yanornis*, *Yixianornis*, *Liaoningornis*... at the base.
>
> Liaoningornis shows no evidence of being a euornithine, contra what is
> "common knowledge".  Just read the paper.

Ref, please :-)

> Songlingornis, Yanornis and the
> Archaeoraptor [...] [front] end all are _very_ similar though....

Do you mean possibly synonymous?