RE: The mystery of the furcula

["Tracy L. Ford" <dino.hunter@home.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
David Marjanovic
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2002 1:11 PM
To: The Dinosaur Mailing List
Subject: Re: The mystery of the furcula

*
> And if you're
> going to tell me that a furcula is an essential component of flight, then
> I'll point you in the direction of a few parrots that lack one.  They fly
> very well too.<<
>
> Good, but  I think the point is theropod researches use this, so I guess
> they are all wrong!

Pardon, I don't understand, what do they use?<<
*
The furcula.

> Ok, this brings up something I've been wanting to ask. IS there another
> group of animals that have such a wide diversity of teeth? I.e. spade like
> teeth to pencil like teeth.

Pterosauria? Pterodactyloidea? Proboscidea?<<
Took me a few minutes with the pterosauria. For those of you out there that
don't get it, I think he's referring to Eudimorphodon which has two types of
teeth in the lower jaw that looks some Tanystropheous specimens. I don't
know Proboscidea so I can't say anything about it.

> I'm talking about a small group, possibly order
> and below.

Could you please explain what an order is? I mean, I know, Linnaean system,
between class and family, between super- and suborder, but what is an order?
How do we decide whether a clade is an order? What is a small group? Why is
Titanosauriformes* a small group? Is an order rather big or rather small
(just to multiply the ambiguities with one another)?<<
That's it, I'm tried of hitting my head against the wall. If this as gotten
to this assine question I'm done. Forget it, I'll just lurk, I'm tried of
this crap.

* Was this meant at the origin of this discussion? After all it includes
Brachiosauridae?


Tracy L. Ford
P. O. Box 1171
Poway Ca  92074