Re: The mystery of the furcula

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

> > > I'm talking about a small group, possibly order and below.
>
> > Could you please explain what an order is? [...]
> > What is a small group? [...]
>
> 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.

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend anyone, let alone drive anyone away from
discussion, and I don't understand your reaction*. It's just that nobody
whom I've asked so far, and nothing that I've read, has given me any answer
to this (which is why I have to use phylogenetic taxonomy, in the absence of
any alternative). I don't have the slightest idea whether you think
Pterosauria and Pterodactyloidea might be way too big or way too small taxa
to compare with Titanosauriformes; Mammalia is certainly too big, Cichlidae
is probably too small, but what could be appropriate? This is not a
rhetorical question. Really. A way to compare the sizes of taxa would be
very, very convenient (studies like "how many families of __ died out at __"
would be possible this way, for example). So if you have an idea, please
tell, I'd really like to know. If you don't have one either, then please
tell me that, I wouldn't like to have to say in the next discussion "I think
the PhyloCode is the Greatest Idea Ever because I don't know the literature
any better".

* (Only in part because my dictionary doesn't know "assine".)