Re: Apomorphy-based definitions (of mammals [...])

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

> Total loss of the last vestiges of what was once
> the reptilian jaw articulation occurred at the Hadrocodium stage.
However,
> the mammalian jaw joint had long since taken over as the functional jaw
> joint.

Both were functional all the time up to that stage. The primary one may have
been too small to have been able to work alone, but it's already very small
in Tritylodontidae. BTW, we still have the primary jaw joint, it has just
broken off of the rest of the lower jaw.

> Such a precise definition would presumably even convince the
> most staunch Feducciaries that birds clearly evolved from coelurosaurian
> dinosaurs

Come on. You don't really think that, do you? :-) BTW, first you'd AFAIK
have to convince them that more than "4 dinosaurs" have a semilunate if
you're going to take that feature, and whatever you use, you'll always
provoke the misunderstanding "those dumb dinosaurologists put birds into
dinosaurs for just one single reason".

> (regardless
> of whether you want to call Aves a major "Class" or a major "Clade"

Why "major"? That's relative, after all.