RE: Caenagnathiformes (toothlessness)

["Michael de Sosa" <ofsosa@uclink4.berkeley.edu>]

"Recent jawless one". Riiiight... or maybe, he was trying to compare it to
Recent hagfish* and lampreys ("Agnatha"). After all, Iguanodon is named
after iguanas, Cetiosaurus is named after whales... That makes just as much
sense as inventing the name "recent jawless one" for an isolated jaw. Then
again, we have the whole Altispinax-named-after-a-tooth thing.

Regardless of what the literal Latin translation might yield, Sternberg's
meaning is clear from his paper (in which he did not see fit to provide an
etymology). He considered his Caenagnathus to be a bird more advanced than
Hesperornis and Icthyornis... closer to "recent birds". It's not a misnomer
like I previously said. Not quite, anyway.

This just in, I've decided that Carnotaurus actually means "fleshy southern
tailless one".

carn- 'flesh'
not- 'southern' (combined with the previous word to avoid duplication of the
'n')
a- 'not', 'without'
-uros = 'tail'

Mike de Sosa

* PS - How many different contexts can we mention hagfish in? Hehehe...




Nick P wrote:

> Absolutely serious:
>
> kain- 'recent'
> a- 'not', 'without'
> gnath- 'jaw'
> -os animate (masc./fem.) singular of compound adjectives
>
> >  Why would Sternberg named the *jaw*
> >  he found the "recent jawless one"?
>
> Haven't a clue.  Maybe he was going for the meaning 'toothless'.
>
> --Nick P.