RE: Segnosaurs ejected from AVES

["T. Mike Keesey" <tmk@dinosauricon.com>]

Ken Kinman wrote:

> To tell you truth Jaime, one reason I don't like the name Maniraptora
> for the whole group is that most birds don't go around "manuraptoring"
> their food.

Yes, but quite a few are "thieves", and the majority have quite large
manus.

As I've pointed out before, this sort of thinking will ultimately get you
to abandon names like _Basilosaurus_, _Theropoda_, _Ornithischia_,
_Struthiosaurus_ ... even _Dinosauria_!

The meaning of taxonomic names does not have to correspond precisely to
reality. As long as we all know which groups we're referring to by the
names, the meaning is irrelevant. They're just labels. Of course, it's
nice when the meanings are accurate, but enforcing that is both subjective
and extremely destabilizing.

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