RE: New basal "dinosaur" genus classified

["Williams, Tim" <TiJaWi@agron.iastate.edu>]

Patrick Mellor wrote:

>  why does the use of 
> 'non-avian dinosaur' always have to be enforced like this, we don't call 
> sharks 'non batoid chondricthians' 

My wife once used the phrase "non-batoid elasmobranchs"; she's studying the
evolution of lamniform sharks using mitochondrial DNA.  The batoids (rays
and skates) are generating a great deal of confusion in chondrichthyan
phylogenies, so it sometimes helps to treat them as a "special case" when
discussing the Chondrichthyes.

:-)

Ken Kimnam wrote:

> But I don't consider my energies 
>misspent if I can help explain cladifications to the rest of the world.

More to the point, I think you may be *misrepresenting* cladifications, and
causing unnecessary confusion "out there".


>     Anyway, this new basal almost-dinosaur "Agnostiphys" (spelling?) is
>a great example of a Plesion that is easily inserted.  

I wonder if you should be attempting to classify taxa that you're really not
very familiar with.




Tim