Re: BRONTOSAURUS FOREVER!

[Mike Taylor <mike@tecc.co.uk>]

> Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 10:12:07 -0700 (PDT)
> From: "T. Michael Keesey" <mightyodinn@yahoo.com>
>
> > I think most laymen would be very surprised to be shown a picture
> > of, say, _Brachiosaurus_ and told that it's a brontosaur.
> 
> Really? Where the heck do you live? :)

OK, I admit our laymen here in London may be more educated than yours.
:-)  Seriously, I think most kids would know the difference.  Certainly
my Danny (4) would, and I think Matthew (2) would as well.

> Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 12:41:19 -0500
> From: "Williams, Tim" <TiJaWi@agron.iastate.edu>
> 
> Of course, we all know that this entire 'Brontosauria' issue is just
> a way of resurrecting a name we-all-know-and-love now that the
> nominative genus is defunct.  All that's needed is a clade to attach
> the name Brontosauria too - sort of putting the nomenclatural cart
> before the phylogenetic horse.

Well, yeah.  Looks like a job for
{Apatosaurus ajax + "Brontosaurus" excelsus} to me :-)

> Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 17:33:54 EDT
> From: Dinogeorge@aol.com
> 
> Well, "brontosaur" is properly applied just to members of the genus
> Brontosaurus [...]

Ah, so no-ending informal terms are the same as the genus, are they?
OK, that's news.  I'd understood it to be a kind of deliberately vague
term thats sorta family-level.  So that when someone says "that New
Mexico tyrannosaur" they mean tyrannosaurID.  Live and learn.

 _/|_    _______________________________________________________________
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