Re: ptero and bat origins

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick Pharris" <npharris@umich.edu>
Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2003 3:37 AM


> > Mammal clade names are concept-based.
>
> Yuck.

Exactly my thoughts.

> "Eulipotyphla"?  Is it some subclade of "Lipotyphla"?  Is
> there a "Pseudolipotyphla"?  No.  Just call them Lipotyphla, or
> even Insectivora.

(Just to explain the history... at first there was Insectivora. Then people
figured out that the LK and Paleogene *Cimolestes*, *Leptictidium* and their
many relatives are unrelated to the rest. They were moved off into the new
order Proteutheria [which may even be holophyletic if one doesn't include,
say, Zalambdalestidae], and the rest, the True Insectivores, was called
Lipotyphla [an old name, IIRC Linné 1758] to make the difference in content
clear. Then the geneticists came, moved the Africans off into the new order
Afrosoricida [*Sorex* is a shrew], and the rest, the Real True Insectivores,
was called Eulipotyphla. So if someone uses Lipotyphla today, you know he
doesn't believe in molecular phylogenetics.)

> Fereuungulata and Euungulata?  Eww.

Remember Altungulata that DP Ken Kinman hates so much? That was
Perissodactyla + Paenungulata, commonly found by morphology (hyrax and
*Hyracotherium*...) but never by molecules.

> > That the name Scrotifera exists suggests that some synapomorphy
> > exists that fits in the molecular tree, but I don't know it.
>
> To the best of my knowledge, it refers to the scrotum (convergently
acquired,
> obviously, in primates).

So all the other placentals don't have one? I know elephants and tenrecs
don't, but... ~:-|