Re: Hwang et al. dataset runs

["Nick Gardner" <ratites637@hotmail.com>]

David Marjanovic wrote:
> Maybe you didn't make the ordered characters ordered?

That would seem not to be the case.  I've checked over the matrix.

> > [...] _Archaeopteryx lithographica_ is so basal within Maniraptora.
>
> It's just as basal as, say, Oviraptorosauria in there.

I think what I was trying to say is that _Archaeopteryx_ was not coming out 
as the sistergroup to any of the other maniraptoran clades, but instead in a 
polytomy with the others.


> BTW, is it interesting that *Incisivosaurus* has a triradiate palatine like
> *Erlikosaurus* and *Archaeopteryx*, but unlike oviraptorids, or is it not
> because so few coelurosaur palates are known?

I think it's interesting regardless.

> > I would like to offer the suggestion that by including _Confuciusornis_,
> > _Archaeopteryx_ is no longer a basal maniraptor,
>
> Well, (*C.* + *A.*) is now just as basal as *A.* was first.

Again, I was trying to say that it was in a sistergroup with another taxon, 
as opposed to being in the maniraptoran polytomy.


> I'd rather say that there are not enough of these similarities in the 
> matrix
> -- assuming it isn't a problem of ordered vs. unordered --, and therefore
> birds and dromaeosaurids can't cluster. And then *D.* lacks something that 
> the
> other dromaeosaurids have. What could that be?

We don't necessarily need to figure out what it lacks that all other 
dromaeosaurids have, but instead what it lacks that _Deinonychus_, 
_Adasaurus_, _Saurornitholestes_, and _Velociraptor_ have.  Or am I just 
restating something unwritten that everyone else understood... :-(

> > `--+--Confuciusornis
> >    `--+--Dromaeosaurus
> >       `--+--Deinonychus
> >          |--Adasaurus
> >          |--Velociraptor
> >          `--Saurornitholestes
> >
> > ...the change in the tree is surprising, I was clearly wrong about
> > _Confuciusornis_.  Instead, what do we find?
>
> And why? :-o

Refer to the original message, I thought that with the absence of 
_Archaeopteryx_, _Confuciusornis_ would be either the sistergroup to the 
Oviraptorosauria or to a taxon within the Oviraptorosauria.

Nick Gardner
   = = Paleogeek
   = = Paleoartist

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