Re: Dinosauricon Phylogeny: in progress

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

> Richardoestesia (I see you left the h out, oh the fun...)

Well... that's how it was intended. Editorial errors shouldn't count.

> Neimongosaurus is more derived than Beipiaosaurus, so could at least be
> placed up next to Alxasaurus.  I'm really not certain about any other
> clade within Segnosauria besides "everything except Beipiaosaurus".

And "everything except *Eshanosaurus*", if...

> Dromaeosauridae is defined as (Dromaeosaurus + Velociraptor) isn't it?

Yes, but not by Sereno, who uses this name for the sistergroup of
Troodontidae.

> I don't think velociraptorines as currently thought of (Velociraptor,
> Deinonychus, Saurornitholestes) have a good chance of being monophyletic. 
> I wrote a long piece on this offlist, and could find it if anyone's
interested.

A very interesting post... the ironic consequence is that the original idea
-- *Deinonychus* as part of Dromaeosaurinae -- could be correct, although not
for the original reasons (the supposedly very high skull of *Deinonychus*).

> Rahonavis has been placed closer to neornithines than Archaeopteryx in all
> modern analyses (Clarke et al., Chiappe).

That's probably an artifact of leaving out *Sapeornis* and *Shenzhouraptor*.
For example, the fibula of *Sapeornis* still reaches the tarsus, while those
of *Rahonavis*, *Shenzhouraptor* and Pygostylia do not...

> The Ornithuromorpha should be structured like-
> Ornithuromorpha (=Euornithes?)
> |-?Vorona
> `--+--Patagopteryx

Euornithes (stem-based)
  |--*Vorona*
  `--Ornithuromorpha (node-based)
       |--*Patagopteryx*

*Vorona* fits in that position quite comfortably. E. g. it retains a 5th
metatarsal, but the tarsometatarsus fuses distally first.

>    `--Ornithurae (sensu Gauthier and de Quieroz)

de Queiroz.

>       |--Yanornithidae
>       |  `--+--Yanornis
>       |     `--+--Yixianornis
>       |        `--Songlingornis

These 2 nodes are supported by 1 character each, one of which could be
related to the degree of ossification of the sternum... we'll see. (My analysis
will be finished soon.)

>          |*-Ambiortidae
>          |  `--+--Ambiortus
>          |     `-?Otogornis

Assuming anything can be read out of these fragmentary fossils.

>             |  `--+--+--Enaliornis barretti
>             |     |  `--Enaliornis sedgwicki

And *E. seeleyi*. There's a thick paper in Revue de Paléobiologie that I
haven't copied yet. In it, Galton and Martin describe every splinter of bone and
erect this 3rd species.

>             |           `--+--Hesprornis regalis
>             |              |--Hesperornis rossicus
>             |              |--Hesperornis chowi
>             |              |--Hesperornis bairdi
>             |              |--Hesperornis mengeli
>             |              `--Hesperornis macdonaldi

Wow, so many. I only knew the first 2.

>             `--Carinatae
>                `--+--Ichthyornis dispar

What happened to *I. victor*? Isn't it the type?

>                      |--Gansus

Why so high up?

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