Re: Flamingos and grebes are sistergroups, even if you dislike molecules!

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

> Not at all. The parsimony analysis based on shared
> protein domain architectures, shared proteins, tree
> using larger protein dataset like concatenated
> alignments of ribsomal proteins, RNA polymerase etc do
> not support this.

Interesting. Could you give me a few refs for this?

> Statistical
> tests like KH SH AU etc do not support Ecdysozoa

Zrzavý et al.: Myzostomida Are Not Annelids: Molecular and Morphological
Support for a Clade of Animals with Anterior Sperm Flagella, Cladistics 17,
170 -- 198

This paper continues to find Ecdysozoa, and uses 18S rDNA, 28S rDNA and 60
"morphological, developmental [sic], ultrastructural, and life-history
characters".

> What I meant was the following  case:
>
> ---------- N
>  |   |____ A
>  |________ V
>
> is a weaker hypothesis than
>
> ------------V
>   |   |_____A
>   |_________N
>
> trees rooted with respect an outgroups; and
> N=nematodes A=arthropods V=vertebrates

I see... but what happens when *Trichinella*, one of the not-quite-as-fast
evolving nematodes, is used, instead of e. g. *Caenorhabditis*? What happens
when Nematomorpha and Priapulida are added? (Zrzavý et al. find those two,
and sometimes Chaetognatha, in Ecdysozoa.) Nematodes as basal triploblasts
look very, very suspicious -- especially considering their long branch.