Re: Archaeoraptor and Storrs Olson

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Markus Moser wrote:

> Status of Archaeoraptor [and various possibilities to attribute it to 
> authors]
[snip]
> Therefore Archaeoraptor liaoningensis is unavailable. Any attempt to
> suppress A. liaoningensis is unnecessary.


I dearly hope you are correct (I suspect that you are), and that 
"Archaeoraptor" never was a valid genus name.

Contrary opinions have been voiced on the DML (see below).  The issue is not 
whether the _National Geographic_ article constitutes a valid description of 
"Archaeoraptor" (it clearly doesn't, and never pretended to be), but whether 
Olson's subsequent article in the NMNH newsletter _Backbone_ qualifies as a 
valid scientific description (Olson's article was clearly intended to 
validate the name "Archaeoraptor".)

http://www.cmnh.org/dinoarch/2000Dec/msg00720.html
http://www.cmnh.org/dinoarch/2001Jan/msg00092.html

Unless Storrs Olson has changed his mind recently, he is on the record as 
being an ardent opponent of the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs (and, 
hence, that birds ARE dinosaurs).  His piece in _Backbone_ was motivated by 
a desire to remove the name "Archaeoraptor" from the paleornithological 
litarature; that is why he tried to attach the name "Archaeoraptor" to the 
tail vertebrae (IVPPV 12330), as this component of the composite "type" 
specimen was least likely to pertain to a bird.  As we know now, this tail 
belongs to _Microraptor_.

It is now mid-2004, and the name "Archaeoraptor" has not resurfaced as a 
threat to the validity of _Microraptor_.  Although it might have once seemed 
prudent to petition the ICZN on this issue (see 
http://www.cmnh.org/dinoarch/2001Jan/msg00094.html), I think it might be 
best to let sleeping dogs lie.



Tim

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