Re: Triassic mammal-like reptiles?

[Rodlox R <rodlox@hotmail.com>]

> > Lets face it, it is a lot more comprehensible to the layman than the 
> more
> > correct names used by professionals.
>
> But it's *incorrect*.

is this going to be a rehashing of the "brontosaurus"\"apatosaurus" debate?  
 :)


> "Mammal relative" is just as comprehensible (if
> not moreso), more concise, and, to top it off, correct.

 but the problem is - everything on Earth is related, if not very closely.

I may as well say I'm an "Australian relative".   if you go back far enough 
(tens of thousands of years), sure, I'm related to an Australian....but 
there's no Australians in my recent (several centuries) family tree.

> (And, as Tom
> Holtz mentioned, Bakker's "protomammal" is not half-bad, either.)

but "proto" suggests they're in the ancestry of mammals...and not some 
side-branch of the ancestral family tree.

> Calling them "mammal-like reptiles" is like calling _Deinonychus_ a
> bird-like lizard.
> --
> Mike Keesey
> The Dinosauricon: http://dino.lm.com
> Parry & Carney: http://parryandcarney.com