Re: Triassic mammal-like reptiles?

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Mike Keesey (keesey@gmail.com) wrote:

<But it's *incorrect*. "Mammal relative" is just as comprehensible (if not
moreso), more concise, and, to top it off, correct. (And, as Tom Holtz
mentioned, Bakker's "protomammal" is not half-bad, either.)
 
Calling them "mammal-like reptiles" is like calling _Deinonychus_ a bird-like
lizard.>

  Little mentioned seems to have been the gaffe of this term's context in the
show, in which it was used to describe not just pelycosaurs, but gorgonopsians,
but not the dicynodonts and "therocephalians" they featured. While classic
reptiles were featured (*Scutosaurus* and it's belly "gastropods" and the
lovely phrase "Even in Siberia..."; as well as *Petrolacosaurus*, rolling right
over the better known *Hylonomus*), the synapsids were referred to AS reptiles,
close to mammals, not just mammal-like, and the main innovation mentioned was
that *Dimetrodon* (but not *Edaphosaurus*) had incisors, like "us" (in which
case, it didn't). Naming these animals as ancestors of mammals would have been
a LOT easier, even as protomammals and mammal relatives, in the same sense
these shows tout *Velociraptor* as a relative of *T. rex* to show _how_ close
two theropods are. It's clear though, that kids can understand "relative" and
such, so the use of a phrase that has all but disappeared from technical usage
seems a bit antiquated. Like picking your animals out of Carroll, 1988 (not
that I'm saying the book is bad, it propelled me into the fossil animal lit,
and for that Bob deserves his accolade).

  Cheers,

Jaime A. Headden

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)


        
                
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