Re: Thoughts on the biggest morphological bird analysis

[evelyn sobielski <koreke77@yahoo.de>]

> I'd like to see how an analysis deals with all those
> large flightless taxa - 
> dromornithids, dinornithids, diatrymids,
> phorusrhacids, etc...  How tempted 
> is the analysis to pull all these taxa together
> based on shared traits that 
> result from loss of flight and/or obligate
> terrestrial locomotion?  I'm 
> guessing the analysis won't be fooled.

And if, all the better as it is basically a milk run -
gonna show what characters are flightlessness
homoplasies, and how they affect the phylogeny.

> >>      |--Pygopodo-tubinares
> >
> >It goes without saying that the ICZN mandates the
> deletion of the hyphen.
> 
> I'm not excusing this practice, but ornithology has
> a long history of 
> hyphenated taxon names (e.g., Laro-Limicolae).

Doesn't it only apply from families downwards in any
case?

> >We know how Mayr will spend the rest of this
> year... :-)
> 
> The Messel birds could be very helpful, yes.

He should take a look at the Polarornis and
Neogaeornis material some time.

Regards,

Eike




        
                
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