Re: The Papers That Ate Cincinnati

["T. Michael Keesey" <keesey@gmail.com>]

On 5/4/07, Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com> wrote:
> For whatever very little it might be worth, my own position is that
> the "traditional" understanding of birds is that _Archaeopteryx_ is
> the most primitive animal that is defined to be a bird; and so the
> node-based definition of Chiappe best captures this notion, so that
> Aves = (_Archaeopteryx_ + modern birds).

I think Marjanovic's proposed definition (see
http://www.phylonames.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19&start=25) covers
traditional usage far better, since _Archaeopteryx_ has not always
been an essential member, but dromaeosaurids, troodontids, etc. have
generally been essential *non-members*.

Still, I prefer the crown group definition for reasons stated here:
http://www.phylonames.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19&start=77
(And also stated at more length by Gauthier and de Queiroz, 2001.)

As discussed on that forum (and years ago on this forum), perhaps it
would be wise to coin a new name, "Ornithes" (shockingly unused to
date), for one of the definitions.

>  But I know that lots of
> people have other ideas, and I deliberately didn't adopt a position on
> that question in the paper because I didn't want to get bogged down
> in what is from my perspective a side-issue.  (After all,
> _Archaeopteryx_ weighed WAAAY less than ten tons.)

Heh heh.
--
Mike Keesey