RE: origin of bats/suspect trees? (combined answer)

[Michael Mortimer <mickey_mortimer111@msn.com>]

And again, in plain text...

To get a novel topology for a group you specialize in (pterosaurs) is one 
thing, but I have absolutely no confidence in anyone's ability to do a useful 
independent phylogenetic analysis of Pterosauria, Amniota AND Mammalia within a 
few years. I've been specializing in coelurosaurs for a decade now and there 
are still character descriptions I'm unsure of, new terminology I'm learning, 
etc.. You can't just go to the literature and expect to be able to code 
characters from the main monographs of taxa. There's a lot of debate, differing 
interpretation, marginal or buried description, personal communication, etc. 
that needs to be explored. Cladograms aren't as simple as plug and play PAUP, 
they require in depth understanding in order to be useful. And this is even 
assuming you're separating correlated characters and using states that only 
differ in one variable, which you weren't doing in your pterosaur analysis at 
least. 

Mickey Mortimer