RE: smallest ANCIENT non-bird dinosaur - was what I was asking

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

John Conway wrote:


> Don't try to tell me not to call Hesperornis a bird--the idea's
> laughable--but if it falls outside aves, who cares really?


I do, for one.  Taxa such as _Archaeopteryx_ and _Hesperornis_ and 
_Ichthyornis_ were put in Aves from the time of their respective discoveries - 
and by reputable scientists too.  For some reason, Gauthier (1986) limited the 
name "Aves" to the crown-group.  In doing so, he overturned 150 years of 
taxonomic tradition during which Aves explicitly included *both* modern and 
fossil birds (like _Archaeopteryx_, _Hesperornis_, _Ichthyornis_ .... etc).  
Gauthier erected a new clade (Avialae) to replace Aves of traditional usage.


I think in this case we can have our cake and eat it too.  Aves can keep to its 
traditional usage and be a node-based clade that is defined to include 
_Archaeopteyx_; and Avialae can be retained as a stem-based clade that 
specifically excludes deinonychosaurs.  This is what Senter suggested, and it's 
a great idea.


Mike Keesey wrote:

>> When people are told that *Eohippus* and even *Propalaeotherium* (the 
>> Messel horselet) are horses,
>> while *Thoatherium* is not one, most of them eat it up.
>
> Stem-horses, not horses!
>
>> When people are told that *Ambulocetus* and *Pakicetus* are whales, 
>> walking whales, most of them accept it as a revealed fact
>
> Stem-whales, not whales!


Not to me.  _Pakicetus_ is a whale, and _Eohippus_ is a horse, just as 
_Archaeopteryx_ is a bird (not a "stem-bird").


> Often there'll be a coarse Germanic (Anglo-Saxon or possibly Norse)
> word, a more refined Norman French word, and a clinical Greek or Latin
> word all for more or less the same thing. (Example: ox/beef/bovine.)
> The clinical words, along with English's vast assortment of borrowed
> words, are fairly opaque to most speakers--the etymology is not
> obvious to the layman.


I've been told that the "coarse" Germanic words were often associated with the 
actual livestock (e.g., cow/bull/cattle - hence the emphasis on different sexes 
& ages) and the "refined" French words were often associated with the product 
(e.g., beef).  This was because the common folk had to rear and take care of 
the animals; but the right to enjoy the meat was a pleasure reserved for the 
aristocracy.  I don't know if this factoid is true or not, but it came up in a 
conversation I had a few weeks ago.


Cheers

Tim
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