Re: New name for Megalosaurus hesperis

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

On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 8:40 PM, Tim Williams <tijawi@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Mike Keesey wrote:
>
>> It's much easier than that -- just say that Spinosauroidea is an
>> infraorder (or any non-family group rank -- or even just say it's
>> unranked). The suffix "-oidea" appears on may taxa that are not
>> superfamilies (e.g., Asteroidea).
>
> And Archaeopterodactyloidea too, apparently.

Ah, right.

> If we take the route you propose, we have to go through the rigmarole of 
> reviving the tortuous Linnaean rank system just to avoid ICZN entanglements.  
> In order to coin "Infraorder Spinosauroidea" we'd have to insert arbitary 
> ranks in front of each of the higher clades too (e.g., Dinosauria, 
> Saurischia, Theropoda, Tetanurae).  This seems to me to be a royal pain if 
> you just want to erect a taxon that embraces two or more families, but don't 
> want a coordinate family level taxon.  Personally, I also would rather see an 
> end to Linnaean ranks (Superorder, Order, Suborder, Infraorder, Parvorder, 
> etc), no matter what the rationale.

So, you want an end to ranks, yet you also want to go through the
trouble of creating new names so as to be in accordance with a
rank-based code? :)

Anyway, like I said, you could also just declare it an unranked taxon.

> In sauropod phylogeny there is a tendency to abandon coordinate family level 
> groups in favor of taxon names that do not end in -idae, -oidea, and so on 
> (e.g., Lognkosauria, Turiasauria).

Also at least one example among theropods: Microraptoria.

>  I think this is a good idea, because it also means that these clades can 
> shift in both position and content without the potential of running into 
> certain ICZN-oriented nomenclatural trouble (e.g., priority of name-giving 
> taxa; relative position of ranked taxa).

Going forward, yes.

> Overall, IMHO having Megalosauria or Spinosauria (or whatever) would be the 
> preferred option - in this case, anyway.  Megalosauria is available (Baur, 
> 1891).

Oh, not a new name. Well, then....

-- 
T. Michael Keesey
Technical Consultant and Developer, Internet Technologies
Glendale, California