Re: Ceratosauria vs. Neotheropoda?

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> > In what sense is the clade Theropoda "comparable" with the clade
> > Apatosaurinae

...I was probably a bit confused when I wrote that. Will have to look at 
it again (can't now -- too tired).

> > This is a complete non-sequitur.  Formally defining a paraphyletic
> > Prosauropoda would not in any sense "get in the way of" the clades
> > Sauropodomorpha and Sauropoda.
>
>  FWIW, it would get in the way of Sauropodiformes, at least in a
>  ranked system:

Yes, and Anchisauria (assuming that name won't just be dropped) and 
perhaps 2 or 3 others.

>  However, nobody has really formalized such a system for grades. If
>  you're serious about it, why not follow in the footsteps of
>  phylogenetic nomenclature?

For the record, the 3 points I suggested were meant seriously, too.

>  I still think, though, that formal names for grades would have to
>  follow some other kind of orthographic practice. (Asterisks won't
>  work, for reasons David Marjanovic listed.) Perhaps lower-case? That
>  way, when you discuss prosauropoda and Sauropoda, it's apparent that
>  they are different types of entity.

Italics and lowercase...? Could work, I suppose.

>  Or, Paul used hyphenated prefixes as shorthand, e.g., "dino-" for
>  "non-avialan". This is somewhat similar to the practice of using
>  "stem-" for stem groups (a specific type of grade). Currently the
>  best way to refer to most paraphyletic groups is by formulaic phrases
>  like "non-colobine primate"*, "non-apo-testudine apo-tetrapod"**,
>  etc. So one solution could be to find ways of abbreviating those
>  formulae.***

Indeed.