RE: Platecarpus tympaniticus - how to analyze a nomen dubium

[Jaime Headden <qi_leong@hotmail.com>]

  I gotta back Mickey up on this. It is unreasonably naive to assume that 
*Ceratopsia* was not, intrinsically, based on *Ceratops*, rather than the stems 
of the combined words _keratos_ and _ops_. As such, the name (as was 
*Ceratopsomorpha*) were based on usage of the name of Marsh's very original 
taxon.

Cheers,

Jaime A. Headden
The Bite Stuff (site v2)
http://qilong.wordpress.com/

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)


"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a
different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race
has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or
his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion 
Backs)





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> Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2010 12:11:08 -0700
> From: mickey_mortimer111@msn.com
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: RE: Platecarpus tympaniticus - how to analyze a nomen dubium
>
>
> Mike Keesey wrote-
>
> > > Actually, I think the PhyloCode leaves enough wiggle-room for us to do
> > > what is obviously the right thing here: Article 11.7 is the relevant
> > > one, and it says "In the interest of consistency with the rank-based
> > [...]
> >
> > I stand corrected; I think I was thinking of an older draft which
> > didn't say "typified name". "Ceratopsia" and "Ceratopsomorpha" are not
> > typified names under any rank-based code, so we can, in theory, define
> > them without Ceratops montanus.
>
> I considered that as well, but Article 11.7 covers not only typified names 
> under a rank-based code, but also clades "derived from the stem of a such a 
> name."  So since Ceratopsia and Ceratopsomorpha are still derived from the 
> stem of a typified name under the ICZN (Ceratops), they must also include 
> that name as an internal specifier.  This is a good thing in my opinion, 
> since it gets rid of the artificial difference between how family-level 
> clades and other clades are treated.
>
> Mickey Mortimer
>