RE: Platecarpus tympaniticus - how to analyze a nomen dubium

[Jaime Headden <qi_leong@hotmail.com>]

Why not? The name used, Marsh's, is so easily modified for a prefix, which 
results in three dozen current variations. It, like using -pelta, or -don, or 
-titan, or -raptor, is an effective means of conveying information without 
having to pull up arcade philosophical points. For example, no matter how 
clever, *Antetonitrus* does not always immediately recall the sense of a 
precursor for *Brotosaurus,* a recollection of the Hesiod name of a cyclops who 
forged the thunderbolts of Zeus. Once the stem is known (bronto, or ceratops) 
it is easy to use to convey the idea. Hence *Xenoposeidon* on the heels of 
*Sauroposeidon*.

  This is NO DIFFERENT (as I can see) from using the same root to chain 
suffices as preffices.

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)





----------------------------------------
> From: mike@indexdata.com
> Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2010 20:51:25 +0100
> Subject: Re: Platecarpus tympaniticus - how to analyze a nomen dubium
> To: qi_leong@hotmail.com
> CC: mickey_mortimer111@msn.com; dinosaur@usc.edu
>
> On 22 September 2010 20:48, Jaime Headden  wrote:
> >   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.
>
> I didn't for a moment think that this wasn't true.
>
> But I don't see why that means we have to follow suit in naming a clade.