Re: Mosasauridae synapomorphies

[ilaria paparella <ilaria.paparella@hotmail.it>]

Actually, I really need the synapomorphies, because I wanna know the derived 
characters that all the members of Mosasauridae (more than one taxon) share, 
but that separate them from the other members of Mosasauroidea. The 
autapomorphies are just that of the terminal taxon, not even share with the 
closest relative and the last common ancestor.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Synapomorphy.jpg

Thank you all for your suggestions and for the pdfs!!
My Best Regards,
Ilaria


-----Messaggio originale-----
From: David Marjanovic
Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2012 5:11 PM
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: Re: Mosasauridae synapomorphies

> I need the list of the synapomorphic characters of the family Mosasauridae
> Gervais, 1853.
> Does anyone have the PDFs of Gervais (1853) and Russell (1967)?

You are not going to find the autapomorphies* of Mosasauridae in anything as 
old as those papers! For example, it only became clear in the last few years 
that many of the adaptations of Mosasauridae to a fully aquatic lifestyle 
arose twice convergently. I strongly suggest you begin with the latest paper 
I know, cited below, and then work backwards through its references:

A.. R. H. LeBlanc, M. W. Caldwell & N. Bardet (2012): A new mosasaurine from 
the Maastrichtian (Upper Cretaceous) phosphates of Morocco and its 
implications for mosasaurine systematics, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 
32(1), 82 -- 104

* One clade has autapomorphies (auto- = self). Two clades have 
synapomorphies (syn- = together). In case you're wondering -- yes, Willi 
Hennig liked making up new technical terms just for the fun of it.