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> Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2016 12:12:41 +1000 > From: tijawi@gmail.com > To: dinosaur-l@usc.edu > Subject: Re: [dinosaur] New Konzhukovia species (temnospondyl) from Permian of South America + Early Triassic polar coprolites + more papers > > Mickey Mortimer <mickey_mortimer111@msn.com> wrote: > > It doesn't mean we have to include Deinodon in an analysis, only that we have to use evidence to place it somewhere in a phylogeny. Maybe that would be morphometric evidence, as that's commonly used based on expansions of Smith's tooth > > measurement sample. Of course adding Deinodon to a phylogenetic analysis is itself scientifically interesting- to tell us something quantitative about where it belongs in the tree of life. > > As we all know, _Deinodon_ is known from a handful of teeth that Leidy > decided to dignify with a name. The fact that _Deinodon_ has a name > is the only reason it gets any attention at all. I'm not certain how > "scientifically" interesting plugging it into an analysis would be. I > suspect it might be a grand waste of time. Wait...are teeth no longer considered adequate to distinguish one species or genus from another? > > I don't think phylogenetic nomenclature has anything to do with this. If we didn't have a phylogenetic definition for Tyrannosauroidea or Tyrannosauridae, you'd no doubt still think using Deinodontidae and Coeluroidea is silly. Right? > > Right. Let's pick a name, and stick with it. Tyrannosauroidea is a > great name, and it's widely used. *_Tyrannosaurus rex_* is widely used. I imagine far fewer people use _Tyrannosauridea_. :) > More importantly, it's also been > explicitly defined as a clade. Why ditch it in favor of > Deinodontoidea or Coeluroidea? > > > Jocelyn Falconnet <j.falconnet@gmail.com> wrote: > > > If we have to forget names based on nomina dubia... what about > > ceratopsians and other Ceratops-derived names ? > > We're only talking about coordinated family-level names > (superfamily/-oidea, family/-idae, subfamily/-inae, tribe/-ini). that seems rather arbitrary...why stop there? if we're supposed to give that up on Family-level, why not on the other levels too? |