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Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 05:06:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: "T. Mike Keesey" <tmk@dinosauricon.com>
To: -Dinosaur Mailing List- <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Cc: -PhyloCode Mailing List- <PhyloCode@ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu>
Subject: Prototypes for Next Low-Bandwidth Version of the Dinosauricon
In my continuing efforts to do a new version of the site, I have created
two prototype pages, one for clades and one for species. You can view them
at:
http://dinosauricon.com/beta/taxa/Deinonychosauria.html
http://dinosauricon.com/beta/species/Heterodontosaurus_tucki.html
Critiques and bug reports are welcome. I've already tested them on
Internet Explorer 5.5, Netscape 6, and Netscape 4.75 on the PC. All of
them have spacing issues when it comes to the cladogram (which I must
resolve), and Netscape 4.75 has some further issues, although the pages
are still perfectly legible. Surprisingly, the pages look best in Netscape
6, which is in general a very poor browser. Oh, and please don't report
that the links on the pages don't work -- they're not supposed to, since I
haven't built the pages that they link to!
These are low-bandwidth prototypes. The high-bandwidth version of the site
will be in Flash (forget the DHTML prototypes from last year).
I've taken a lot of cues from the draft PhyloCode (see
<http://www.ohiou.edu/phylocode/>). All formal taxa are now italicized,
with clades capitalized and species in lower case. Genera are considered
clades with a special type of stem-based definition. (The type species and
all sharing more recent ancestry with it than with any other type species,
except for type species of certain arbitrarily suppressed genera. This is
of course a provisional methodology until genera are properly defined as
clades.)
Species are always written with their least inclusive clade. If that clade
was not a genus, then they are written using my new formula: _Clade
species ex Originalgenus_. E.g.: _Mononykinae minutus ex Ornithomimus_. (I
thought of using _quondam_, but _ex_ seems clearer and shorter. Any other
suggestions are highly welcome -- I'm no Latin scholar.) This may not be
totally necessary, since I can't think of any homonymous species which
have the same least inclusive clade, but the possibility exists.
The new site will feature a lot of new definitions for clades using
PhyloCode rules and recommendation. These will be noted as "emend. nov."
or "sensu nov." I realize this sounds kind of pretentious for something
being published on the Internet by an outsider amateur, but I will make it
very clear that these are to be taken as unofficial interim definitions;
recommendations at best.
Another note: I may edit the phylogeny on the _Deinonychosauria_ page a
bit as needed, and am considering using _Deinonychosauria_ as
Clade(_Deinonychus antirrhopus_, _Troodon formosus_ <-- _Passer
domesticus_), since it's more in the spirit of Gauthier's usage, even if
it does open itself up to being an invalid clade. _Dromaeosauridae_ could
then be Clade(_Dromaeosaurus mongoliensis_ <-- _Troodon formosus_, _Passer
domesticus_)... well, we'll see.
Looking forward to some feedback. (Please don't post to the lists unless
it's relevant, i.e., send bug reports and aesthetic notes to me alone,
comments on the use of PhyloCode rules to the PhyloCode Mailing List, and
comments on the dinosaurian data on the pages to the Dinosaur Mailing
List.)
,------------------------------------------------+
| THE DINOSAURICON | http://dinosauricon.com |
| by T. Mike Keesey | dinosaur@dinosauricon.com |
`------------------------------------------------'