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Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 17:44:45 -0600 (MDT)
From: kinman@usa.net
To: phylocode@ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu
Subject: subscribers
I'm sorry if David (Hillis) felt insulted, but I certainly never sa=
id we
should be "unconcerned" about intermediate taxa (on the contrary, I spend=
much
of my time on them). What I am saying is that there no need to give them=
formal names.
I see no great need for formal taxa Theropoda, Coelurosauria,
Maniraptora, etc., when informal names (theropods, coelurosaurs, manirapt=
ors,
etc.) suffice. If Lophotrochozoa is a synonym of Bilateralia, as I belie=
ve it
is, I certainly hope Bilateralia was cladistically defined first, so that=
it
will have priority. =
Why not just call them lophotrochozoans, and let them remain an info=
rmal
taxon, at the very least until we can demonstrate whether or not it is ba=
sed
on symplesiomorphies rather than synapomorphies.
Has the cladification of Mammalia gotten us any closer to understan=
ding
the interrelationships of mammalian orders? Do we really need formal tax=
a
Altungulata, Pseudoungulata, Uranotheria, Behemota, Tethytheria, Afrother=
ia,
Cetartiodactyla (=3D Eparctocyona ?), or even "oldies" like Glires and
Archonta.
I recognized a glires clade in my classification, but only informall=
y
among a coded list of Orders:
6 Rodentiformes
B Lagomorphiformes
I don't think this clade is an unnatural grouping, but if it was, I would=
just
move Lagomorphiformes next to its true sister group and recode the sequen=
ce. =
The formal taxa remain the same, but the new cladogram is reflected by
recoding the sequence (and reordering if necessary).
Same goes for archontans. Is the informal "archontans" less informa=
tive
than the formal "Archonta"? Did you know McKenna makes Eutheria a synony=
m of
Placentalia. It seems to me that cladists have already gone overboard wi=
th
the formal taxa, and PhyloCode will encourage more of the same (maybe eve=
n
open the floodgates). =
Uniramia is as dead as a doornail as far as I am concern, but I bet=
cha
somebody's going to give it a formal cladistic definition. You don't nee=
d
formal intermediate taxa to be "concerned" about them or discuss them. T=
he
nomenclatural landscape is already too littered with abandoned names and
synonyms. There are better ways to finely split classifications without
destabilizing the formal nomenclature.
-----Ken
P.S. BTW Mike, I am not just a generalist. In fact as co-editor of Mam=
mal
Species of the World (1982)--- which was based on my manuscript--- I was
rather unhappy when they left out all my subspecies information.
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