Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive 10

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Ornithischians and Classification in General

I was working on some ornithischian pages and noticed a potential problem with the Linnaean classification being used across the project. We're ostensibly using Benton (2004) for ranks, but the current system does not reflect this closely. For example, he places Ceratopsia, Pachycephalosauria, and Ornithopoda as Infraorders in suborder Cerapoda--we're using Suborder Marginocephalia for the first two, and have Ornithopoda bumped up to Suborder with an Infraorder Iguanodontia. Now, since my push to adopt Benton, a very good resource has come online-- the Paleobiology Database [1]. Not only does this list authority information for most taxa I tried searching for, it also lists rank, which in most cases reflects the original published rank for that taxon. This site has the more 'traditional' ornithischian setup, with Ceratopsia, Stegosauria, Ornithopoda, etc. etc. as Suborders. While this site does include some contradictions as contradicting rankings have been published (for example, in the 70s and later the various major coelurosaurian clades began to be hived off as infraorders, while coelurosauria itself was originally an infraorder). I see two possibilities for revision--continue using Benton and revise the dinosaur entries to better adhere to it, or use the ranks as originally published for individual taxa, and revise accordingly. Either way, the ornithischian classification right now appears to be original research or uncited. Dinoguy2 00:01, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of ranks above family, but when I'm here, I'll go with whatever is chosen. Offhand, I'd say go with Benton because it's more modern than most (except for things like Turiasauria, which have to be dealt with as they appear), but I wouldn't get too fond of any particular ornithischian classification at this time. It's nice to have just one source, but we do have to compensate at times. What happens if Iguanodontia and Marginocephalia turn out to be sister groups, for example? J. Spencer 02:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Unicerosaurus up for deletion

You can comment here. There seems to be a disconnect here, between an article that is nonsense, and a subject that is pseudoscience. People just aren't getting it. Firsfron of Ronchester 20:17, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Problems with nomina nuda (and the lack of sources for same on DinoGeorge's list): exhibit A ;) . Dinoguy2 23:35, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, and you have every right to say "I told you so". At the same time, I only wanted Wikipedia's coverage of dinosaurs to be as comprehensive as any other source. This is a bit depressing, as we were also forced to keep that stupid "Antarticopelta" redirect. Trust Wiki to require us to keep a mispelled article, but delete a correctly-spelled one. Ugh. Firsfron of Ronchester 23:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
I can see where being comprehensive is a good thing, though, and being able to expalin why a genus name is dubious, or improperly described, or whatever in individual articles is actually a big advantage over pure lists of names. It's just that actually citing these things is gonna be tough, especially since nomina nuda tend to be found in really obscure places and sources. Dinoguy2 06:12, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, you're absolutely right, Dinoguy. I've added citations where they have been requested; hopefully this will be enough to mollify people on the AFD. But I doubt it. Firsfron of Ronchester 06:45, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Misspellings are for people who can't spell correctly--one of the most frustrating things about Wikipedia is the poor number of incorrect spelling redirects. This is substandard for the web. Nomina nuda by their nature tend not to have sufficient resources to merit an entire article. Can't this just be included in Baugh's article? Does it really merit its own article? I don't know of any botanical nomina nuda that get their own articles. KP Botany 17:23, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
If we had misspelling redirects for every dinosaur, we'd have literally thousands and thousands of redirects to watch. Nepenthes x truncalata is one example of a nomen nudum plant; there are several others. Firsfron of Ronchester 18:28, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
So instead there are none? There should be redirects for common mispellings, it adds to the utility of Wikipedia. The Nepenthes x truncalata article doesn't say it is a nomen nudum except in the categories section--bad. KP Botany 18:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree common mispellings should be redirects. The problem was that the redirect we were forced to keep showed no google hits, not even one, indicating it was not a common misspelling. Wiki is addicting. I need to get to work! Cheers! Firsfron of Ronchester 18:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Awesome! the rampant DELETE!!!!! KEEEP!!!!!. I can't believe the arguments used for deletes and keeps, "I never heard of it," "He only wrote four books, none about 2 million on Amazon." The world exists outside of the net, and you better get to it if you want to keep your connection to the on-line community. I do want to know the arguments for the keep sometime, though. KP Botany 18:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that deleting it conflicts with an internl Wikiproject policy of including articles on nomina nuda (which I object to, since by definition there is nothing to say about nomina nuda except "this name was printed somehwere", and 95% of the time nobody can even say exactly where that somewhere is). But I am willing to defend our policies here since others disagreed with me on this point. The argument for keeping nomina nuda articles boils down to the fact that we should strive to be comprehensive, and other internet sources such as George Olshevsky include nomina nuda. Dinoguy2 20:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

It's been kept. I'm really interested to see what happens with your request for more information, Firsfron. J. Spencer 05:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

So far, no response, but it's still early, and I have other leads. I'll let you know what's going on as soon as I know. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 06:40, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia's Thagomizer article featured in comic

Did anyone else see this? Might this be of use on our article? Firsfron of Ronchester 07:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

That's pretty cool! As for using it in the article, won't citing a comic about a Wikipedia article in that same Wikipedia article make the space-time continuum implode or something? (or in other words, I bet there's a policy against self-referential information) ;) Dinoguy2 17:59, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Don't get your hopes up guys, I'm only passing through, not here to stay for a solid chunk of edits. Anyway, citing the about thingy in the article would be self-referencing & is generally frowned upon. It would be kind of like putting in the Triceratops article - "On 7 January 2007, Triceratops was on the Wikiproject Dinosaurs collaboration list!". Just seems kind of silly really. Now if it were an outside comic, that would be a different ball game... Anyway guys, (& girls if there are any), have a great New Year & I trust you all don't miss me that much. I see the project page has been polished a bit. Anyway, have a good one... :) Spawn Man 04:50, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh, put a small thumbnail on the talk page for fun. Although there still is the space-time continuum concern.... KP Botany 17:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Some structural\category ideas: dubious and unofficial dinosaurs

Hi, everyone; I've been considering how nomina dubia and nomina nuda are handled, and I had a few ideas.

  • 1) List of dubious dinosaur genera is, in its current state, pretty redundant, as it's very short, and the information there is dealt with better on individual pages. It's a idea that I think didn't really work out, and I think a category would handle dubious dinosaurs better. It would be a lot easier to use and maintain as a category, and nobody seems to be doing anything with it now besides routine maintenance. Would it be a problem if this page was deleted?
  • 2) Related to the above: Category:dubious dinosaurs for those now in the non-affiliated Category:nomina dubia. This one is dangerous, because dubious is subjective, but some names are much more dubious than others (Deinodon, Cionodon, Thespesius, etc). If we don't want to use a category for dubious dinosaurs, that's fine, too, but if there is a point to be made about validity, I think it should be made with a category connected to dinosaurs, as opposed to filling up a category intended for all life (whether or not that's a good idea is another thing). Lately, I've been the one to use Category:nomina dubia, for lack of a better idea. Category:invalid dinosaurs seems to be intended for chimeric dinosaurs, not dubious dinosaurs.
  • 3) Similarly, a lot of dinosaurs have ended up in Category:nomina nuda. I'd like to have one in the dinosaur section, say, Category:informal dinosaurs, or Category:unofficial dinosaurs, or something like that. This one is much more objective than dubious dinosaurs, because a name either is described or it isn't (and I would include dissertation names in this as well, but that's just me). It's also useful because it collects all those unofficial names that otherwise look as official as the next when you can't see the quotation marks.
  • 4) I'd like to put up Category:Dinosaurs named in the 20th century for deletion, because it's never been used and the author didn't seem too interested when I asked about it.

Of course, it may be that when we think about it, we don't want categories for dubious and unofficial dinosaurs. I'd just like the policy to be clarified, and these are my ideas on how to do it. J. Spencer 16:09, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments and ideas. Regarding nomina dubia, since it's rather subjective, and will vary from source to source, I never created a category for it. You are right that there are varying degrees of dubiousness; the ones which are for all intents and purposes rejected by everyone (petrified wood, mollusc borings, complete hoaxes, etc), I stuck in Category:Invalid dinosaurs. I'm worried that a dubious dinosaurs category would eventually lead to edit wars or other disputes (not from our current team, but what about in the future?), because such a category is mostly subjective.
The current Category:Nomina nuda is small; I'm not sure a spin-off is needed at this time, and nomina nuda seems more professional-looking than "unofficial dinosaurs".
Category:Dinosaurs named in the 20th century has been deleted (by me) as it met speedy deletion requirements: C1. Empty categories (no articles or subcategories for at least four days) whose only content has consisted of links to parent categories. Some folks here had already weighed in with comments indicating that since most dinosaurs known are from the 20th Century, the category was hardly sustainable, and as only a few dinosaurs had ever made it into the category, it was somewhat useless. Firsfron of Ronchester 17:15, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
On Category:nomina dubia: should I stop using it, then? I've been careful, but we may want to remove temptation.
Similarly, should I continue to use Category:Nomina nuda? J. Spencer 17:22, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Cat:Invalid dinosaurs appears to be a wastebin cat, so to speak, with a few nomina nuda, a few junior synonyms (which technically are valid names if they were named right), etc. I'm thinking this category should be restricted to junior synonyms, and pages should probably only be made/kept for those if there's a detailed or convoluted taxonomic history of the name that needs explaining, especially if various species of a js genus have been moved to a wide variety of genera. I agree that the label nomen dubium is completely subjective. I say we either don't use such a category, or stick closely to one particular source, like Olshevsky's list. While it's not a published source, we have been using it to determine what is and is not nomen nudum. The problem you run into in having two categories, one for nuda and one for invalid dinosaurs, is that Olshevsky includes invalid names according to ICZN rules among his nomina nuda, so some articles would belong in both categories if we follow Olshevsky's list. A nomen nudum is not invalid, it's just not considered to be described. Junior synonyms are not invalid either... so the main problem here is the way this cat is named, I think. Maybe a signle cat for 'disused dinosaur names' or something would be more appropriate, and could include both junior synonyms, nomina nuda, and maybe even the really, really bad nomina dubia? Dinoguy2 19:49, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to an umbrella category for names that aren't in use (nomina nuda, and Olshevsky's "nomina ex dissertationes"), aren't used (Apatodon or Dysganus-class nomina dubia), notable junior synonyms ("Brontosaurus", "Seismosaurus", "Ultrasauros"), unadressed chimeras (Sanpasaurus), etc., as long as we're all clear on what it's to be used for. J. Spencer 21:02, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I had created the invalid dinosaurs category for articles on animals which aren't considered valid by pretty much everyone. Aachenosaurus and Succinodon are petrified wood, Albisaurus is known from two scraps of bone, Apatodon from one (which is lost), Archaeoraptor is a forgery, Arstanosaurus is chimeric and indeterminate, Atlantosaurus, Lametasaurus, Pal(a)eosaurus, Procheneosaurus, and Sanpasaurus are chimeric, Coelurosaurus and Tyreophorus are probably typos/translation errors, Procerosaurus is a junior synonym/bit of bone, Rutellum is a nomen oblitum not used for hundreds of years, and Unicerosaurus was identified as a fish. None of these were placed in the category because they're nomina nuda (some are, most aren't), but because the sources indicated they've been declared invalid, and that no one today seriously considers them dinosaurs.

Dravidosaurus, which appears in the category, may actually be a valid dinosaur; it may be either a dinosaur or a plesiosaur. The only other name which appears in the category is Ultrasauros. Firsfron of Ronchester 22:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Archaeoraptor is a forgery Yes, but the name is not invalid. Olshevsky's criteria would have considered it a nomen nudum until it's name appeared in print for the find portion of the chimera. It's a future nomen oblitum at best and a senior synonym of Microraptor at worst. Dinoguy2 02:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Depends. Not according to Jaime Headden. Headden states: "The name *Archaeoraptor* is just not valid under the present rules of the ICZN, and these were established the first day of 1999, well before Olson's publication."[2] And according to Markus Moser, "If the later author had erected Archaeoraptor explicitely as new name (Art. 16) the name would have become available from this later publication, but this did not happen. So Archaeoraptor is unavailable and not a senior objective synonym of Microraptor."[3][4] Olshevsky's current list shows it as nomen rejectum (pending). Firsfron of Ronchester 03:21, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
That reminds me - a few of those should be modified. As far as I know, Atlantosaurus and (definitely) Procheneosaurus aren't chimeric - they just had species that were referred to multiple genera later on (i.e. a couple of Procheneosaurus species were juvie Lambeosaurus, a couple were juvie Corythosaurus, and one is actually an unnamed Asian taxon), and Ponerosteus is Olshevsky's name for the ?dinosaurian species of Procerosaurus. I think someone may have looked at Arstanosaurus again, too. Anyway, Firsfron, do you think an umbrella category as discussed above would be useful, or are we just splitting categoric hairs? Maybe it's just my taxonomic OCD talking, but I like the idea of some sort of categorization that would alert people that a name is not in scientific use. J. Spencer 03:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think an umbrella category like you two are discussing could be very useful. I'm not sure what the same should be ("Disused dinosaur names" actually works; at the same time, it doesn't sound entirely scientific, though I don't have a better suggestion, and am not actually objecting to this name). I'll go along with anything the group decides on. Catgories which are very small occasionally get purged, so whatever category is decided on, it should be large enough for at least a half-dozen articles (one reason there's no Category:Nomina oblita). If there's evidence supporting the validity of any of these, please do feel free to update the articles in question, and if Category:Invalid dinosaurs is no longer needed, it can be deleted. Firsfron of Ronchester 03:55, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
O.K. I'll sleep on it, and see if I come up with anything more scientific. J. Spencer 05:13, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I've thought about it, and I can't think of anything better and more concise than "Disused dinosaur names", unless we want to go longer, like "Dinosaur names not in scientific usage." J. Spencer 16:37, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Anything? J. Spencer 01:22, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't mind "Dinosaur names not in scientific usage" or "Disused dinosaur names", but at the same time, the fact we can get google hits from them indicates someone is using them, even if by only a small number of people. Also, it seems to me likely that some Wikipedia editor will come along and say, "Oh, these names aren't even being used, let's delete the whole lot." As I spent some time on several of these articles (not to mention all the other nice folks who helped build them up, including you), I'd hate to see that happen. Firsfron of Ronchester 01:42, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. J. Spencer 03:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Diplodocus featured

No one had mentioned it yet, so I thought I'd point it out: Diplodocus has been named a Featured Article. J. Spencer 05:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Yay! Pats on the back all around, fellows. One more proof how great this group really is; thanks to all. I see you already added it to the list of project achievements; thanks for keeping it up to date! :) Firsfron of Ronchester 06:43, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Triceratops next....

Hi, I've done a few edits and feel the gulf between this article and FAC has diminished a bit, so anyone who wants to get involved is most welcome. cheers Cas Liber 07:39, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Will work on it tomorrow. but for now, it's past my bedtime! :) Firsfron of Ronchester 07:44, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Now there's a choice between Triceratops and Iguanadon........race to FAC (though our 3-horned friend has a BIG head start....) Cas Liber 04:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Plesiosaurs etc

Hiya everone, I'm not a member of this project, but I'd be interested in helping out though. I've noticed that most of the pliosaur and plesiosaur pages seem to be in a mess, lots of dead links, stubs, and so on. I know they're not dinosaurs, but I can't seem to find any general palaeontology project so I suppose this project is pretty close. I've created and expanded some articles already (created Thililua, Dolichorhynchops & Dolichorhynchops herschelensis, edited Polycotylidae- feel free to chop and change at will), but there's an awful lot more... Anybody want to help? Andrewharrington2003 16:22 18 January 2007

Pronounciation

I must still understand why pronounciation hints of dinoasurs names are provided, when they give simply the way a normal anglophone would pronounce it. Instead, I think, if they are written in Latin, Latin form should be given. Or not? I think that these are words in a foreign language for them, so they should learn to pronounce them correctly. When we in Italy pronounce foreign word we at least TRY pronounce them in (hopefully) the correct way. Let me know and good work. --Attilios 19:23, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

"they give simply the way a normal anglophone would pronounce it" Becasue this is the English Wikipedia? English speakers tend to pronounce Latin and Greek anmes a certain way, and whether or not this is correct, that's the way it is. For example, -saurus is almost universally pronounced "SORE-us" by English speakers, whereas the technically correct pronunciation is "sour-OOS". Dinoguy2 22:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Junior synonym policy?

Would anyone be interested in creating some kind of policy on the creation and/or retention of articles on junior subjective synonyms? Obviously they're, er, subjective, and there is something to be said for treating them on a case by case basis. But for articles like Brontosaurus, which pretty much 99% of paleontologists consider synonymous with Apatosaurus, is there any really good argument for keeping these articles seperate? Brontosaurus, aside from the bits on history, seems like it's starting to become a dumping ground for pop culture eferences akin to the old Pterodactyl. I'm thinking that if a genus has been considered a junior synonym in two or three recent papers to the point that it looks like this is scientific consensus, it should be merged with the article with the senior name. If the old genus is still used by one or two scientits, a note on that could always be included in the taxonomy sections. If a genus was heavily chimeric, like some of the old Victorian tooth taxa, little taxonomic DAB pages could be used, as in Zanclodon. Any other ideas? Or support for the status quo? Dinoguy2 22:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Pretty close to the status quo, I think. Chimeric, or had numerous species referred to it that were later redistributed: definite yes. I'd include Zanclodon, Procheneosaurus, and Palaeo\Paleo\saurus\sauriscus in that group. Historically important: yes, but not as strong. This includes Brontosaurus, Seismosaurus, and Ultrasauros, but except for Bronto, each of those could be dealt with just as well on the host genus page, and if we wanted them back, we could just resurrect the pre-redirect page. Otherwise, things like Chassternbergia and a half-dozen Struthiosaurus synonyms should just be dealt with on the host genus page, if at all, as no one is arguing seriously for any of them (except extreme splitters). As for potential junior synonyms, the worst offenders are prosauropods, which we should just leave alone until all the rumors have been published and evaluated. If people are divided, as with Suchomimus and Baryonyx, definitely leave them split. We're pretty good right now, I think. The only good candidate for a merge besides Ultrasauros and Seismosaurus is Angaturama into Irritator. When going through the list, I found ten current redirects (with three other marginal cases for geeks) that have good arguments for separating out, but they're all pretty dubious names except for Anoplosaurus and Zigongosaurus (Claorhynchus in particular bugs me, because it's from the Judith River Formation, and there's no way in Hell Creek that it's Triceratops). I think they'd originally been synonymized by review writers in the spirit of "this is dubious and I don't want to deal with it", like the mob of Pelorosaurus "species". I guess, if in doubt, split it out. I personally get really annoyed when I see that Romer or Steel stuck thirty things into Pelorosaurus without explanation and for no reason, even though Pelorosaurus is and always has been crap from the Cretaceous and everything they added was either non-comparable or crap from the Jurassic. That's just lazy, and that's what I want to avoid here. The main issue is additional articles for dubious genera.
By the way, there's both a Brontosaurus in popular culture article and a Brontosaurus article, so I'm adding a link from the first to the second, which might help. J. Spencer 01:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
When the articles were created, I had been using Lambert (1993) to establish synonymy. I realized it was dated, and that there would be plenty of newer papers which invalidated some claims of synonomy, but I didn't have anything at hand that was newer at the time. As the articles were expanded, I fixed some of these, and other WP:Dinosaur folks fixed others, based on more recent sources. I agree that the mass referrals to Pelorosaurus were sloppy, and resulted in a complete wastebin taxon (at one time, Wikipedia's article on the genus had a dozen redirects pointing to it, I believe). User:Sheep81 worked very hard on Palaeosaurus, so I'd hate to see that get made into a DAB page. I would prefer to have an article explaining the history of these genera, and why they've been assigned elsewhere. I think potential junior synonyms should have seperate articles until it's pretty well established they really are junior synonyms, or it's clear (nearly) everyone accepts their junior synonomy (Bakker notwithstanding). Leave seperate articles for disputed cases. I saw Scrotum humanum was redirected to Megalosaurus, but I thought the partial bone wasn't diagnostic; I don't mind the merge, but Dinoguy's right: let's try to be consistent. A guideline would help, but a case-by-case basis might be unavoidable. Firsfron of Ronchester 02:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Just to clarify, I wasn't getting after your choice of sources (I don't have that particular book, but I have a few others where a lot of the wholesale synonymizations were used: A Field Guide to Dinosaurs throwing Melanorosaurus into Euskelosaurus, etc.), but on the decisions of the sources' authors. I definitely agree to err on the side of having articles for the potentials. J. Spencer 03:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
No, I didn't think you were, but I thought I'd better explain why I redirected in certain instances but not others. If Dinoguy and the rest agree, feel free to make additional articles where needed. I feel like over the last year or so, the ball's finally rolling, although merging, unmerging, remerging, etc, will occur as new papers come out and new consensus in the paleontological community is reached. Firsfron of Ronchester 04:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Possible Redirects into Articles (was: RE: Junior synonym policy)

Since we're drifting now...

The ones I had in mind, and why, were (and granted, this is scraping the bottom of the barrel, so we've done very well):

There are a couple others ("Coelosaurus", Hierosaurus, Marmarospondylus, and Parrosaurus) that could be added on the grounds that there is no overwhelming morphological reason to refer them to what they've been referred to, but they're all exceedingly dubious and no one really cares, except for Parrosaurus, which as Hypsibema missouriensis is somehow the state dinosaur of Missouri. J. Spencer 04:33, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

As Carnosaurus and Coelurosaurus were probably mispellings of Carnosaurs and Coelurosaurs, maybe they should redirect to those groups? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dinoguy2 (talk • contribs) 17:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC).
I don't mind that idea, since nobody has ever taken the names seriously. How about a little paragraph at the bottom of the relevant articles, i.e. "The informal name "Coelurosaurus", coined by von Huene in whatever year, appears to have been a typo, as he was really intending to refer indeterminate remains to Coelurosauria per this DML message" (you get the idea)? J. Spencer 19:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Dinoguy2 15:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
OK. I did this with "Coelurosaurus" at Coelurosauria, so have a look and see if you like it. If so, the paragraph can more or less just be copied and pasted to the other articles, with the names changed, and the same link. J. Spencer 19:47, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Triceratops

...has been nominated as a Featured Article by the hard-working Cas. If any folks here have ideas on how to incorporate further information or fixes for the article, now would perhaps be the time. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 14:44, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Hooray -nom successful Cas Liber 06:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Archive 9

It was getting big, so I hope no one minds I took off the last stuff from 2006. J. Spencer 05:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

No objection here. In fact, thanks. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 07:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Microformat

Please be aware of the proposed Species microformat, particularly in relation to taxoboxes. Comments welcome on the wiki at that link. Andy Mabbett 15:43, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I copied this over from the front page, as I figured we'd pay more attention to it here. J. Spencer 15:47, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Unenlagia

I have been over that critter's article, albeit briefly. It reeked heavily of the probably obsolete concept of "bird" monophyly (compare the better discussion in Buitreraptor to a blunt statement like "The shoulder girdle of Unenlagia also shows adaptations for flapping and, since at 2 meters (6 feet) long Unenlagia was probably too big to fly, this provides further evidence [sic!] that it evolved from flying ancestors."). But there are some points I don't feel ready to write about or can't source properly; see the article source for annotations. Dysmorodrepanis 10:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

"probably obsolete concept of "bird" monophyly" So birds are paraphyletic if they include dromaeosaurs, unenlagiines, etc.? If so, why exclude those forms? Anyway, if flight evolved numerous times within maniraptora, then a whole lot of articles are going to smell this way until the published literature catches up with such a revolutionary idea, since most flight related characters have been interpreted as having to do with Avian flight until extremely recently. Dinoguy2 23:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC)