New Family Tree for Dinosaurs

[Troodon]

The family tree was announced back in February but the paper was just published.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/19/how-we-revealed-a-new-family-tree-for-dinosaurs?CMP=share_btn_tw

 

Abstract:

For 130 years, dinosaurs have been divided into two distinct clades—Ornithischia and Saurischia. Here we present a hypothesis for the phylogenetic relationships of the major dinosaurian groups that challenges the current consensus concerning early dinosaur evolution and highlights problematic aspects of current cladistic definitions. Our study has found a sister-group relationship between Ornithischia and Theropoda (united in the new clade Ornithoscelida), with Sauropodomorpha and Herrerasauridae (as the redefined Saurischia) forming its monophyletic outgroup. This new tree topology requires redefinition and rediagnosis of Dinosauria and the subsidiary dinosaurian clades. In addition, it forces re-evaluations of early dinosaur cladogenesis and character evolution, suggests that hypercarnivory was acquired independently in herrerasaurids and theropods, and offers an explanation for many of the anatomical features previously regarded as notable convergences between theropods and early ornithischians

 

 

Paper it's paywalls publication 

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v543/n7646/abs/nature21700.html

 

[doushantuo]

Don't really want to gripe,but that's just the abstract.

Knowing the publisher(S***ng**),this will remain paywalled for a couple of months,minimum

Personally,i'd edit your post,to prevent people like me from getting their hopes up.

Love to know which apomorphies they are using

What,only 30 bucks for such a cracker?

meanwhile:the supplementary data

& Tim Williams's criticism

But I'm uneasy about the revised definition of Saurischia, which has
only one internal specifier (a theropod).  Given the topology given by
Baron et al., a better idea might have been to drop Saurischia
altogether, rather than salvage it as the name for the new
Herrerasauridae+Sauropodomorpha clade.  Firstly, this rump Saurischia
overturns an established tradition that Saurischia as a group should
include theropods; I'd say that no Saurischia at all is better than a
Saurischia sans Theropoda.  Secondly, the sister clade to
Ornithoscelida could simply be called Sauropodomorpha, with
herrerasaurids simply considered basal sauropodomorphs; the prevailing
stem-based definition of Sauropodomorpha allows for this.  Instead
Baron et al. re-define Sauropodomorpha to exclude herrerasaurids, such
that the two are sister taxa within a 'new' Saurischia.

Baron et al.'s phylogeny implies that a supinated, grasping hand is
primitive for dinosaurs, and they further suggest that "the ability to
grasp with the manus played an important role in early dinosaur
evolution".  It's an entirely reasonable hypothesis; but I'm
skeptical.  I lean toward the view that theropod forelimbs weren't
really all that useful for grasping (especially prey capture).  Like
Persons & Currie (2017; dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2017.02.032), I
suspect that the tendency to ascribe great adaptive significance to
the freed hands of dinosaurs at least partly reflects our own human
bias.  Most Triassic theropods and herrerasaurids had short forelimbs;
as Persons & Currie (2017) put it, it's "difficult to envision them
grappling with any prey that could not have already been seized by the
jaws".  So I doubt the 'grasping' manus conferred on early dinosaurs
some evolutionary edge over other archosaurs (including other bipeds).

 

 

 

 

[piranha]

9 minutes ago, doushantuo said:

Don't really want to gripe,but that's just the abstract...

 

 

Check your PM! 

[doushantuo]

after the ruckus-rousing article,this has appeared

I wouldn't be averse to having this as well

Mensen die vragen,etc...

just after i received a message from a higher power,this appeared when googling

Lewisuchus Marsicano