tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5519292617097628087.post667254003472830323..comments2024-01-02T16:09:12.886-07:00Comments on Chinleana: Agathoxylon, the Wood Morphogenus Previously Known as AraucarioxylonBill Parkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05941940882532354219noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5519292617097628087.post-29413831180088870722011-01-20T17:32:25.556-07:002011-01-20T17:32:25.556-07:00Randy asks: "What's the point of having a...Randy asks: "What's the point of having a binomen if all your genera are monospecific".<br /><br />No point whatsoever. But we're stuck with it for now, so until that changes, we put a space in the middle our mononomials. "Xenoposeidon proneneukos" is a single word, it's just spelled ... D, O, N, space, P, R, O ...<br /><br />I honestly don't understand how anyone can possibly disagree with this, not when we're dealing with animals from which if we're LUCKY we have 10% of the skeleton. It simply is not realistic to think that, based on specimens like this, we can recover the phylogeny with enough confidence to tie our nomenclature to it (by means of binomials with many species forming monophyletic genera). For people who work on extant beetles, who have numerous complete specimens of each species, maybe. For sauropod workers who typically have a single very incomplete partial skeleton of each species, no.Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5519292617097628087.post-38562912313425194202011-01-20T17:24:00.495-07:002011-01-20T17:24:00.495-07:00As you know - quite a few folks disagree with you ...As you know - quite a few folks disagree with you Mike. Whats the point of having a binomen if all your genera are monospecific?<br /><br />I mean, I would like to get rid of the binomen and just have species + clade names. If we're stuck with the binomen, lets just treat genera as clades. I know I'm not going to convince you Mike, but just wanted to reply.220myahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06403919493457640549noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5519292617097628087.post-3481243546025342032011-01-20T02:09:52.481-07:002011-01-20T02:09:52.481-07:00Come on, folks -- monospecific genera! As soon as...Come on, folks -- monospecific genera! As soon as you start assigning multiple fossil species to a aingle genus, you make your nomenclature a slave to your phylogeny. Here we are in 2011 -- how does anyone still not get this?Mike Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06039663158335543317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5519292617097628087.post-36019987930001300532011-01-19T21:45:03.569-07:002011-01-19T21:45:03.569-07:00Agreed. One of the harder things to get people to...Agreed. One of the harder things to get people to understand is that we will pretty much have to sample almost every tree to be able to assign them to various taxa.Bill Parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05941940882532354219noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5519292617097628087.post-25197891306057289502011-01-19T21:40:14.514-07:002011-01-19T21:40:14.514-07:00There is still enough wood in some of the Sonsela ...There is still enough wood in some of the Sonsela Member wood-bearing beds that are not completely agatized, from which we could potentially get some anatomical information. So I don't think all is lost.<br /><br />I doubt however that most identifiable remains can be referred to "Araucariaceae" - my understanding is that much of the wood does not belong in this clade, but in other gymnosperm groups.220myahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06403919493457640549noreply@blogger.com