Back

@nemo @NanoBookReview If clades were always still identified with their original groups, how would our phylogenetic system reflect the changes evolution wreaks at all? If warm blood, skull changes, unidirectional breathing systems etc. aren’t enough to make archosaurs (including birds and non-bird dinos) distinct from reptiles, why are mammals not also still ‘reptiles’? Why is our warm blood, live birth system, etc. more distinctive?

All of this is by definition semantic: but I can’t agree.

@faerye @NanoBookReview Excluding birds from reptiles create a parapyletic clade since it splits Archosaurs. Excluding mammals doesn't since mammals are synapsids, they split from reptiles/archosaurs some time around the Carboniferous and have been going their separate ways ever since.

@nemo Admittedly I was ‘raised’ in paleo by a splitter, but my argument would be that you cut archosaurs off of reptiles, just as you cut synapsids away. Fish, amphibians, reptiles, archosaurs, mammals. But there’s a real question here about communicating generally and informally versus drawing a phylogenetic tree: you’re encountering the same thing with your mammal example. ‘Synapsid’ makes a clean split, but ‘mammal’ doesn’t (as no one would call Dimetrodon, for example, simply a ‘mammal’.)

@dendroica @faerye nice work - there's nothing like a taxonomic chart to tell the story of natural history

This is another reason I like #iNaturalist, they have a nice, very explorable Life List UI, so once you've built up your observations the taxonomy of what you've seen is laid out for you.

Also I explore the life lists and observations of folks nearby to see what interesting organisms are discoverable out there. That + eBird are really useful when traveling to find interesting wildlife.

@nemo @faerye yes, really just starting to get acquainted with iNaturalist, but use eBird constantly for sure - it is a great resource.