Comments on: The Term “Mammal-Like Reptiles” Enrages Me

By: Who are you calling ‘primitive’? « Nimravid’s Weblog

Who are you calling ‘primitive’? « Nimravid’s Weblog — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:15:35 +0000

[...] If we say marsupials have reptilian traits, then they must have descended from reptiles. As I have mentioned before, mammals are vehemently not descended from reptiles. Reptiles (and birds, who often get left out) [...]

By: Nimravid

Nimravid — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:28:21 +0000

Thanks for the advice! I will neaten up my terminology in future.

By: David Marjanović

David Marjanović — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:30:02 +0000

“Clade” is not newspeak for “taxon”. If it’s polyphyletic, it’s not a clade — by definition. “Clade” and “monophylum” are synonyms; the definition of “clade” is “an ancestor and all its descendants”.

The group Amphibia has also recently been called Lissamphibia to distinguish these organisms from their ancestors.

No, Lissamphibia is the crown-group, while the name Amphibia is usually used for the total group ( = everything more closely related to Lissamphibia than to Amniota; this includes Lissamphibia itself, obviously). Amphibious lifestyle doesn’t enter the question at all.

75% of the types of mammals that have ever lived are now extinct

What do you mean by “types”?

multiple major classifications of mammals as distinct as

Here you want to say “clades”. A classification is either a hierarchical list of taxa, and classification is the act of making such a list.

will continually be updated as our knowledge advances.

…and as the professionals who are supposed to contribute find time! That’s the limiting factor.

—————–

Seymouria probably isn’t even a crown-group tetrapod ( = amniotes and lissamphibians are more closely related to each other than to Seymouriamorpha).

By: Christopher Taylor

Christopher Taylor — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 04:31:02 +0000

Erm, no, Seymouria is not a synapsid. It's not even an amniote. Most authors, however, have regarded Seymouria as more closely related to amniotes than to modern amphibians, which would make it a stem-amniote.

By: mythusmage

mythusmage — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 02:49:42 +0000

For my part I’ve gone with the following;

Amphibian-like Amphibians -> Amphibian

Amphibian-like Reptile -> Reptile-like Reptile -> Reptile

Amphibian-like Mammal -> Reptile-like Mammal -> Mammal-like Mammal -> Mammal

Yes, it is, in part, snark. :)

Note though that Seymouria, once considered the first reptile and now counted among the earliest amniotes, is also a synapsid, and thus an Amphibian-like Mammal -> Reptile-like Mammal transitional form.

By: Nimravid

Nimravid — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 03:24:40 +0000

“I’ve tried using the proper terms for years and what happens is… “huh?” … followed by long explanations.”

This must be surmountable! Dinosaurs are terribly popular and little kids spout off multisyllabic dinosaur names, so I’m sure we can manage at least introducing “synapsid”. That would go a long way. It just requires the proper publicity campaign. Beany-baby gorgonopsids, perhaps?

By: Nimravid

Nimravid — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 03:22:10 +0000

“Oops, don’t know how that happened – that comment was supposed to go on the post about the term “worm”.”

That seems to happen here, I’m not sure why.

You’re right about the historic usage of the word. Maybe we could require everyone to insert the phrase “in a taxonomically meaningless way” whenever they call something a worm?

By: Carl Buell

Carl Buell — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 02:46:39 +0000

I feel your pain! It’s hard enough to get most people past “evolution is just a theory”; good luck with the whole anapsid/synapsid/diapsid thingie! I’ve tried using the proper terms for years and what happens is… “huh?” … followed by long explanations. You’re perfectly correct, but “mammal-like reptile” is ingrained in our culture and at least acknowledges evolution. As you note, the diversity of life on our planet both present and (especially) past is beyond easy description. Evolution is NOT a soundbyte.

That said… Keep trying… I’ll help what little I can.

By: Christopher Taylor

Christopher Taylor — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:53:45 +0000

Oops, don’t know how that happened – that comment was supposed to go on the post about the term “worm”.

By: Christopher Taylor

Christopher Taylor — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:51:54 +0000

Originally, the term “worm” was any animal with an elongated body shape and no limbs. Snakes are worms. This is why dragons, which in European tradition were generally imagined as giant snakes before the wings and the fire got added, are often referred to as worms (or wyrms, which is just a variant spelling). It’s also why there is a legless lizard known as a slow-worm.