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German Dinosaurs (mander.xyz)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

it's not really a definition thing as such, "dinosaur" just means anything descended from a specific point on the tree of life.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yes, dinosaurs are defined as all descents of the last common ancestor of [blank] and [blank].

I don't remember what the blanks were but I'm sure they would have included pterosaurs if they knew about them back than

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

no, that's not how cladistics works..

as you can see from the diagram, pterosaurs are not descended from the stem-dinosaurs, thus they cannot be dinosaurs any more than birds could be mammals.

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladistics

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago

I understand quite well how monophyletic clades work and I hope you understand that they are a human construct. That doesn't mean they are wrong or bad or something, but the question you are ignoring is: Who decides what the stem dinosaur is and would the decision be the same if they know about pterosaurs? Maybe but maybe not. Now that decision is made and set in stone, there is no going back but "dinosaur" and "ornithodiran" are just words that would be swopped (again, not gonna happen anymore)