this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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Biologists like using clades to describe things, these days. A clade is all the descendants of some common ancestor on an evolutionary tree.
That particularly means that they disfavor terms that refer to almost all of the descendants of something, but exclude one branch because reasons. Which does make sense, right? "Paraphyletic groups" are like saying "The Vanderbilt family is all the descendants of Cornelius Vanderbilt... except for Anderson Cooper and his descendants".
So the technical definition of dinosaur, right now, is anything descended from the most recent common ancestor of triceratops, diplodocus, and the house sparrow.
I mean, that is not how it works. Also, crocodiles don't look like any dinosaur I can think of?
Classification is based on genetic relationships, not looks, so bats aren't birds, for example.