774
German Dinosaurs (mander.xyz)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] lugal@sopuli.xyz 6 points 4 months ago

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

[-] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 4 months ago

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

[-] lugal@sopuli.xyz 8 points 4 months 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)

this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2024
774 points (97.5% liked)

Science Memes

10853 readers
3545 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS