Evolutionary Tree of the Dinosaurs

AtomicHorror

New Scientist covering the recent publishing of a full evolutionary tree of the Dinosaur species just yesterday:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14392-dinosaur-evolutionary-tree-unveiled.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news6_head_dn14392

Makes for some interesting reading!

Galvasean

Sweet! Where can I get an A1 poster of that for my wall?

I find it strange that 'Ceolophys.' are given their own section when the 'Ceolophys.' are only a small section of the Ceratosauria. The inclusion of Neoceratosauria makes me think the classification of the Ceratosauria must have changed recently.
The aves section is looking quite small. They must only be using birds families that lived during the mesozoic and don't have any living members.

Also, i can't find Therizinosaurus. I would have imagined it would have ben put in with its relatives under 'Therizino.'

I also noticed Tyrannotitan is listed under Carnosauria. I guess that means they ratified the genus after all. Bunking poor old Tyrannosaurus well down the list of biggest meat eaters.

So much to discuss, I'm hyperventalating.

AtomicHorror

Galvasean wrote: »

Sweet! Where can I get an A1 poster of that for my wall?

I find it strange that 'Ceolophys.' are given their own section when the 'Ceolophys.' are only a small section of the Ceratosauria. The inclusion of Neoceratosauria makes me think the classification of the Ceratosauria must have changed recently.
The aves section is looking quite small. They must only be using birds families that lived during the mesozoic and don't have any living members.

Also, i can't find Therizinosaurus. I would have imagined it would have ben put in with its relatives under 'Therizino.'

I also noticed Tyrannotitan is listed under Carnosauria. I guess that means they ratified the genus after all. Bunking poor old Tyrannosaurus well down the list of biggest meat eaters.

So much to discuss, I'm hyperventalating.

Yep there's a whole lotta data in there. Your questions may be answered in the primary publication. The supplementary figures are actually free to download here:

http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/7k63203q852h4006/

And the paper itself (Lloyd et al 2008) is here:

http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/7k63203q852h4006/fulltext.pdf

Galvasean

Some more on the subject, albeit in far more easy to digest terms, can be found here.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/07/23/dinosaur-diversity.html

AtomicHorror

Interestingly, it appears that our own NUI Maynooth in Kildare had some involvement in this work!

http://communications.nuim.ie/240708.shtml

Good to see Irish involvement.

GuanYin

I have a special edition signed copy of The Ancestors Tale, by Richard Dawkins, it attempts to map the tree of life back. To my shame, although it sits proudly on my coffee table for guests, I haven't really had more than a glance at it.

I must take some time to see how it relates to this publication.