Talk:Pelycosaur

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Shouldn't the entry mention that pelycosaurs were mammal like reptiles?

No, because they weren't what is usually meant by the term. More properly, they were the line that led to the mammal-like reptiles, or Theraspids. CFLeon 07:47, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

At Synapsid Pelycosaurs and Theraspids are co-orders of the same class, so I've changed the article to say they are cousins. --Michael C. Price ^talk 10:32, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Pelycosauria redefined

A new definition for Pelycosauria is here provided:

Pelycosauria Cope, 1878 New defintion - All synapsids closer to Eupelycosauria and Caseasauria than to basal Synapsida.

yes but Pelycosaurs are basal Synapsids; it's a paraphyletic group M Alan Kazlev 04:28, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

O.k. they're paraphyletic, No biggie. Keeps the taxon within sensible limits. Also its better to define a taxon (genus, family, order, etc) on observable characters rather than, more closely related to this than to that. J.H.McDonnell (talk) 00:57, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Text contradicts illustration?

According to the text, the clade Eupelycosauria includes the Theraspids. Acoording to the taxonomy list, they are a sub-order of order Pelycosaur beside order Theraspida.

I get that there are competing systems out there, but someone should clean that up, at least a note or a comment. --Sukkoth 20:55, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Unnecessary bother

It seems a lot of bother is made over clades which are based on a concept not all that difficult to understand. Clades of best used when evolutionary relationships are the issue, especially those which follow. When the concern is over a particular and well defined group, such as Pelycosaurs, the cladistic approach isn't particularly useful, if at all. In this case its better to think of them in the traditional sense as an ordinary taxon.

When it says "At least two pelycosaur clades independently evolved a tall sail, ..etc" it could have just as well have said: at least two pelycosauran families independently evolved a tall sail. For practical purposed in this case the two terms are interchangeable, except that clade is more ambiguous.

Just one man's perspective. Cheers J.H.McDonnell (talk) 00:51, 17 September 2010 (UTC)