Errors = phantom names on the Internet

[Ken Kinman]

Dear All,
      What about taxa in classifications that are works in progress which contain significant errors (spelling and otherwise)?  MBL's classification has apparently not been well-proofread (even the March 2006 version).  At first I was stumped that Theropoda contained "Cretosauria", until I realized it was probably an error for Ceratosauria.  Is this a phantom?  And why is Caenophidia listed separately from Serpentes (making the latter highly paraphyletic)?

      I was also looking at their so-called "classification" of monocots:

      Monocots
          Commelinanae
          Noncommelinoid
          Unassigned monocots

Should Noncommelinoid be capitalized like a taxon?  This classification obviously came from APG, but APG certainly didn't label this group as "Noncommelinoid" (probably because it is paraphyletic).  APG also didn't use Commelinanae, but rather commelinoids, since they shun formal supraordinal taxa (but at least they are consistent about it).  The above classification is not very helpful.  And the classification of Dicots is even more confusing, including:  peripheral dicots, peripheral eudicots, unassigned eudicots, etc.  And alphabetizing these groups of polytomies just makes matters even worse.

     No thank you!!!  I'll stick with Class Rosopsida (for eudicots) and Class Magnoliopsida (for paleodicots).  And by the way, Reveal's classification simply splinters off the most basal eudicots (APG's Order Ranunculales) as a separate Class Ranunculopsida.  Since it only contains one subclass (and just one Order according to APG and my own classification), I don't think many botanists will find it useful in the long run (even if you exclude Paeoniaceae, which Reveal put in there for some reason).  Reveal's classification is a consensus of traditional classifications, but makes no attempt to move toward the APG's more streamline ordinal classification.  And APG isn't really a consensus above ordinal level, because they won't commit to any formal taxa above that level (as most botanists prefer).  I simply take the best parts of each approach and meld them together, because traditional botanists and the strict cladists don't seem to want to even attempt a real consensus with each other.
  ----Ken Kinman