[Taxacom] Primates (was: burn out)

[John Grehan]

Ken,

If 'stability' is your justification then perhaps you should group tarsiers with other prosimians because that was the 'stable' classification until it became 'unstabilized' by the haplorrhine argument.

John Grehan


> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-
> bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Kenneth Kinman
> Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 10:40 AM
> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: [Taxacom] Primates (was: burn out)
> 
> 
> Hi Michael,
>         I agree that Strepsirhini and Haplorhini are
> best regarded as sister clades (making up the larger clade Euprimates),
> and I coded them as such. It's within Suborder Proprimates that the main
> controversies arise.
>           Since my 2004 classification, I see that
> Bloch and Silcox (2006) published a detailed paper on Carpolestidae.
> This study seems to indicate that the sister group of Euprimates is
> probably a Carpolestidae-Plesiadapidae clade (not Carpolestidae alone).
> Therefore, I would change the coding from:
> 
>       8  Plesiadapidae
>       9  Carpolestidae
>      10  {{Euprimates}}
> 
> to:
> 
>      8  Plesiadapidae
>      B  Carpolestidae
>      9  {{Euprimates}}
> 
>         The Picrodontidae might be involved as well, so
> I will probably put it just after Microsyopidae (instead of just before
> it). In such a controversial phylogeny, such changes are to be expected.
> However, the family list is still the same, and I just have to change
> the coding a bit. Suborder Proprimates is clearly paraphyletic, but
> exactly where the Euprimates split off will remain controversial.
> 
>                     -------Ken
> Kinman
> 
> P.S. Yes, John, I know you don't like a paraphyletic Pongidae (as do
> strict cladists in general). However, at least it contains the same
> living taxa that it has for many, many decades. All you have to do to
> make it cladistically useful as well is to add in that {{Hominidae}}
> exgroup marker (plus the sister group coding). That makes it both useful
> AND stable. You can change the coding to show {{Hominidae}} as sister
> group to the orangutan clade is you want. Happily my classification
> allows you to do that without destabilizing it.  Family Pongidae% is
> clearly paraphyletic in both morphology and molecules, but it is simply
> all great apes that lack the synapomorphies of Hominidae.  Having strict
> cladists overlumping and/or splitting it up in "umpteen" different ways
> demonstrates just how destabilizing paraphylophobia can be.  I still
> suspect that gorillas and chimps might end up clading together, but we
> will just have to wait and see (for now I am still showing gorillas in a
> clade splitting off just before chimps, which is still the most widely
> held view).
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 
> Taxacom Mailing List
> Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
> 
> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either of
> these methods:
> 
> (1) http://taxacom.markmail.org
> 
> Or (2) a Google search specified as:
> site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here