[Taxacom] Animalia or Metazoa?

[Kenneth Kinman]

Hi Stephen,
       Well, I don't think that there is any question that Metazoa are
"higher", i.e. more derived, than Protozoa (specifically Choanozoa).
Phylogenetic neutrality is thus pretty much irrelevant.  Same with
Metaphyta with respect to Chlorophyta.  Metazoa and Metaphyta are very
popular names which have long been widely used, so any excess of
popularity that Animalia and Plantae might presently enjoy is not (in my
opinion) as important as precision (the former translate as "higher
animals" and "higher plants", while the latter translate as just
"animals" and "plants").  Plantae is thus probably better regarded as a
synonym of Archaeplastida (which was proposed for the purpose of being
more precise).      
       As for the name Metabacteria not being phylogenetically neutral,
NEITHER are the names Archaebacteria or Archaea.  To be phylogenetically
neutral, one should classify a single Empire/Domain/Kingdom called
Prokaryota (or Bacteria) and not subdivide it into subkingdoms at all at
this time (which would actually be fine with me).   I'd be happy to list
all the prokaryotic phyla and let different people code the
relationships as they see them. However, even Woese himself seems to now
believe that Eubacteria split off first and then the so-called
Archaea/Archaebacteria (which would make the latter names not only
phylogenetically biased, but biased in the wrong way, and thus
misnomers).
          -----Ken Kinman