[Taxacom] Arthropods and idiots!

[Kenneth Kinman]

Hi Stephen,
       Just as strict cladists of vertebrate paleontology have destabilized vertebrate classification, strict cladists of arthropod paleontology seem to be doing the same to arthropod classification.
       HOWEVER, with arthropods it will likely be much worse if (as I have long believed) their cladistic analyses are very badly misrooted.  At least vertebrate trees are generally well rooted with appropriate outgroups.  If onychophorans, tardigrades, and other ecydysozoans are actually ingroups (and are merely dearthropodized), using them as outgroups has been misleading researchers for many decades.   You can read my postings on that subject (here on Taxacom) back in 2010:
                   http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom/2010-February/068191.html

                 ------------------Ken

________________________________
From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> on behalf of Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2018 9:39 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] Arthropods and idiots!

Firmly in the category of pointless name changes, must be Euarthropoda for Arthropoda, which seems to be catching on, and has been recently adopted by Wikipedia! It all seems to be the result of one paper:

Ortega©\Hern¨¢ndez, J. 2014 (online) 2016 (print): Making sense of ¡®lower¡¯ and ¡®upper¡¯ stem©\group Euarthropoda, with comments on the strict use of the name Arthropoda von Siebold, 1848. Biological reviews, 91(1): 255-273. https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12168

Needless to say that there are no formal rules which govern the appropriateness or otherwise of names at this level, and, in the case of Arthropoda, universal usage for hundreds of years should be the main consideration!

Big sigh!

Stephen
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