HOME | DD

thylobscene In reply to Y-eskii-lass [2007-02-25 00:07:25 +0000 UTC]

It's probably too thin, with the huge sagital crest sinonyx has, it must have had thick neck muscles. The jaw was basically copied from a cast specimen at the University of Michigan, I beleive they left the original in China where it was discovered.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

thylobscene In reply to avancna [2007-02-25 00:03:08 +0000 UTC]

I'm not sure, sinonyx is a type of mesonychid [link] and I've read them as classified as ungulates, but I swear I saw somehwere either online or in a book where they were classified as creodonts becasue they're carnivores but not 'true' carnivores. I think some people put them in with cetaceans becasue (except for those who think hippo like creatures are whale ancestors) they're believed to be the ancestors of whales.

Classification alwasy confuses me, especially now since there's popel trying to skip the Linnean system and classify based solely on genetic similarity. When I was going to college, they were beginning to push for phylogenetic relationships over morphological ones, but now that seems to be the norm, where they make assumptions of what a fossils genetics were.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

avancna In reply to thylobscene [2007-02-25 00:14:45 +0000 UTC]

Oh, it's a mesonychid?
I doubt that they're be able to do away with the Linnean system yet. Plus, I thought that the proposed system was to do away with "ranks."

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

thylobscene In reply to avancna [2007-02-25 01:37:09 +0000 UTC]

Sinonyx is definately a mesonychid, based on the teeth and feet. It was discovered in the late 90's and put on display in 1997 or 1998, they have it in a display about whale evolution in Ann Arbor.

Not sure about what the status of classification systems is, I only read it in the public sources (It was either Discovery or some British equivelent, I read the magazine waiting for a train in the UK last year) I guess that since they're finding out through fossils and genetics that a lot of animals don't fit inot the Linnean system some want to do away with it, but the problem was it's too difficult becasue they'd have to scrap everything and start from scratch. Those don't tend to go into too much detail, I believe they would do away with just part based on the difficulty of revising everything that lives now or has ever lived. I think the problem arose when they found a ton of feathered dinosaurs in Laioning and confused the bird category, I've seen now that some people actually say birds are technically reptiles (?)

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

avancna In reply to thylobscene [2007-02-25 02:30:17 +0000 UTC]

Right!
I read that issue of Discovery, too.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

thylobscene In reply to hankinstein [2007-02-25 00:09:11 +0000 UTC]

I might try to do a full version or something, have to wait until summer when I have more free time. I was surprised to find this species discovered by a guy who worked in the state I grew up in, this is based off a cast at University of Michigan, at the museum that was the first one I went to as a kid.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0