Velociraptor: Facts about the 'Speedy Thief'

[:eek:]

http://www.livescience.com/23922-velociraptor-facts.html

 

[Midnyte_Sun]

From the article:

"A carnivore, it is believed that the Velociraptor survived on mostly small mammals such as reptiles, amphibians, and other smaller, slower dinosaurs."

Amphibians and Dinosaurs are Reptiles? Reptiles are Mammals?

 

[Quasimod0]

Are dinosaurs not reptiles?..

 

[Doctor Evo]

From the article:

"A carnivore, it is believed that the Velociraptor survived on mostly small mammals such as reptiles, amphibians, and other smaller, slower dinosaurs."

Amphibians and Dinosaurs are Reptiles? Reptiles are Mammals?

When they say, "other smaller, slower dinosaurs," they're speaking relative to velociraptor itself. They also are not saying that amphibians are reptiles. I'm not sure where you're getting that.

They do seem to be implying (or outright stating) that reptiles, amphibians and dinosaurs are mammals, however. I hope that wasn't the intent.

Are dinosaurs not reptiles?..

"Reptiles" is a funny term. It is a term of convenience rather than one of taxonomic accuracy. In fact, taxonomists and phylogeneticists have been considering doing away with Class Reptilia altogether.

There has been a big push lately for revising classification to reflect evolutionary relationships rather than simply morphological similarity. There are many reasons for this change, utility and practicality chief among them. As a result, there's been advocacy for monophyly, where a group includes its common ancestor and all of its descendants. By this token, mammals and birds would belong to the group classically referred to as "reptiles." Reptiles is paraphyletic, not monophyletic, because it excludes birds and mammals.

This is the long way of saying that dinosaurs are only reptiles depending upon your definition of reptiles. Reptiles may be an obsolete term soon enough, so it may be inappropriate to call dinosaurs reptiles at some point.

 

[Spider-Who?]

When they say, "other smaller, slower dinosaurs," they're speaking relative to velociraptor itself. They also are not saying that amphibians are reptiles. I'm not sure where you're getting that.

They do seem to be implying (or outright stating) that reptiles, amphibians and dinosaurs are mammals, however. I hope that wasn't the intent.

Read the sentence again. It says "mostly small mammals such as reptiles, amphibians, and other smaller, slower dinosaurs."

In other words, the author classified reptiles, amphibians, and dinosaurs as "small mammals".

I'm sure the author meant "small animals such as..." but that's a pretty big mistake in any case.

 

[Doctor Evo]

Read the sentence again. It says "mostly small mammals such as reptiles, amphibians, and other smaller, slower dinosaurs."

In other words, the author classified reptiles, amphibians, and dinosaurs as "small mammals".

I'm sure the author meant "small animals such as..." but that's a pretty big mistake in any case.

Right, but where did they say that amphibians are reptiles? I read it just fine.

Read his question again.

They do seem to be implying (or outright stating) that reptiles, amphibians and dinosaurs are mammals, however. I hope that wasn't the intent.

So, how exactly are you correcting me? The only point you made is one with which I explicitly agreed.

 

[squeekness]

Read the sentence again. It says "mostly small mammals such as reptiles, amphibians, and other smaller, slower dinosaurs."

In other words, the author classified reptiles, amphibians, and dinosaurs as "small mammals".

I'm sure the author meant "small animals such as..." but that's a pretty big mistake in any case.

I see it the same way you do. Guess good editing is out of the window these days. It continues to amaze me the grammatical errors I see from well published authors that you'd think they'd have well paid people to catch for them.