3. Differential splitting/lumping

• “Glamorous” clades tend to be split more than others:

  • Everyone wants to name a new giant Morrison sauropod.
  • Everyone wants to name a new Tyrannosaur.
  • No-one wants to name a new basal ornithopod.

• Examples of over-split big sauropods:

  • “Ultrasauros” (Jensen 1985) is a Supersaurus vertebra and a Brachiosaurus scapula (Curtice et al. 1996)
  • “Seismosaurus” may be Diplodocus (Lucas in prep.)
  • Subgenus “Giraffatitan” (Paul 1988) is not different from Brachiosaurus.

Notes: