Talk:Titanosaur

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Titanosaur is included in the 2007 Wikipedia for Schools, or is a candidate for inclusion in future versions. Please maintain high quality standards, and make an extra effort to include free images, because non-free images cannot be used on the CDs.

Heh, I can see "Jurrasic Park 4: Titanosaur eats the Spinosaurs" in the making.--Lucky13pjn 15:12, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Titanosauridae and coordnate families

The text under classification includes: [Titanosauria is named after the poorly known genus "Titanosaurus", which was coined by Lydekker in 1877 on the basis of a partial femur and two incomplete caudal vertebrae. Fourteen species have since been referred to "Titanosaurus", which distribute the genus across Argentina, Europe, Madagascar, India and Laos, and throughout 60 million years of the Cretaceous. Despite its centrality to titanosaur systematics and biogeography, the genus "Titanosaurus" has never been revised. A re-evaluation of all "Titanosaurus" species recognises as diagnostic only .ve. The type species T. indicus is invalid because it is based on 'obsolescent' characters - once diagnostic features that have gained abroader taxonomic distributionover time. Consequently, the genus "Titanosaurus" and its co-ordinated rank-taxa (e.g. Titanosaurinae, Titanosauridae, Titanosauroidea) must be abandoned. source* DinoData [2]]

Under ICZN rules, this does not follow. Just bcause a name is invalid does not mean its coordinate family names are abandoned. See Caenagnathidae, which is retained even though Caenagnathus is a junior synonym of Chirostenotes. See also other major taxa named for nomen dubia, including Hadrosauridae, Ceratopsidae, etc. A similar situation also exist in the "conroversy" between Megalosauroidea and Spinosauroidea, which is not a controversy at all (even though Megalosaurus may or may not be a nomen dubium, ICZN rules clearly state Megalosauroidea retains priority).

I'm gonig to adjust this page to use the most recent definitions of the coordinate "Titanosaurus" ranks listed on Sereno's Taxon Search site, and if there is no disagrement, we can start adjusting the family names and such on individual taxon pages accordingly. If anyone has issues with this please let me know.Dinoguy2 17:07, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Well it's not a huge issue for me, because the South Americans still use Titanosauridae as far as I know, but it takes them longer to get published so who knows what they are using currently (assuming they all would use the same terms in the first place, which I am sure is not true). But most North American and European workers have now abandoned it (including Wilson and Upchurch, who disagree on a lot of things but agree on this, as well as Sereno whose TaxonSearch you are using, for that matter). ICZN rules do not forbid taxa to be abandoned because of dubious founding members, so sauropod workers seem to be moving in that direction at this time. On the other hand, ceratopsian and hadrosaur workers clearly are not. Different strokes for different folks. I don't think it is our place to be making decisions about which names are correct, just to report the names scientists actually use. But it could still go either way at this point so I am fine with leaving it as you have set it up at least until the consensus goes one way or the other. Sheep81 02:31, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the best thing to do would be to just adopt one current source for the taxonomy. I think Curry Rogers (2005) is a good choice, since it's from last year and included a large number of taxa. However I'm a bit short on titanosaur papers at the moment, so until I hunt this one down, somebody else is going to have to fill me in on the details before I can contribute much :)Dinoguy2 12:44, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like a plan, if you want to pick one to go with for the taxoboxes, and we can list any discrepancies here or the individual taxon pages. Curry Rogers (2005)... is that the one from the new sauropod book? If so I will have it for you next week if you want it. There is also Upchurch et al., 2004 and whatever Jeff Wilson's latest paper is (I think it would still be 2002 for his full phylogeny, although he published a great paper on nemegtosaurids in 2005). Jaime Powell published a titanosaur phylogeny in 2003 as well, which I am in the process of getting my hands on. Sheep81 15:58, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, which phylogeny is used in Dinosauria 2? (another book I need to start saving up for...)Dinoguy2 17:00, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Upchurch wrote the sauropod chapter for The Dinosauria, although his current phylogeny (unpublished) looks more like Wilson's and Curry Rogers', with the nemegtosaurids as titanosaurs (they are diplodocoids in The Dinosauria). Because of publishing delays, all the chapters are a few years out of date... not as bad as The Dinosauria I though, where some of the chapters had been written in 1985. Sheep81 09:54, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Paralititan

I have just noticed that Paralititan is not listed in the Taxonomy section of this article. Is there a good reason for this? - Ballista 06:45, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and also Argentinosaurus, why? --Dropzink 21:15, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Taxonomy

There is some discrepancies between the taxonomy in the Titanosaur article and the one in the Macronaria article. Could somebody look into it and make sure that there is consistency when we navigate from one page to another? That will be useful, I think. ArthurWeasley 18:20, 3 November 2006 (UTC)