Rhynchocephalia

[Marc Jones]

Please use Rhynchocephalia (Günther, 1867) rather than Sphenodontia (Williston, 1925) due to the following reasons (cf. Jones et al. 2009: supplementary information):
1. Rhynchocephalia is 58 years older than Sphenodontia (Günther 1867 vs Williston, 1925).
2. Rhynchocephalia was initially erected to include Sphenodon and its fossil relatives (Günther 1867: 626), whereas Sphenodontia was erected for a less inclusive grouping that didn’t include taxa such as Pleurosaurus (Williston 1925).
3. Rhynchocephalia is a now well-defined group following clarification by Gauthier et al. (1988), and is widely recognised as such amongst palaeontologists, taxonomists, phylogeneticists, and ecologists (e.g., Besson and Cree, 2011; Evans and Jones 2010; Rauhut et al. 2012; Jones et al. 2013; Martínez et al. 2013; Apesteguía et al. 2014).
4. Authors that previously advocated using Sphenodontia (e.g. Wu 1994) have themselves now switched to using Rhynchocephalia (e.g. Wu 2003).

5. Using the group name Sphenodontia for all Rhynchocephalia promotes this false impression that Mesozoic rhynchocephalians were no different to Sphenodon when we know that they were significantly different with respect to their body shape, dentition, skull shape, and likely ecology (e.g. Reynoso 2000; Jones 2008, 2009; Rauhut et al. 2012; Martínez et al. 2013).

6. Using Rhynchocephalia for the name of the order avoids confusion with the less inclusive grouping of Sphenodontinae (Cope 1871) for Sphenodon and Sphenodon-like rhynchocephalians (e.g. Reynoso 1996; Jones et al. 2009).

Also the separation of Sphenodon guntheri from S. punctatus is not supported by nuclear DNA (Hay et al. 2010). Hence, there is only one extant species.


REFERENCES

• Apesteguía S, Gómez RO, Rougier GW. 2014. The youngest South American rhynchocephalian, a survivor of the K/Pg extinction. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 281: 20140811
• Besson AA, Cree A. 2011. Integrating physiology into conservation: an approach to help guide translocations of a rare reptile in a warming environment. Animal Conservation 14: 28-37.
• Cope ED. 1871. On the homologies of some of the cranial bones of the Reptilia, and on the systematic arrangement of the class. Proceedings of the American Association of Advancing Science 19: 194–247.
• Evans SE, Jones MEH. 2010. The origins, early history and diversification of lepidosauromorph reptiles, p. 22-44. In Bandyopadhyay S. (ed.), New Aspects of Mesozoic Biodiversity. Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
• Gauthier JA, Estes R, de Queiroz K. 1988. A phylogenetic analysis of the Lepidosauromorpha. p 15-98. In Estes, R. and Pregill, G. (eds.), Phylogenetic Relationships of the Lizard Families: Essays Commemorating Charles L. Camp. Stanford University Press, Stanford.
• Günther A. 1867. Contribution to the anatomy of Hatteria (Rhynchocephalus, Owen). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 157:1-34.
• Jones MEH. 2008. Skull shape and feeding strategy in Sphenodon and other Rhynchocephalia (Diapsida: Lepidosauria). Journal of Morphology 269: 945–966.
• Jones MEH. 2009. Dentary tooth shape in Sphenodon and its fossil relatives (Diapsida: Lepidosauria: Rhynchocephalia). Frontiers of Oral Biology 13: 9–15.
• Jones MEH, Anderson CL, Hipsley CA, Müller J, Evans SE, Schoch R. 2013. Integration of molecules and new fossils supports a Triassic origin for Lepidosauria (lizards, snakes, and tuatara). BMC Evolutionary Biology 13:208
• Jones MEH, Cree A. 2012. Tuatara. Current Biology 22: 986–987
• Jones MEH, Tennyson AJD, Worthy JP, Evans SE, Worthy TH. 2009. A sphenodontine (Rhynchocephalia) from the Miocene of New Zealand and palaeobiogeography of the tuatara (Sphenodon). Proceedings of the Royal Society B276: 1385–1390
• Hay JM, Sarre SD, Lambert DM, Allendorf FW, Daugherty CH. 2010. Genetic diversity and taxonomy: a reassessment of species designation in tuatara (Sphenodon: Reptilia). Conservation Genetics, 11:1063-1081.
• Martínez RN, Apaldetti C, Colombi CE, Praderio A, Fernandez E, Santi Malnis P, Correa GA, Abelin D, Alcober O. 2013. A new sphenodontian (Lepidosauria: Rhynchocephalia) from the Late Triassic of Argentina and the early origin of the herbivore opisthodontians. Proceedings Royal Society B 280: 20132057
• Rauhut OWM, Heyng AM, López-Arbarello A, Hecker A. 2012. A New Rhynchocephalian from the Late Jurassic of Germany with a dentition that is unique amongst tetrapods. PLoS ONE 7(10): e46839
• Reynoso VH. 1996. A Middle Jurassic Sphenodon-like sphenodontian (Diapsida: Lepidosauria) from Huizachal Canyon, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 16: 210–221.
• Reynoso VH. 2000. An unusual aquatic sphenodontian (Reptilia: Diapsida) from the Tlayua Formation (Albian), central Mexico, Journal of Paleontology, 74:133-148.
• Williston SW. 1925. The osteology of the reptiles. Cambridge, Harvard.
• Wu X-C. 1994 Late Triassic–Early Jurassic sphenodontians from China and the phylogeny of the Sphenodontia. In In the shadow of the dinosaurs (eds N. C. Fraser & H.-D. Sues), pp. 38–69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Wu X-C. 2003 Functional Morphology of the temporal region in the Rhynchocephalia. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 40, 589–607.

 

[Jonathan Rees]

You've sold me. We just picked up the name from NCBI Taxonomy as part of our automatic process.

It may take a while for the change to propagate to the online system.

Tracking the issue here: https://github.com/OpenTreeOfLife/reference-taxonomy/issues/162

Jonathan

[Marc Jones]

Many thanks!

Sorry for the delayed reply. I don't often use gmail
:)

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "Open Tree of Life" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/opentreeoflife/wCP7ervK8YE/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to opentreeoflif...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to opentre...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/opentreeoflife.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Jonathan A Rees]

Fixed in draft taxonomy (not yet on web site).  Tracking at https://github.com/OpenTreeOfLife/feedback/issues/292

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open Tree of Life" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to opentreeoflif...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to opentre...@googlegroups.com.

Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/opentreeoflife.