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People should really retire the word "reptile". It's not monophyletic, and if you fix it so it is it includes mammals.
by boxed 6y ago
People should really retire the word "reptile". It's not monophyletic, and if you fix it so it is it includes mammals.
- mattbk1 6y agoIt's a shorthand in common parlance, and not every group needs to be monophyletic to be useful.
- boxed 6y agoMaybe. But this one isn't imo. How can it be useful to call snakes, birds, crocodiles and pterosaurs "reptile"? It makes no sense. At least if you exclude avemetatarsalia it says something about scaly skin and stuff, but that's not the common parlance use so in my opinion it's better to just throw the entire word in the bin :)