Wulf wrote....
>>
>>How would you (professional) guys i) select and ii) code morphological characters? What about the use of quantitative and qualitative characters? When it comes to body scales, are there rules for subdividing the characters (e.g. in Kluge 1993)
>>
>>Character: Ventrals
>>240-252 ; coding 0
>>258-265 ; coding 1
>>270-275 ; coding 2 and so on...
>>
>>I recognized a gap between the numbers of scales for the states.
>>
>>Cheers,
>>Wulf
>>
>>----
>>References:
>>
>>Wiens, J.J. 2000a, In Phylogenetic analysis of morphological data, Smithonian Institution Press, Washington D.C.
>>-----

If you're reading Wiens, that's the state of the art right there. There are lots of ways of coding morphological characters and he's tried most of them.

For a couple of other examples of morphological and combined analyses (shameless self-promotion here), try

Lee, M.S.Y. and J.D. Scanlon. 2002. Snake phylogeny based on osteology, soft anatomy and ecology. Biological Reviews 77(3): 333-402.

Scanlon, J.D., and M.S.Y. Lee. 2004. Phylogeny of Australasian venomous snakes (Colubroidea, Elapidae, Hydrophiinae) based on phenotypic and molecular evidence. Zoologica Scripta 33: 335-366.

The latter paper (not yet posted, but should be up soon on David Williams' site, http://www.kingsnake.com/aho/pdf/pdfmain.html) may be of interest to some (Richard?) for discussion of historical biogeography, including Underwood's idea of Australian elapids descending from 'laticaudines'. Email me for a copy if it's not on the site yet.

Cheers,
-----
John D. Scanlon
Riversleigh Fossil Centre
Outback at Isa
Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia
riversleigh@outbackatisa.com.au

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