Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Harold De Lisle wrote: "I am working on the etymology of varanid names. Since you are the author of Varanus keithornei [sic], could you give me a one liner on Keith Horne? Dates, connestion to herpetology, ot to you?"

Keith Horne was born in Sydney, Australia on July 12, 1946. He was for many years one of the most respected keepers of captive reptiles in New South Wales, and has always been a keen naturalist and conservationist. He has no formal academic qualifications, no publishing record and no career to speak of - by his own choice. Much of his early employment years were with the NSW Government Public Service, but this was discontinued when he saved enough money to retire early and concentrate on reading and studying all aspects of natural history. On occasion he came out of retirement to work for the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service Scientific Services Unit in the provision of expert herpetological advice and field assistance on reptile surveys. In the 1960s to 1980s he was considered by experienced herpetologists in Australia to be also one of the most dedicated and talented breeders of captive reptiles, holding longevity records for a number of "difficult" species such as Tropidechis carinatus. Following the implementation of reptile licensing in 1974 he continued to keep his small captive reptile collection that he had obtained during the unregulated years, and attempted to obtain a reptile keeping license without success. In the 1980s his collection was seized by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service upon the discovery that he had never held a keeping permit! After he lost his collection, he effectively abandoned any active interest in herpetology, moved from his home in New South Wales to Cairns in far north Queensland, and took up Futures trading in the Stock Market full-time. Despite this change of life style, he was one of the late Charles Tanner's most trusted friends in herpetology and Keith spent many occasions caring for Charles' reptile collection at Cooktown, when he was away on field work. Keith Horne currently resides in Toowoomba in southern Queensland, collects antiquarian books, and is still involved with his Shares portfolio and Futures trading. Although he still has a strong interest in all branches of natural history, his "earlier brush with the System killed his interest in keeping reptiles" as he puts it. On a personal note, I should say that Keith is, as I have found, a quietly spoken and dedicated naturalist, ever-ready to share knowledge and skill in all matters herpetological. He is also a brilliant mathematician, whose only short-coming is that he calculates the future of humanity as virtually zero!

Richard Wells

Thanks much, Richard. I did not really expect a full
biography)

Harold

P.S. I hope someone there will soon get to work on the V. gouldii complex and sort them all out.

Hi Harold,

That the gouldii complex is still unresolved taxonomically is merely another testament to the pathetic state of Australian herpetology in my humble opinion. And I include here the rosenbergi and the panoptes assemblages in the gouldii complex for convenience sake. The only worker that seemed to have any idea at all was the late Robert Mertens and he just scratched the surface of the problem. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that the members of this complex are too poorly differentiated from one another morphologically to be formally recognized as distinctive biological species in their own right - because they are not. I have observed them all over Australia and once you get enough field experience with them in the flesh so to speak, their differences become obvious. A couple of the wider-ranging species do include a degree of variation in colour and patterning, but it's no big deal - other than the fact that both are currently incorrectly assumed to be either V. gouldii or V. panoptes! Most however are very distinct morphologically and I am at a total loss to explain why the so-called experts here have the groups' taxonomy still unresolved. If one can go beyond the sickening extent of taxonomic conservatism in this country we might have a glimmer of hope, but I'm not optimistic at all. But just say that SOMEONE had the guts to allow taxonomic objectivity to be placed ahead of upsetting sacred cows, AND the RESOURCES to to take on the resolution of the taxonomy of the complex, then maybe, just maybe, it could be finally resolved. One key to the problem lies in the collection of sufficient material across the range of all the members of the complex. This is an urgent task. The existing museum collections are inadequate for the most part - other than the Types of course - and even these are of dubious value. As the problem is effectively a continental one, it really demands a concerted, collaborative effort across a number of States to collect such material as would be necessary to effectively analyse the problem. And of course herein lies more problems...petty State parochialism, draconian environmentmental laws, and generally a lack of herpetologists with the ability and committment necessary to tackle the task. Add to this the appalling destruction of habitat here and one is left with the disturbing thought that the problem of their taxonomic status will likely be resolved by paleontologists as the still unnamed taxa will likely become extinct before they are formally recognized. If another person tells me that V. gouldii, V. rosenbergi or V. panoptes are each just a single species I'll vomit. Good luck with "Varanus" gouldii Harold, but don't hold your breath for any significant changes to occur in the near future. Someone could do a "Wells and Wellington" I suppose...but I'm afraid you can count me out...one crucifixion per life-time is more than enough.

Richard Wells

Hi Richard,

I understand fully the problems both politically and practically involved in resolving the gouldii/rosenbergi/panoptes species problems. If you just look at the dot maps provided by Pianka and King, one can see that many of the museum specimens are mislabeled. We have a similar situation here in California. The conservative eastern establishment refuses to admit that we have many unrecognized species here resulting from our highly varied topography/climate and geological history. Only those of us who have studied herps here for many years see the differences. But one researcher, who specializes in salamanders and has all the political pull, has certainly done so with the genus Batrachoseps.

I know you and Wellington were "crucified" when you took on the established order. But from what I hear now, decades later, you have pretty much been justified. Just look at V. keithornei. Cogger may still not recognize it, but everybody in varanid studies does. That should make you feel better.

Since everybody there seems to recognize the need to thoroughly review Australian monitors, hopefully someone will come along with the guts to do it. And I do hope Smith will hurry up on his scalaris revision. That will also be a big help to those of us studying the natural history of monitors.

Harold DeLisle

"We have a similar situation here in California. The conservative eastern establishment refuses to admit that we have
many unrecognized species here resulting from our highly varied topography/climate and geological history."

Me:
What conservative eastern establishment? Many of those cladists in the American Museum of Natural History in New York are anything but "conservative." In fact, many of the so-called "unrecognized species" here in California are recognized on the basis of a new species concept, the so-called "evolutionary species concept," promulgated by cladistic herpetologists from the east.

Some of the Californian "species" such as "Ambystoma californiense", is actually a subspecies of Ambystoma tigrinum. Morphologically it is close to the A. t. mavortium-tigrinum-velasci complex. Its mating behavior is indistinguishable from that of A. t. tigrinum according to S. Arnold, who studied them both. Introduced tiger salamanders from the east interbreed freely with those in Monterey County, Calif., according to R. Stebbins' latest field guide. I think those cladists in the east who promulgated the so-called "evolutionary species concept" would approve the recognition of californiense as a distinct species from A. tigrinum.

Other so called species in California are little more than slightly different but disjunct populations with close, probably conspecific relatives to the east. Many cladists will have little problem recognizing disjunct populations as different species, and these cladists are scattered all across the country. It may be true that many of the vocal opponents of cladism are from the eastern part of the country, but there is no shortage of hard line cladists from the east.

Cking wrote:

In fact, many of the so-called "unrecognized species" here in California are recognized on the basis of a new species concept, the so-called "evolutionary species concept," promulgated by cladistic herpetologists from the east.

Me: New species concept? You are kidding, right? Ever hear of George Gaylord Simpson? Ever read his work (not heard of it but actually READ it)? Was he a cladist? Heck, was he a herpetologist? You can look up the answer to that last question.

Once again you have over stepped your bounds (like saying cladists misunderstand evolution) of knowledge which has led you to wrongly disparage scientists you know nothing about.

Cheers,
BIC

Yes I have heard of George Gaylord Simpson and his evolutionary species concept.

But the Evolutionary Species Concept of Simpson bears little resemblance to Frost and Hillis' (1990) species concept of the same name. The same is true of monophyly. The cladists have the unfortunate habit of hijacking an existing term and changeing its meaning. The cladists hijacked the name monophyletic and altered its definition beyond recognition. In fact Peter Ashlock attempted to right this wrong by renaming the cladist's concept holophyletic. Frost and Hillis' "ESC" is actually more like Hennig's "Phylogenetic Species Concept" in operation than Simpson’s real stuff. Hennig's PSC asserts that a new species has evolved if a population differs from its parental species by as little as a single character. Operationally, adherents to Frost and Hillis' "ESC" have attempted to name new taxa on the basis of a single character difference. For example, in J.T. Collins' ill fated attempt to name new species using Frost and Hillis' "ESC", Collins elevated two subspecies of Tantilla rubra to species status on the basis of the absence of the "distinctive nuchal collar ... (cucullata)" or the prsence of a complete nuchal collar (diabola), as van Devender and Lowe (1992, Herpetol. Rev.) pointed out.

Simpson would not recognize such slightly distinct populations as "evolutionary species." Simpson was more interested in "delimiting species taxa in the time dimension" with his ESC (Mayr 1997, This is Biology). So, don't be fooled by snake oil. Frost and Hillis' "ESC" is not the genuine stuff; it is snake oil. Those who claim that Frost and Hillis' "ESC" is the same as George Gaylord Simpson's Evolutionary Species Concept are promulgating snake oil.

Cking wrote (among other things):

"So, don't be fooled by snake oil."

Me: Ha! Ha! I will admit you crack me up. You are a clsssic example of "a little bit of knowledge is dangerous".

Anyway, E. O. Wiley modified Simpson's species concept but I am sure Frost and Hillis would be flattered by the accolades.

Simpson wrote, " an evolutionary species is a lineage (an ancestral-descendant sequence of populations) evolving separately from others and with its own unitary evolutionary role and tendencies."

Wiley wrote, "a species is a single lineage of ancestral descendant sequence of populations of organisms which maintains its identity from other such lineages and which has its own unitary evolutionary tendencies and historical fate." (Systematic Zoology 1978 27:17-26)

Now that my friend is what Frost and Hillis embraced. So how different are those two concepts? Not very, eh? I think you have been buying too much snake oil and have been trying to resell it to unwary customers. That is not very nice.

If you are interested in learning about the connection between the evolutionary species concept and the phylogenetic species concept I recommend you read Frost and Kluge, Cladistics 1994, 10:259-294. I know that is probably not your favorite journal (given your apparent repulsion to all things cladistic) but like the David Hull book I recommended (which R. wells so kindly supplied the reference to) you may find flaws in the reasoning that support your contentions or maybe, you may learn something positive about the concepts.

Cheers,

BIC

BIC wrote:
Now that [Wiley's definition of the ESC] my friend is what Frost and Hillis embraced. So how different are those two concepts?

Me:
According to Frost and Hillis, there are many differences between Simpson's ESC and Frost and Hillis' "ESC." Frost and Hillis wrote:

"Although the views of Simpson and Wiley could be construed as identical, as evidenced by their species definitions, in fact their concepts are considerably different. Simpson believed that the recognition of polytypic species followed logically from his definition; Wiley did not. Simpson did not believe that statements about species were logically reducible to statements about the recovered historical relationships of the constituent populations of polytypic species; Wiley did. That is, Wiley would apply his evolutionary species concept only in ways that are consistent with recovered historical relationships; Simpson would not. Simpson believed that his lineage concept, because of its continuity, required that arbitrary “chronospecies” be recognized; Wiley did not, arguing instead, like Hennig (1966), that species are delimited from speciation to speciation. At least for biparentals, one is hard pressed to find any difference of substance in terms of application between Simpson’s (1961) concept of species and the biological species concept of Mayr (1942, 1969)."

Therefore your claim has been directly contradicted by Frost and Hillis. As I said, Frost and Hillis' "ESC" is not the same as Simpson's "ESC" and I also said that those who claim they are the same are promulgating snake oil.

Even a little knowledge can be "dangerous" to the snake oil salesman. The cladists are preying upon the ignorance of most biologists, who are not "...steeped in the arcane theories and esoteric practices of systematic biology," as J. D. Lazell (1992 Herpetol. Rev.) so nicely put it. By redefining old familiar concepts (such as monophyletic) and giving them new meanings, the cladists are attempting to fool most biologists into believing that the cladists are disqualifying polyphyletic groups when they claim that the groups they are disqualifying are not "monophyletic." In reality, many of the groups the cladists disqualify from classification are in fact monophyletic sensu Darwin, Simpson, Mayr, and Haeckel, but are paraphyletic sensu Hennig and his followers. If the cladists want to continue wreaking havoc with biological classification, they better come up with a scientifically tenable explanation for their actions.

BIC professes to be a knowledgeable person, and I am sure he is. If so, perhaps BIC can inform those who are less knowledgeable as to why paraphyletic taxa, which is of course the "inevitable result of the process of evolution" (according to R.L. Carroll) should be disqualified, since biological classification is supposed to conform to the set of historical facts known as evolution. How can one be conforming to the facts of evolution and yet at the same time not recognize groups that are the inevitable result of the process of evolution? How can one claim to understand evolution and yet classify organisms in a way that totally ignores evolution, as many cladists do without hesitation?

I have a question for CKing pertaining to his questions about paraphyletic taxa.
To which taxonomic levels are you refering? The reason I ask is I think quite a few phylogenetic systematists (cladists, or Hennigians, etc.), myself included realize that speciation by peripheral isolation does result in "paraphyletic species", and this is inevitable and sometimes difficult to deal with (but species in general difficult to deal with). But does the inevitable need for paraphyly show up at higher taxonomic levels? As far as I can tell the answer is "no". I imagine you have answered this somewhere on this forum. I have not kept up with your posts because, well I have a lot of work to do. But if you want feel free to direct me to another post if you have already answered this.

Cheers,
Eric

Ouch! I got censored unless I screwed up my submission several days ago. Anyway, I will try again and tiptoe around sensitive issues. If I did overstep my bounds I apologize.

Cking wrote:

"According to Frost and Hillis, there are many differences between Simpson's ESC and Frost and Hillis' "ESC." Frost and Hillis wrote:

"Although the views of Simpson and Wiley could be construed as identical, as evidenced by their species definitions, in fact their concepts are considerably different. Simpson believed that the recognition of polytypic species followed logically from his definition; Wiley did not. Simpson did not believe that statements about species were logically reducible to statements about the recovered historical relationships of the constituent populations of polytypic species; Wiley did. That is, Wiley would apply his evolutionary species concept only in ways that are consistent with recovered historical relationships; Simpson would not. Simpson believed that his lineage concept, because of its continuity, required that arbitrary “chronospecies” be recognized; Wiley did not, arguing instead, like Hennig (1966), that species are delimited from speciation to speciation. At least for biparentals, one is hard pressed to find any difference of substance in terms of application between Simpson’s (1961) concept of species and the biological species concept of Mayr (1942, 1969)."

Me: Congratulations! You passed the test. Glad to see that you do read some of this stuff. But why would you if you don't have to? Man it can be boring.

Cking wrote:
"Therefore your claim has been directly contradicted by Frost and Hillis. As I said, Frost and Hillis' "ESC" is not the same as Simpson's "ESC" and I also said that those who claim they are the same are promulgating snake oil. "

Me: My claim was purposely made. I wanted to see what you knew.

Cking wrote:
"Even a little knowledge can be "dangerous" to the snake oil salesman. The cladists are preying upon the ignorance of most biologists, who are not "...steeped in the arcane theories and esoteric practices of systematic biology," as J. D. Lazell (1992 Herpetol. Rev.) so nicely put it. By redefining old familiar concepts (such as monophyletic) and giving them new meanings, the cladists are attempting to fool most biologists into believing that the cladists are disqualifying polyphyletic groups when they claim that the groups they are disqualifying are not "monophyletic." In reality, many of the groups the cladists disqualify from classification are in fact monophyletic sensu Darwin, Simpson, Mayr, and Haeckel, but are paraphyletic sensu Hennig and his followers. If the cladists want to continue wreaking havoc with biological classification, they better come up with a scientifically tenable explanation for their actions. "

Me: I have to respond to this by asking a larger question, how does science progress, meaning when do we think we know we know something? By constant subjection to peer review and refutation. Have 99% of the practicing systematicists and phylogeneticists (and other comparative biologists) been misled? Might have All of these extremely bright independent thinkers been following a pied piper? The answer is safely no. It makes no sense to trust science to provide new knowledge in say physics, or physiology, but not evolutionary biology. The process is the same regardless of the discipline. As such, it is really a shame that views like yours (phylogeneticists are snake oil salesman) are out there.

Cking wrote:
"BIC professes to be a knowledgeable person, and I am sure he is. If so, perhaps BIC can inform those who are less knowledgeable as to why paraphyletic taxa, which is of course the "inevitable result of the process of evolution" (according to R.L. Carroll) should be disqualified, since biological classification is supposed to conform to the set of historical facts known as evolution. How can one be conforming to the facts of evolution and yet at the same time not recognize groups that are the inevitable result of the process of evolution? How can one claim to understand evolution and yet classify organisms in a way that totally ignores evolution, as many cladists do without hesitation?"

Me: Thanks for the compliment. The other reply by Emoneill to your post will cover an aspect I can leave alone. Instead, I want to repsond by looking at paraphyletic groups in classification. Why all the hubbub anyway? If classifications are are information storage and retrieval systems, then we have to ask, what kind of information do we want to store and retrieve? Overall similarity? Amount of change? Phylogenetic relationships? It turned out that the most informative kind of information, and the easiest to store and retrieve, is the latter, the phylogenetic relationships. As such, only groups that contain all the descendants of a common ancestor are named. For example, if we want to retrieve the evolutionary relationships of reptiles, is it informative to exclude birds? I would argue no because then we lose information about the evolutionary history of that group. If we did exclude birds, we would be embracing a paraphyletic group, which is not natural in the sense that the evolutionary history is not correct, it is missing a piece of the history. Would it make sense to describe the history of the United States but leave out the Louisiana Purchase? No.

I hope some of what I wrote is useful to some readers of this forum.

Cheers,
BIC

Clearly and thus resultingly in an exponential rational deserving an automatic response was obviously tremendously accepted generally by the mass of the scientific which previously regarded only factual results of the potential information. Therefore I agree sir with you!

>>Clearly and thus resultingly in an exponential rational deserving an automatic response was obviously tremendously accepted generally by the mass of the scientific which previously regarded only factual results of the potential information. Therefore I agree sir with you!

I am not sure what you are agreeing with. It looks like your message was generated by a computer program that randomly rearranges words. Your message appears incoherent and nonsensical.

Hi Harold,

It is interesting that you raise the situation relating to continental-wide opinions in herp systematics (the old East vs West), for we have had at times exactly the same problem here in Australia. In our case the conservative eastern Staters (where I am located) for the most part were highly dismissive of the taxonomic work of herpetologists in Western Australia. Indeed, I was on occasion in the same room as Cogger and other Australian Museum staff when word of the taxonomic changes by the late Glenn Storr would arrive and I just couldn't believe my ears! Until I met Glenn Storr in the flesh in 1981, I had been raised on a poisonous diet of unfair criticism, invectitude and ridicule, by some who I now realise knew far less about Western herps than was generally supposed. I had actually read everything that Storr had written by the time I visited him in Western Australia in 1981, and quite frankly, the only paper of his that I had any problems with was his Revision of Ctenotus in South Australia. To be brutally honest I actually couldn't wait to read his papers, but I knew that it wasn't real smart to brag about it in the genteel world of Eastern herp polity. But...When I finally met him I knew instantly that Storr was, as I had long suspected, Australia's greatest herp taxonomist. One of my greatest regrets was that I didn't move to Western Australia in the 1970s instead of Darwin, because as I was primarily interested in ecology (and still am), my excess desire for field work would have borne far sweeter fruit had I funnelled material to Storr in Perth. In my opinion Cogger and Storr should have co-authored Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia back in 1975. Not only would that landmark book have been much more accurate and useful, it would have provided a massive stimulation to a number of talented herpetologists in Western Australia to look at material from a broader intellectual perspective. Instead the "all roads lead to Rome" (I mean the Australian Museum) attitude prevailed, and this was a big mistake I think, because it really had the effect of isolating some of the most talented herpetologists in the country - even to the extent of perpetuating two different taxonomies for some groups. I know that some at both the Western Australian Museum and the Australian Museum had axes to grind which made collaboration difficult, I should say that from what I have seen, both institutions have demonstrated time and again abilities, skills and talents that are deserving of high praise. And I suspect the same would be true in the USA. What a pity, this awful tyranny of distance.
On resolution of the scalaris complex, yes I couldn't agree more - I hope it's resolved before the next asteroid impact.
While I have no authoritative opinion in Californian herpetology, it may interest you to know that I have a massive library on that State - in particular its herpetofauna. One of my most treasured books is Stebbins' Amphibians and Reptiles of Western North America. Indeed many years ago I seriously wanted to undertake a science degree at the UCLA, but I spent my savings on field work in the tropics instead...Oh well, you can't have it all Harold...

Regards

Richard Wells

Although I pointed out that some of the most vocal critics of cladism are professionals who are based in scientific institutions in the eastern US, there are some effective work done on the west coast which have dealt sever blows to cladistic dogma. One of the most strongly held cladistic dogma is that birds are descendants of a bird-like, advanced theropod. John Ruben and his students up in Oregon State (yes, Oregon is on the West Coast of the United States) have done some terrific research which refuted the claims of warm-blooded (endothermic) dinosaurs. They have also shown that a baby theropod (Scipionyx) had a hepatic piston breathing system, but not the air sacs of birds, dealing a severe blow to the "birds are dinosaurs" dogmatists, since it is impossible to derive the air sac system from the hepatic piston system, given the fact that the intermediate animal would have a life threatening hernia or hole in its diaphragm. Birds, it would appear, could not have evolved from a theropod based on this fact alone.

Nevertheless, the cladists march on, oblivious to the accumulating evidence that their theory of the theropod origin of birds has been refuted. Then in 2000, one of Ruben's students published a startling discovery in the journal Science along with a long list of scientists. The fossil Longisquama was brought to the US from Russia for an exhibition for the first time, after the end of the cold war. With scientific equipment not available to most Russian scientists, Longisquama, a lizard-like creature found originally in Central Asia by an entomologist, was found to have feathers on its back. And the feathers share so many unmistakable anatomical and developmental details with bird feathers that it shocked the cladists, who scrambled to come up with all sorts of weird and scientifically untenable explanations to deny an obviously close relationship between Longisquama and birds. Even those cladists who are not actively doing research on the question of bird origin felt compelled to voice their opposition to the newly discovered evidence that birds are not descended from a two-legged theropod dinosaur, but from a small, 4-legged archosaurian reptile which has not evolved into a dinosaur. This discovery shows that cladistic analysis is flawed because time and again cladists have come up with the same erroneous answer that birds are descendants of an advanced theropod dinosaur when they are obviously not to anyone who is reasonable and rational.

So, don't be misled by the claim that there is some sort of east-west rivalry, with the eastern "establishment" thumping its nose at western scientists. The rivalry is between cladists and the Darwinians, and there are no shortage of either school of scientists on both sides of the Mississippi River.

Do you mind providing citations for these. Ruben has an extensive CV with several papers that appear relavent, but I only have so much time.

Thanks.

CKing wrote:
>>...One of the most strongly held cladistic dogma is that birds are descendants of a bird-like, advanced theropod. John Ruben and his students ... have also shown that a baby theropod (Scipionyx) had a hepatic piston breathing system, but not the air sacs of birds, dealing a severe blow to the "birds are dinosaurs" dogmatists, since it is impossible to derive the air sac system from the hepatic piston system, given the fact that the intermediate animal would have a life threatening hernia or hole in its diaphragm. Birds, it would appear, could not have evolved from a theropod based on this fact alone.
>>

Me:
IF all the premisses are admitted, the conclusion is still fallacious. This argument could, at most, only show that birds were not descended from Scipionyx. CKing's argument, at least, does not even need refutation. (I haven't read all of Ruben yet, but there are, for example, numerous modern exceptions to the correlation of nasal turbinates and endothermy; e.g., Seymour et al's paper in the year-end issue of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology)

CKing:
>>Nevertheless, the cladists march on, oblivious to the accumulating evidence that their theory of the theropod origin of birds has been refuted. Then in 2000, one of Ruben's students published a startling discovery in the journal Science along with a long list of scientists. The fossil Longisquama was brought to the US from Russia for an exhibition for the first time, after the end of the cold war. With scientific equipment not available to most Russian scientists, Longisquama, a lizard-like creature found originally in Central Asia by an entomologist, was found to have feathers on its back. And the feathers share so many unmistakable anatomical and developmental details with bird feathers that it shocked the cladists, who scrambled to come up with all sorts of weird and scientifically untenable explanations to deny an obviously close relationship between Longisquama and birds. Even those cladists who are not actively doing research on the question of bird origin felt compelled to voice their opposition to the newly discovered evidence that birds are not descended from a two-legged theropod dinosaur, but from a small, 4-legged archosaurian reptile which has not evolved into a dinosaur. This discovery shows that cladistic analysis is flawed because time and again cladists have come up with the same erroneous answer that birds are descendants of an advanced theropod dinosaur when they are obviously not to anyone who is reasonable and rational.
>>

Me: reasonable and rational??? 'Fraid not, mate.
In palaeontology, we can get quite a lot of information on relationships from the skeleton of well-preserved fossil vertebrates; and this information has always supported descent of dinosaurs from birds (there was a period starting with Heilmann 1923, when most of the synapomorphy was attributed to convergence based on the supposed lack of furcula in dinsaurs, now known to be both illogical and factually wrong).
Arguments based on feathers, developmental dogma relating to homology of digits etc. have been regarded as conclusive refutations of the skeletal evidence, but not by anybody who actually performs any kind of analysis of the data, beyond hand-waving [if you don't accept that cladistic analysis is the best way to retrieve phylogenetic pattern, you'll have to retract everything you've said about DNA sequences and Mike Lee's varanoid work].
And IF Longisquama has feathers homologous to those of birds, it does not show that Longisquama is ancestral, but that feathers originated before dinosaurs; of course this is fully consistent with birds descending from theropods. CKIng seems to have totally missed the flight feathers (on arms, legs and tail) of the dromaeosaur Microraptor gui (Xu et al. 2003, Nature 421: 335-340) which actually make Longisquama irrelevant to bird ancestry (but still interesting for the evolution of feathers, which is a totally different question).
So, dromaeosaurs (Velociraptor and friends) had feathers on their hands, and small ones could at least glide (Xu et al.). Then, SO WHAT if Longisquama had a row of feathers down the middle of its back? - by position, they cannot be homologous to bird FLIGHT feathers, while those in Microraptor apparently are. And, oh yes, that just happens to coincide with what the skeletal evidence says: birds are theropods.

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

I wrote...
>>In palaeontology, we can get quite a lot of information on relationships from the skeleton of well-preserved fossil vertebrates; and this information has always supported descent of dinosaurs from birds ...

Sorry, obviously I meant to say 'birds from dinosaurs' (T.H. Huxley, a long time ago)

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