Talk:Rhinorex

A member of the Kritosaurini?

The original version of the article indicated that Rhinorex was a member of the Kritosaurini. However, this is rejected by the describing authors who state: "Kritosaurus is placed by both Prieto-Márquez (2012) and Godefroit et al. (2012) near the genus Gryposaurus, yet here the analysis placed it as the most basal saurolophine clade". So, in their analyses Kritosaurini sensu Prieto-Márquez ("The most exclusive clade of hadrosaurids containing Kritosaurus navajovius Brown, 1910, Gryposaurus notabilis Lambe, 1914, and Naashoibitosaurus ostromi Hunt & Lucas, 1993") coincides with the Saurolophinae.--MWAK (talk) 06:32, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Going by the usual classification it goes in that group. We could edit the article to say "Gryposaurini (Thought other analysis's have this clade a synonym of Kritosaurini, which would have it in that group.)". Lusotitan (talk) 22:47, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but science progresses. The description of Rhinorex provides new data and as a result of these the usefulness of the concept Kritosaurini has become problematic. So we cannot presume that if the data of Rhinorex were added to e.g. the analysis of Prieto-Márquez a "traditional" Kritosaurini would be recovered. In other words: the "usual classification" has, for the time being, become the out-dated classification. This is not surprising as hadrosaurid phylogeny is in a state of flux.

In any case, we should limit ourselves to what the sources say. There are at present no sources claiming that Rhinorex is a member of the Kritosaurini. There is in fact only one reputable source about Rhinorex as such and that source claims that it is not a member of the Kritosaurini in the usual sense. It is not our place to improve on that, that would be OR. Of course we could could evade this by calling it a member of the Gryposaurini. However, that would be OR too, even though it is partially justified by previous publications calling it a Gryposaurus sp. nov. Why not simply call it a saurolophine which is both true and not contested? --MWAK (talk) 07:03, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Gryposaurini is a subjective synonym of Kritosaurini, so it's automatically a member of both. Say genus A is sunk into genus B, but specimen C & D of A have only ever been mentioned in papers treating it as distinct before they were synonymised. Would C & D be members of Genus B? Of course they would. Lusotitan (talk) 19:12, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

True, but here we are dealing with the opposite: taxa are not sunk but salvaged and sailed far from their traditional location :o). If Kritosaurus is the basalmost saurolophine, the traditional Gryposaurini can no longer be seen as identical to Kritosaurini. If Gryposaurini was never defined as a clade — I can't recall a clade definition, but then I can't recall a great many things :o) — it could be used as an informal indication of the affinities of Rhinorex, given the fact that the new analysis recovers it as the sister species of the Gryposaurus spp. But even then we should abstain from mentioning it in the taxobox or the first defining sentence as this suggests that we can back this up with sources, which we simply can't.--MWAK (talk) 06:50, 23 September 2014 (UTC)