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I'm thinking it might be a good idea to abandon the Plesiosauroidea/Pliosauroidea split for this template. With the new paper by Benson and Druckenmiller, there are many different phylogenies placing rhomaleosaurids, pliosaurids, leptocleidids, polycotylids, and other traditional pliosaurs in very different positions within Plesiosauria. It might be a better idea to just have a list of families. We could attempt to reflect the different phylogenies in the "Major Clades" section, including Thalassophonea and Xenopsaria, with a lot of question marks of course. Smokeybjb (talk) 14:58, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
I had a different idea: Plesiosauroidea is certainly valid and Pliosauroidea is possibly valid as well.. the main problem is the affinity of the "Leptocleidomorpha" (which positioned either within Xenopsaria or within "Eupliosauria"). So I think we should split it three ways: 1. Plesiosauroidea (.... + ?Leptocleidia) 2. Pliosauroidea (.... + ?Leptocleidia) 3. Leptocleidia (....). Additionally, does Thalassophonea count as "Major Clade"? Other families are quite organized, with the exception of the inner relationships of Cryptoclididae, and the position of Anningasaura + "Plesiosaurus" macrocephalus + Archaeonectrus + Macroplata (monophyletic plesiosaurs vs paraphyletic rhomaleosaurids). Rnnsh (talk) 15:21, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, Thalassophonea shouldn't be a "major" clade because it's within Pliosauridae. I like idea #3 the best; we could have a separate section for Leptocleidia, and we could also include a " • ?Leptocleidia" link under both the Plesiosauroidea and Pliosauroidea sections to show that leptocleidids and polycotylids have been classified both ways. Smokeybjb (talk) 15:30, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
That's what I meant by the numbers (three sections...) ;). Can we use terms like "Eupliosauria" and "Leptocleidomorpha" to include basal taxa? Rnnsh (talk) 15:39, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
Oh I get it now! Sounds like a good idea. Smokeybjb (talk) 16:17, 16 April 2013 (UTC)