The ReptileEvolution.com Project

Taxon exclusion is the number one problem currently vexing paleontology. The search for pterosaur, turtle, bat, snake, whale, reptile and tetrapod ancestors continues to unnecessarily befuddle paleontologists who continue to work from cherry-picked, textbook and traditional taxon lists that overlook and omit pertinent taxa. That’s why the large reptile tree (LRT), the nearly completely resolved cladogram at the heart of www.ReptileEvolution.com, includes 2186 taxa. Larger taxon numbers minimize taxon exclusion issues. Results indicate the simple act of adding taxa resolves all phylogenetic issues.

分类群（taxon）排除是当前困扰古生物学界的首要难题。针对翼龙、乌龟、蝙蝠、蛇类、鲸类、爬行动物以及四足动物（tetrapod）的祖先搜寻工作，仍在徒增古生物学者的困惑——这些学者仍沿用经过刻意筛选的教科书与传统分类群名录开展研究，而此类名录往往忽视并遗漏了相关分类群。正因如此，作为www.ReptileEvolution.com核心内容的大型爬行动物树（Large Reptile Tree, LRT）——一幅近乎完全解析的支序图（cladogram），共纳入2186个分类群。更大的分类群样本量可最大限度降低分类群排除带来的问题。研究结果表明，仅通过增加分类群这一简单操作，即可解决所有系统发育（phylogenetic）相关的问题。