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 2212 taxa. Larger taxon numbers minimize taxon exclusion issues. Results indicate the simple act of adding taxa resolves all phylogenetic issues.分类群排除（taxon exclusion）是当前困扰古生物学界的首要难题。针对翼龙、龟类、蝙蝠、蛇类、鲸类、爬行类及四足类（tetrapod）祖先的搜寻工作，仍在无谓地令古生物学者陷入困惑——这些学者仍基于精心筛选的教科书式传统分类群列表开展研究，却忽略乃至遗漏了诸多相关分类群。这正是大型爬行类树（large reptile tree, LRT）——作为www.ReptileEvolution.com核心的近乎完全解析的支序图（cladogram）——纳入2212个分类群的缘由。更大的分类群采样量可最大限度缓解分类群排除问题带来的负面影响。研究结果显示，仅通过增添分类群这一简单操作，便可解决所有系统发育相关的难题。