Talk:Cheirotherium

This page makes no sense. It claims that these footprints are of a labyrinthodont (an early amphibian) but then says that it was related to the ancestors of the sauropods (long-necked dinosaurs). Why an archaic amphibian should be somehow more closely related to the ancestors of the sauropods than to any other early reptilian groups eludes me. Further, it then goes on to suggest that the "thumb" was common in - and I emphasize - "other archosaurs," when in fact labyrinthodonts are much more primitive than any archosaur (being part of a different clade altogether). And then it goes on to describe the tracks as resembling the foot of Ticinisuchus - a known early archosaur with no direct relationship to the labyrinthodonts. Something is awry here.

And in addition: There is a misspelling, the correct name is Chirotherium --195.233.250.6 10:25, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, about the inconsistency - I'd be delighted for someone to reword this and find a better reference - maybe Kazvorpal can come back into this? for the information that I added, my reference was the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. On the spelling issue - the current one seems correct from a Greek derivation point of view and is the one that I have found in most sources. It obviously also appealed when the article was created. - Ballista 05:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, are sure about "cheirotherium" being the correct name? I checked the german wikipedia, they have only an article about Chirotherium, with description fitting the animal here marked as "cheirotherium". The name Cheirotherium gives only 2 800 results in google (several being mirror sites of wikipedia), while Chirotherium 17 400. I have several older encyclopedias mentioning only Chirotherium when handling triassic footprints. btw, the statement about labyrinthodonts is IMHO... I found several sources on the net considering Ch(e)irotherium being a labyrinthodont, even found some ref (see below), although this animal is mostly being considered a "thecodont". Thus, I think this unfortunate sentence should be changed into: was probably a "thecodont" related to the ancestors of dinosaurs Best wishes --Dudo2 22:18, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- - the ref is (taken from list of refs in some other study) OWEN, R. (1842a) - A description of the skeleton and teeth of five species of Labyrinthodon with remarks on the probable identity of the Chirotherium with this genus of extinct Batrachians. Geological

Here is a link considering Chirotherium and Cheirotherium being synonymous. Here another one, a lengthy article about Chirotherium where Cheirotherium makes its appearance only once as a misspelling. Most notably, here is a possible olution to this debate, considering "cheirotherium" a junior synonym. --Dudo2 22:26, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed the article over to Chirotherium but I've left any text problems for someone else to sort, as no time today. - Ballista 06:44, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]