Technosaurus's Xombytes

My introductory biology course taught that living four-legged vertebrates are divided into four classes: amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles. This has been viewed as problematic for awhile now because birds have been shown to be the closest living relatives of crocodilians. There has been a question of what to do with them as a result. Do we just leave well enough alone and keep everything paraphyletic? Or do we try to attempt to create more natural groups by putting birds and crocodilians closer to each other in their own class or putting birds into Reptilia?

The Center of North American Taxonomy (CNAH) seems to think they have an answer. They've recently revised their modern taxonomy and come up with a solution that probably will surprise a lot of people.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/03/content_8925813.htm
http://diariodigital.sapo.pt/news.asp?section_id=13&id_news=343287

Potentially great story, young Jacob Walen finds a theropod dinosaur bone in Portugal 5 years ago. But do we get to see any photos of it? Not for but one crap one at the end. Instead we get mostly pictures of a blond haired kid next to a reconstructed skull mount in a museum. How incredibly boring!

I recently skimmed this article on about hellbenders in Allegheny Co., Maryland. I had planned initially on looking up more about these, but I dallied about, and never got around to it.

It caught back up with me in the last few days of my summer biology course when the instructor actually mentioned hellbenders himself... So I found myself finally getting around to looking up more on them.

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