You heard it here first: Daemonosaurus is an ornithischian

This one snuck under my radar
until Professor Thom Holtz mentioned it on the Dinosaur Mailing List. Writing about the Baron et al 2017 reply to Langer et al. we looked at earlier, Holtz wrote: “Novel discovery is Daemonosaurus as a basal ornithischian!!” (Fig. 1).

Actually that confirms a hypothesis of relationships
first recovered here back in 2011 when the large reptile tree (LRT, 1120 taxa) nested Daemonosaurus with the Ornithischia. So, the Baron et al. results confirm the earlier Peters 2011 discovery.

Figure 1. In Baron et al. 2017 Daemonosaurus nests with basal ornithischians, not theropods, matching a nesting first recovered here in the LRT in 2011.

As noted earlier, the Baron et al study is lacking a long list of pertinent taxa. Taxon exclusion is often the chief problem in phylogenetic analyses that rely on tradition.

Figure 2. Skulls of Daemonosaurus, Haya and Jeholosaurus to scale. These taxa nest together in the LRT.

Those who dislike the results recovered here
without a PhD and without seeing the specimens firsthand should note the growing list of taxa first recovered in the LRT that years later find confirmation in later studies by other workers.

References
Baron M.G., Barrett P.M. 2017 A dinosaur missing-link? Chilesaurus and the early evolution of ornithischian dinosaurs. Biology Letters 13, 20170220.
Baron MG, Norman DB and Barrett PM 2017. xxxx Nature 543: 501–506;  doi:10.1038/nature21700
Baron MG, Norman DB and Barrett PM 2017. Baron et al. reply. Nature 551: doi:10.1038/nature24012
Langer et al. (8 co-authors) 2017. Untangling the dinosaur family tree. Nature 551: doi:10.1038/nature24011

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