Warp wrote:

>   "Birds are dinosaurs, and dinosaurs are reptiles, hence birds are
> reptiles."

As far as I understand it, this statement is true by cladistic
definition, but the traditional terms reptiles and dinosaurs are
paraphyletic as they explicitely exclude the Aves. So, the only
reason we don't say this is because people originally thought
birds were descended from something else.

But there seems to be more dispute and more need to make the
distinction for dinosaurs according to Google hit counts:

   "non-avian dinosaurs" -> 670.000
   "non-avian reptiles"  ->  23.000

I always learn something new here ;)

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