User talk:William Harris/Archive 1

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NGSD

Your comments on the New Guinea Singing dog page were correct. Whereas many times you see bias in editors that I don't, in this case, you're right. Let me explain.

Years ago, there was at that article an almost legendary battle between fans and promoters of the dog that has been called "the New Guinea Singing Dog War". I stumbled onto it and tried to stay out but was heavily lobbied to join both sides against the other, which I resisted. The animosity was great and spilled over onto my talk page where much can still be found if you're interested.

That's why that article looks so tattered and strange and fought over.

However, there is a legitimate problem with articlizing that referent, because what is it, really? A landrace, a breed, a feral dog, a wild dog, a subspecies of dog, a species of canid descended from a wild dog? It's an odd case not quite like practically any other I can think of.

Years later, "The Great Wikipedia New Guinea Singing Dog War" seems to have died down, and maybe it's become editable. It would be great if you were to take it on, but I recommend playing it extra "Mr. Spock" in light of this history. Chrisrus (talk) 06:57, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi Chris, an intriguing background, thankyou - I had noticed some "unpleasantness" on your Talk page in the past. It would appear that nobody has much interest in NGSD any more, just the odd vandal. I visit it rarely but will give it some thought, but the "Larson" papers are now emerging and I will be busy with that for a while - watch the Gray wolf page shortly. (Its on!!) Regards, William Harris • talk • 09:45, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

I understand. In due course, however, I'll bet you'll be intrigued. It's even hard to write a simple "The New Guinea Singing dog is ....." sentence for.

You might enjoy http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/first-photo-of-rare-wild-new-guinea-singing-dog-in-23-years/. Everyone referred to in the article has edited that article. Chrisrus (talk) 00:06, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Danish article?

I glanced over your sandbox page, and saw you had listed a source (about Greenland wolves) apparently in Danish, for something you want to work on. I can help you translate parts of that, if you are unable to, as it happens to be my first language. FunkMonk (talk) 10:03, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

From reading the online version of the article[1], it appears they are only preparing to do the analysis, but haven't done it yet. FunkMonk (talk) 10:06, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Hello FunkMonk, your talents never ceases to amaze. So, you were listening to the latest Wardruna CD or similar Scandinavian Black Metal/Folk band with little to do and so you had a little peek to see what I was working on next, yes? Sinding has found something! It will shortly be published: "Our data demonstrates that both historic and modern day Ellesmere Island and Greenland host one population of wolves that are significantly different to other populations South of Ellesmere Island." - The context will be very interesting. Regards,  William Harris |talk  10:20, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Having a first language is hardly a talent! But yeah, if they publish anything else in Danish, feel free to throw it in my direction. Speaking of Scandinavian metal albums, I drew the cover for one[2] not so long ago, hehe... FunkMonk (talk) 10:29, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Forty-six minutes of your off-world cover, excellent! I had to feed the cited article through Google Translate piece by piece, but it will be good to have a native speaker on board. I have already cited that work on the Greenland dog page. If you go to the Greenland wolf page, I wrote the section on "No fear of humans" and posted the external link to "Workers in rural Canada..." which was on Ellesmere Island, and I recommend that you spend the 2 minutes watching the footage - they have no fear of humans, and will come right up to them curiously. Proto-domestication? (The genetic analysis will be interesting - is this the ancestor of the dog that we have been looking for but could not find in Eurasia?) Regards,  William Harris |talk  10:38, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Haha, and they even take the time to joke: "you see how close he got to my genitals". Domesticated by ancient aliens, obviously... FunkMonk (talk) 10:45, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Given the conditions - that there were 3 wolves in close proximity - he could do little else but make a nervous joke as the humans had no power here. The Ellesmere Island wolves are believed to have come from Greenland across the ice, perhaps we are seeing some reserved Danish manners. Regards,  William Harris |talk  11:01, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Burn! I once dated a Greenlandic girl, I should know... FunkMonk (talk) 11:12, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

I will look forward to your youtube clip, playing a tagelharpa and singing a sad song of your lost love....  :-)  William Harris |talk  11:16, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

C. dirus subspecies

Are there any dire wolf skeletal mounts on Wiki commons that come from the C. d. guildeyi locality and time period? I'd like to do another reconstruction. Mariomassone (talk) 13:44, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Hello M, as you have used a skeleton from the book "Fauna of Rancho La Brea" (i.e. from the tar pits of Los Angeles), that would be C. d. guildeyi that you have produced - nice job by the way - as they were found west of the Rocky Mountains and Mexico. I am not sure if there was ever found a complete skeleton of C. d. dirus for anyone to mount. The difference: cdd was "big dirus, smaller teeth" and cdg was "small dirus, big teeth". You could probably get away with the 2 colours that you have - darker for cdg, lighter for the "praire" cdd. If you go to my sandbox (go just above my welcome note, third tab), I am in need of the correct icons for the first cladogram now taking shape there. Feel free to change them.

Hello M, another step forward. You might recall Deluba 2015 proposed for the first time a massive phylogenetic tree for classifying the entire dog clade. (Interestingly, she also found 6 separate monophyletic clades residing in what we call "the dog" and each could warrant sub-species status in their own right!) In February, Fan 2016 found through whole-genome sequencing that the dog IS a grey wolf. Now we have Song 2016 who proposes that given the dog is a grey wolf, let us have an even more massive phylogenetic tree that covers dog and grey wolf together. Some ancient sequences have been included. No need to go into the details, but it now exists and can be found here: http://www.dometree.org/trees/dog.htm Go out to the right of a branch and you will find a "name" code with a hyperlink, click on it and it will take you to the GENBANK deposit for details. (Plain text is dog, bold is wolf, italic is ancient dog, italic bold is ancient wolf. For a quick find, do a search on KF661090 to catch up with an old friend.) Regards, William Harris • talk • 09:27, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Paleolithic dog

Mr. Harris- Thanks for your help on the article on the Paleolithic Dog. I couldn't figure out how to respond on your Talk Page so I used edit mode. I do understand your point about the Goyet Dog's fuzzy genetics but I still don't understand how it could NOT be Canis Lupus as it is relatively recent and can only be a wolf or dog both of which are Canis Lupus. The Cave Wolf and other ancient wolves are considered Canis Lupus right- how logically can such recent fossils as the Goyet Dog and the Altai Dogs be anything but? Canis Lupus the species is 700,000 years old or so- correct? Anyway- thanks for your help, Jeff Thurston (Makumbe) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Makumbe (talk • contribs) 17:18, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Hello Makumbe (Jeff). To open up a dialogue on someone's talk page, simply click on the New Section tab near the top right of their Talk Page screen and a template will open up for you. On Wikipedia, it is best not to make inferences no matter how logical that might be - cited sources are required. Wikipedia has its own rules which we must all comply with, and unfortunately new users are not informed well by the system. You would be wise to make yourself aware of the content of the 3 "musts": WP:CITE, WP:VERIFY and WP:RELIABLE.

Now for the technical reply to your question. In the 1700s a man by the name of Linnaeus published a work on the classification of animals. He saw the wolf (of our time), described it, and named it Canis lupus. However, he did not see the Pleistocene wolf, which may not have looked the same as what Linnaeus saw and may not have met his description. We need a taxonomist to classify it. We now enter a new world of asking the question of "What is a species?" - clearly now in this century the taxonomists are not sure. Morphologists want species classified by phenotype (the old way), systemists want it done by phylogeny (evolutionary direction), and geneticists want it done by genotype (the new way, that would bring many more species into being and shatter both the gray wolf clade and the dog clade into many new species and subspecies, and even the "dog" into 6! (Duleba 2015 and Pang, 2009). They have not agreed over the past 20 years with MSW3 being a poor compromise, and therefore the delay in MSW4 - should there ever be one. You are correct about the age of lupus but there were other things running around out there in the past as well (refer "my" new article Evolution of the wolf), and it is not completely clear their contribution to the lineage. Lee 2015 found indication that the extinct Canis variabilis may have contributed to the lineage as well. You are correct that the European Cave Wolf (Goldfuss, 1823) was classified as lupus but we are not sure if that relates to all of the specimens found in Europe at that time - some other specimens appear to defy classification (Germonpre 2009) - so we cannot assume that the classification applies to all of the specimens. We recently have both Thalmann 2013 and Koblmuller 2016 stating that based on an inference of the phylogenetic tree from all of the modern and ancient samples (that they could get DNA from) that they looked at, genetically we only have a match to extant wolves going back 80,000 years! You appear keen to get involved in the "dog/wolf" related pages which I applaud, but you are meeting resistance as I have done from some quarters. I suggest that like me, you simply wait a couple more months until many of our questions will be answered by this release: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/science/the-big-search-to-find-out-where-dogs-come-from.html?_r=1 We should be in no rush. Then the serious correcting edits - armed with credible citation - can commence. Regards, William Harris • talk • 21:20, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the info Mr. Harris. The response on your page is the most concise and clear explanation of the current state of canine taxonomy I have read. I truly appreciate it because it confirms much of what I've gleaned from internet research. As far as the Goyet Dog - does this article in some way confirm that it was Canis Lupus? If morphologically it was a wolf the doesn't it fit into one way of classifying the species? Thanks again for your help- Jeff Thurston (makumbe) Makumbe (talk) 21:48, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

Makumbe Jeff, this is another of the researchers adding to the Paleolithic dogs controversy that you will find near the bottom of that article. You must keep in mind that just because one research team has a finding that indicates something, that does not make it final. We would need other researchers to validate that finding. The whole P. dogs issue has been claim and counter-claim across the past 7 years. I have now added to that article for both "dogs" the entry into Genbank, which is the final say on genetic matters - Belgium 36,000 YBP cataloged as Canis species Genbank accession number KF661079. Once again, let us await the Larson report as they have examined the morphology of 4,500 extinct specimens with 360 degree imaging, and genetically sequenced 1,500 of them, and fed it all into a computer to look for some form of evolutionary flow. (If you peek into my Sandbox - go to the top left of the screen just above my Welcome note - you will see a cladogram off all that we know so far, however I cannot put this into an article because no authority has written it and I have synthesised it.)

I have found the "dingo-pack" that keep watch on that page hard to deal with; they fight with outsiders and among themselves, and you would be well advised to leave that page alone for now. I provided the citation on your Talk page because you were right. Regards, William Harris • talk • 01:03, 23 July 2016 (UTC)William

Thanks again. I have discovered how incredibly controversial all things canine are- from training to breeding to AKC registration to dog/wolf to dingo/dog/wolf etc. I am not a trained scientist- I have a degree in Art- but my dad was a plant pathologist at Cornell University- I learned from him a healthy skepticism of Academe and some critical thinking skills. IMO the Dingo "thing" is a failure of critical thinking if nothing else- the dingo speciests should be more honest about their aims. Again- I thank you very much for sharing your clear-headed knowledge- Jeff T. (makumbe) Makumbe (talk) 00:50, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Mail

Hello, William Harris. Please check your email; you've got mail!
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AshLin (talk) 11:58, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Hyphens and compound modifiers

In the edit summary that accompanied my change to Dire wolf, I quoted chapter and verse of the MoS. Now you don't need to bother going there as I quote it here: "Avoid using a hyphen after a standard -ly adverb (a newly available home, a wholly owned subsidiary)". The MoS is quite clear, so please restore my correction in that article. Chris the speller ^yack 14:33, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Now that I have gained your attention here, you quote policy without fully comprehending it. "Avoid using a hyphen after a standard -ly adverb (a newly available home, a wholly owned subsidiary) unless ... In rare cases, a hyphen can be added to improve clarity if a rewritten alternative is awkward. Rewording is preferable:..." Is "closely" used as a standard adverb? Yes it is, and I concur with you. Is "megafauna" used as a standard adverb? It certainly is not. Therefore, I am changing "closely" as you had it, but let megafaunally-adapted by a guidance to you - I shall rewrite that section so that others do not make the same error. Regards,  William Harris |talk  08:07, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

If you read a little further in the MoS, you will see that you missed the definition of "standard -ly adverb"; it does not mean commonly used adverb; "words (like early, only, northerly) are not standard -ly adverbs, because they are not formed by addition of -ly to an independent current-English adjective." The word megafaunally is a standard -ly adverb as it is formed by the addition of -ly to megafaunal, which is an independent current-English adjective. Chris the speller ^yack 17:07, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

We can have a conversation as to whether megafaunal is being used as an adjective or as an adverb descriptor, however it serves no point. We have both achieved our objectives, and care needs to be taken in future - "These need careful treatment". Regards,  William Harris |talk  21:45, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

You now have a better grasp than the average editor of how Wikipedia uses hyphens. Happy editing. Chris the speller ^yack 18:34, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

You too! Perhaps you might like to run your configured software over 2 of "mine": the Origin of the domestic dog and the Evolution of the wolf - if anything doesn't look quite right after that that then I will simply restructure the sentence. Regards,  William Harris |talk  21:04, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I did so; there was not much to clean up. Chris the speller ^yack 16:15, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

I note that you do a lot more than just hyphens. Many thanks! Regards,  William Harris |talk  09:25, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Dire Wolf

William sorry for my comments on the Dire Wolf page a few days ago I was in a crappy mood. Your a great guy for these contributions, you are the essence of what makes the Internet, and people for that matter, great. I shouldn't have put those comments in there and feel ashamed. Sorry again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.76.178.106 (talk) 00:55, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Please don't be concerned; once you have been across a number of articles over time you become aware that people sometimes make edits out of character, either through not knowing the various rules, through personal circumstances, or through just about having enough of everything! Hopefully, you will find an area here that you have - or will gain some - expertise in and stay a while. Regards,  William Harris |talk  09:13, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Origin of the domestic dog

Thank you for your work on the above article, it was a most interesting read! Xyzspaniel (talk) 20:12, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Dia Duit, Xyzspaniel! (I can speak only a few words in the "old language".) I am glad that you enjoyed it and it has been a huge undertaking. You will find more in its sister article, the Evolution of the wolf. There is much that remains unanswered, and we now await the release of a major report that I have mentioned at the top of this Talk page. Regards,  William Harris |talk  20:57, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

License tagging for File:Central Asia 1879 By Keith Johnston.jpg

Thanks for uploading File:Central Asia 1879 By Keith Johnston.jpg. You don't seem to have indicated the license status of the image. Wikipedia uses a set of image copyright tags to indicate this information.

To add a tag to the image, select the appropriate tag from this list, click on this link, then click "Edit this page" and add the tag to the image's description. If there doesn't seem to be a suitable tag, the image is probably not appropriate for use on Wikipedia. For help in choosing the correct tag, or for any other questions, leave a message on Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. Thank you for your cooperation. --ImageTaggingBot (talk) 13:05, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Hello User:RHaworth, would you mind explaining to me why the following file was deleted, please?: File:Central Asia 1879 By Keith Johnston.jpg Regards,  William Harris |talk  11:42, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

• Instead of using a properly formatted image description, you gave us an ugly slab of continuous text. But that is not important. The Stanford licence of {{cc-by-nc-sa-3.0}} which you quoted is incompatible with Wikipedia. (You incorrectly copied the Stanford licence as {{cc-by-3.0}}.)

But I think it is a bit excessive of Stanford to apply any sort of CC licence just for going to the trouble of photographing it. So be bold: crop the image more tightly to remove a different copyright notice in the image, upload it to the Commons, give it a properly laid out image description like this one, by all means state whence you got your file (but do not state what licence Stanford have applied!) and give the proper copyright tag of {{PD-old-100}}. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 12:13, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks for this advice User:RHaworth. I also think that I hit the wrong upload button from the selection provided as it did not look like my usual Beginners screen! I have found a more specific map of the region of interest from UTex but that is already on Commons, so I will use that one instead. (You might run your eye over it for legality - File:Afghanistan_and_Persia_in_1856.jpg )Regards,  William Harris |talk  20:37, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Evolution of Wolves and Dogs

	A lick from Holly
	I read your dog evolution article last week and the wolf one you suggested this week - so impressed that I'm sending over my youngest Springer Spaniel Holly so she can lick your face - go raibh mile maith agut! Xyzspaniel (talk) 23:06, 8 September 2016 (UTC) A thousand blessings to you too, Xyzspaniel, and for helping to keep the Gaeilge living! - Liam 09:38, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Renaming an image

Hello User:RHaworth, I call upon your advice once again. The issue above this message is now fixed, however the image file:Dog skull dorsal.jpg should be renamed to file:Wolf skull dorsal.jpg - is that possible or would I need to tag it for deletion and then re-upload it under the correct name? Regards,  William Harris |talk  23:43, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

• I should not have to point out to you again that {{cc-by-nc-sa}} is incompatible with Wikipedia. And in this case I can see no excuse for claiming {{pd-old}}.

By an interesting co-incidence I have also ripped off stuff from the University of Michigan: this page which I use here on my website. But I am on slightly firmer ground since the underlying text is 600 years old! — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 01:18, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello User:RHaworth, the list provided by the bot (above) offers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:File_copyright_tags/All#Creative_Commons with the option of {{cc-by-sa-3.0}}. If that is incompatible with Wikipedia and Commons, perhaps it should be removed as an option. I did not select {{pd-old}} for the uploads today, to the best of my understanding. Thanks for your advice. Regards,  William Harris |talk  03:57, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

• My reference to pd-old meant: there were good grounds for re-uploading file:Central Asia 1879 By Keith Johnston.jpg with a pd-old tag but in the case of file:Dog skull dorsal.jpg no such grounds exist. I will answer your main question but first explain why you are uploading images with Creative Commons licences here instead of to the Commons. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 10:33, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello User:RHaworth, the Central Asia issue was not my concern, I had found another image on Commons for that some time in the past. When I mentioned the "issue above" I was referring to "License tagging for File:Dog skull dorsal.jpg" immediately above this section, a misunderstanding because I should have been more specific. I had intended after reading your comments to upload on Commons, but Commons states that "Media licensed under non-commercial only licenses are not accepted", which appears to conflict with "Wikimedia Commons is for educational or informational content." So I have given up on uploading those excellent schematics and sourced some others of less value from Commons. However, one must ask why the bot contained a link that led to a page with a choice offered of licensing templates that is not acceptable in either Wikipedia nor Commons. Regards,  William Harris |talk  10:44, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Great game revert

I was going to send this just before you made the last change. See Russian conquest of Turkestan#1879-1885: Turkmenistan: Geok Tepe, Merv and Panjdeh and Pandjeh Incident. To the best of my knowledge: 1. Geok Tepe was captured in battle. The elders of Merv submitted and the place was then occupied, not captured. 2. During Anglo-Russian discussions over the northwest frontier of Afghanistan, Russia captured a new, advanced Afghan fort at Pandjeh, provoking the incident proper. When the frontier was finalized Russia kept Pandjeh and land to the west and south.

Now 1. capture of fort came first, annexation after. 2. 'Mir' is probably Merv. I don't know if Khiva ever claimed the area of if Merv was ever a Khanate.Benjamin Trovato (talk) 01:34, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello Ben, please do not take my undo personally - there has been a lot of lawlessness (breach of WP:POLICY) on that article over some time and it is in need of an "iron hand" to keep it well-controlled just for a little while longer. Merv was part of the Khanate of Khiva, which fell apart as the Russians took its capital and found that nobody really ruled the place - a bunch of "brigands and slave-traders" with no effective central control. You and I are in accord on most of this, apart from the degree of Russian advance into Panjdeh. The linked text you sent has not one cited work in it, it is WP:USERGENERATED and therefore should not be relied upon. The cited work used in TGG - Clements - states that "In 1885, a Russian force annexed the Pandjeh District north of Herat Province..." If you have a cited source that says it was only the fort and not the district, I would be happy to see that included. Regards,  William Harris |talk  07:25, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

(PS: There was an interesting battle over the fort with British officers advising the Afghans, which can be found elsewhere online. The Russians appear to have had greater numbers and better rifles than the Afghans.)

OK, not enough difference to worry about. Thanks Benjamin Trovato (talk) 06:14, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

I wanted to apologize

Hello! I wanted to apologize for my overly hostile tone on Talk:Dog. Frankly, I just reread my comments and was shocked at how hostile and abrasive they sounded. By contrast, your response was measured and mature. Allow me the conceit of blaming the flu virus I am currently battling, and know that you do not have to expect such hostility from interactions with me in the future. Cheers! Jtrevor99 (talk) 19:47, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Hello Jtrevor99, please do not be concerned. I have been around these pages long enough to know that good editors sometimes make comments out of character, due to a number of influeces - even on some days having "just about had enough"! Regards,  William Harris |talk  19:51, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Dog/human coevolution

Hello Mr. Harris - This is Jeff Thurston (makumbe). Thanks for your message - I am looking into the dog/human co-evolution hypothesis I found on one of the dog pages. You'll hear from me soon - Thanks much, Makumbe (talk) 02:33, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I am glad to hear that Jeff, and look forward to your future input - and you calling me William! You may have missed my new section that is relevant at Origin of the domestic dog#First dogs as a hunting technology. I understand through very good contacts that at 89 years of age, Professor Schleidt (still holding an appointment!) is about to release an update of his 2003 research paper in the light of current research findings. When it is released I will let you know. You might like to create a user page so that I can ping you, by going to your User talk:Makumbe page and clicking on the red-text "User page" button at the top left-hand corner just to the right of the Wikipedia logo, then follow the system's simple directions. Then you will be able to receive alerts that someone has left a message for you. (PS: I too also enjoy trail running though the hills.) Regards,  William Harris |talk  02:49, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Dire wolf

Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Dire wolf you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Adam Cuerden -- Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:40, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Hello Adam, thanks for your participation in this undertaking and your time. Regards,  William Harris |talk  19:48, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Hello Adam, please see my COMMENT 1 at Talk:Dire wolf/GA1. I will need your guidance on that issue before finalizing amendments to the article. Regards,  William Harris |talk  20:27, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

The H. s. sapiens sub-subspecific family tree

Hello, William!

We need a cladogram of the Modern human family tree:

We need a reader-friendly cladogram based on this type of thing: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/221860094_fig2_Figure-3-Complete-mtDNA-phylogenetic-tree-of-haplogroup-B4'B5-This-schematic-tree-is or http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7314_nsGxkU/UfrlVzgqgSI/AAAAAAAAI_I/zGmoi0R5-Jw/s1600/F2.large.jpg turned into

Do you have any thoughts or advice?

I ask because you have experience with making such cladograms from figures in published papers, and I'm having difficulty.

Thanks!

Chrisrus (talk) 16:15, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

'morning Chris, doable but not an easy task! However, the first link is to http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0032179 and do you know why I just love articles published in PLOS? Because they are Open Access, you can simply load the graphic then use it for your article as is. If you have not done this before, let me know and I will execute. Regards,  William Harris |talk  19:52, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

How many steps are there in creating a standard Wikipedia-style cladogram to illustrate just the first branching, no more?

The first branching is this:

The ancestral "stump part" is "Early modern humans" leads to the earliest known fork:

The branching point is labled "@# Years Ago".

One limb leads to the San people.

The other leads to "Everyone else".

I'm not sure what the "#" is.

It's between one and two hundred thousand years ago.

I think the number is 150,000 years ago. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7358868.stm)

Chrisrus (talk) 05:41, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Chris, the split occurred 150k-90k YBP according to the source: Behar et al., The Dawn of Human Matrilineal Diversity, The American Journal of Human Genetics (2008), doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.04.002 - https://www.familytreedna.com/pdf/DawnHumanMatrilinealDiversity.pdf

If you look into my sandbox there is a draft waiting for you. Regards,  William Harris |talk  06:19, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! I left a comment there. Chrisrus (talk) 15:21, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

I lost it. Where is it? I can't find it again. Chrisrus (talk) 04:48, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I thought that you had taken a copy and placed it in your sandbox! If you watched my sandbox - as I know some editors do, as I get questions on its content from time to time - you would know that it is highly dynamic, with stuff being created, posted into articles, then deleted. I keep a clean "desk". Here it is below. Regards,  William Harris |talk  06:17, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Modern human lineages

Early modern humans 150k-90k YBP Khoisan Everybody else

Proposed split of the Khoisan matrilineal lineage from everyone else between 150-90 thousand years ago.

Barnstar

	The Writer's Barnstar
	I don't think you didn't get enough credit for your hard work on Evolution of the wolf. An exceptional article that left me extremely impressed. You definitely deserve this barnstar for your tireless contributions. Have a good day! Burklemore1 (talk) 06:41, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Burklemore1. You have been instrumental in its creation.....do you recall that spinoff that you called for on Gray wolf back in February? Well, it grew! Regards,  William Harris |talk  08:33, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I definitely do remember, unfortunately I wasn't able to engage with the article as much as I intended to (work calls). Never knew I was instrumental until you mentioned that. ;) You have reminded me to take a look at the gray wolf article though, it looks excellent as well. What is its prose size at the moment? Burklemore1 (talk) 08:40, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I forgot to add this into my first response, but ever thought about bringing that article to GA someday? It's definitely a worthy candidate at this point. Burklemore1 (talk) 08:42, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Gray wolf is at 151k - staying trim! - and it is a GA article now. I am currently going through the GA article process with Dire wolf, which is my first and should that be successful I have a few others to consider. If I get stuck I might call upon some "ant-loving northerner" to offer guidance.  William Harris |talk  11:04, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

More than happy to offer help if you need any. Good to see it is staying trim, it doesn't go into too much unnecessary detail which is better off in different articles (not that this inherently bad, but it does help add in other information which can be important). Good luck with dire wolf, I have read the article a little and it looks good! Burklemore1 (talk) 03:35, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

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Fixed, or at least so I believe. William Harris • talk • 11:47, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Cryptic North American species

Hello M, thanks for the "Thanks" on Red Wolf. Now to make things even more interesting, a German team looking at the mDNA of ancient dogs in Germany (not released yet) has (1) supported Skoglund's mutation rate as that of their dogs matched the Taimyr wolf, which pushes dog/wolf divergence out to between 40-50 thousand years ago, (2) rebutted the recent proposal of a dual domestication of dogs in both Europe and East Asia with the European dogs being replaced by East Asian dogs because the descendants of their ancient German dogs were alive and well in Germany, and (3) their phylogenetic tree shows the "Great Lakes Wolf" to be basal to the Mexican wolf and the Yellowstone wolf samples! The whole Red wolf and Great Lakes Wolf debate continues to rage unabated, which is why I tend to keep out of it. Happy New Year! William Harris • (talk) • 11:44, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Furthermore M, some time in the next six months the Larson pack will release a study on dog domestication in North America, which I will assume would be eastern Beringia. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 08:12, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Sub-subspecific Cladograms

Hello William!

What's a good term for "sub-sub-specific cladogram"? How many do we have? For example, there are some out there giving delails of the "Ovis aries" breeds. They'll probably mostly be for domesticated animals, don't you think? The last one I saw of the dog was https://www.dovepress.com/cr_data/article_fulltext/s57000/57678/img/fig3.jpg and the other one from that same paper.

Do you still have a use for this cladogram? I've drafted a version in my sandbox if you are interested. I've only done the basic tree. Internal node labels need working on. Background colours or coloured lines could be added to make the groups more obvious (see examples in my pages on Caniformia and Feliformia). Jts1882 (talk) 18:00, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

@Chrisrus: I've updated the file to fix links and add some labels for internal nodes. I've also put some background colours for the dog groups, although I don't like the appearance as it it. Anyway, this is just a sketch in case there was any interest in adding it or something similar somewhere. Jts1882 (talk) 17:27, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Hello Jts1882. I cannot find the tree that you are referring to in your vast collection, (you may have to provide a link) however if it is based on the one above from dovepress then I would not like to see that cladogram put up on Wikipedia. The reason being that people would misinterpret its meaning; please see our conversation below here. People will assume that some breeds are "closest to the wolf", which is definitely NOT what that tree is showing. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 20:08, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Link, please. I am excited to see it. Chrisrus (talk) 06:14, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Ah, the lack of the link is rather a major oversight: User:Jts1882/sandbox/Domestic dogs. Jts1882 (talk) 10:41, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

I also see that the literature on dog domestication has had a momentous couple of years and that there appear to be two schools on the ancient breeds. I was initially surprised to see the domestic dogs as sisters to wolves rather than nested within them, but this may be because of the selection of pedigree breeds rather than mutts. As for the use of this scheme I think it is most suitable for an article dealing with modern dogs breeds and types, even if some of the relations are due to cross breeding between groups. This avoids the questions about the ancient dogs and relationship with wolves. I'll have to have a read through the discussion below and some of the new papers that came out in 2016. Jts1882 (talk) 10:41, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

As an aside I can only lament the relative state of the cat articles. The dog articles have been developed far more extensively, no doubt because of these discussions between people who care deeply about the subject. Jts1882 (talk) 10:41, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Recently we talked about some information we couldn't find a perfect place for. I think the problem was the referent wasn't "dog breeds" nor "dog breeding" but rather "the dog family tree". It's not the same. The term "breed" is problematic because major branches like spaniel, sighthound, or molosser aren't breeds. As I recall, that information you had wasn't about dog breeding or breeds so much as the dog sub-sub-specific cladogram.

There's probably more than enough out there for horses, for example. People have done the work and published it, I bet, yet where would we put it? Chrisrus (talk) 15:55, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

'morning Chris, with you on the east coast and another of my good Wikipedia contacts on the west coast, I have formed the conclusion that the North America never sleeps! Once we get below sub-species level (Homo sapiens sapiens), we are probably in the world of ecotypes (or ecomorphs) which are no longer taxonomic ranks, of which you will find a brief overview here Evolution of the wolf#Ecotypes (I have just recently posted edits to the articles on Subspecies and Ecotypes). I am not aware of any clade diagrams around this that I have come across, although I usually restrict myself to wolf-related articles, which is why I know nothing about the sheep and horses. (I have more than enough to do under genus Canis, upsetting its denizens with my leading-edge "controversial" posts that become mainstream within 12 months). Regarding the dog groups, these are usually referred to as a Dog type on Wikipedia. The term breed is too narrow in meaning as it does not include landraces. With the dog diagram you provided the link to, be aware that it is a hybrid - the researchers took their divergence diagram and then added around the outside the categories used by the AKC - those groups are not really "scientific". In relation to humans, why not use the term the Khoisan researchers did - "different lineages"? I have not given any further thought to the new information and where to put it, but I am not adverse to creating an article if there is a need, as I did with "Evolution of the wolf". Regards,  William Harris |talk  21:31, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Overhaul Dog type

Instead of being what it is, which kind of implies that "dog type" is some kind of technical term, which it's not, the article Dog type should be about all the different and notable ways that significant people categorize dogs.

This should include the conventions of the different Kennel clubs and the way different important experts have categorized them in their published works.

But also it should definitely include a up-to-date cladogram based on genetic studies. It should include a good sub-sub-specific cladogram.

Last time I checked, Genome-wide SNP and haplotype analyses reveal a rich history underlying dog domestication, from the Journal Nature in Spring, 2010, represented the closest we've come to an accurate look at the dog family tree.

It was by some eighteen authors from prestigious universities and such all over the world and represented the culmination of a huge, long, and expensive world-wide project to get a clearer picture of the domestic dog family tree.

I'm guessing that by now, there have been some improvements to it since 2010 is quickly becomeing a long time ago.

More information probably come in tweeking that picture, and such tweeking should continue to happen.

After all, they only tested a choice selection of a few hundreds of dogs.

They found that traditional dog categorization types or systems were actually pretty good. Instinctual beliefs and beliefs based on historical documentation that, for example, spaniels, retrievers, terriers, and scent hounds actually are genetic clades and coherent branches on the dog family tree.

But not all. Some "primitive" dogs, for example. Chrisrus (talk) 04:54, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

You are correct about VonHoldt 2010, which is still the best and latest tree diagram for dog "breeds", which I have covered at Dog breeds#Dog types. (It is only surpassed by Song 2016 who proposes that given the dog is a grey wolf, let us have an even more massive phylogenetic tree that lists the dog and grey wolf haplotypes all together: http://www.dometree.org/trees/dog.htm However, this is way too large and technical for Wikipedia.) Unfortunately, the VonHoldt diagram is behind a paywall and is copyrighted by Nature magazine, so we cannot upload it into an article - however a link could be provided in the article. The only issue I have with that diagram (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v464/n7290/fig_tab/nature08837_F1.html) on Wikipedia is that it is based on genetic divergence, which is misinterpreted by people. As you saw on Talk:Basenji last year, people look at that diagram and claim that the Basenji - or Saluki or whatever - "is closest to the wolf". The diagram should not be read from the inside out - it maps the degree of genetic divergence from the outside back in. It is saying that the Basenji is the most divergent of the dog breeds (and the wolf and coyote even more so). The reason proposed is that it has not mixed with the general mass of other dogs over the past few thousand years, just like the dingo, and therefore appears more divergent in comparison to the others (Larson 2012, which I have covered under Dog breed#Basal breeds). I fear that its posting might lead to misunderstanding and "nonsense" replicated across certain breed pages, such as the Basenji.

(Then you run into the brick-wall of dog fanciers and breed-people, as has just happened to me at Talk:Dog - someone got away with uploading breed-related material without citation, did the usual dog-breeder approach here on W. of talking down at people and making out they know what they are talking about, and others simply supported them. The "consensus" went against me, uncited material was posted, so I no longer have an interest in the Dog page, and will remain with my Late Pleistocene wolves. Now I see why the Dog article lost its Good Article status.)

Regards,  William Harris |talk  19:42, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

The VonHoldt tree and The Besenji

I'm not qualified to criticize that paper much, but I can see that they didn't test that many dogs. If they'd had a greater sample of dogs, I figure they might've tweeked the tree.

They only included recognized breeds and then formed the conclusion that dogs originated in the Middle East. They did not include any village dogs that make up most dogs on this planet, with more recent studies including village dogs from around the world and - based on genetic studies using modern dogs - supporting that dogs originated in East Asia. (However, those using ancient DNA support Europe!)

But just going by this diagram, I can say that it says that the last common ancestor(s) of Besenjis and all the other dogs in that study lived longer ago than the last common ancestors of the spaniels and hounds, terriers and herders, or any other such pairing you could find on that tree.

That is the error everyone makes, including VonHoldt, that I am warning about - refer to my Larson reference above. It is actually saying that the Basenji is less mixed with the other breeds - not surprising as being African it missed out on being included in the genetic soup of Victorian-age breeding. Geographic isolation and cultural boundaries (the Saluki, Huski, Tibetan mastiff) have protected some breeds from mixing with the rest. So they remain more genetically divergent (less mixed), and as a result end up on the diagram depicted where they are. The diagram also tells us that the coyote is the most genetically divergent - there has been little detection of mixing between all the breeds and coyotes, a little bit between all the breeds and wolves, a little bit more between all the breeds and Basenjis (ancestral of course), and so on. That is one of the things that it is telling us. The other is that for the first time, breeds can be clustered into like-breed groups based on genetic relationships.

"The combination of introgression and past population bottlenecks suggested that basal breeds have little or no genetic connections to their ancestral populations and that their genetic distinctiveness does not signify ancient heritage. They are distinctive from the modern breeds because the genetic heritage of the modern breeds has become blurred due to admixture, and the basal breeds have mostly avoided admixture with them due to geographic or cultural barriers." - GL

This does not mean, of course, that that ancestor was a Besenji. In all that time, the Besenji could have changed as much or more than any of the others. In fact, it's more reasonable to think that it has changed a lot than that it hasn't.

You are correct there - the next evolutionary step after the mighty megafaunal wolf was not the little basenji that then evolved further into huskies and german shepherds! The "lineage" would have included an ancestor(s) that phenotypically would be regarded as a wolf but genetically a dog.

In fact, it's possible that that common ancestor wasn't even a dog. Chrisrus (talk) 20:31, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Both the Basenji and the Dingo are highly divergent "breeds". So divergent that Debula 2015 proposed for the first time a massive phylogenetic tree for classifying the entire dog clade, and also proposed that these be broken up into 6 separate sub-species of C. lupus. One already is, the dingo. The basenji would have been included in another branch, with some associates. Curiously, the "average" dog haplotypes sit about 12 mutations away from the wolf. There are some "dog" haplotypes that are 12 mutations away from the wolf AND 12 mutations away from the "average" dog haplotypes, almost forming a triangle. Where they are going to finally end up in the current canine classification mess remains unclear!

My comments appear against yours above. Regards,  William Harris |talk  21:03, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Cladogram interpretation

Let's look at this cladogram for example, Origin_of_the_domestic_dog#Genetics.2C_archaeology_and_morphology, "Gray wolf divergence".

It says that the most recent common ancestors of Old and New World wolves lived longer ago than those of the Mexican and North American wolves.

Someone could claim that cladogram is wrong about that, but they couldn't rightly say that that's not what the cladogram says.

Let's look at one of these circular ones: http://www.orthomam.univ-montp2.fr/orthomam/html/images/omm_v9_43taxa_ref_tree.jpg

It says that the most recent common ancestor(s) you share with Koko lived longer ago than last common ancestor you share with Kanzi, but not as long ago as lived your common ancestor with Chantek.

It's also clear that the common ancestor of USER:William Harris and any given lesser ape lived longer ago than that, and so on backwards through time to your most recent common ancestor with Old world monkeys, New World monkeys, tarsiers, prosimians, each common ancestor having lived before the other.

Your common ancestor with your doglived longer ago than that you have with rabbits and rats , but not as long ago as your most recent common ancestor a sloth, even though that wasn't as long ago as the last common ancestor you share with Jumbo, which lived earlier then that you share with Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, but none of these lived as long ago as your ancestor with a platypus. The cladogram does claim a William Harris/platypus common ancestor did exist, but it doesn't say that creature was a platypus any more than it would claim it was a person.

http://www.orthomam.univ-montp2.fr/orthomam/html/images/omm_v9_43taxa_ref_tree.jpg does not say, however, which lived first, your common ancestor with any of those, or the common ancestor of a dog and a cat. We'd have to get that information elsehow.

Similarly, | this cladogram says that the most recent common ancestors of the besenji and all other dogs lived longer ago than the most recent common ancestor of spaniels, scenthounds, and poodles.

Indeed, it says they lived even earlier than the most recent common ancestor of akitas, chows, dingoes, shar peis, Malamutes, and Siberian huskies.

You could say that the cladogram is wrong to make that claim. But you can't rightly say that's not what the cladogram says.

That cladogram says that the last common ancestor of the basenji and the other dogs in the study lived longer ago than the last common ancestor of any two others.

You can say that's wrong. You can ask what about the Greenland dog, that's not included, why not.

I personally would ask that about the Telomian first. If I had to suggest a dog which might have a more distant most recent common ancestor with all other dogs than the basenji, I'd urge them to include data from a Telomian. Big glaring hole there. I suppose they couldn't find one.

You can say say that cladogram is wrong to say that about the other dog/basenji last common ancestor. You can look at the evidence in the text and say that that what the cladogram says is not what the text says or that the conclusion is not justified based on that evidence.

You could say that it's not what the cladogram should say for some other reason.

You can't rightly say, however, that that is not what that cladogram actually does say.

That cladogram says that the last common ancestor of the Basenji and all other dogs in the study lived longer ago than any other most recent common dog ancestor on the cladogram.

Rightly or wrongly, that's what that cladogram says. Chrisrus (talk) 06:39, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

You are looking at a range of cladograms representing different things. The one from Origin_of_the_domestic_dog#Genetics.2C_archaeology_and_morphology, "Gray wolf divergence" was drawn specifically to be displaying time-based splits. The one from VonHoldt was not drawn to depict time in any way - there is no time measure on that diagram. The cladogram is simply a display tool, and has many applications. Regards,  William Harris |talk  06:46, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

If I ask you: Does this cladogram, http://www.orthomam.univ-montp2.fr/orthomam/html/images/omm_v9_43taxa_ref_tree.jpg, say which lived longer ago, my most recent common ancestor with a sloth, or my most recent common ancestor with an elephant? May I assume you will answer yes, it does. The answer is "elephant".

You can, because in this instance the cladogram is labelled a "taxa-tree", therefore you know that its purpose is to display taxa.

According to that, my most recent common ancestor with an elephant lived longer ago than my most recent common ancestor with a sloth.

That is a reasonable inference from a taxa tree.

It is not correct that the one from the dog genome project produced by not just VonHoldt but many, many other experts all around the world "was not drawn to depict time in any way".

VonHoldt's diagram is specifically labelled "Haplotype-sharing cladogram for 10-SNP windows", it is not labelled "taxa-tree". To quote her: " We constructed neighbour-joining trees using individuals and populations as units of analysis based on both individual SNP and haplotype similarity". It is not a taxa-tree, and it does not reflect time. She found that "basenji, Afghan hound, Samoyed, saluki, Canaan dog, New Guinea singing dog, dingo, chow chow, Chinese Shar Pei, Akita, Alaskan malamute, Siberian husky and American Eskimo dog are highly divergent from other dog breeds" - that is what this type of cladogram shows. However, she did make the same assumption about the Basenji, that "This finding and high haplotype sharing, as well as a long recorded history, suggest that this breed is one of the most ancient extant dog breeds." Then towards the end of the paper she says: "This finding...suggests that some canine lineages may have persisted from antiquity or have more recently admixed with wolves." Larson looked at the same data, along with his own in 2012, and came up with the other view. Given that Larson is the evolution and domestication heavy-weight, and he has found similar gene-flow from wild species across a range of domestic animals and plants, I am going with him! This is why I am reluctant to do anything with that cladogram on Wikipedia.

However, your prompt has inspired me, and so now on Origin of the domestic dog#Genetics, archaeology and morphology I have further developed Fan 2016 - that cladogram was specifically about timing and splits, but with Fan warning other researchers that admixture with wolves may thwart an attempt to delineate timelines and locations for dogs. An example, on Evolution of the wolf#Dissenting view Ersmark 2016 found that the Vancouver Island wolf was the most basal in North America, but also reported that this may not be so because it had mixed with dogs in the past. So what? Look once again at Fan's cladogram - the dog is basal to all extant North American subspecies! In NA, admixture with a dog makes the wolf appear genetically divergent from the other wolves and this could be incorrectly construed as a "basal" wolf. The same goes for dog lineages in Eurasia, admixture with Eurasian wolves can make one (or more) of the dog lineages, because of its now apparent "basal" position, appear to be an "ancient breed". To quote Larson 2012 and 2014:

"The extinction of the wolves that were the direct ancestors of dogs, and the sustained admixture between different dog and wolf populations over at least the last 10,000 years, has blurred the genetic signatures and confounded efforts of researchers at pinpointing the origins of dogs." - GL

As long as you keep going in one direction, they display what happened before and after what. The VonHold + many, many others diagram shows that the last common ancestor of the American cocker spaniel and the English cocker spaniel didn't live as long ago as that of the springer spaniel. It shows that the common ancestor of spaniels and scent hounds didn't live as long ago as the common ancestor of, on one hand, spaniels and scenthounds, and poodles on the other. The most recent common ancestor of spaniels, scent hounds, and poodles, on the one hand, and schnauzers lived longer ago than that. And so on. We can't tell from this, however, whether the common ancestor of deerhounds and wolfhounds lived longer ago than that of beagles and bassets, because that would entail following the line down and back up again. So long as you go one direction, that diagram does "depict time" in a particular way. All cladograms do. That's their nature.

See my comments above. Regards,  William Harris |talk  08:14, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

According to https://www.dovepress.com/cr_data/article_fulltext/s57000/57678/img/fig3.jpg

Which came first:

a) Most recent common ancestor of the Italian Greyhound and the mastiff

b) M.R.C.A. of the Italian Greyhound and the Ibizen hound

c) MRCA of the Italian Grayhound and the spaniels

d) Dovepress.com...fig3.jpg doesn't say

Chrisrus (talk) 17:29, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

None of them "came first" - it is measuring the degree of genetic divergence. The Ibizan Hound is the most genetically divergent of that selection. We assume that this is because its lineage was more mixed with wild gene-flow from wolves in the past. Even more so the Saluki, and least so the French Bulldog, Chihuahua and the Boxer. Once again, that is why I am reluctant to do anything with that cladogram on Wikipedia. Regards,  William Harris |talk  19:49, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Phylogenetic trees

Hello Mariomassone and Chrisrus. You both have an interest in using phylogenetic trees here on Wikipedia, so I would like to introduce you both to editor Jts1882, a small sample of who's work can be found here: Caniformia and quite stunningly here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jts1882/phylogeny/Felidae.

Mario, regarding the phylotree of the wolf-like canids that you decorated with your icons on Canidae, that tree on that page is now in colour. Jts1882 has suggested that the icons would look better with a transparent background rather than a white one. I assume that would be impossible, however you might be able to match the background colour of the icon to match that shown in the current phylotree (the background colours of the tree could be negotiable.) If I don't hear back then I will assume that it is too difficult.

Editor Jts1882, on the Canidae diagram, it would be good to include the African golden wolf between the Coyote and the Jackal, please refer Evolution of the wolf#Wolf-like canids. I amend other editor's diagrams partially using knowledge of what I am doing and partially using "The Force" - would you mind initiating that, please? (The reference for the edit summary is Koepfli 2015.) Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 20:49, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

I've added the African golden wolf as requested and updated the whole tree to the version from my pages including the Linnaean names, plus subfamilies and tribes. The Linnaean and common names probably shouldn't both be linked to articles (as redundant), but I will leave for now. I've just had a quick look at the Koepfli reference and I'm not sure the African golden wolf belongs between the coyote and golden jackal. Their tree suggests the African golden wolf (=African golden jackal?) is sister to the grey wolf. The Ethiopian wolf may also need moving as they have it as sister to the coyote (figure 1). I'll read the article later. Jts1882 (talk) 09:07, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Figure 2 in Koepfli et al (2015) seems clear and the best fit with the text. I've swapped the position of the Ethiopian wolf and Eurasian golden jackal in the cladogram. Jts1882 (talk) 10:44, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks, Jts1882, but I think it has slipped back to the older arrangement - please compare with what I had as this arrangement is overly complicated. Koepfli depicts a number of phylogenetic trees depending on which genetic markers the team used. I always go for the sequence that has the biggest data set, which is Figure 2 using the nuclear genome i.e. the nucleus of the cell. The lime green triangle named "African golden jackal" in that figure is later proposed as a separate species, "C. anthus (African golden wolf)", so the positioning is fine. As for the gray wolf and coyote being sisters, I would advise you to let that one rest for now after having a read of the paragraph Evolution of the wolf#Divergence with the coyote - none of us wants to go there just yet! Koepfli 2015 was the first to hint it, and you would be amazed at the number of research papers that drop the hint of something outstanding, but these are not further elaborated on until sometimes years later. Regards. William Harris • (talk) • 10:55, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree that figure 2 best reflects the whole study by in Koepfli-2015. The cladogram now matches figure 2. The changes are the split of golden jackal into two species and movement of Ethiopian wolf in the tree (not as in figure 1). The latter presumably is because the old golden jackal was an average of the two species. Jts1882 (talk) 11:36, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Jts1882, the layout still is not what was similar to before - please refer to Evolution of the wolf#Wolf-like canids - the two African jackals were down the bottom of the cladogram.

I'm confused. I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. The two African jackals (black-backed and side-striped) are at the bottom of the Canina section of the cladogram in Canidae, just as they are in the Evolution of the wolf#Wolf-like canids cladogram. The differences are the position of the Ethiopian wolf, which I have moved to match that in Fig 2 of Koepfli 2015, and the topology. The Evolution of the wolf cladogram has the domestic dog and wolf at the top, compared to nested in the centre in the Canidae cladogram, but the phylogenetic relationships are identical. Jts1882 (talk) 13:02, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

My apologies Jts1882, I have had some sort of technical glitch that was not updating/displaying the tree properly. A complete shutdown and reboot has restored it. I have made a final adjustment to the phylo tree now, so all's well. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 09:32, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Ah, good. I was wondering if I was missing something obvious. I almost changed the tree the way you have done now. Perhaps we should also flip Urocyon to the bottom. What is the doggie equivalent of anthropomorphic? Jts1882 (talk) 11:03, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps "canimorphic"? I agree that Urocyon should be down the bottom supplying the base of the tree, as it is the most basal genus. Regards, William

Hi, I'm afraid I don't know how to make them transparent. But I'm sure there are people here who know how to do so. Mariomassone (talk) 23:35, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks M. I think that it is impossible to make them transparent, but they could be made coloured to match the background using MS Paintbrush of similar. I am sure our new collaborator will work out how to do that given time. (I may have peeved you recently with my constant updates to the Beringians - I have prepared them towards achieving Good Article status.) Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 03:42, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Backgrounds can be made transparent in Photoshop or other image software. The white background must be selected with some tool and then deleted. I used an old PS programme and followed the instructions here and created this image file for the red fox: . Jts1882 (talk) 17:03, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

We bow to your greater knowledge of the technology, Jts1882. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 20:49, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

I may have accidentally volunteered to make the changes. I'll try and do them gradually. I'm unfamiliar with the etiquette of uploading the images, so before I upload more can you help with a couple of questions. Should I put them in the Commons rather than English wikipedia? Is my description with reference to the wiki-commons out of copyright image sufficient? Jts1882 (talk) 11:35, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Nice work Jts1882, and I respect a volunteer! I tried your new file in edit mode on Canidae (for coloured background) and Evolution of the wolf (for white background) and can vouch that it works. There is an easier way to do this, so let us try an experiment. Open the original icon provided by Mariomassone File:Dogs, jackals, wolves, and foxes (Plate XXII).jpg. Where it says " This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. Information from its description page there is shown below" click on the description page there, which will take you to its file on Commons. At the bottom of the section titled "File History" is a link to "Upload a new version of this file." Click on that and follow the instructions, ensuring that the file you upload has exactly the same name as the original. The file you load will then update across Commons and Wikipedia. Let us try just this file and see how it goes. I am sure Mario won't mind - it will provide him with some flexibility in design elsewhere. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 20:15, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Yesterday I went ahead and created the images. I realised I could replace the existing images, but thought the white background might be important somewhere and opted to create a new set. I uploaded a new set of .PNG images with transparent backgrounds (so there are two series of images: JPG with white background and PNG with transparent background). I added brief descriptions (which were mostly empty) using the names used by Mivart in his book Dogs, jackals, wolves, and foxes and added a link to the original white background image for the full information. I'm not sure this adequate or whether they should also be put on Commons. I've updated the cladogram on page Canidae. Jts1882 (talk) 08:53, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Canidae looks superb - excellent job Jts1882. Being transparent, the white background is not important. You might upload your copies on Commons as updates to the versions that Mario has in place, then everybody can access them; just a thought. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 08:59, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Chris, what is a dingo?

As I recall, based on what I've seen, looking back at it all now, the simplest answer to the question "What does "dingo" mean?" is:

The dingo is the native dog of Australia.

Unlike dogs in some other places, like, say, for example, southern China, dogs in Australia, before the introduction of other dogs from elsewhere, and still to a significant extent today, are quite uniform.

Early on, the dog was considered a species of the general dog type, not a subspecies of wolf. So early taxonomists used to name each major type of dog that they knew of, including dog breeds like dachshunds and so on, so they of course gave subspecies status to the dingo.

Soon, however, they gave that practice up, and all the taxa for types of dog fell off the bottom of traditional taxonomy and ended up as taxonomic "synonyms".

All except one: the taxon "dingo" survives to this day but my general impression is it seems to be on the way out.

It's interesting to me to ask why this happened. I can't cite this, but it seems safe to say it has to do with the common observation of dingoes living more as wolves than as domestic dogs, even feral ones.

Recently, however, the extent to which this is true, and for how long, has been questioned. Many experts nowadays seem to be saying that dingoes are more dependent on people than we tend to think, and that dingoes are just not just ecologically lupine, but often, rather, just pariah niche dogs, village dogs, and so on.

However there may be another force at work. There seems to be a fear that, if experts say that the dingo is just a dog, they would not be valued by people and therefore mistreated somehow or something.

Backing up a bit, though, there was a movement in the other direction. The Australian government paid experts to study the ecology of the dingo and it's relationship to the Australian livestock economy. These experts found it useful to call it "Canis dingo" so that they'd have room below to divide them into at least three "subspecies" that they learned to distinguish. Then they noticed that the native dogs of Australia's neighbors seemed quite the same in important ways and called them dingo as well.

This was a big problem on the article because it expanded the scope of our article dingo uncomfortably. The article, it was argued, has plenty to do to cover the original, Australian dingo. Users searching for "d-i-n-g-o" didn't want to read an article about the entire dingo-related branch on the dog family tree. It was making the article too long and the scope was too wide. So, we made a separate article about the whole clade they were calling dingo and kept that information there.

I think the dingo article should just be about the Australian dingo, and most people seem to agree. The article about the taxon dingo should probably end up as a sort of "intellectual history", if you get my drift, a story about the evolution of thought on the subject and all the significant neighboring non-Australian dogs that have been grouped under that taxon and where we are in in our thinking about dingoes today.

I would hope that readers should come away with the impression that there are more than just one legitimate way of looking at these things. While experts are sometimes keen to say that one way is truer than others, we should't do that, because whether a branch on the Tree of Life should have this or that name is inevitably sometimes in the end arbitrary and simply a matter of context and point-of-view dependent.

Far too often, all over Wikipedia, we talk as if taxa were something more than an important, probably indispensable, practical convention for keeping things organized, rather than a physical reality. The individuals and their clades are what is real, and we should be clear about that.

So there's a tendency to want to use the dingo taxon to refer to a clade, probably that of the Austronesian diaspora, but to my knowledge that hasn't really become a thing among experts.

"Dingo" refers first, always, and foremost, to the native dog of Australia, but has also at times for reasons also referred to the native dogs of neighboring countries as well, and MAYBE sometimes to the entire Australasian branch of the dog family tree to which the Australian dingo belongs.

Sorry, "Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte". Chrisrus (talk) 06:35, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you "Winston Churchill", who once said if you would like me to speak for half an hour I would need a week's warning or for 5 minutes then 6 months warning! Thanks for the background, Chris. As you can see, the ICZN has ruled that the dingo is Canis dingo. The ICZN only gets involved when (a) someone tries to do something silly, like try to classify lupus as a genus of fish, or (b) when they are asked for a ruling. Once ruled on, it is set in concrete until another ruling is made, which is why Canis dingo is on the official list and why the 1982 attempt at Canis lupus familiaris - based on a "feeling" - was rejected. Wozencraft appears to have gone out on a limb, and based his assessment on - what I believe to be - a bunch of evolutionary biologists chasing ghosts in statistical models predicated on small sequences of DNA. We also have him completely ignoring Blumenbach, and he has been subtly criticized in Jackson for not following the ICZN rules. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 08:20, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

You are right, so long as it's not "silly" or blatantly wrong, there are gray areas where reasonable people could see it both ways. Everyone should always just be reasonable.

The ICZN says "Canis dingo", because that makes sense to them given what they are trying to do in their context. They have their reasoning and they will explain it at length because that's their job and so they must argue for one or the other.

The Prestigious Society for What Australian Mammals Are Called prefers to call it Canis familiaris var. "dingo". They have their reasoning and it makes sense as well.

Is one right and the other wrong? Chrisrus (talk) 14:56, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I concur Chris, neither is right nor wrong. For me, I am only concerned about its whole-genome sequence and what that tells us in relation to other wolf-like canid sequences. (For your info, the ICZN has made a ruling in favour of C. familiaris in the past as well, but I will leave that one for now!) I have recently made edits to Dingo (taxon) in the direction you have described - it should focus on the wider group that are regarded as synonyms of Canis dingo, where they came from, how they may have gotten to where they were, and the genetic findings, but leave the Dingo article itself focus on Canis dingo. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 19:29, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Developing further on from your question "what is a dingo" Chris, based on what you now see in Dingo (taxon)#Whole genome sequences and the dingo is definitely part of the dog clade, we can look at the question that has already been raised by Debula 2015 - "what is a dog"? She produced a massive phylogenetic tree of both dog and wolf haplotypes mapped together, and her finding? Whatever we think the dog is, there are 6 distinct "monophyletic clades" hiding under that name - she discussed no further if we should refer to them as subspecies or species. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 20:33, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Dire wolf

The article Dire wolf you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Dire wolf for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already been on the main page as an "In the news" or "Did you know" item, you can nominate it to appear in Did you know. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Adam Cuerden -- Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:41, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Adam! Thanks for your diligent work on the Dire wolf article, and I hope that you enjoyed reading it (apart from the issues....). Your initial assessment was tough but the article is much better for it. This is my first GA and I have found it to be an illuminating experience - basically, I take on the mantle of being the "expert" and then gently guiding the readers through the topic, not unlike a tour guide at a museum or art gallery. This has now colored my view of other articles that I have created and hold WP:Stewardship over, and they will benefit from a rewrite. The Dire wolf has a northern cousin, the Beringian wolf, and that will be the first on my list. I might even give you an early bell once it is complete; you may - or may not - have an interest in that one when it is due as the issues and the structure are the same. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 01:55, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

I'd love to help out. It was great fun. Sorry it took so long. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 02:37, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Adam, I should not have nominated so close to the Christmas/New Year period - I was not thinking correctly. The interesting thing about the Beringians is that although they are extinct, a population of wolves living in remote China has just been found to be a genetic match! There is about to be a major announcement about the Beringians in the next few months - a very major one in the world of wolves - that will provide me with the finishing touches to the article and the WP:Notability criterion! It will then turn from being an infrequently visited page into a major tourist attraction. I shall give you a call once complete. I am also addressing your final points on Dire wolf. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 02:45, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Hello Adam. I naively believe that the Beringian wolf article is ready for GA review (and have decided to run with this earlier than I originally planned). Are you in a position to help shatter this belief, please? If so, let me know what UTC time suits you best and I will put the template in place. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 19:48, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Hello Adam, I understand that you are busy at present, but wanted to let you know that the article Dire wolf - which you raised to GA status - is now in the hands of the Guild of Copy Editors ("The Spacing Guild") prior to FA nomination. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 01:45, 1 March 2017 (UTC)