Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mammals/Archive 13

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Anoa

Is this the right place for this? I've been wanting to split Anoa into two separate species for a while now, and that talk page is dead. Ddum5347 (talk) 04:45, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Can someone help me with splitting both Anoa and Pudú, or at least discuss this with me? Ddum5347 (talk) 17:04, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

@Ddum5347: Both the IUCN and ASM-MDD recognise the two species, which could be justification for splitting the article. On the other hand, both say the status as two species is provisional and needs further study. The IUCN assessments were five years ago, though, and the MDD is following their view. Have you seen any recent studies on these animals that can add information. There is an IP editor with an interest on bovid splits (see discussion on the bushbuck below) and perhaps they have an opinion. —  Jts1882 | talk  15:00, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

I'll try looking for more recent assessments of these genera. Also nice edit on the grizzly bear page. I'm thinking we could do "/horriblis" on the pages for all the subspecies, just like with all the Old World subspecies. Ddum5347 (talk) 15:01, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi. Sure I have an opinion on bovids. I don't know much about pudú, but there are obvious biogeographical differences between taxa. About anoa, it's a bit of a mess. The recognition of the split into two taxa is due to a review by Groves in 1969, and this is still the current taxonomy everyone is following here. I only just read the 2005 review & 2008 IUCN treatments, so if there is new research, it's needed. The problem with Groves is that he based his species circumscription on unclear phenotypic, morphological characteristics which blend into each other (it's based on Ouwens earlier 1910 description). The clearest difference would be the size difference and the profile of a cross-section of the horn, but in reality neither characteristic is as clearly distinct as Groves would have it -horn cross-sections present as a scala, and large-sized anoa are morphometrically identical to smaller anoa. The character of "sometimes" vs. "always" having a white leg, is also useless on its own. This means a number of characteristics must be used in concert to determine the species, and even then, about 20-30% of the animals in the wild in the 2005 study couldn't be identified as one or the other species.

There is a reasonable collection of these cattle in zoos around the world, and morphological studies on them would have the two species interpretation to be bunk, but because these were identified based on Groves and older, there is no way to know for sure if the animals measured were actually the particular species the zoo says it is -the zoo population might be hybrids, we can't even tell. Either they're both very phenotypically plastic, polymorphic species, or parents of one species can give birth to another, or they're hybrids, or the 2 species concept is wrong.

This also has implications for distribution. Based on Groves' taxon circumscription, the two species are almost completely sympatric. In some parts of the range of the anoa, it is unclear which or if both species, or hybrids, occur. Even more suspicious from a biogeographic standpoint is the distribution on Buton Island -although the anoa was apparently unable to colonise any other of the outlying islands, somehow both taxa managed to colonise this one, and not only that, they occur in the same habitats in the areas throughout this island -no apparent niche differentiation. The traditional view is that the taxa are separated by altitude, but this also doesn't seem to hold.

You'd hope that genetics would shed some light on the situation, but they don't. There is clearly ancient genetic substructure in the genome, but that's all the 1990's mtDNA studies really say. On Hispaniola island, such substructure is also evident in lizards: the theory is that during the ice ages the island were split and it's animal populations were isolated, which preserved ancient maternal mitochondrial lineages in the metapopulation (it's a bit more complicated), but doesn't mean that this metapopulation isn't a reproductively coherent species now. Karyotypy is where it gets really bizarre -for an estimated population of only a few thousand individuals, something like eight or nine karyotypes have been found. Even crazier, one study examining 5 individuals, from purportedly the same species from the same locality, showed three different karyotypes. Normally, this shouldn't be possible, but with bovids... We see chromosomal diversity with bushbuck (see below), although perversely, because it a common species, people haven't been bothered to study it as much. Also domestic water buffalo exist in two karyotypes, and can apparently interbreed. You know the European wisent actually turns out to be Mother Nature's first attempt at creating a beefalo? Lastly, perhaps you have read the recent research on roe deer? They also show a bewildering variety of karyotypes, from a minimum in western Europe progressively higher towards East Asia -in that case it has to do with B chromosomes, perhaps that is what is going on in the anoa? All in all, more research is needed. No one really knows what's going on and are not making any taxonomic changes for now for the sake of stability (funny how that's always one way).

Maybe there are 2 genotypic cryptic species, but they do not correspond to Grove's phenotypic species concept.

Practical suggestion: I think it would be best to have three articles here. None of the information known about the species can be clearly separated, because the species can't: distribution, ecology, basic description. Why can't there be 1 article for the English language concept 'anoa'/subgenus Anoa? Everything, including potential fossil species, can go in there. Then you can have two articles about the species - purported differences, IUCN's opinion and taxonomic history, and just link to the main article regarding ecology & distribution. This way you don't end up having vague, redundant text that might be incorrect if the species really are different. Looking over the present article, uncited stuff which pertains to both species is just randomly pasted into the sections about the two species. Let me fix/move that. 86.83.56.115 (talk) 17:58, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your help. I'll tidy up the articles once you're done splitting them. Ddum5347 (talk) 19:27, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm done. You see there is very little text which can be attributed to one species in particular. Be wary of the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica text it does not refer to the species it says it does sensu stricto, but both: when a Dutchman published the new species in 1910, Brittanica rendered it as "the absence or presence of these white markings may be indicative of distinct races." I would also like to point your attention to the pictures of the lowland anoa... if we are to believe Groves, they cannot be lowland anoa because they lack the white markings... note they are all taken in zoos, and may be hybrids, misidentified or Groves might be wrong. Good luck! 86.83.56.115 (talk) 20:29, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

List of mammals merge?

List of mammals of Sardinia and List of mammals of Corsica exist, yet there is no reason for them to, since the two islands have currently have no endemic mammal species, and those that might be (such as the extinct Sardinian pika) are already included in List of mammals of Italy and List of mammals of France, respectively. I had already asked several people about this proposition, but I wanted to hear the opinions of people in the WProject. Ddum5347 (talk) 15:22, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

No, they should not be merged, as Corsica and Sardinia are distinct regions with probably slightly different faunal compositions. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 00:50, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

As I mentioned, there are no endemic extant mammal species to either island. That's why I started this discussion in the first place. Ddum5347 (talk) 01:10, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't understand why the presence or absence of endemic species should a criterion. Lavateraguy (talk) 06:20, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Endemic species are a good reason for having a separate list, but the lack of endemic species is not a good reason not to have them. A distinct geography and ecology is a much better criteria than modern geopolitical borders. The evidence for now extinct endemic forms illustrates the different nature of these islands. I see no reason to change the status quo and merge the articles. —  Jts1882 | talk  10:12, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback, guys. I just found it interesting how these two islands got their own pages, despite islands like Hainan, Vancouver Island, or Tierra del Fuego, which do have endemic mammals, don't have their own lists, but are instead just lumped into their country's lists. Ddum5347 (talk) 14:58, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

It may be simply a matter of an editor choosing to create a list over another.....Pvmoutside (talk) 18:56, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia will always have inconsistencies given its open nature. As I said in a response elsewhere, there are many lists of mammals of US states, which I think have a lesser case to these two. These islands stand out in Europe Wikipedia categories as being non-nation states, but island fauna and flora is a big deal. Look at the Indonesian islands. If editors are willing to maintain such lists, I will always support them if they are well sourced. —  Jts1882 | talk  19:21, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

States have a greater case, I argue. Some states may have endemic fauna, such as the island fox for California or the Round-tailed muskrat for Florida. Ddum5347 (talk) 19:34, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Another African bovid common name issue

Common tsessebe: The issue is that almost all the sources in the article are about topi in general, not this subspecies. It makes better sense to have two articles in this case, one for the species, and one for the subspecies. I suspect what's happened is that the article was originally about the species in general, and then someone re-named it to the new common name for the nominate subspecies. Split? The article for the nominate would be very thin, but at least it would stop people from adding info about topi in the Serengeti to an article purportedly about tsessebe in Southern Africa. 86.83.56.115 (talk) 16:43, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Topi: I split the text in the Damaliscus lunatus article between D. lunatus and D. lunatus lunatus. It will be easy to make two articles of it now. I'm now going through the D. lunatus jimela article. Same problem. Almost all the sources are the same sources about D. lunatus as in the Common tsessebe article. I will move all that to the correct article: when I hit publish, the originally B-rated article will become a stub. I'll give it a minute, so people can comment -see talk page of article. I think this was originally a good article about 'topi' that someone else later screwed up because they weren't thinking about it clearly. All this nonsense is basically caused by Grubb and his silly shuffling of vernacular names. When I grew up, a topi was a topi (D. lunatus). All the sources in the articles, with the exception of Grubb, and including the IUCN (2016), follow my vernacular usage. I'm also seeing the same usage in popular African websites (safari or trophy hunting). Like in the bushbuck article -the word 'topi' should link to the main vernacular usage, or a disambiguation page, not Grubb's idiosyncrasies after his splitting frenzy. An encyclopaedia should describe reality, not prescribe it -is, not ought. This is also why Latin names are superior to common name proxies when discussing taxa! 86.83.56.115 (talk) 09:32, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

This one is unusual as the number of species have decreased since MSW3, which recognised four species. Post-G&G, both the IUCN and ASM-MDD recognise two species, so I think this is the taxonomy to follow. Then it becomes a question of whether subspecies articles are justified. One article named Topi might be simplest and easiest to align with sources. I have no preference.

Agreed about the Latin names. It would be easier here and would stop some of the nationalists getting upset about leopard names now the subspecies have merged to cover a volatile geopolitical range.

P.S. Why are you editing as an IP? There is no need to answer, as it's your call, but I was just curious. —  Jts1882 | talk  12:03, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

editing as an IP? Consistency. Only reason.

Common names as proxies for taxa in article titles: It would work if taxonomy was stable, but it isn't. This just brings unneeded complexity to encyclopaedia infrastructure, and subjectivity and stupid emotions! Too late now, though. Using Latin names certainly makes communication over here clearer...

Taxonomy: G&G went so far as to inflate the genus to 11 species! Wikipedia initially followed Kingdon 2006/IUCN 2008, with 6 subspecies, like the ASM-MDD now. Someone then got confused because of the common name issue, and screwed up both the jimela & the D. lunatus articles. ASM-MDD may have rejected MSW3 because it is based on Coterill 2003, which was ... a bit weird. See taxonomy section here: Bangweulu tsessebe. One problem with the 'recognition species concept' Coterill invented to accept his taxa is that the same individual can be determined as hundreds of taxa, depending on which sample set you put it in. At least it's empirical, though, unlike the G&G taxa.

The problem is the (new) ambiguity of the word topi. Almost all sources call D. lunatus a 'topi', it is Grubb in MSW3 and G&G that restrict this word to jimela. Etymologically the word topi is Swahili, thus historically actually referred to ssp. topi, which occurs along the coasts where Swahili is spoken.

The easiest way to fix this is to have 7 articles, 1 for the species and 6 for the subspecies. But without using Latin, I don't know what to do about jimela regarding how it should be titled. Maybe "Topi (subspecies)"? Having everything under 1 large article would solve the common name headache. I don't know... I'll just fix the veracity problem first, and move the info to the correct taxon. Thanks for the response! 86.83.56.115 (talk) 13:46, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Help evaluate article on Bornean Ferret Badger

Hi I'm also a university student editing an article on the Bornean Ferret Badger and I would greatly appreciate it if anyone could give me any feedback. It's a work in progress and your feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advanced Ghost1590 (talk) 23:16, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

First off, it should be Bornean ferret-badger, not Bornean Ferret Badger, per Wikipedia policy on the capitalization of species' names. Also, the Latin names of genus and species should be italicized. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 17:00, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Help evaluate article on Gabon Talapoin

Hi I'm a university student editing an article on the Gabon Talapoin and I would appreciate it if anyone could take a look at the article. It's still a work in progress but any feedback would be appreciated. Thank you! NoEsPu102 (talk) 09:26, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

@NoEsPu102: An excellent expansion, you have done well! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:41, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

An evaluation for on a stub article

Hi, I’m a student and new to a wikipedia editing. Currently, I’m working in a stub article called List of mammalian gestation durations. Any feedback would greatly appreciated, thanks for your time. ToastedPeanutButter (talk) 11:48, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

@ToastedPeanutButter: Looking at the article, I think it should be rearranged so that the "Factors affecting the gestation period in mammals" section comes before the actual list. This would also have the advantage that the "Contents" box would come before the main list rather than after it. You also need to copyedit the "Factors affecting the gestation period in mammals" section as some of the sentences, like those about the bat, are confusing. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:00, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

List of mammals by location - what is the timeframe?

I'd like to figure out if there exists some kind of established consensus on the cut-off date to include species as "extinct" on any of the many lists of mammals by location. The timeframe used for the extinct/extirpated category seems to vary between substantially between articles, but I'm not seeing it spelled out anywhere. The issue is well demonstrated by the aurochs, which seems to be named in every European list, but became extinct in wildly different eras (in Great Britain somewhere around 2000-1000 BCE, in Poland in the 17th century). There are now spirited attempts to add 5000-year old hippo records to the Israel list - which it is hard to argue against when the Egypt list contains the hartebeest apparently on the strength of Old Kingdom images! We are clearly not populating these lists with end-Pleistocene woolly rhinos and cave hyenas, but seeing that the Bronze Age is apparently fair game, that would only be a marginal stretch - after all, both are pre-historiographic but with plenty of human depictions of these animals.

So, in short - is there some existing consensus in place to govern this threshold? If not, shall we establish one? Personally I would suggest either going with the post-1500 cut-off that the IUCN uses for bestowing any assessment, which would keep the focus on extant species and recent extinctions; or with the regional end of the Iron Age - which variably comes out as 700 BCE ~ 800 CE in different parts of the world and makes the sourcing much more spongy, but at least it's an adaptive measure that roughly corresponds with the appearance of written records. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:44, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Note: also dropped notices at WikiProject Palaeontology and WikiProject Animals. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:24, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

• I support using the IUCN's 1500 AD cut-off point. Anything before that it not relevant to what these lists are for, which is listing modern fauna. Happy editing. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 19:51, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
• I support 1500 as a cut off. It seems to be the most common in lists I've seen and I think that when people look for a list of mammals from some place, primarily they are thinking of what is extant, but it makes sense to include things which have become extinct in recent history. It's also the cut off used on the bird lists. SchreiberBike | ⌨  22:35, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
• I support for animals that became extinct on each region before 1500 AD, by that i mean in the Iron Age, Bronze Age, Ancient History or any timeframe at the start point of written history strictly saying. I am strongly with a high doubt against SilverTiger12 and SchreiberBike's ideas!, their ideas stink like a rotten banana in some random alleyway (no offense). For the various examples, i can say that the aurochs became in North Africa earlier, another example is that hippos in the southern levant became extinct in the Iron Age, technically written history or maybe not i am not sure. But my point is that why can't we at least have that or just what? huh? why can't we?. It's not like we are going to have ice age megafauna on each list and that would not make any sense to which Elmidae is correct, i understand, but in my respective opinion animals extinct in each region in the Iron Age, Bronze Age, Ancient History or any point in written history but before 1500 AD can work to me. Sorry if i sounded like a crazed up lunatic for the "why" part, but anyhoo i still support for animals that became with the regional end of the Iron Age or any timeframe early in written history, no matter what. --Animalworlds314 (talk) 22:57, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
• Comment. I think we should consider what people are expecting when they come to the article. I suspect most people are expecting mammals found there now, so don't want a list dominated by extinct animals. On the other hand, people might be interested to know about what mammals live there in the past have been made extinct by man. For instance would they be interested that the UK used to have wolves, lynxes and bears or would they only have interest in those making it past 1500AD? The IUCN 1500 is arbitrary (presumably something to do with written records) and I don't think arbitrary limits are particularly encyclopaedic (i.e. only listing the wolf and not bears and lynxes in my UK example). Perhaps there is a compromise. Restrict the main list to extant mammals (and recently extinct with documented last sightings) and have a section for selected extinct mammals which would need to be properly sourced for each entry. —  Jts1882 | talk  07:38, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

@Jts1882: that is the state that we have now - see e.g. List of mammals of Israel. The problem with the "freeform for each separate list" approach is that it does not prevent, e.g., the list for Germany going to 1200 CE while the list for neighbouring Austria goes to 12000 BCE - giving the impression that there were lions in the one region but not in the other. In other words, variable arbitrary limits are worse than one consistent arbitrary limit. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:58, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

I think the important thing is to follow sources. The IUCN is not strict about 1500AD (at least for locally extinct species). I looked up the IUCN assessments for the carnivores in List of mammals of Great Britain, which mentions the wolf, brown bear and the Eurasian lynx as extirpated. The IUCN assessments mention the UK and Ireland as locations where the wolf and brown bear is listed as extinct (with no dates). The wolf fits within the 1500AD limit, but I'm pretty sure the brown bear was extirpated over 1000 years ago, similar to the lynx. The lynx assessment doesn't list extinct locations at all, so this seems to be up to the assessor. The IUCN guide-date for extinct animals might refer to whether they make an assessment or not for extinct species.

This presents a problem for consistency. For your example of two neighbouring countries, then using the IUCN assessments and including the bear for both the UK and Ireland lists would be consistent. However, if we follow the IUCN then there is the inconsistency of the brown bear being mentioned and the lynx being excluded, even though they were extirpated in the same general time period. I don't think it's possible for such list to be entirely consistent. They also include introduced animals and there it sometimes difficult to separate established populations and temporary ones dues to escapees.

My gut feeling is that such lists should include brown bears and lynxes (which fail the 1500AD cut-off) but I don't think it useful to list mammoths and sabre-tooths from the ice-age. I'm not sure how to set up the criteria. Some form of reliable sourced written record might be possible, which would probably place the limit to Roman times or after, which any listing of an extirpated mammal requiring a date and source. —  Jts1882 | talk  15:40, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Guys, @Elmidae and Jts1882:, what seems to be the problem, don't make things complicated for yourselves for wailing out loud. Can't we just agree on animals that became extinct/extirpated in each certain region or country in each timeframe in written history (e.g. Roman times, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Ancient History, Post-classical history or any time in written history) can stay at each list of mammals articles. And another thing, the part where one of you said something about the criteria, well i can give you the example of how someone set up a criteria, see here List of mammals of Turkey, the criteria there says there "occurring in historical times (about 4000 years ago) in Turkey", the person who set up that kind of criteria was Chidgk1 and he had no problem or issue of setting that up. You guys could do something like that, just helping out if needed. -- Animalworlds314 (talk) 16:04, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

I haven't updated the article for this yet, but List of mammals of Japan will soon reflect the fact that once there were Panthera tigris tigers in Japan. That's surely of interest, even if noted in a separate subsection, and specifically referenced, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 16:28, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

That's another nice illustration of the problem, because tiger records in Japan are from the Pleistocene. Consequently we should feel free to drop the entire ice age megafauna into each European list? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:52, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

@Elmidae:, Not to be rude and all but my question to you is that what do you exactly mean by dropping the entire ice age megafauna into each European list? -- Animalworlds314 (talk) 16:59, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

I guess one option, if one wanted for this not to be the case, would be to include mammals that are still extant on a global level (and perhaps recently extinct), where they were extirpated etc locally in prehistoric times. That said, readers of the British list might be interested to learn that wooly rhinos once roamed the realm. Or it might be possible to include select/incomplete lists of such megafauna with links to more complete articles/listings - if the idea is for such mentions to be separately referenced, that might provide enough of a deterrent anyway, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 17:47, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

@Maculosae tegmine lyncis:, you have a good point from what you said, although i don't know if that would happen right away as Elmidae said about dropping these European ice age megafauna into each European lists about mammals because it seems to me that each European does not include Ice age megafauna that once roamed in Europe that include woolly mammoths, eurasian cave lions, ice age European leopards, woolly rhinos, European dholes, European hippos, giant cheetahs, Pleistocene wild horses, European gazelles, Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus), while not extinct but fossil records of Asiatic black bears in Europe show that they were present there, a paleosubspecies of the spotted hyena that formerly lived in Europe were cave hyenas, European water buffalos, cave bears, Irish elks, and more have gone extinct since then. -- Animalworlds314 (talk) 18:26, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Just a comment. I was an author of a paper albeit on turtles, on the extinctions during the rise of humanity. This was done through different stages. In most literature there is a clear distinction between species that went extinct while humans were around, eg ice age, but no direct attribution to humans, through periods where humans were among the species just trying to survive which is anything before 1850'ish really and those that went extinct after humans were becoming aware of the issue modern extinctions in other words. For most purposes its the modern extincts that are of special interest and should be included. Anything earlier is the primal fauna of an area. It is relevant in other lists really. You have to set hard cutoffs here and there. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 20:00, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Look @Faendalimas:, i don't even know what the heck are you talking about but i am against at your idea about keeping modern extinctions into list of mammals articles, i would still prefer that animals that became extinct/extirpated in each region any timeframe in written history like i said above of various examples but before modern times and before 1500 AD should stay at each list of mammals article. -- Animalworlds314 (talk) 20:41, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Wow that response is a little over the top. I was offering you options that might get you a consensus. Instead of wishing people would agree with you, which they do not have to do, and demanding it tends to push people away. This is about consensus. I did not cast a vote just added more discussion points. For the record the literature, ie the science, does distinguish between species that went extinct in modern history and those that did not. Which is what the IUCN is basically doing, and who is followed here in many other aspects. The difference I was speaking of is the causal agent. Humans began understanding extinction in the 1800s so for the most part those are modern extinctions and usually the fault of humans. Anything from ~c 7500 years ago till (using IUCN) 1500, is survival, humans did not understand and were not the impact they are these days anyway. Anything before that time are essentially archaic extinctions that are often nothing to do with humans even though they were around, though some were, but no more than any other species pushing another one out. My point is there are differences in extinctions at different times in human history and it may not be that accurate to lump them altogether. Hence I suggest a set of criteria that recognise this. What I said was a suggestion, based on my experience. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 22:25, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support. Lists are required to come with clear-cut and well-defined inclusion criteria according to Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists. Thus, the need for such criteria is really out of question, since we need to follow the rules. The only question is which criteria to use. The 1500 cut-off seems reasonable to me. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:08, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

I'll give you the answer @Jens Lallensack:, the criteria that i would strongly recommend is using either the Iron Age, Ancient History, Roman Times, Bronze Age or any timeframe way earlier than 1500 AD, by those timeframes that i said are in fact BCE generally speaking. But @Jens Lallensack:, the criteria that i would recommend to use is Ancient History. -- Animalworlds314 (talk) 21:18, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Using Bronze Age or Acient History seems somewhat arbitrary to me. In my opinion the IUCN is the established instance we need to follow here. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

@Jens Lallensack:, But why, why that, huh? why that? could you freaking please stop saying IUCN and the whole cut-off date for 1500, ok? I wish that a lot of people would agree with me about the new inclusion of mammals that are regionally extinct at each certain country or region at earlier timeframes would do fine! If that new inclusion happens one day, then you are out of luck. You would have to accept the change but that is just in case. -- Animalworlds314 (talk) 21:45, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Could someone please explain to me how readers might in any way benefit from being deprived of potentially interesting information about eg Japanese tigers (or Israeli hippos for that matter), thank you, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 21:53, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists, inclusion criteria need to be backed up with reliable sources. Do we have reliable sources that specifically use "Acient History" as inclusion criterium? If yes, are those sources better than the IUCN in any way? If not, I think the rules require us to stick with the 1500 cut-off. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:55, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support using IUCN as standard, as we usually do. FunkMonk (talk) 22:15, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

• Is the 1500 cutoff point needed because these lists use multiple sources? ~ cygnis insignis 06:22, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support having a cut-off, and 1500 seems a reasonable one, although I'd be fine with something along the lines of "recorded history". In the latter case, though, I think it would be useful to include the date of extinction on the list, since there's obviously a difference between "extinct since the 1920s" and "extinct since ~1000 BC" and this would help to put things into context. Creatures that went extinct during the Pleistocene, or whatever (such as tigers in Japan) would better belong in a dedicated list of extinct prehistoric animals by region, if such a thing were needed. Anaxial (talk) 07:04, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

I'd support "recorded history" with a requirement for dates and sources for each locally extinct form include. The problem with the IUCN 1500 cut-off is that this is their standard for doing assessments of species that are extinct. It's not a standard for mentioning local extinction, as the brown bear example I have above shows. The IUCN assessment doesn't give a date, just gives a list of countries and that includes countries where it became locally extinct in the wild at least 1000 years ago.

For those advocating following the IUCN, would the brown bear be accepted for the GB or Ireland lists as the IUCN assessment for the brown bear says it is extinct in the UK and Ireland? —  Jts1882 | talk  09:09, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

@Jts1882: just to make sure we are looking at the same data - the European assessment for the brown bear does not mention either England or Ireland (correctly so as per cutoff), whereas the global assessment does. This may thus just be an oversight between reports that nominally should overlap. Are you aware of any other instances where extant species are listed as locally extinct for pre-1500 locations? From my experience, that's not usually the case. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:07, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

You picked 2 special cases. The Ireland list is clearly based on Marnell et al. (2019), and the UK list on Mathews et al. (2018). Neither publication refers to the brown bear, so it shouldn't be in these lists. The map in the IUCN global assessment for the brown bear shows a red polygon for regions, where it is extinct: EXcluding Ireland and UK, whereas both countries are listed -- oddly -- under Extinct in the section on geographic range. So I suggest that : if country-specific reviews exist, lets use these as sources for the state of mammals in the resp. countries; they can be complemented by the resp. states as per iucn assessment. If such reviews do not exist, lets refer solely to iucn assessments. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 22:01, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

heya Jts1882 I am not really advocating for or against either, just trying to explain it. In part the IUCN is setting their date because whatever the reason for the extinctions ones prior to 500 years ago are not really reversible and part of the mandate of the IUCN is to prevent extinction and maybe look at repairing some of the damage. They had to draw a line somewhere too. Species older than 1500AD are just too long gone for any reliable information or chances to fix the situation. I could see the value in reporting local extinctions in taxa that re still extant elsewhere. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 20:20, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I don't have a strong view but I would include anything we can reliably cite that was made (extinct/extirpated/no longer there) due to humans. Because people should know what humans have done and maybe reintroduce some. So I think I agree with Faendalimas Chidgk1 (talk) 09:36, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

1500 AD is too late imo. I would say a date of 0 AD is a better cutoff. I don't think there is a good reason to exclud the subfossil lemurs and other recently extinct mammals from the List of mammals of Madagascar Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:07, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support using a cut-off date at 1500 AD and clearly stating this in the lede of each list. For species that are locally extinct in countries, lets consistently reference the respective iucn Red List for these species. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 14:46, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Hey all. FYI: Animalworlds314 was blocked indefinitely a few days ago after ranting and raving on Elmidae's and my talk pages for a couple of hours. Now an anonymous user re-added species to some lists that are EX for 2000+ years. So I think, we need a decision on how to deal with the back and forth on these lists and would like to make a proposal:

• In the past ~2 decades, several national NGOs and GOs organised + published reviews and assessments about mammals in their countries, e.g. IUCN country offices in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Arabian Peninsula; also GOs in Denmark, UK + Ireland, and many more.
• Lets use these and similar publications dating to the late 20th + 21st centuries as sources in the ledes of the wiki country lists, and for the national status of these mammals.
• And then supplement this info by the international status acc. to the resp. IUCN Red Lists for species present in the countries.

Your thoughts? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 07:40, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

• I feel that this does not really clarify the question of how far back the inclusion criteria should go. If a national source lists a species that disappeared 2000 years ago, but the IUCN doesn't due to their 1500 CE cutoff, do we include it? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:54, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I think this is a very rare case. E.g. the Bangladesh National Red List of mammals shows 11 species that are extinct in the country, with the blackbuck being the earliest extinct in the late 19th century. So if a country list shows a species that disappeared 500+ years ago, we can discuss this special case on the talk page of the resp. country list, whether or not to stick to the 1500AD cut-off rule. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 15:10, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

So the implicit threshold would be 1500 CE, with discussion in case of source contradictions. I think that makes sense, but let's make it explicit - clearly state that date - to avoid confusion. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:28, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Serval Subspecies

Castelló (2020) recognizes three subspecies of serval: Leptailurus serval serval, L. serval lipostictus, and L. serval constantina. This was also acknowledged by Kitchener et al., but is just glanced over in the article. As several differences are noted by Castelló, should their morphology and behaviour be discussed in further detail? Borophagus (talk) 18:03, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't see why not. —  Jts1882 | talk  06:50, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

References

Requested move at Talk:Arctocephalus forsteri#Requested move 18 August 2021

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Arctocephalus forsteri#Requested move 18 August 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 14:04, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Unexplained reverts of a good edit on Indian hog deer

I'm new here, so I don't know if this is the right place to put this. But after I made an edit to Indian hog deer that highlighted the recent taxonomic change of that species by the ASM, @FlightTime: decided my edit was "Unsourced, unexplained" [1]. I therefore decided to take this to the talk page, so I could at least try to reason with what seemed to be a very weird decision. [2] After writing on the talk page, I waited for a response. Curious if he actually read it, I opened his edit history and saw edits after I had wrote there. I then decided to revert his revert anyways. He then reverted again, saying "Still unsourced" [3]. He then visited my talk page and wrote this: [4] as a final warning. He then immediately reverted this, but did not revert his edit on the page. [5] I then put a response on his talk page, which he ignored. [6] What do I do? I don't want to edit-war but this guy just baselessly says my edits are unsourced, even though I did put one. Help. 74.68.117.176 (talk) 02:10, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

• It was probably a mistake because you didn't format the reference how one might normally expect it using the templates (which isn't required but is easier to identify if you're just glossing over it). When you added it back, your edit was the exact same size as before so they just assumed you still didn't add a source. Also, good faith isn't very often assumed for IPs. We should wait for FlightTime to respond here but I expect they'll revert it back   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:36, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Let's hope so. I just hope they can read what I wrote. 74.68.117.176 (talk) 02:58, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

• This should really be discussed at the relevant talk page, not here. However, although I'm not the reverting editor, I'll note that the reference cited doesn't really support the claims being made. The claims were that:

1. the ASM made a change to the generic status of the species in 2021. The source cited is from 2018, and gives no mention of what happened in 2021. This part should be easy to fix.
2. the change made by the ASM was "controversial". That may be so, but again, there's nothing in the sources cited to support this claim, since they don't mention the change, let alone the reaction to it.

Anaxial (talk) 05:29, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Right then. The source I used was the source the ASM used to justify their taxonomy. Think this one will work better? 74.68.117.176 (talk) 05:35, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

I think the sources are fine, but you need to reword the text to follow what the sources actually say. You are putting it into your own words when you say is is controversial. You need to state what the Groves and Gupta references proposed and what the ASM accepted. Here are the references in the appropriate format.

Thanks for the help. Hopefully this will sit over better. 74.68.117.176 (talk) 17:38, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

References

Bos revision

According to MammalDiversity, and as has been supported by phylogenetic studies for almost 20 years, the genus Bison is no longer valid, with its members belonging to Bos.

In addition, the subgeneric classification on the present Bos page seems to have little-to-no backing, especially the idea that the kouprey needs its own subgenus as opposed to belonging with the gaur, banteng, and their domesticated counterparts. The division into the subgenera Bibos, Bos, and Poephagus has significantly more backing, but the 2011 Ungulate Taxonomy paper, the most expansive paper I can see that tackles this issue, prefers to just group them into clades with no actual scientific name ("cattle" clade, "gaur-banteng-kouprey" clade, "yak-bison" clade), and specifically refers to the "Bos-Bibos-Poephagus" division as "erstwhile". While the ASM disagrees with parts of that paper, such as its delineation of species, it seems to follow other parts, so I'd say that paper should be followed for the division of the Bos species list.

I already edited the page to reflect this, but it was reverted as consensus would be preferred before such a sweeping edit, so I'm posting this here to field some opinions. In addition, I soon plan on editing the pages of Bison and its species to reclassify them into Bos, so I'd like opinions on that.Geekgecko (talk) 22:33, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

In fact, many taxonomic revisions from the Ungulate Taxonomy are highly controversial. However, the synonymization of Bison with Bos is well supported by modern phylogenetic analyses, so I Agree. HFoxii (talk) 11:58, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Agree. Doubt many others on this website will, though, There seem to be some real sticklers here. 74.68.117.176 (talk) 07:22, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

European mouflon

Sources appear to differ about the relationship between the European mouflon and the domestic sheep and this has generated a dispute at this article. Editors are requested to contribute their understanding at the talk page in order to reach a consensus so the tag can be removed. Bermicourt (talk) 17:58, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Dall sheep#Requested move 12 September 2021

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Dall sheep#Requested move 12 September 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. — hike395 (talk) 22:38, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Saudi gazelle?

Per ASM, the Saudi gazelle is now conspecific with the dorcas gazelle. @BhagyaMani: has recently reverted edits that agree with this, on the basis that the lists are primarily based on IUCN Red Lists, and should not be updated on mammals lists. This is a continuation of our discussion at his talk page. I disagree with his view; any taxonomic changes should be updated in mammals lists too, and these changes should be referenced. Any thoughts? J0ngM0ng (talk) 12:56, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

This gets tricky as the projects favoured source is still MSW3, which is outdated, so in practice we follow the IUCN and increasingly the ASM. When there is disagreement between these sources, neither is considered authoritative and we need to make case by case decisions. If a list article is based on the IUCN we would need consensus to change it and vice versa. For instance, we have developed a consensus to use the IUCN for the cat family, because they have published a taxonomic review of their system. We haven't adopted some of the new ASM changes. I think you need to be more specific about the lists you are referring to. —  Jts1882 | talk  15:15, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

The lists are the List of mammals of Saudi Arabia and of adjacent countries where the saudi gazelle occurred. In these lists' sections /* Locally extinct */ I had added the resp. ref to IUCN RL entry dating 2008, as the IUCN RL assessment of dorcas gazelle does not include former range of saudi gazelle. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 17:00, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Yep, Bhagya described it perfectly. It's the lists for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Yemen. The dorcas gazelle as defined by IUCN does not include the Saudi gazelle. hence the discussion. J0ngM0ng (talk) 17:53, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

References

Consensus on taxonomy of domesticated animals?

Recently, a user has challenged my edits of updating the taxonomy of the domestic goat from Capra aegagrus hircus to Capra hircus. They said I had no consensus of the issue, despite the fact that the source most commonly used for taxonomy here is the ASM (which I base my edits off of). Was I somehow wrong in believing that is our main source, or is this person just not up to date regarding this? (They had also challenged my edits which were of the same nature to the horse and domestic pig). J0ngM0ng (talk) 21:15, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

ICZN Opinion 2027 & this article may be relevant, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 00:18, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, we really should consider domesticated mammals as separate species (per ASM), but it should be clearly noted in each article that some authors classify these taxa as subspecies of their wild relatives. HFoxii (talk) 14:50, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

WP reflects consensus, so should be on case by case basis, depending on what the current consensus is for each taxon Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:13, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I meant. The ASM considers domesticated mammals to be distinct species. However, in some other sources they are considered subspecies, and we should not ignore this (according to WP: NPOV). HFoxii (talk) 04:40, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

References

New skunks

There’s a paper saying there are a few more skunk species out there: Spilogale leucoparia, Spilogale interrupta, and Spilogale yucatanensis. --awkwafaba (📥) 11:26, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Too early for new articles, we need a secondary source for that (IUCN or ASM). But the new information on the species split proposals should be added to the relevant species and genus articles. —  Jts1882 | talk  12:56, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Agree - it's usually fine to get going on entirely novel descriptions, but splits can be fickle and waiting for some validation/acceptance is wise. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:33, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Agree too. Whatever is on the www.biorxiv.org server is neither reviewed nor published, hence not reliable. – BhagyaMani (talk) 14:58, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

References

About time to split the wolves?

The red wolf and eastern wolf are considered distinct species from the gray wolf by the American Society of Mammalogists. The red wolf being distinct has been well-established for a while now, with many authorities including the IUCN considering it distinct, with Wikipedia being a holdout due to its taxonomy being primarily based on the 2005 MSW list until the ASM database started recently. The eastern wolf being distinct is a bit more of a recent development but is still accepted by ASM. Should we finally classify them as distinct species? I'm just asking since these are likely very high-traffic articles, and I also tried to do this for the red wolf in late 2018 and it was reverted, although this was before the ASM list started I think.Geekgecko (talk) 04:44, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether ASM decisions are ultima ratio and think you should better discuss this at the gray wolf talk page. – BhagyaMani (talk) 07:19, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Given that information on MSW3 is almost two decades old (and MSW4 seemingly being thing of myth), we need to move on. I think most of these discussions end up favouring a move when both the IUCN and ASM are in agreement. On the other hand, the Dog SG has started the process toward a revised taxonomy, so it might be better to wait for their decision. At the moment, both have articles and the alternative classifications are given. —  Jts1882 | talk  07:56, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

IIRC, it was decided awhile back that we should use the IUCN + ASM in agreement for updated taxonomy after the now outdated MSM. Waiting for the Dog SG sounds nice, but in practice could be a while. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 15:31, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

I support Jts1882's proposal to wait for the Canid SG's assessment. And @William Harris: ? – BhagyaMani (talk) 16:30, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Thankyou BhagyaMani for the ping. The ASM does not dictate global canid taxonomy - it may be influential yes, but adjudicates no. These Wikipedia articles are not "holdouts", they express all points of view as is required by WP:NPOV. As long as there is one group of taxonomists or evolutionary biologists that can persuasively argue that these wolves are lupus then that is what needs to be represented along with all other points of view - please refer to the section above titled Consensus on taxonomy of domesticated animals?. I also support JTS in waiting for the Canid Reference Group to form a position - they have recently done so with "Old World" canids and nobody has rebutted them, thus the Old World canids have been amended on Wikipedia to support the CRG position. Once again, should the CRG form the opinion that these are separate species, we will need to revisit the position of the articles once that arises. William Harris (talk) 00:03, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Is there any timeline or planned date for the CRG's decision or is it unknown? Geekgecko (talk) 19:07, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

It is not known, but similar to the classification of the Old World canids when it is released it will come like a lightning bolt from the sky, and you can rest assured that both JTS and I are keeping a lookout for it. I respect your interest in keeping WP up to date. William Harris (talk) 06:53, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Paenungulata Edits

Some unregistered IPA (probably the same person) keeps reverting the claim of dinoceratans and the South American native ungulates as a whole in the taxobox. This is inaccurate and I explained it more in detail on the article's talk page. Anyway we can block said IPAs? 4444hhhh (talk) 18:10, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Orinoco river dolphin

Hey everyone, I am planning on making a page for the Orinoco river dolphin (Inia humboldtiana). The ASM presently classifies it as a distinct species based on a study from last year, which uses osteological and genetic evidence supporting it as being a distinct species (I'm no expert, but the evidence used in the study does seem pretty sufficient). However, most other authorities do not (likely since the study is still quite new), and even the ASM states that its classification is tentative until further research about contact zones comes about. I'm planning on having the article acknowledge both points of view, much like the articles for the Araguaian river dolphin and the Bolivian river dolphin. The main reason I'm giving a heads up here is because the individuals at Duisburg Zoo, which are used throughout the Amazon river dolphin page, seem to actually be Orinoco dolphins based on several sources, meaning that if I'm going to make a page about I. humboldtiana, I will have to remove those images from the Amazon dolphin page and replace them with ones of confirmed I. geoffrensis. So just wanted to give a heads up. Geekgecko (talk) 19:03, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

May be WP:TOOSOON, the only major database which I see lists "I. humboldtiana" is World Cetacea Database which says it's an unaccepted synonym   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  07:21, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

While I think it looks likely that at least three of the four species in the ASM-MDD will be recognised more widely, I have to agree that it is too soon. The Society for Marine Mammalogy and hence the IUCN are waiting for further information before making a split of I. araguaiaensis and I. boliviensis . Hrbek et al (2014) only find three distinct groups (based on molecular analyses, with supporting morphological evidence) and leave I. g. humboldtiana as subspecies of I. geoffrensis, although it's not clear how many samples were from the Orinoco basin, while Canizales (2020) proposes recognition of I. humboldtiana based on morphological evidence (but see Fig 9). I suspect further molecular evidence to corroborate this split is needed before the SMM and IUCN recognise this species. You could write the article in draft space, but you might have to wait a while for further news. It might be a better use of time to expand the current article to describe these potential splits. Both the IUCN and SMM have discussions on the evidence for potential splits. —  Jts1882 | talk  10:54, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Strepsirrhini taxonomy

Currently, the English Wikipedia uses a classification according to which the suborder Strepsirrhini subdivided into infraorders †Adapiformes and Lemuriformes (Lemuroidea + Lorisoidea). The taxonomy of strepsirrhines is very confusing, but this classification does not seem to be prevalent. At least ITIS, MSW3, and NCBI subdivide suborder Strepsirrhini into three infraorders: Lemuriformes, Lorisiformes, and Chiromyiformes. The same classification is used in recent phylogenetic research[7][8][9]. Unfortunately, adapiforms are not taken into account in this case, but since it is a paraphyletic group, I am not sure if we should use this taxon. HFoxii (talk) 05:23, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Looks like the automated taxonbox system is following the two infraorder classification of Cantwell (2010). The controversies section compares the two and three infraorder systems, but doesn't mention the four infraorder system that would be consistent with the three extant infraorders used by MSW3, ASM-MDD and the phylogenetic studies you link to. Given MSW3 is still the recommended source for the project and its taxonomy holds up well (apart from the Cheirogaleoidea-Lemuroidea split in Lemuriformes) and is used in other recent sources, I think we should use the three extant infraorder system. —  Jts1882 | talk  11:09, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Mole (animal)

The existence of the article Mole (animal) somewhat confuses me. I would assume that it's talking about animals with the "mole" body plan (so most members of Talpidae, as well as Chrysochloridae and Notoryctidae), but most of the article aside from the section "Other 'moles'" refers exclusively to Talpidae. In addition, I doubt we need a separate article for "mole"; only a few members of Talpidae (the several shrew moles and desmans) really fall outside the "mole" body plan, and I'm pretty sure most people with knowledge of golden moles and marsupial moles would already acknowledge them as distinct from true moles. I propose that we remove all the info exclusively about Talpidae (and potentially move it to that page if it's not already there) and either make this article just about animals with the "mole" body plan or we just turn the whole article into a redirect to Talpidae.Geekgecko (talk) 23:37, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Reliable sources noticeboard discussion about Encyclopedia of Life

Hi all

I've started a discussion on the reliable sources noticeboard about Encyclopedia of Life as a reliable source for Wikipedia, please share your thoughts here. I've added some basic information about EOL at the top of the section to help inform the discussion.

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 20:24, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Malayan tapir in Acrocodia?

The page for the Malayan tapir lists the species as belonging to the genus Acrocodia based on Groves and Grubb 2011, which many other taxonomic authorities such as ASM have disputed due to classifying species and genera on solely morphological grounds. Indeed, ASM and IUCN do not classify it in Acrocodia; however, ITIS does, surprisingly. Would ITIS be considered the "main" authority (as with primates), and we should leave it in Acrocodia, or should we keep it in Tapirus as does ASM? Geekgecko (talk) 19:09, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

I've taken the view (and argued many times) that if the IUCN and ASM-MDD agree we should follow that. ITIS gets its data from other databases so will lag behind. —  Jts1882 | talk  20:35, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Done. Also agree to follow IUCN Red List + also wrote so many times. – BhagyaMani (talk) 22:30, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Potential persistent disruption on animal pages

Hello all. A recently banned user, Somed00d1997, has made a prolific number of edits to animal pages. Many of these were disputed and reversed (and the user made clear that they were too smart to need consensus, which provoked multiple edit wars), but a number remain, ranging from less-trafficked species to high-profile pages like Duck. I imagine a number of them are totally fine, but I have no real expertise here, and thought it might be worthwhile to flag in case those who are more knowledgable on the subject wanted to have a look through their changes. The user also seems to have used a few sockpuppets once they were banned, including Reusensio.--Yaksar (let's chat) 16:32, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I also had a few encounters with their sockpuppets, a 3rd bit the dust just after a few edits. – BhagyaMani (talk) 17:56, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Giraffa sp.

They did ask a fair question about whether the Giraffe should be split, which led me to look for the IUCN position on the taxonomy. But there was nothing in the taxonbar, my usual sort cut to IUCN information. I found to IUCN assessment on the single species of giraffe and started adding it to Wikidata, but they have the assessment assigned to the Northern giraffe, which is incorrect. There is a mess there that needs sorting. Maybe tomorrow. —  Jts1882 | talk  18:14, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I had a go, the IUCN does indeed refer to a single species, not the genus Giraffa. ~ cygnis insignis 06:02, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

The Giraffe article treats the extant giraffe as one species, which means it should have a speciesbox for G. camelopardalis and connect to the Wikidata item on G. camelopardalis, not the one on Giraffa. Unfortunately, that Wikidata item for G. camelopardalis has been relabelled the northern giraffe, a narrower taxonomic concept for G. camelopardalis. The IUCN also treats the giraffe as a single species and their assessment applies to that single species, so it is an error for Wikidata to apply IUCN ID for G. camelopardalis to the Northern giraffe, as the assessment is not for that narrower concept of G. camelopardalis.

It's a bit of a mess. It turns out there is a Northern giraffe article on English Wikipedia. This article used to be the genus article, which covered the single extant species and a number of extinct species. There is also an article on the Southern giraffe, treated as a proposed species. The other two proposed species in the four species hypothesis are treated as subspecies, Reticulated giraffe and Masai giraffe), which is consistent with the main article saying extant giraffes form a single species. There really should be a decision on what treatment to follow and all the articles brought into line.

Wikidata is even more of a mess. It treats the reticulated giraffe (reticulated giraffe (Q27497311)) as a species and then has the parent taxon as the northern giraffe (giraffe (Q15083). Similarly for the Masai giraffe (Giraffa tippelskirchi (Q27497247))), both of which should be sister to the northern giraffe in the four species hypothesis (i.e G. camelopardalis sensu Northern giraffe). Several older subspecies of the traditional species also have northern giraffe as the parent (e.g. Giraffa camelopardalis cottoni (Q40501009), Giraffa camelopardalis wardi (Q40501095), Giraffa camelopardalis angolensis (Q53818198)). The first two haven't been recognised for some time and the later (Angolan giraffe) would be subspecies of the Southern giraffe in the multispecies hypotheses. I assume this is because they were set up as subspecies of G. camelopardalis (when used for the one species) and the item has been changed to a different concept (G. camelopardalis sensu Northern giraffe in 3/4 species hypothesis). Changing the taxon concept for the item has created numerous error in other Wikidata items. —  Jts1882 | talk  07:39, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

I made some changes at wd pages when I had a stab at it, modifying the output of English, French and German to state the scientific name for 'instance of taxon', and divorced a flagged statement from the genus article. I also pushed the taxonomy that supported seven "taxonomically significant units", allied as four species, into the article due to apparent support of a previously posited circumscription by a 2021 study (there is an interesting note on specimens of early studies that skewed toward a conception of monotypic genus). ~ cygnis insignis 15:21, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

It makes sense to use the scientific name as the label for an item with an instance of "taxon". It will probably get changed, though.

A little hisstory on item giraffe (Q15083). It was created on 6 November 2012 as a basic item on the giraffe, just with interwiki links, and the label was changed to the scientific name on 8 March 2013. This item was clearly about the single species taxon concept. The label was changed back to giraffe on 12 September 2014, but it was still the single species concept. The statements (e.g. IUCN ID and conservation status) and identifiers (e.g. MSW3) all applied to G. camelopardalis as a species containing all extant giraffes. Various subspecies had this as a parent.

Then on 9 September 2016 the label was changed to Northern giraffe, changing the species concept to a narrower one. The statements and identifiers still referred to a broader species and erroneously applied an IUCN conservation status to the redefined species. An edit on 10 September 2016 changed it back and suggested that it would "be better to edit this and make the northern giraffe page separately" but this was ignored and the new species concept prevailed. This was achieved by changing the label and leaving all the statements and identifiers unchanged, as well as parent entries on subspecies in southern Africa that now pointed to the Northern giraffe. Five years later the errors are still there. @Peter coxhead:, this might be a case study to add to your essay as an example of the problem with Wikidata items, taxa and taxon names.

There is so much that needs clearing up, both on Wikidata and here on Wikipedia, it's hard to know how to start without adding to the confusion. There is no sign that the IUCN plan to change their species designations (they plan to complete asssessments for the nine subspecues), although the ASM-MDD now recognise the four species so we do have a secondary source. —  Jts1882 | talk  16:22, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

@Jts1882: indeed it is a good example of the serious problems that result from using Wikidata for data about taxa. I've corrected Wikidata items in the past to make the taxonbar here correct, only for editors over there to mess them up again. It's also a salutory warning for those like Trappist the monk who want to use Wikidata for taxonomy here. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:31, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Why are you attacking me? Apparently, you have misunderstood what I wanted to create at wikidata. I wanted an isolated, isolated, set of autotaxobox data derived from the en.wiki taxonomy templates. That isolated data-set was to have no connection at all to extant wikidata taxonomies. The isolated autotaxobox qids and supporting properties would-not-need, would-not-want, to share the properties and data assigned to the wikidata taxonomy qids and vice versa. I was not able to convince the editors at wikidata that many other-language wikis might benefit from centralized, easily editable, easily obtainable autotaxobox data. Further attempts at less ambitious internationalization have been rejected so I am done with this autotaxobox stuff. There is no need to you to attack me for something that I am no-longer pursuing.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:51, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

@Jts1882: FWIW, ITIS and COL (via ITIS) also reflect 4 species: [10] [11] —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 03:15, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

The summary as seven subspecies was reverted by @LittleJerry:, stating "that's what the chart is for" [12]. ~ cygnis insignis 01:45, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I've put it back as a cladogram. The table doesn't show the new subspecies proposal. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:01, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

The taxonomy of giraffes is a big mess. I think now is the time to weigh the pros and cons of splitting Giraffa camelopardalis sensu lato. The IUCN Red List recognizes one species. However, all recent molecular genetic studies suggest that there are several species of giraffes. The only problem is that there are different opinions about their number. To my mind, we are better off adopting the ASM Mammal Diversity Database (4 species) point of view, which is supported by at least two recent large studies [13][14]. ASM MDD is a secondary source and maybe in this case we can use it instead of IUCN. HFoxii (talk) 04:47, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. While I've generally argued we should wait for the IUCN and ASM-MDD to come to agreement before superseding MSW3, I think the case for four species is strong in the phylogenetic analyses (Fennessy et al, 2016; Coimbra et al, 2021; Petzold et al (2020) [their data supports 3 or 4 species, they just favour three in the admixture analysis]) and we can use the ASM-MDD as secondary source. It will also help clear up the inconsistencies in the current articles and make it easier to reconcile with Wikidata. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:01, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

The 2021 source also aligns the seven taxa to common names, potentially useful in resolving inconsistencies on that matter as well. ~ cygnis insignis 09:24, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

It's actually eight taxa aligining with traditional subspecies and their common names, as Giraffa reticluata doesn't have subspecies. The ninth traditional subspecies, Giraffa rothschildi, is subsumed into Giraffa camelopardalis camelopardalis. The traditional subspecies have held up pretty well, with only the species division being contested. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:38, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

My mistake, "… recognizing four species and seven subspecies, the latter of which should be considered as evolutionary significant units." Coimbra 2021 ~ cygnis insignis 10:14, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

They also emphasize four 'lineages' that diverged 230–370 ka ago in support of the number of species. ~ cygnis insignis 10:24, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Wikidata

Borrowing the cladogram from Giraffe and repeating some of what Jts1882 and Cygnis insignis have said and done, it sounds like this is the structure that needs to be represented on Wikidata:

Giraffa (Q862089) giraffe (Q15083) Kordofan giraffe (Q2044659) (Kordofan giraffe) Nubian giraffe (Q1093821) (Nubian giraffe) West African Giraffe (Q781652) (West African giraffe) (Northern giraffe) reticulated giraffe (Q27497311) (Reticulated giraffe) Giraffa tippelskirchi (Q27497247) Giraffa tippelskirchi tippelskirchi (Q110233047) () Giraffa camelopardalis thornicrofti (Q1094164) () (Masai giraffe) Southern giraffe (Q26840221) Angolan giraffe (Q1093830) (Angolan giraffe) South African giraffe (Q28024462) (South African giraffe) (Southern giraffe) (Giraffe)

I created the entry for the Masai giraffe sensu stricto under the assumption that the existing entry represented the Masai giraffe sensu lato. Note also that the preservation of G. t. thorncrofti as a distinct subspecies is currently for the benefit of conservation efforts, as more research needs to be done on better data to verify that the distinction is real.

Beyond that, Rothschild giraffe (Q2222461) (Rothschild's giraffe) has been determined to be synonymous with G. c. camelopardalis, and so needs to be merged somehow.

In addition, we have the following other items to fit in somehow:

• Giraffa camelopardalis cottoni (Q40501009) ()
  • Synonymous with G. (c.) camelopardalis?
• Giraffa camelopardalis wardi (Q40501095) ()
  • Synonymous with G. (g.) giraffa?
• Giraffa camelopardalis angolensis (Q53818198) ()
  • Synonymous with G. g. angolensis?
• Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata (Q656059) ()
  • Synonymous with G. reticulata?
• Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi (Q923524) ()
  • Synonymous with G. tippelskirchi?
• Giraffa camelopardalis giraffa (Q2522576) ()
  • Synonymous with G. giraffa?
• Giraffa reticulata nigrescens (Q40501176) ()
  • Synonymous with G. reticulata?

As well as these (which I think are all extinct and possibly out of scope):

• Giraffa stillei (Q30715967) (Giraffa stillei)
• Giraffa sivalensis (Q30715965) (Giraffa sivalensis)
• Giraffa priscilla (Q30693479) (Giraffa priscilla)
• Giraffa pygmaea (Q17633034) (Giraffa pygmaea)
• Giraffa pomeli (Q104425991) ()
• Giraffa punjabiensis (Q104426158) ()
• Giraffa gracilis (Q10289919) ()
• Giraffa jumae (Q3755477) (Giraffa jumae)

Sources: [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 07:58, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

I think the biggest problem is giraffe (Q15083). This was created for the single species concept of G. camelopardalis. Several years ago someone changed the label to Northern giraffe, a different taxon concept and this introduced a number of errors. The IUCN status and various other identifiers, which deal with the single species concept, were applied to the northern giraffe item and several southern subspecies found themselves pointing to the northern giraffe as a parent taxon. The errors are still there (or were a week or so ago when I last checked). At the moment there is no wikidata item to which the IUCN status can be properly applied.

One solution is to restore Q15083 to the single species taxon and create a new item for the northern giraffe. This is what should have been done in the first place, as was done for the Southern giraffe (Q26840221). One problem is that two taxon concepts have the same scientific name (G. camelopardalis sensu lato and stricto) and I'm not sure how to handle this with Wikidata taxon items. A second problem is the sitelinks to giraffe (Q15083) now variously point to articles on the giraffe (single species) and Northern giraffe, so reversing the initial change leaves a lot of untangling to do. Most of the common names seem to still apply to the single species concept, though.

If this is somehow fixed, then the currently recognised subspecies can be linked (via parent taxon) to the appropriate new species and the older now-redundant subspecies left linked to the single species taxon. The extinct species are not a problem as nothing has changed there. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:51, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

@Jts1882: So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you're proposing to leave all obsolete synonyms as their own items and essentially have two hierarchies: the (old) single-species one and the (new) multi-species one? That's certainly one way to go about it, but I'll have to look into what Wikidata best practices are: on the one hand, the items will represent the names, which are distinct, but on the other hand, they represent real things, which are overlapping or the same. This will become particularly problematic when it comes to wikilinks, since any given article can only link to one item. So, for example, if there are different items for Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata and Giraffa reticulata, which one gets the wikilink to Reticulated giraffe? —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 05:39, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

It turns out that Wikidata does have some guidelines for this, but they don't seem to go far enough towards addressing the situation we have at hand, so I've asked for input from the folks who have more experience. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 07:02, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

It seems the original source of confusion is that giraffe (Q15083) was created in 2012 ([22]) as the item for "giraffe" and that idea later evolved to mean "the species Giraffa camelopardalis" instead of "the genus Giraffa", which has caused hundreds of wikilinks to conflate the two ideas. Giraffa (Q862089) was created around the same time ([23]) to explicitly refer to the genus. I'm going to attempt to work backwards from this. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 07:35, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

I am trying to make sense of all the Giraffa species in my sandbox (including a bunch of relevant references) and have put together a Wikidata query to pull them all and display their various taxon names and article names, but actually updating Wikidata has been proving to be a challenge, due in part to the lack of sufficient documentation. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 18:24, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Aurochs

Hey all : some of you may have noticed that I overhauled the aurochs page in the past couple of days. I'd appreciate if someone has time to have a look and reassess it for B-class. Cheerio, BhagyaMani (talk) 16:38, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Hey @BhagyaMani:, I have reassessed the Aurochs talk page to a B-class. I was willing to do it. If you like, you can go the talk page and see the new class for it. Cheers. --Vaco98 (talk) 21:16, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

SUPER !! And thanks a ton for your swift assessment : that was so much faster than I anticipated. – BhagyaMani (talk) 21:47, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Bovid taxonomy

Presently, Wikipedia recognizes Aepycerotinae, Alcelaphinae, Antilopinae, Caprinae, Cephalophinae, Hippotraginae, Pantholopinae, Peleinae, and Reduncinae as all being separate subfamilies from one another. However, MammalDiversity instead classifies them all within Antilopinae and divides them as tribes. This treatment seems to go as far back as 17 years ago. Should we change the taxonomy accordingly? Given that some well-known species like goats and sheep are in this, I'd just like to ask here before I do it.Geekgecko (talk) 18:18, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

My opinion is to use the MDD taxonomy [Update: see caveats below]. The older classification is two decades old (by time of submission of research for the cutoff). The MDD takes account of recent developments (much not that recent) without going for the more controversial splitting in Groves & Grubb (2011). This gets discussed often enough, so maybe it needs someone to be WP:BOLD. —  Jts1882 | talk  20:40, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! Reason I'm asking is that I've had a couple of major edits based on MDD reverted (i.e. the splitting of Lagenorhynchus as well as Leontocebus being a separate genus), so I just wanted gain some acceptance here before sinking time into it. Geekgecko (talk) 17:03, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Looking at those two edits you mention, it seems that, in both cases the dispute is as to whether or not the MDD is "currently accepted" or not and therefore whether older, presumably more embedded, sources are more appropriate. Since this isn't just one editor doing the reverting, it may be that the issue is a wider one than just bovid taxonomy. Is the MDD a reliable source (surely it must be?), and, if so, to what extent should it be used where it conflicts with older sources? Anaxial (talk) 17:48, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

If it was reverted then it has to be discussed to get consensus for the change. My thinking was that the issue of the best source for mammal taxonomy has been discussed many time and there is a general connsensus to follow IUCN and MDD when they agree, but not clear consensus to replace MSW3. By being bold one gets to see what people think is acceptable. If people object to the change then it needs discussion.

On your two edits, I'd add the following caveats. For marine mammals, the best source is probably the Society for Marine Mammalogy, which is updated regularly by experts on the groups (I think the IUCN follow this). I also wouldn't blank an article and replace it with a redirect without prior discussion, unless it's only a stub. —  Jts1882 | talk  18:00, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll keep this in mind.Geekgecko (talk) 22:53, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Note that there is currently a discussion on Wikispecies about which databases should be considered the most authoritative for different taxonomic groups (see Village Pump#Taxonomic databases). HFoxii (talk) 06:10, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

• Comment - I have reverted the bold move of Caprinae to Caprini for now, as I haven't seen conclusive evidence as to why we should move away from our previous treatment of this topic, and the Caprinae name was established through an RM, albeit one that I started and which was weakly attended. As far as I can tell IUCN still use Caprinae, as in the page [24], and Britannica articles such as [25] also still refer to the subfamily Caprinae. If we're going to say that Caprinae is the former name, with Caprini being the new one, then that should be properly sourced with evidence that the balance of usage is now in that direction. Otherwise, if it's just a disagreement between IUCN and MDD, then probably there isn't a good reason to alter the status quo, as per the comments above. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:52, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jts1882 Thoughts on this? And Amakuru in my personal opinion, at least for higher-level taxonomy (on the genus level or above), the MDD should be a more authoritative source for taxonomy than the IUCN, as the IUCN is primarily focused on categorizing species and their conservation statuses, so it can afford to be a little more dated with taxonomy, while the MDD seems to focus more on the actual taxonomy itself. The ITIS hasn't updated its bovid taxonomy since 2012, so I'm not sure how authoritative it should be in this instance either. That said, a Google Scholar search seems to indicate that the proportion of studies in recent years that use the subfamily-level classification versus the tribe-level classification seem to be evenly split, so it could really be a coin toss. However, for the reason above, I'm more comfortable with using the MDD taxonomy. In addition, the MDD seems to have based its taxonomy on [this study] from last year (which may explain it placing the former Neotragus and current members of Nesotragus all in the same genus).Geekgecko (talk) 15:33, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

It's difficult when the IUCN and MDD disagree. The Caprini proposal goes back at least to the phylogeny presented in Hassanin et al (2009). The comments on Bovidae in MSW3 suggest that Caprinae and other subfamilies might be downgraded to tribes. However, the genomic analysis of Chen et al (2019) uses 8 non-bovine subfamilies (and Capridae in the figures, presumably mislabelled), so clearly there is no strong consensus. I can't access Calamari (2021) to see if this is a more formal taxonomic proposal. I suppose that while the IUCN and MDD disagree we fall back on MSW3 and adopt the Meatloaf philosophy.

I agree that the higher taxonomy is not the priority for the IUCN Redlist, which changes slowly. For the Caprinae Specialist Group they would have to change their name and they are looking at the same animals regardless. The Reflist taxonomy can only change slowly as they do new assessments, which is why the redlist taxonomy for felids doesn't follow that of the IUCN Specialist Cat Group. On the other hand, the MDD might adopt changes too quickly, before there is a much consensus. We certainly don't want to be moving articles until a change seems accepted and stable. —  Jts1882 | talk  17:06, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

A PDF for Calamari (2021) is available [here].Geekgecko (talk) 20:28, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. It's not available at BioOne where the DOI points. Semantic Scholar also point to a pdf from the biodiversity library.

So this is a total evidence study and provides synapomorphic morphological characters to support the molecular analyses. This is often considered a requirement before making taxonomic changes, but this article doesn't make any. Where on MDD did thy cite this article? —  Jts1882 | talk  12:00, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Hm, you're right. I can't actually find any references to this study on MDD. My eyes must have mislead me. So I'm not really sure what study the taxonomy is based on. For now, I'll go back to the original taxonomy.Geekgecko (talk) 18:12, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Jts1882's comment seems sensible to me. Wikipedia has never aspired to be an early adopter of trends which haven't fully caught on yet, which is why our guidelines such as WP:NAMECHANGES urge us to hold off moving until it's clear that the common name for something has decisively changed in a majority of sources. That doesn't appear to be the case here, given the instances mentioned where Caprinae is still in use. If there's further evidence of a decisive shift, I'll be happy to be re-persuaded!  — Amakuru (talk) 22:31, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Make sense. Now there's just the matter of reverting my changes, which I'll get to later. Geekgecko (talk) 18:12, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Managed to revert most of the changes back to their original state.Geekgecko (talk) 21:34, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Edit warring at Bos

56FireLeafs, a new editor who has had nearly half of their edits reverted, is persistently edit warring to remove Bison species from the Bos article, despite modern genetics studies consistently finding that Bison is nested within Bos [26] [27], and the American Society of Mammalologists includes Bison as a subgenus of Bos [28]. 56FL appears to lack understanding of how scientific consensus works, and is seemingly basing their objection upon original research [29], and the fact that the genus Bison continues to be widely used in the literature, usually without a comment on the taxonomy. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:25, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Hemiauchenia your starting to get irritating. The problem with Bison and Bos is that there is incomplete lineage shortage amongst the tribe Bovini. Genetic evidence says that Wisents are very closely related to American Bisons. And you forgot to mention that edit wars have multiple participants, yet i am the only one who is called out, which proves your bias. And as i told you, the American Society of Mammalologists includes Bison as a subgenus of Bos is irrelevant because A) It takes multiple studies to confirm the classification of organisms, and B)The ASM forgot the incomplete lineage shortage amongst Bovini. The fact that you already accused me in TWO pages already is giving me the impression that you have a personal grudge against me just because i disagree with your claims. Which is why i believe a discussion about this would be more appropriate. But no, you are not in favor of discussing the subject more deeply, you instead prefer to demonize me and claim that one article i enough to determine the classification of an organism who is in a group with INCOMPLETE LINEAGE SHORTAGE. Also, the genus Bison is still used in taxonomy today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:56FireLeafs — Preceding unsigned comment added by 56FireLeafs (talk • contribs) 01:53, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

You misunderstand the studies. There is strong support in both studies I listed that Bison is nested within Bos as the sister lineage of yaks based on nuclear DNA. Your claim that scientists seemingly haven't thought about ILS amongst the Bovini is WP:original research speculation without any basis in the scientific literature. The ILS claims in the literaure are about the discrepancies between the mitochondrial DNA of American bison and wisents, which could be explained by either introgression from other Bos species or ILS, there is absolutely no suggestion that Bison represents a separate lineage from Bos. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:03, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Additional papers discussing genomics of extinct bison species [30], [31], [32], mostly MTDNA unfortunately, which highlights the discrepancy between American Bison and wisent MTDNA is phenomenon common to other extinct bison species which dates to the Late Pleistocene at least. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:17, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Potentially [33] also might be useful, though I don't have access. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:47, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

From the literature, the consensus that has emerged over the last few years appears to be that Bison schoetensacki is closely related and probably ancestral to the wisent, while Bison priscus is closely related to the American bison (including ancestral chronospecies like Bison latifrons). Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:15, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

The European bison article uncritically repeats parts of the Soubrier et al. 2016 paper, when these results are contradicted by other papers, this should be corrected. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:41, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

It turns out there is another paper from 2018 [34]. I've gone ahead and rewritten the relevant sections. It's not clear that the Late Pleistocene bison lineage that some authors attribute to Bison schoetensacki actually belongs to this species, which is otherwise primarily known from the early Middle Pleistocene. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:07, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

56FL has now been blocked for 72 hours by Cullen328. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:22, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Bison: subgenus or genus?

The American Society of Mammalogists has sunk Bison into Bos, but the IUCN still consideres Bison to be a valid genus. Most palaeontological literature on bison still uses it as a separate genus, including the subgenera Bison (Eobison) and Bison (Bison). @56FireLeafs: has been edit warring in the Bison article to exclusively refer to it as a subgenus. Can I have some outside input? Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:25, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

There is no question that bison species are nested in Bos and that the taxonomy needs to be updated. The ASM-MDD has done so, as does the Illustrated Checklist of the Mammals of the World (according to the MDD spreadsheet). The IUCN splits concern for Bovini between specialist groups, one of which is the bison specialist group, and both of which seem focused on conservation. While I think the case is clear to follow the MDD, my usual advice on the mammal taxonomy is to make the change from MSW3 when the MDD and IUCN agree.

One thing I don't think we should do it treat Bison as a subgenus of Bos. The MDD doesn't so this would need an authoritative source. While it makes sense for the bison, it would need to be a formal revision with subgenera for other Bos species.—  Jts1882 | talk  14:41, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Spalacidae species

The present taxonomy for Spalax is outdated, which is something I am currently working on. Part of this is the recognition of 4 species endemic to Israel: carmeli, galili, golani, and judaei. While they are in the MSW and ITIS, both the ASM and IUCN consider these species to be synonymous with Spalax ehrenbergi (actually Nannospalax ehrenbergi now). This seems to be based on [this paper], which states that N. ehrenbergi has a type locality within the range of one of these species, and their monophyletic nature has not been supported by other studies. For this reason, should I merge all these species within ehrenbergi, as has been done by the ASM and IUCN? The same is true of the genus Tachyoryctes to an even more extreme degree, with the IUCN and ASM only recognizing two species, although the latter states that this lumping is only tentative and they will inevitably be split into more species in the future. Geekgecko (talk) 19:56, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

The taxonomic notes in the IUCN assessment of Nannospalax ehrenbergi say that "four new species are recognized by Musser and Carleton 2005", although MSW3 uses Nevo et al (2001) as the source for the four species. The IUCN also say they are holding off on the new splits until further taxonomic work is done. The ASM-MMD cite more recent work for their decision to lump. Where does the ASM-MDD say the decision to lump is tentative or did you mean the IUCN?

As the IUCN and ASM-MDD agree there is good reason to diverge from MSW3. However, if the matter is still unresolved, it might be better to hold off on any mergers. On the other hand, the four species articles are only stubs and need updating to say the species are not universally recognised, so merging into on article might be less work. [Aside. One thing I would favour is leaving the species articles on the redirect page. This would mean the species articles can be found easily by editors but only the merged article would appear to readers. I suspect this violates some Wikipedia policy.] —  Jts1882 | talk  10:08, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

My reference to the tentative merge is for Tachyoryctes, which is considered to contain only two species in contrast to the multiple it's listed as having, with ASM saying the merge is only tentative. But would you say that I can merge the species for both Spalax and Tachyoryctes? Geekgecko (talk) 18:04, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

You've made the case for the mergers based on both the IUCN and ASM-MDD, which in many other cases has been taken as a reason to supercede MSW3. The only question is whether to wait, as the decision in at least one case is tentative. However, as all the articles are stubs with largely repetitive information, the merge and a potential reversal is quite simple. If there is a later split of the putative species complexes, it's unlikely to follow the current splits. I'd say if you want to be bold, go ahead. You might want to wait a few more days for any objection to be raised here. —  Jts1882 | talk  07:25, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Great, thanks! Geekgecko (talk) 00:28, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

RFC: Taxonomy of Cattle

This RFC affects the following articles: cattle, aurochs, taurine cattle, zebu, Bos.

Currently, these articles show contradictory and inconsistant information about the taxonomy of cattle. This is due to the fact that the different types of cattle were recently re-established as separate species after previously being considered sub-species of a single species. Both taxonomies are contentious and neither is universally accepted by reliable sources. Wikipedia, however, needs to choose one or the other and implement it consistantly. Please indicate which taxonomy you believe Wikipedia should follow:

Taxonomy A
According to MSW3, the taxonomy of cattle is:[35]

• Bos taurus (domestic cattle)
• Bos taurus taurus (taurine cattle)
• Bos taurus indicus (zebu)
• Bos taurus primigenius (aurochs, the undomesticated ancestor)

In this case, the cattle article would correspond with the taxon Bos taurus.

Taxonomy B
According to Mammal Diversity Database, the taxonomy of cattle is:[36]

• Bos taurus (taurine cattle)
• Bos indicus (zebu)
• Bos primigenius (aurochs, the undomesticated ancestor)

In this case, the cattle article would correspond with the subgenus Bos (not to be confused with the genus Bos).

This RFC does not affect the classication of Bison and does not serve as a referendum on the overall use of MDD or MSW3 on Wikipedia. It's scope is limited to domestic cattle and aurochs.
Kaldari (talk) 19:47, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

@Jts1882, Hemiauchenia, Amakuru, HFoxii, Anaxial, Geekgecko, BhagyaMani, and DFoidl: pinging editors who have discussed this issue on the various talk pages so that we can reach a common consensus. Kaldari (talk) 20:09, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Comment Whether or not domesticated forms are considered distinct species or subspecies of their wild ancestors is really arbitrary and essentially just semantics. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:21, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Weak B: While it's an essentially arbitrary decision with no one "right" answer, my preference is to go with the newer source since there seems to be a move recently to give domesticated species their own names. There are also significantly more ghits and google-scholar-hits for "Bos indicus" specifically than for "Bos primigenius indicus", suggesting that it's the more commonly used name. (Although both clearly are used, with different authors preferring different ones, even in very recent sources). MDD justifies their stance on the grounds that it makes discussions of conservation easier, which doesn't apply to us, but since there's no one objectively correct answer I'd go with what seems to be the more common name. On the other hand, I don't feel strongly about it beyond the fact that we should obviously mention both alternatives in the text of the relevant articles. Anaxial (talk) 21:34, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

"… makes discussions of conservation easier, which doesn't apply to us …" meaning what? ~ cygnis insignis 15:13, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

B: Agree with Anaxial for the same reason. However, it is worth noting that if we do so, we should probably give this treatment to all domestic animals considered distinct species by the MDD (i.e. classifying E. ferus w/ the tarpan and Przewalksi's horse and E. caballus with the domestic horse as distinct species), as the MDD seems to cite the same paper (Gentry, A., Clutton-Brock, J., & Groves, C. P. (2004)) for all of them. That example change is actually backed up by the IUCN, which classifies E. ferus as an endangered species based on the Przewalksi's horse alone. Geekgecko (talk) 21:42, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

We should follow Opinion 2027 of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, which recognises domestic cattle as Bos taurus and the aurochs as Bos primigenius, see – BhagyaMani (talk) 21:50, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

References

Comment: Above Opinion 2027 indeed covers other wild and domestic species too. – BhagyaMani (talk) 21:52, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

@BhagyaMani: That is not quite accurate. Opinion 2027 does not mention Bos taurus whatsoever, but it does accept Bos primigenius for the aurochs. I am not aware of any source that classifies all domestic cattle as Bos taurus and aurochs as Bos primigenius. The sources I have seen either follow Taxonomy A or Taxonomy B above. Do you prefer one of those two or are you proposing a third taxonomy? Kaldari (talk) 22:33, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Opinion 2027 clarifies that wild ancestors of domestic species are recognised as being distinct taxa. See also Groves & Grubb (2011), who refer to this opinion on page 8. Your 'Taxonomy B' seems to follow Groves & Grubb (2011). – BhagyaMani (talk) 23:00, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

A clarification. Opinion 2027 determines what the name of the wild form should be be if the name of domesticated form has precedence. It is about the correct name to use. It is neutral on whether domestic forms should be treated at the species or subspecies level. Iirc, the Gentry et al (2004) paper makes the case that all domestic forms should be treated a species level. This argument is largely about conservation efforts, as national legislation tends to recognise endangered species. However, I think species recognition of domesticated forms matches the goals of an encyclopaedia to provide useful articles about subjects readers are looking up. People looking for information on domestic animal might be surprised to find themselves at on article covering the wild animal. This goes against my preference to follow monophyletic groups, in which case I think only the dog would be treated at species level. Strangely the dog taxonomists are hold-outs against species recognition. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:57, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

• Wikipedia, however, needs to choose one or the other and implement it consistantly - Why, exactly, does Wikipedia need to choose one or the other and implement it consistently? If this is contentious and there is significant disagreement, how does that not violate NPOV and WEIGHT policy? If the problem you're trying to avoid is not having articles with contradictory information, why not have articles list both forms, with an "or"? If that is done, then it doesn't even matter if every article lists the same one first as every other article does, as long as every article lists both forms and indicates both are in current use, then there is no conflict. 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:60F7:9667:FE24:3EE (talk) 23:37, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

FAR for Sei whale

I have nominated Sei whale for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. OnlyFixingProse (talk) 02:57, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

FAR for Fin whale

I have nominated Fin whale for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. OnlyFixingProse (talk) 13:32, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources

Main page: User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:01, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Requesting help with the red kangaroo article

Hi, can someone find a scientific paper that gives the top speed of the red kangaroo please? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Red_kangaroo BrightOrion (talk) 15:26, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Scelidotheriidae#Requested move 28 September 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Scelidotheriidae#Requested move 28 September 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 01:02, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Pallas's cat#Requested move 6 October 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Pallas's cat#Requested move 6 October 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 21:49, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Dendrolagus notatus#Requested move 6 October 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Dendrolagus notatus#Requested move 6 October 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 23:32, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Nasuella olivacea#Requested move 7 October 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Nasuella olivacea#Requested move 7 October 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 16:13, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Felidae#Requested move 25 December 2022

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Felidae#Requested move 25 December 2022 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 03:25, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Disambiguation of links to Woodland caribou

Could you help to disambiguate links to Woodland caribou? There are over 40 articles with links shown in this list. Any help to sort out which should go to Boreal woodland caribou or Migratory woodland caribou or both (using the format at WP:INTDAB) would be great.— Rod ^talk 16:57, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

The reindeer articles are undergoing a large amount of change with regards to species/subspecies/populations. I think fixing those dab links right now would be more of a problem than a solution. I don't think it's going to be a simple task to sort out which should point where. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:10, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

According to the pages Boreal woodland caribou and Migratory woodland caribou the terms apply to the subspecies Rangifer tarandus caribou and a migratory population within it, in which case Woodland caribou should be a redirect to Boreal woodland caribou. In the revisions to the subspecies section of reindeer, the Woodland caribou is Rangifer caribou, following the new classification. If we are to follow this new classifcation then Woodland caribou should be an article for the new species rather than a disambiguation page.

I wonder if the change to the classification is too soon, before it is picked up by secondary sources; the ASM still recognise only one species of reindeer. The proposal was published in August 2022 and the changes are being made by the author of that paper without prior discussion. Lee Harding is opening about his identity and as a new Wikipedia editor probably isn't fully aware of the Wikipedia procedures. The taxonomy changes seem reasonable and the ASM are pretty quick, so perhaps this will soon be a moot point. —  Jts1882 | talk  16:26, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks both for the additional info. I have no expertise in this area, so will leave you to sort out the dab page links when the time is right and changes are appropriate.— Rod ^talk 17:25, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Incidentally, the ASM have already seen the Harding et al (2022) proposal and this is what they say

"Harding (2022) suggested splitting R. tarandus into the following 6 species: groenlandicus (Greenland), platyrhynchus (Svalbard), caribou (much of Boreal Canada including the Ungava Peninsula), arcticus (tundra and boreal forests in Alaska, north and west Canada, and the Queen Elizabeth Islands), tarandus (east Siberian tundra and mountains of Scandanavia), and fennicus (eastern Europe to the Altai Mountains); this arrangement is tentatively not followed here, although it may be included upon rexamination"

So it's not currently flagged for review but they haven't ruled it out. —  Jts1882 | talk  18:01, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Unreviewed Featured articles year-end summary

Restoring older Featured articles to standard:

year-end 2022 summary

Unreviewed featured articles/2020 (URFA/2020) is a systematic approach to reviewing older Featured articles (FAs) to ensure they still meet the FA standards. A January 2022 Signpost article called "Forgotten Featured" explored the effort.

Progress is recorded at the monthly stats page. Through 2022, with 4,526 very old (from the 2004–2009 period) and old (2010–2015) FAs initially needing review:

• 357 FAs were delisted at Featured article review (FAR).
• 222 FAs were kept at FAR or deemed "satisfactory" by three URFA reviewers, with hundreds more being marked as "satisfactory", but awaiting three reviews.
• FAs needing review were reduced from 77% of total FAs at the end of 2020 to 64% at the end of 2022.

Of the FAs kept, deemed satisfactory by three reviewers, or delisted, about 60% had prior review between 2004 and 2007; another 20% dated to the period from 2008–2009; and another 20% to 2010–2015. Roughly two-thirds of the old FAs reviewed have retained FA status or been marked "satisfactory", while two-thirds of the very old FAs have been defeatured.

Entering its third year, URFA is working to help maintain FA standards; FAs are being restored not only via FAR, but also via improvements initiated after articles are reviewed and talk pages are noticed. Since the Featured Article Save Award (FASA) was added to the FAR process a year ago, 38 FAs were restored to FA status by editors other than the original FAC nominator. Ten FAs restored to status have been listed at WP:MILLION, recognizing articles with annual readership over a million pageviews, and many have been rerun as Today's featured article, helping increase mainpage diversity.

Examples of 2022 "FAR saves" of very old featured articles

Solar System 2007 FA J. K. Rowling 2007 FA June 26, 2022 TFA Antarctica 2006 FA Joan of Arc 2006 FA Speed of light 2010 FA

All received a Million Award

But there remain almost 4,000 old and very old FAs to be reviewed. Some topic areas and WikiProjects have been more proactive than others in restoring or maintaining their old FAs. As seen in the chart below, the following have very high ratios of FAs kept to those delisted (ordered from highest ratio):

• Biology
• Physics and astronomy
• Warfare
• Video gaming

and others have a good ratio of kept to delisted FAs:

• Literature and theatre
• Engineering and technology
• Religion, mysticism and mythology
• Media
• Geology and geophysics

... so kudos to those editors who pitched in to help maintain older FAs !

FAs reviewed at URFA/2020 through 2022 by content area

FAs reviewed at URFA/2020 from November 21, 2020 to December 31, 2022 (VO, O) Topic area Delisted Kept Total Reviewed Ratio Kept to Delisted (overall 0.62) Remaining to review for 2004–7 promotions Art, architecture and archaeology 10 6 16 0.60 19 Biology 13 41 54 3.15 67 Business, economics and finance 6 1 7 0.17 2 Chemistry and mineralogy 2 1 3 0.50 7 Computing 4 1 5 0.25 0 Culture and society 9 1 10 0.11 8 Education 22 1 23 0.05 3 Engineering and technology 3 3 6 1.00 5 Food and drink 2 0 2 0.00 3 Geography and places 40 6 46 0.15 22 Geology and geophysics 3 2 5 0.67 1 Health and medicine 8 3 11 0.38 5 Heraldry, honors, and vexillology 11 1 12 0.09 6 History 27 14 41 0.52 38 Language and linguistics 3 0 3 0.00 3 Law 11 1 12 0.09 3 Literature and theatre 13 14 27 1.08 24 Mathematics 1 2 3 2.00 3 Media 14 10 24 0.71 40 Meteorology 15 6 21 0.40 31 Music 27 8 35 0.30 55 Philosophy and psychology 0 1 1 – 2 Physics and astronomy 3 7 10 2.33 24 Politics and government 19 4 23 0.21 9 Religion, mysticism and mythology 14 14 28 1.00 8 Royalty and nobility 10 6 16 0.60 44 Sport and recreation 32 12 44 0.38 39 Transport 8 2 10 0.25 11 Video gaming 3 5 8 1.67 23 Warfare 26 49 75 1.88 31 Total 359 Note A 222 Note B 581 0.62 536 Noting some minor differences in tallies: A URFA/2020 archives show 357, which does not include those delisted which were featured after 2015; FAR archives show 358, so tally is off by at least one, not worth looking for. B FAR archives show 63 kept at FAR since URFA started at end of Nov 2020. URFA/2020 shows 61 Kept at FAR, meaning two kept were outside of scope of URFA/2020. Total URFA/2020 Keeps (Kept at FAR plus those with three Satisfactory marks) is 150 + 72 = 222.

But looking only at the oldest FAs (from the 2004–2007 period), there are 12 content areas with more than 20 FAs still needing review: Biology, Music, Royalty and nobility, Media, Sport and recreation, History, Warfare, Meteorology, Physics and astronomy, Literature and theatre, Video gaming, and Geography and places. In the coming weeks, URFA/2020 editors will be posting lists to individual WikiProjects with the goal of getting these oldest-of-the-old FAs reviewed during 2023.

Ideas for how you can help are listed below and at the Signpost article.

• Review a 2004 to 2007 FA. With three "Satisfactory" marks, article can be moved to the FAR not needed section.
• Review "your" articles: Did you nominate a featured article between 2004 and 2015 that you have continuously maintained? Check these articles, update as needed, and mark them as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020. A continuously maintained FA is a good predictor that standards are still met, and with two more "Satisfactory" marks, "your" articles can be listed as "FAR not needed". If they no longer meet the FA standards, please begin the FAR process by posting your concerns on the article's talk page.
• Review articles that already have one "Satisfactory" mark: more FAs can be indicated as "FAR not needed" if other reviewers will have a look at those already indicated as maintained by the original nominator. If you find issues, you can enter them at the talk page.
• Fix an existing featured article: Choose an article at URFA/2020 or FAR and bring it back to FA standards. Enlist the help of the original nominator, frequent FA reviewers, WikiProjects listed on the talk page, or editors that have written similar topics. When the article returns to FA standards, please mark it as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020 or note your progress in the article's FAR.
• Review and nominate an article to FAR that has been 'noticed' of a FAR needed but issues raised on talk have not been addressed. Sometimes nominating at FAR draws additional editors to help improve the article that would otherwise not look at it.

More regular URFA and FAR reviewers will help assure that FAs continue to represent examples of Wikipedia's best work. If you have any questions or feedback, please visit Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020/4Q2022.

FAs last reviewed from 2004 to 2007 of interest to this WikiProject

If you review an article on this list, please add commentary at the article talk page, with a section heading == [[URFA/2020]] review== and also add either Notes or Noticed to WP:URFA/2020A, per the instructions at WP:URFA/2020. Comments added here may be swept up in archives and lost, and more editors will see comments on article talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:12, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

1. Beagle
2. Blue whale
3. Bobcat
4. Cougar
5. Elk
6. Hippopotamus
7. Humpback whale
8. Javan rhinoceros
9. Knut (polar bear)
10. Platypus
11. Pygmy hippopotamus
12. Thylacine

Updating List of mammal genera and global scale species !

Hello everyone,

"There are currently 1,258 genera, 156 families, 27 orders, and around 5,937 recognized living species of mammal." - Intro line of the linked page

The MDD Databases (Mammal Diversity Database) posted since 2018 complete and up-to dates information of all species of mammals. There have been 10 versions released to date, the last being released December 3rd 2022. They recensed 6615 species of mammals (6514 extant and a sample of 101 extinct) and 1347 genera. That's 89 genera higher that what is stated in the intro sentence ! Yes, the Handbook of the Mammals of the World (1993 ?) and the Mammal Species of the World (2005) are very good and outstandingly made, but they are quite old... especially the former. The MDD Database has a terrific amount of information and also kept tabs on the changes since Mammals of the world (2005) by showing the differences between now and then. In only 2 years from now, Mammals of the world will be 20 years old. 18 years old and 30 years old isn't quite the definition of up-to-date...

I built up with advices of @UtherSRG the whole MDD Version 1.10 list of mammals taxonomy, classificating them at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals/Missing mammal genera where i went by :

Order

Suborder

Infraorder

Parvorder

Superfamily

Family

Subfamily

Tribe

Genus (for which i gave the numbers of species featured in the file each time)

Subgenus

I also started documenting and making comments as to what should be changed, what not and what's new, see Akodon for instance :

MDD V.1.10 (42 species) --- > Wikipedia genus page of Akodon features 41 species or "species" of Akodon.

Akodon baliolus (NOT PRESENT) (Split from A. aerosus)

Akodon diauarum (NOT PRESENT) (Described in 2022)

Akodon josemariarguedasi (NOT PRESENT) (Described in 2013)

Akodon kadiweu (NOT PRESENT) (Described in 2021)

Akodon kotosh (NOT PRESENT) (Described in 2016)

Akodon oenos (NOT PRESENT) (Described in 2000)

Akodon polopi (Present but do not have a page)

Akodon glaucinus (Not a species, and do not have a page either) [Not a species in the MDD Version 1.10, treated as a junior synonym of A. simulator]

Akodon molinae (Not a species) [Not a species in the MDD Version 1.10, treated as a junior synonym of A. dolores]

Akodon neocenus (Not a species) [Not a species in the MDD Version 1.10, treated as a junior synonym of A. dolores]

Akodon serrensis [Akodon serrensis synonymized with Habrothrix angustidens (named from fossil material) as Castoria angustidens; moved from Akodon to the recently described genus Castoria]

Akodon tartareus (Not a species, and do not have a page either) [Not a species in the MDD Version 1.10, treated as a junior synonym of A. simulator]

On these, i noted that i would comment further the lumps or genus changes later.

Aswell, I commented the information given on what is and what isn't species for the majority of the species and "species" featured at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mammals/Missing mammal species with the reference to the MDD Version 1.10. I only added comments to it for now, changing/removing/adding nothing else.

I just wanted to let people know this. Thanks much. Also, see Talk:List of mammal genera. Gimly24 (talk) 23:24, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

References

Problem with this page : List of heaviest land mammals

Seems like someone or somehow this page information was duplicated in the page (see table of contents)

However, the top table has 53 sources and the bottom one 43 sources...

I'm a bit busy at the moment. Could someone give it a look ?

Thank you :) P-S : I think [| think this edit is the culprit] Gimly24 (talk) 11:44, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Indeed and done. :) - UtherSRG (talk) 12:16, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Life cycle of the tiger

New article, which I'm having trouble assessing. I think that this may be both extensive and topical enough to make sense as an expansion of Tiger#Reproduction and life cycle, if accompanied by a little culling of both articles. frWP (whence it was translated) seems to be happy with the same setup ([37], [38]). Thoughts? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:29, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

I like this. Maybe the addition of a link to the page (detailed article : see Life cycle of the tiger) style would be nice. Of course, it would need to be done correctly. My first language is french and I like this section of the french article a lot !! Let's see what others think about this :) Gimly24 (talk) 00:30, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Vandalism on the page Tapir

Edit : I undone this user edit for now and wrote vandalism. Please tell me if a warning can be given and how to ?

also known as Humphrey

So I use the fonction "undo" and how do i add vandalism and warning to @Qualander ? Gimly24 (talk) 00:10, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Update : This user vandalized 3 more times after i undone it's first edit. 3 different users reverted it's vandal edits and another user blocked Qualander from editing indefinitely. I consider this point of the discussion done :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gimly24 (talk • contribs)

The proper place to alert someone to vandalism is WP:AIV. - UtherSRG (talk) 05:32, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Where would Serengetimys, Ochromyscus, Montemys, Congomys go ?

The species Dwarf multimammate mouse (Serengetimys pernanus) is presented in the template Template:Murinae (Stenocephalomys–Xeromys) as Mastomys. Where would Serengetimys go inside the template? I wrote a similar message on this template talk page, then found out the formatting of it should be talked here and change to the format should be decided via a consensus.

As for Serengetimys, it is a newly described genus only containing this species, which moved from Mastomys according to Nicolas et al. (2021) and the moved is recognized by the MDD. The species is valid in IUCN, the last assessment being in 2016. Therefore, the next assessment of the IUCN on this species will tell if they (IUCN) accepted the genus move.

This is also the case for 2 of the 3 species presented under Myomyscus in the template Brockman's rock mouse (Ochromyscus brockmani) and Yemeni mouse (Ochromyscus yemeni). The last assessment of the IUCN for the former is 2016 and the latter, 2019. The new genus was described by Nicolas et al (2021) and the genus move for both is recognized by the MDD.

Same thing applies to the species Delectable soft-furred mouse (Montemys delectorum) which is presented under Praomys in the template. The new genus is again by Nicolas et al (2021), is again recognized by MDD and IUCN last assessment for it is of 2016.

Same thing applies to the species Lukolela swamp rat (Congomys lukolelae) and Verschuren's swamp rat (Congomys verschureni) also included under Praomys in the template. Again, Nicolas et al (2021), move valid according to MDD and the last assessment of both by IUCN was in 2016.

Gimly24 (talk) 01:06, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Probably these genera should be placed alphabetically in the "Stenocephalomys Division" section of the navbox, if you're just wanting to add them somewhere and aren't worried about completely overhauling the Murinae navboxes, which are in a dreadful state, and should be completely overhauled (or deleted). The language at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mammals/Article_templates/doc welcomes corrections. Updating taxonomy is not a "formatting" issue that needs consensus. And I can't find any discussion that arrived at consensus in how to format the navbox in the first place. The creator (Tombstone/Vanished User 4517) of the doc page asking for consensus on formatting changes created many of the navboxes for mammal species; presumably they formatted the navboxes they created consistently, and it's reasonable to expect that the set of navboxes for mammal species should be formatted consistently.

However, I'm also not finding any discussion that arrived at consensus to create these navboxes and add them to articles. I've searched the WikiProject Mammal talk page archives for "navbox" and "navigation". There's a passing comment from Tombstone (in 2008) about having created the navboxes and adding them to articles. Then there's a question (in 2014) about splitting the navbox for Murinae from the person who ended up creating {{Murinae (Stenocephalomys–Xeromys)}} (and others). In 2019, there was a discussion at WikiProject Tree of Life about navboxes (which was not a consensus in favor of them), with a follow-up at WikiProject Mammals, and the ensuing deletion of the navbox for bat species.

The navboxes for Murinae are split alphabetically by groups of genera. When they were created in 2014, the Murinae article was organized by groups of genera. Now it is organized by tribes (as well as some genus groups). The Murinae navboxes split tribes and unite genus groups from different tribes alphabetically.

Mammals species navboxes require effort from editors to be kept up-to-date. That effort isn't happening. Theoretically, the navboxes have value to readers, enabling them to get from an article about one mammal species to an article about any other mammal species. Readers can also do that via links in taxoboxes. Either way (navbox/taxobox), successfully navigating from an article about a kangaroo species to an article about a bear requires some knowledge of mammal taxonomy (and there is nobody who has knowledge of mammal taxonomy who would find "Stenocephalomys–Xeromys" a useful term to navigate by). Navboxes pre-suppose a particular way a reader might want to navigate. As a reader, I would find it (slightly) useful to have a navbox at the bottom of the articles of every mammal species that occurs in my state. And that wouldn't be at all useful to the majority of readers that don't live in my state. Maintaining taxonomically organized species level navboxes is of minimal benefit for readers and a waste of time for editors. Better to delete navboxes that were created without prior consensus.Plantdrew (talk) 03:05, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Ok... But i just revised every template of Murinae this afternoon and yesterday and fixed and updated the stuff. In fact, i finished reviewing Muridae as a whole (Templates) today. There were a lot that were present in genus pages and not in the templates so i added them (exception made of those in red). I also moved some when genus changes occured (Except those moved to genuses not present in any muridae templates, i.e the 4 genus above). Aswell, there were some that were in templates but weren't linked with the correct common names in both templates and pages. Example, Lophuromys had the good names, Deomyinae did not (see edits) (there were like 6-7 species of Lophuromys there like that). And I also find it less disturbing than having quadrillions category under a species page. Like Imagine the red fox page categories at the bottom : Mammals of Canada, Mammals of the United States, Mammals of blah blah blah. It's overcrowded (rightly or not) and at that, categories are usually not listed in any kind of alphabetical order at all (even by group of categories : Mammals of). I would not delete the Murinae templates, far from it, it's quite helpful for us, that can see all the grand scheme of genuses instead of scrolling down a lot through Muridae list of species and genuses (One-by-one). I personally (when revising) duplicates my page on another window, so i have the template with the genus and species on one and going through the genus pages on the other (browsing each genus and validating the templates and making changes).

And yes, I would honestly prefer having the template be : "extant species of Muridae by subfamilies" or whatever it's called as 1 big template than having many templates doing alphabetical division non-sense.

Also, i liked more the way it was presented before @User:NSH001 (aka NSH002) changed it : the one before the last big change (Template:Murinae: Revision history - 3rd from last edit (-121). Why ? Because like Carnivora templates for example, you hide things if you don't want too many, not separate them in others templates for unknown reasons. Gimly24 (talk) 05:37, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

I made the changes to the template and added the 4 genuses and moved the concerned species to them. It was somewhat easy to do ! Thanks for the tips Gimly24 (talk) 06:26, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

North American jaguar

Would someone please check recent edits at North American jaguar. Is there a reason "ohio" might be mentioned in subspecies? Johnuniq (talk) 02:29, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I think not. If i remember correctly, Jaguars are a monotypic species. Gimly24 (talk) 02:43, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

I looked the main article up. Since 2017, the species has only the nominate subspecies (P. onca onca), therefore, it is monotypic and ohio is invalid (or invalid to be used to describe a population). I edited the page. Thanks for pointing it out. Gimly24 (talk) 02:47, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. This is over my head and I would appreciate your thoughts on any edits by Zachbarbo (talk · contribs) in say the last month on topics you are familiar with. If you have a comment that is not relevant for mammals, you might add it at the user's talk which I am watching. Johnuniq (talk) 04:34, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

No problem, I might take a look at it tomorrow. Cheers :) Gimly24 (talk) 04:51, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Request Move (Indian muntjac -- > Southern red muntjac)

I made everything so that it fits with the current day informations for the Indian Muntjac and kept the edit before the "big change". I described it in Indian Muntjac edit but primarily see Talk:Indian Muntjac

When i tried to move the page, it wouldn't let me. In brief, Muntiacus vaginalis Southern red muntjac was formerly a subspecies of M. muntjak, but it's not anymore and since quite a while (2+ assessment of IUCN and MDD recognition). Vaginalis corresponds now to all populations of M. muntjak north of Sunda exception made perhaps of Malaysia. I revised pratically everything. I deleted some parts that reference were needed (that had elderly "need refs" templates (2015, 2019) and also trimmed and deleted parts about names + removed the predators that, with the new reduced repartition, occurs in this species ranges aka no wolves, jungle cats, striped hyenas, etc.

So, how do we do this, because it's technically inaccurate to refer this species as Indian muntjac, that's for sure. Thanks much. Gimly24 (talk) 23:32, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

See WP:RM#TR. The target (Southern red muntjac) has been edited and so you need move privileges to override it. You definitely would not do a "copy-paste-move" (which is a copyright violation). Johnuniq (talk) 00:18, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. What do you mean by copy-paste move ? it's still the same page, just need the name of the page to change. I modified already the page indian muntjac for it to be correspondant with the current repartition of the species. So i would have to post a request for technical move on the link you gave me with the same comment i posted in talk:Indian muntjac, for example ? Thank you Gimly24 (talk) 00:57, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Suppose it was wanted to move A to B. The wrong way would be to copy the wikitext from A then paste it to replace the wikitext at B. That would be wrong because the result would be that B had the wikitext but A had the history of who contributed to that wikitext.

Your comment at Talk:Indian muntjac#Page Move Request [February 2023] is not very clear. Please add a new comment below that to say that the correct name should be Southern red muntjac and add a brief reason (is that what reliable sources now use?). I will then make the move for you but I need a clear statement first. Johnuniq (talk) 01:12, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Alright. I'm gonna add the sources to the IUCN and the MDD and the reason remain the same although i formulated it better. Sorry, i forgot to add my sources my bad. And thank you.

Thank for the explanation on the copy-pasting. I do understand it better now.Gimly24 (talk) 01:17, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

I have performed the move. See Talk:Southern red muntjac. Johnuniq (talk) 02:46, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Gimly24 (talk) 02:51, 14 February 2023 (UTC)