Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Primates/Archive 5

Archive 1

←

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

Capitalization

Sorry to do this, but it would be nice to have a rationale next to "The name of a particular species is always capitalised." It's quite an extraordinary claim, and I feel it requires some justification. I tried to find some, but instead found that scholarly work, other encyclopedias, the NY Times, etc, all seem to do the normal thing and do not capitalize common chimpanzee in sentence text. It's possible, though, that I got unlucky in my sampling. I do appreciate that the guidelines here are consistent with the wp:MOS at least in that casing is the same in article titles as it is in sentence text, but I have looked through the archives here and can not find any rationale for this surprising claim. wp:BIRDS, for example, cites Handbook of the Birds of the World that supposedly claims that common names of birds are capitalized as in Peregrin Falcon. Is there something similar for primates? Thank you, ErikHaugen (talk) 17:54, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

The biggest proponent of this is UtherSRG, but I'm not sure if he's very active right now. He had his reasons, and I'm sure it's archived somewhere in the discussion logs. (I don't have time to look now.) Personally, I agree with you. The literature I reference uses sentence case, and I would favor switching to it. But we'd need more feedback from the rest of the community before we go about changing it. Hopefully we'll see some replies here. – VisionHolder « talk » 20:19, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I also noticed that she is pretty firmly in the capitalize camp, but I did look through the discussion archives here and elsewhere and can't find anything. A note about your use of sentence case - the argument made here is that capitalizing common chimpanzee would be sentence case; that is, you would write "I saw a Common Chimpanzee at the zoo." The question, really, is "how do you write common names of primates in sentence case?" ErikHaugen (talk) 20:38, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

In these debates, "common chimpanzee" is usually understood to be sentence case, and "Common Chimpanzee" to be title case. You'll find arguments in both ways scattered across many talk pages, not only this one but also WT:ANIMAL, WT:RODENT, WT:TOL, various article talk pages, and no doubt many others. I also tend to favor sentence case where the literature also uses it, but don't care too much about it. Ucucha 20:44, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

But that isn't what sentence case means? Unless you're saying that you think "common chimpanzee" should be considered sentence case? ie, "Erik Haugen" is sentence case, because that's how you write proper nouns in the middle of a sentence: "My name is Erik Haugen." But whatever we call it, it would be nice to have a source justifying this capitalization in the middle of a sentence. Thanks, ErikHaugen (talk) 23:38, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Let's not get tried up in what to call it. Regardless, I would like to move forward on this. Since this project is relatively inactive, especially with me on a Wikibreak, it might be best to bring up the discussion at WT:MAMMAL. With the inability to form a meaningful consensus here, this topic would be best for a broader audience to discuss. I'll try to watch for the discussion and will join in when I can. – VisionHolder « talk » 21:30, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Although the ornithologists have formally mandated capital letters for the common name of a bird, primatologists have not done this and literature generally uses the lower case for the common name. A problem that I see is that many primates either do not have a common name or they have several common names. However, wikipedists confidently chose a common name, sometimes that may not be adequate. My vote as a primatologist is to write the common name with lower case letters. Huicocos (talk) 19:01, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I know that common name choice comment is partly directed at me as I have changed quite a lot of your scientific names to the common name. It's a difficult subject and although not talked about as much as the capitalisation debate still raises some interesting discussions. I feel that common names are a better choice for Wikipedia; people without a scientific background should be able to read every article without too much difficulty. One of the great possibilities of Wikipedia is the bridge it provides between experts and the general public. For this reason common names should be used wherever possible. The most popular common name is probably the one that should be used, though it can work on a case-by-case basis if there is any doubt. Jack (talk) 19:03, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I think overwhelming consensus is that the common name should be used where there is a common name that is clearly the most commonly used name: Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(fauna)#Article_title. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:15, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings on this discussion, unlike the capitalization debate. Speaking from the lemur camp, I have watched the "most popular" common name change from publication to publication, even by the same authors. (For example, compare the names in Lemurs of Madagascar, 2nd edition to that of the third edition. The third edition even differs from the joint publication on taxonomy published just one year before by the same authors.) Scientific names tend to be more stable, and I almost feel they would make for better article titles. Redirects can handle all the common names for search queries. At the same time, common names are much more "user-friendly" for our readers... especially while our improved FA standards are making our best articles less and less readable for the average person. But this is much more than a WP Primates debate, and not one that is likely to change. For now, let's get this damned capitalization rule changed. – VisionHolder « talk » 19:43, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Susie the orangutan

Susie the orangutan has apparently had her entire genome sequenced (apologies if I have misused technical vocabulary), and the announcement that a third species has been afforded this degree of investigation has been posted to the Main Page in the In The News section. The problem is, the article cited omits to let us know whether Susie is/was Pongo pygmaeus or Pongo abelii, thus leaving our main page with the clearly inaccurate claim The orangutan becomes the third hominid species to have .... Anyone know more of Susie? (answers to WP:ERRORS would generate the most rapid chance of correcting the main page.) Kevin McE (talk) 19:48, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Per this BBC article, it was a Sumatran orangutan. Were you looking at American news? Tsk-tsk.  :-P – VisionHolder « talk » 20:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Not by choice, perish the thought :@) I was using the report in Nature, as linked from the article. Kevin McE (talk) 17:06, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Grivet and Vervet Monkey

Can someone who is knowledgeable about monkeys please take a look at the article Grivet? The article has been edited to refer to the monkey as the "Vervet", even though there is a separate article Vervet Monkey that seems to refer to a different species. I think this is a case of the species having been split at some point, which might have caused confusion about which common name goes with which scientific name. However, since I don't really know much about monkeys, I figured it was best to let someone else make sure the right names are used in each article. Calathan (talk) 18:41, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I have reverted the person who inexplicably changed "Grivet" to "Vervet" in the Grivet article. I have also removed the old photo, which was from Botswana and therefore quite clearly cannot be the right species (note changing taxonomy, as described in intro of Grivet). The new photo is from Awasa in Ethiopia, and although I do believe it is a Grivet, it should be noted that this locality is in the region where the Grivet and Vervet come into contact, and it could perhaps be a Vervet (or for that matter a hybrid between a Grivet and a Vervet, which also are known). I have modified the intro for the Grivet in the hope that it will minimize the risk of future confusion (it now specifically mentions the countries where it is present, and that the Vervet is a separate species found further south), but I have not checked the information presented in the remaining part of the article. It may well be that some is for other species from this complex and not the Grivet specifically. 62.107.193.8 (talk) 04:48, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

An MSW3 species we haven't covered!

While cleaning up Wikipedia:WikiProject Primates/Article requests I found that we have managed to miss out a species of gibbon that was listed in MSW3! The Bornean White-bearded Gibbon, Hylobates albibarbis. I almost can't believe it! Jack (talk) 15:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Not a huge surprise... the gibbons need a lot of work. If I weren't tied up with lemurs and lorises, I'd work on them. After all, I know Alan Mootnick (one of the leading experts on gibbons) personally. – VisionHolder « talk » 18:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I just created the article for it, although its not much at the moment. I'd say the reason that it wasn't yet covered was because it was considered just a subspecies before. It was hiding. — JamesDouch • Talk 00:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Hot articles subscription

Your Hot articles subscription is complete. Feel free to integrate this into your WikiProject page however you like using the syntax {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Primates/Hot articles}}. To modify your subscription, edit it's entry here. Kaldari (talk) 22:47, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
Sample output:

12 edits	Barbary macaque
6 edits	Gigantopithecus
4 edits	Skunk ape
3 edits	Primate
3 edits	Celebes crested macaque
2 edits	Evolution of primates
2 edits	Harambe
2 edits	Sumatran orangutan
2 edits	Yuanmou Man
2 edits	Human evolution

These are the articles that have been edited the most within the last three days. Last updated 26 December 2024 by HotArticlesBot.

Woo it's awesome! Thanks Kaldari! Jack (talk) 23:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Main page redesign

What do people think about this (very rough) redesign of our main page: User:Jackhynes/WikiProject Primates main page rethink? It's a lot more useful/interactive and removes all that whitespace from the top. What (if anything) does everyone use the main page for? Cheers, Jack (talk) 01:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I like it, although I'm a little cautious about moving the "Related WikiProjects" towards the bottom. I'm also wondering if it might be good to put "News" and "Hot articles" in a two-column table to further reduce white-space. – VisionHolder « talk » 01:26, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

How does that look? Cheers, Jack (talk) 02:00, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

To my eyes, that looks great! The only thing we need now, in my opinion, is a proper introduction to the project. – VisionHolder « talk » 02:08, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah it does, but I'm off to bed now :) Cheers, Jack (talk) 02:14, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

On my screen, the GAN text on that page overlaps with the template to its right. Ucucha 02:11, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Probably a browser problem, I've tried it in Chrome 9 and Firefox 3.6 and it renders fine. Which browser are you using? Cheers, Jack (talk) 02:14, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm also using Firefox 3.6. It does render correctly in Chrome 9.0 and Safari 5.0.3. Ucucha 04:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... I'm not really sure then. I don't know enough about wikitable syntax to figure out fixes, sorry! Cheers, Jack (talk) 20:19, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Ucucha, are you using 3.6 or 3.6.13 (or the brand new 3.6.14)? I'm not getting the problem on 3.6.13 or 3.6.14, even if the shrink the browser window down manually. – VisionHolder « talk » 21:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

It's 3.6.13. I get the same problem in both Monobook and Vector. This fixed it for me, but did add some whitespace. Ucucha 23:12, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Glad that fixed it for you, though I can't see any extra whitespace! I'll move it across today if no one has any more problems? Cheers, Jack (talk) 23:46, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Request for comment: Article format

To help standardise articles on primates species we have an article format guideline. Specifically, it helps keep section headings, content and section order consistent, something important when moving towards good topic noms and further. The guideline has not been fully approved by WikiProject Primates due to lack of input in previous discussions. Would you change any of the section headings (not including sub-sections as these will differ between species) or change the order of sections? Cheers, Jack (talk) 21:01, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

First, I think we need to focus solely on the first level headings and not get too wrapped up in the subheadings (at this point). Going off of my 8 FA lemur articles and the 3 GA slow loris articles, I've outlined the trends below. (Numbers in parentheses give the number articles using the header.)

== Etymology (5) ==

== Evolutionary history (3) ==

[alt: Classification and phylogeny (2) | Taxonomy and phylogeny (4) | Taxonomy (2)]

== Anatomy and physiology (9) ==

[alt: Physical description (1) | Description (1)]

== Ecology (4) ==

[alt: Distribution and ecology (2) | Geographic range (1) | Geographic range and habitat (2) | Distribution (2)]

== Behavior (6) ==

[alt: Behavior and ecology (1)]

== Conservation status (4) ==

[alt: Conservation (1) | Human interactions (1) | Extinction (2)]

== Cultural references (2) ==

== References ==

== External Links ==

The order is somewhat stable, although "Anatomy and physiology", "Ecology", and "Behavior" often get put in various orders. The reason is that "Ecology" is a pretty difficult section—it often includes information about "Anatomy and physiology", "Behavior", and sometimes "Evolutionary history". Sometimes the section introduces the others, and in other cases it builds off of them. Sometimes the "Behavior" is included as a subsection under "Ecology".

Otherwise, the reasons for naming variations in these articles vary widely, depending upon circumstance. In some cases, FAC reviewers might have made suggested changes based on the content of the section (e.g. "Human interactions"). In cases like "Evolutionary history", there may have been nothing on the evolution, but taxonomy (usually a subtopic) was well-represented. In other cases, the articles involved collaboration, so other authors may have brought their own section names into the mix. Similarly, some articles may have inherited their headings from old start-class headers that I simply never replaced. In other cases, I simply don't remember why I chose those headers. The important question is whether standardizing the headers will necessitate re-wording sections on existing GAs and FAs. The ecology-related sections are an example. – VisionHolder « talk » 07:01, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Just looking through the diversity of headings in WP:MAMMAL and WP:BIRDS featured content, there is quite a lot of variation. This won't be easy! I think the headings should be understood by the layman, Anatomy and physiology possibly wouldn't and the taxonomy/phylogeny may not either. My votes would go to Physical description, Distribution and habitat, Behavio(u)r, and Conservation. I don't really like: Description - description of what? Changing current GAs and FAs may occur if we all come to an agreement. Jack (talk) 18:53, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

If the lack of conformity spans the entire breadth of WP:Animals then maybe this should be discussed at that level. If we hammer out a standard for our project, and then other projects devise their own standard, it may be even hard to fix further down the road. As for your specific choices, by omitting "physiology" with the title Physical description, you restrict the discussion of "how it (mechanically) works." This is something that would be mentioned at an FAC. Distribution and habitat works well for segregating the behaviors (pollination, prey item, predator, etc.) from the element of where?; however, that may often leave a section with very limited information. It's possible that you may have a FAC with only 2 or 3 sentences in the section, but large quantities of information in its other sections. Again, could be an issue at FAC, and reviewers may suggest merging sections. The others I'm fine with. In my own opinion, Evolutionary history could probably be split from Taxonomy. They are not always the same, and each can have their own rich history. However, just as with Distribution and habitat, that may leave Evolutionary history sections very sparse, opening the door for section mergers, especially if the taxonomy information discusses phylogenetics extensively. I don't know... I think this type of standardization is going to be a lot harder than we're thinking. It may be one of those cases where you can make it sound good on a guidelines page, but in practice, any standard format may prove to be a nightmare, especially when vetting processes get involved. I think that's the main reason why many of the articles I've written have gone awry from the current standard. – VisionHolder « talk » 21:39, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Do you know why Locomotion is within the Physical description/Anatomy and physiology section? It's like this on Primate Info Net too. Also yes this will be a nightmare. I'm going to change some of the headings in Sunda Slow Loris, what is your take on section order? I prefer distribution above conservation, a lot of mammal/primate articles already follow this guideline. I also prefer the article to start with naming, i.e. if there is an etymology section, then into taxonomy, then after that into the anatomy section. Cheers, Jack (talk) 13:01, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

"Locomotion" is behavior, but a lot of times when it's described, it is discussed from an anatomical perspective. Additionally, it would fall under the "physiology" category. As for the order, Etymology -> Evolutionary history/Taxonomy -> Physical description are always good to start. I prefer to next discuss its biogeography (Habitat and distribution), because I feel it gives the reader more background information before diving into the details of its behavior. If you don't know where it's found or what type of habitat it lives in, the behavior will make less sense and be harder to explain. Otherwise, cultural and conservation stuff should come last. – VisionHolder « talk » 02:22, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

How about we have sections that will generally be together unless there is a lot of information. E.g. Behaviour and ecology, Habitat and distribution, Taxonomy and phylogeny. When the sections become too large then we split them: Behaviour, Ecology, etc. Talking of the Anatomy and physiology section, shouldn't morphology be included in there as well. Cheers, Jack (talk) 13:51, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Ignoring the vexing challenge of adapting existing articles and focusing solely on a theoretical layout, I am fine with those section titles, except for "Taxonomy and phylogeny". It's not that I don't like it—it's an excellent title—but "evolutionary history" is used in the title of articles, and I worry that this may raise new challenges to article naming conventions. Do we rename Evolutionary history of lemurs to "Phylogeny and taxonomy of lemurs"? (And, yes, I still plan on splitting that article very soon.) If so, I can imagine a lot of people will challenge the word "phylogeny" since most laypeople won't understand it. Unfortunately, this opens another can of worms: we have to consider splitting large articles. Lemur will eventually be expanded upon in the form of specific articles covering extensive details under each section. The same will eventually for for ring-tailed lemur. Primate will be another article that should someday be expanded through the use of sub-articles. Just something to think about. – VisionHolder « talk » 02:22, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that "anatomy" includes "morphology"... at least in my opinion. – VisionHolder « talk » 03:51, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

FYI: I just used some of your headers and most of the order you suggested at my latest creation: Small-toothed Sportive Lemur. Let me know what you think. – VisionHolder « talk » 21:35, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Yeah that looks great, I would still place Habitat and distribution below Behaviour and ecology. That way descriptions of the animal are kept together (Phys. desc., + Behav. and ecol.). As for the splitting of articles, I agree it's a difficult subject. Some examples of splitting: spider behavior, dog behavior, horse behavior, primate cognition, bird conservation, conservation of painted turtles; for this extremely small sample it seems the preference is that the animal name comes first, then the subject. But I'm not sure how much discussion has taken place in naming these articles. Cheers, Jack (talk) 00:07, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Again, with the "Habitat and distribution", I feel that it needs to come first because it sets the stage for understanding the behavior. It would be like having stagehands set the stage for a scene after the scene is performed. For example, if the ring-tailed lemur article talked about how some populations appear to get their water from their food and or dew on leaves, that might throw people for a loop because a lot of people assume all lemurs live in tropical rainforests. And sometimes the habitat is going to come up anyway in the Behavior section, so it's best to introduce the habitat beforehand. For example, high-altitude ring-tailed lemur populations have certain traits that help them cope with extremes in temperature and extra UV exposure. It might help to tell people first that an isolated population lives on the massif at Andringitra.

As for those article names, I find it funny that everyone said the opposite about "Lemur evolutionary history", and insisted that it be renamed to "Evolutionary history of lemurs". I guess it all boils down to opinion, and as long as the alternate name exists as a redirect, I don't care as long as everyone's consistent. – VisionHolder « talk » 21:49, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Request for comment: Capitalization with primates

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

SUMMARY:

This discussion has closed. After 19 days, the vote totals were as follows:
    sentence case = 6
    neutral = 1
    upper case = 0
The project's guidelines will be updated accordingly.
– VisionHolder « talk » 20:13, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Historically on this project, common names of species have been represented in upper case (e.g. Ring-tailed Lemur or Common Chimpanzee), whereas most other mammals projects under WP:Mammals have used sentence case (e.g. blue whale). This project requirement is outlined at Wikipedia:WikiProject Primates/Article format#Capitalization. There appears to have been no vote on this issue, and most likely came about due to editor preference early in the project's history. The academic literature on primates does not support the use upper case, except in the case of Mammal Species of the World, a book on primate taxonomy that acts as one of the taxonomic authorities for the project. Almost all other literature and taxonomic sources use sentence case. Opinions have been expressed on this topic recently at the WP:Animals capitalization guidelines draft, and so far the few editors who have spoken up on the issue favor changing it (myself included). This will involve not only fixing common names in the body text of primate articles, but will also involve renaming articles. However, this is an issue that affects the standardization with the rest of WP:Mammals and compliance with the majority of the primate literature. The argument against is based around the issue of clarity (not sources), such that—for example—a brown lemur can be distinguished from the Common Brown Lemur. – VisionHolder « talk » 07:33, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• Question. Is there a single standardized list of primate names, like in birds?-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 09:16, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what list you are referring to. There is no list of every primate species, if that's what you're asking. – VisionHolder « talk » 15:10, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

That is what I was asking. The question is when does a common noun become a proper noun. That happens when there is a standardized list of names so that each species has a (more of less) official common name and those should be capatilized. Such a list exists for birds, which is why WP:BIRD has an exception with regard to the sentence case. As there is no such list for primates, I support the Sentence case proposal. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:27, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Originally MSW3 (2005) was used to argue the title case argument, this is the equivalent of the birds taxonomic reference. But the world of taxonomy is in constant flux especially with so many genomic studies undertaken at the moment that books can be very wrong when it comes to current understandings. What we really need is an organisation, widely accepted by mammologists, that ruled on the taxonomy of mammal species. Jack (talk) 20:39, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I see. The birds list is an official effort of the International Ornithological Union to give each species a unique and proper common name and is consistently updated to follow the latest changes in taxonomy. I think that is far more solid than a one time and more and more outdated compendium. Personally, I think it should be Upper Case all the way as I fail to see the difference between a town, a species and a family name, they are all used to indicate a specific unit. But the world does not agree with me, alas..... -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 20:47, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• Use sentence case. This is majority usage in the literature. Here, as in many other contexts, our main concern should be to reflect what our sources do. Ucucha 14:19, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
• Use 'sentence' case. Unlike what I see with birds, where some (although it seems not most) scholarly writing uses title case, I can find little if any usage of title case for primates (except of course in titles). There is not, as far as I know, any reason why we should be treating primates any differently from other mammals. See Huicocos' comment at the top of this talk page. I would really like to see this change, or at least some defense of the status quo; article titles are pretty basic and should be done consistently and inline with reliable sources. "Formality and an adherence to conventions widely used in the genre are critically important to credibility".(WP:CAPS) ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 15:12, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
• Use sentence case. I should also officially state my support for sentence case for the reasons given above. – VisionHolder « talk » 15:21, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
• Use sentence case. Having previously supported title case (I just like that common species become proper nouns, while common names for genera and above are sentence), I think we should follow the majority of literature/experts in using sentence case. Cheers, Jack (talk) 19:06, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
• Follow the preponderance of literature - this seems to mean use sentence case. LadyofShalott 04:08, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
• I am on the fence on this. A few years ago, before I started editing mammal articles a lot, I was strongly in the sentence case camp. Then I got converted to the title case arguments, and came to prefer using that (for all mammal articles, including but not exclusively primates). But I don't feel strongly enough about it to vote one way or the other. Rlendog (talk) 20:03, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

  You mention "title case arguments" - do you mean arguments why title case is superior, or arguments why Wikipedia, which attempts to reflect conventions used in reliable sources, should use title case? thanks, ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 00:13, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Talk:Primate_basal_ganglia_system#Split

There is a proposed split of Primate_basal_ganglia_system#Pallido-nigral_set_and_pacemaker from Primate_basal_ganglia_system. The split has been supported, so it appears that it is appropriate. However, this is a specialised topic so the work should be done by somebody who understand the topic. I have removed the split request tag, and am now leaving the matter in the hands of the experts. SilkTork *^YES! 21:52, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Just so you know, I've looked at the article and can't make heads or tails of it. Therefore I have no opinion on the matter. – VisionHolder « talk » 00:20, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I, for one, welcome our new sentence case overlords

But will there be some system to check which articles have been changed to the new style? Cheers, Jack (talk) 23:08, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

One way is to look at [1] and check which titles are redirects (put .mw-redirect { color: green; } in Special:MyPage/common.css). So far, I've done all members of Lemuridae and Visionholder has renamed a couple more lemurs. Ucucha 23:15, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the code, Ucucha. However, there are a few (on my screen) that do not show up as green, despite pointing to redirects: Southern Lesser Bamboo Lemur, Greater Bamboo Lemur, Sanford's Brown Lemur, Crowned Lemur, Sclater's Lemur, and Ring-tailed Lemur. I'm not sure why. – VisionHolder « talk » 23:24, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

They do for me; perhaps you need some more purging of your cache? Ucucha 23:32, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Yep, that was it. Unfortunately, my Firefox browser is requiring that more and more lately. Oh well... – VisionHolder « talk » 23:43, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

And you're even fixing the text. You guys rock; thanks! ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:48, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

There's a couple hundred species left, though, and it'll probably be some time to get them all done. I might even try to create a script that helps in doing this. Ucucha 00:10, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I think the species articles are done, or mostly done. There are still subspecies, etc, and templates, other articles, and whatnot, containing title cased species names. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:51, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

RFC at Talk:Copulation#Should_the_Copulation_article_exist.3F

You may want to participate in the RFC at Talk:Copulation#Should_the_Copulation_article_exist.3F --Philcha (talk) 13:36, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Higher-level primate taxonomy

I wanted to point out that the WikiProject Primates is using a higher-level taxonomic scheme for primates that is not in general use by biological anthropologists or mammalogists.

From my posts on the "Haplorhini" Talk page:

This is an easy issue to resolve. First, "simian" is an informal term used to refer to non-human anthropoids. The clade "Anthropoidea" was named by Mivart in 1864. "Simiiformes" was named 2 years later (1866) by Haeckel to describe the same group (i.e., monkeys, apes, humans). More importantly (see "general use" discussion above), "Anthropoidea" / "anthropoid" are used nearly universally by specialists. A search for "Anthropoidea" recovers 148 peer-reviewed journal articles on Web of Science; "Simiiformes" recovers only 6 papers, starting with Hoffstetter in 1974. Also, "anthropoid" nets 855 papers; "simiiform" nets 5. [For reasons that are not immediately clear, a small group of European authors started using "simiiform" in preference to "anthropoid"; this change has not been widely adopted.] Therefore: "Anthropoidea" has priority over "Simiiformes", AND it is in far greater general use. It's not clear to me why Groves has endorsed "Simiiformes" in Mammal Species of the World online, but then again Groves has never been afraid to buck the prevailing taxonomic trends. In this case, the effect has laid bare the difference between authoritative peer-reviewed sources used by experts (e.g., in the biological anthropology and mammalogy primary literature - nearly everyone uses "anthropoid") and non peer-reviewed online sources (e.g., Wikipedia and Animal Diversity Web, which have followed the online Mammal Species of the World page - probably because it is easier to access without library privileges at a research university). In this case, I submit that, for all of the reasons discussed here as well as the thread above regarding the correct spelling of "haplorhine", Wikipedia and its users would be best served by using the correct taxonomy that is in near universal use among experts - the clade Haplorhini has two constituent clades: Anthropoidea and Tarsiiformes

In short, by adopting the taxonomy of Groves 2005 in Mammal Species of the World, WikiProject Primates is putting itself at odds with the scheme of primate taxonomy that is in near-universal use by primatologists.

Respectfully, PorfirioPhoonman (talk) 17:29, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I think in the past MSotW has been placed on quite a high pedestal, so that might explain what you are seeing here. I'm to ignorant to weigh in, but what exactly are you suggesting - you want to move Simiiformes -> Anthropoidea? Is that the only change? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:37, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I see there is discussion already about this and related issues at Talk:Haplorrhini#Spelling – I would encourage everyone interested to contribute there, rather than here. Thanks, ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:42, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Renaming Ape article

At present there are some serious problems with the Ape article, partly lack of referencing and partly what is not disputed to be a POV use of the term "ape" for the superfamily Hominoidea (see Talk:Ape/Archive 1#Sourcing_and_POV). One way of resolving this is to rename the article "Hominoidea" and then mention the common use of "ape" for (Hominoidea − humans); the article doesn't deal with extinct species, so in its context "humans" = Homo. The alternative is to be clear that "ape" is a common term for a paraphyletic group, and include a "bracketted cladogram" to show this, as per Prosimian and Monkey. I don't normally edit primates articles, so I don't have views either way; I'd just like to see the existing article improved, partly because it's on the schools CD. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:46, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

As no-one objected, either here or at Talk:Ape/Archive 1#Sourcing_and_POV, I have re-written the article to avoid the POV/UNDUE previously complained of. It seems even clearer to me that the article should be re-named either "Hominoidea" or "Hominoid". I'll wait to see if anyone objects. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:18, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

FAR notice

I have nominated Homo floresiensis 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. Dana boomer (talk) 13:12, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Infinite monkey theorem

A certain User:Robofish, who I haven't checked whether he's affiliated with your project, recently put your project banner on talk:infinite monkey theorem.

Now, of course these banners say only that an article is "of interest" to a given WikiProject, and it's totally your call whether you're interested in something. But the article in question has very little to do with real monkeys. It's about mathematical tidbit that's illustrated with metaphorical monkeys.

So your call, but I doubt the article has much to do with the mission of your project. --Trovatore (talk) 19:19, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Aquatic ape hypothesis

I don't know if anyone has time to get involved in this, but due to a flurry of recent edits, I took a look at the Aquatic ape hypothesis article and found a few issues that border on WP:NPOV and possibly WP:SYNTH. I demoted the article to C-class and quickly gave my reasons here. If you have time, please weigh in there. If you have lot of time, please help clean up the article. – Maky ^« talk » 20:29, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Any other help would be great, there are a number of WP:SPA accounts trying to insert favourable comments from vanity press as well as insulting critics and pushing for the removal of criticism: Talk:Aquatic_ape_hypothesis#Hawks.27_unsourced_.22conspiracy_theorist.22_slur. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:17, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Personally I'm waiting for the lock to be removed so I can remove WP:OR statements, like the one I already pointed out. The other editor makes it quite clear on his user page that he supports AAH and that this hypothesis not mentioned due to "ignorance and peer pressure to ridicule it". I'm treating this like creationism vs. evolution by natural selection issue. The problem is that I'm too wrapped up in other things to get too intimately involved. We need more help. – Maky ^« talk » 14:59, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Heh. If I knew you were waiting for the lock to come off, I would have unlocked it for ya. I'm about 10 minutes from logging off. Catch me in about 12 hours and I'll hit it. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:19, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

No rush. I need help more than I need an unlock. I'm bogged down with a this NPOV issue, a new TFA that's crucial for me, FAC reviews (giving and receiving), usurpation requests on two other wikis, the GAN review of Orangutan, my research paper, and my upcoming re-write of Grooming claw (related to my research)... just so I can find time to start working with K. Christopher Beard on a re-write of Eosimias (also related to my research). To be honest, with three SPA accounts ready to pounce on the AAH article once the lock is removed, it will need to be actively monitored. What we really need is for the OR statements to be removed, the lead fixed up, and the article locked down for a little while. – Maky ^« talk » 02:29, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm woefully underversed in AAH/AAT, or I'd make the rewrite myself and just drop it in. If someone else can come up with a rewrite and can sync up with me, I can unlock for the drop in, then lock it down again. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:57, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I was considering unlocking, but I think you are right that that would only start the edit wars again. There are discussions on the Reliable Source Noticeboard and to a much lesser extent the Fringe Theory Noticeboard, as well as on the AAH talk page, so the lock may be having some positive effect. That said, if you have any particular edits that you think are necessary and they gain consensus, those can be added by an admin even with the lock. Better yet, maybe you should consider getting yourself a bit. Rlendog (talk) 17:45, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that I request admin privileges? (O.o) I doubt I'd make it through the RFA—I can guarantee there will be some very vocal opposition. Aside from you, UtherSRG, Ucucha, and a few others, I haven't been terribly impressed with Wiki's admins. It's not really a circle I think I want to join. – Maky ^« talk » 01:18, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

cough cough What? I'm one of the more reviled admins, having supposedly abused my privileges multiple times. (Actually, I just acted as I always had, but rules and procedures changed, as far as I could tell, so I seemed to be acting out of turn...) You seem a far more uptodate Wikipedian and would make a fine admin! Way finer than me! ;) I was surprised you weren't an admin, but I understand it's a very strict process these days... not back when they let any old tom, Dick, or Uther join the ranks. - UtherSRG (talk) 04:37, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

From my interactions with you, I feel you are fair, unbiased, civil, and level-headed. That's more than I can say for most of the admins I've run across. I would rather see an admin with the qualities you've shown me while wielding out-dated rules than one wielding the latest rules with less professional qualities. The former can be persuaded with civil discourse to review the updated rules and take appropriate action based on the circumstances, while the latter will interpret things how s/he wants for whatever motive and defend their decisions on a personal level. But thanks for the vote of confidence. – Maky ^« talk » 16:42, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Homininae

This article has doubled in size overnight (although it was a few months ago), but with a large inclusion of a single non-mainstream POV. I'm going to hack it down to restore WP:NPOV. I could use some backup... - UtherSRG (talk) 10:59, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll watch it, but I'm not sure I'm well versed enough in the subject to be of much help determining what is NPOV or not. Rlendog (talk) 17:36, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

The big POV pusher was asserting Richard Dawkins' hypothesis that Paranthropus is ancestral to gorillas, that one branch of Australopithecus is ancestral to chimpanzees, and another branch is ancestral to Homo. It's not a terrible theory, but it isn't mainstream. - UtherSRG (talk) 04:38, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Missing terms

Am looking at some terms for which we are included under. Just made homin to help disambiguate a bunch of terms with similar spellings and their common reference terms in slang, but I do not know them for some things because there are no bold shorter terms listed in their articles. I hope this list illustrates what I mean:

• Order Primates = Primates

• Suborder Haplorrhini = ???

• Infraorder Simiiformes = Simians

• Parvorder Catarrhini = ???

• Superfamily Hominoidea = Hominids Hominoids (or apes)

Does anyone know if there are abbreviated terms to refer to, in fewer letters and/or syllables, the terms indicated with the question marks? Being a word that ends in "-rrhini" doesn't seem to bode well for people abbreviating you. If anyone knows examples of alternate terms, I am wondering if you could propose them and we could find references so that we could list them on the pages. Catarrh/catar is taken... so I was thinking maybe Haplorin and Catarin would be easy, but I guess it's not our role to create words or abbreviations, so we should look to see if they exist perhaps in science or the media. Y12J (talk) 00:58, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if disambig pages should be made just for the first 5 letters of a word... Anyway, to answer your questions, the names you're looking for are haplorhine and catarrhine. Both exists as redirects, as they should be. – Maky ^« talk » 02:31, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I've deleted the article you made. That information is available in other articles - and specifically gathered already in at least one article. No need to make up words - the words we use are all used in the scientific community. And what Maky said. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:55, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah okay, those shorter terms wasn't bolded on catar page so added it there. Noticed on 2nd look it was on haplor though, just missed it due to it being mentioned right off the bat instead of later after the main title as usual. Also, wasn't making up a word, the structure of the article says "first 5 letters or two syllables", didn't actually call it a word. More of a prefix if anything. Y12J (talk) 06:34, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

And as you know, "hominids" isn't the same as "hominoids", which is what you meant to use in the last entry in your chart above... - UtherSRG (talk) 07:58, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah sorry that was a typo, fixed with strikethrough. Part of the reason I thought a disambig would be good is due to how easy it is to mix up these suffixes. Y12J (talk) 06:34, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Crab-eating macaque - incorrect images

A complaint has been made to the Foundation about some mis-labelled images. Specifically File:Crab-eating Macaque.jpg which is used in Monkey and several other articles on other Wikipedias and File:Monkey eating.jpg. A Commons search [2] seems to show at least one other incorrectly labelled image. Is there anyone who can correctly identify these and fix the problems in the related articles? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 06:07, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

What is the specific complaint? As far as I know, these are indeed crab-eating macaques. What are the incorrect labels? - UtherSRG (talk) 05:54, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Article requests

It seems from our article request list that there's some good work to do. I'm not so concerned with subspecies - I'd much rather ensure we have all of the species and higher taxonomy "correct" and consistent. I think I'll start with the bottom of the list and work my way up. How confident are we that the tarsier taxonomy changes are ready to be mainlined? - UtherSRG (talk) 05:25, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I've removed the subspecies, agreed that they aren't important for now. I've updated the page as best I can from User:Ucucha/List of mammals/Primates but I'm sure there are other changes proposed that I've missed. As to whether they proposals have gained enough support I'm not sure, some of the older changes will have more support while the newer ones (i.e. 2011-12) can just be mentioned on existing pages? Jack (talk) 12:07, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good. As you can tell, I'm still in the process of working the tarsier articles. I have the two monotypic genera articles done, and have the family article updated. These can be checked. I've created a new stub for Tarsius, since it is no longer the only genus in the family. I'll get stubs for fuscus and wallacei shortly. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:44, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok. Stubs Wallace's tarsier and Tarsius fuscus created. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:08, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Great! I expanded T. fuscus and nominated it for DYK. Rlendog (talk) 17:49, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Good job, guys! If you plan to do a lot of work on tarsiers, I strongly suggest the book Tarsiers: Past, Present, and Future. I can also suggest a few articles that talk about behavior, such as grooming. – Maky ^« talk » 18:01, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure we should necessarily follow all this; Wikipedia's articles may need to be a little more conservative than I am in my list. I personally think the split of Tarsius is a good idea, but Groves's taxonomic ideas are sometimes idiosyncratic, and only time can tell whether recent changes will be generally accepted. An additional problem with the tarsiers is that the three fossil species (T. eocaenus, T. sirindhornae, and T. thailandicus) now get lost without a good genus to place them in. Ucucha (talk) 19:15, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Also, I had to remove the "Description" section from Tarsius fuscus, as it was based on an 1897 paper about a specimen of unknown origin. It is impossible to say what currently recognized tarsier species that paper was based on, and there has been enough confusion in the taxonomic history of the tarsiers that it could be pretty much any species (Allen seemed to think that Cephalopachus bancanus was merely a juvenile of a different species, for example). Our account of Tarsius fuscus should only be based on information that we are sure pertains to that species, which is limited to mainland southwestern Sulawesi. Groves and Shekelle (2010) have a good though brief description of the species, which should be used for our article. I'll do that if I have time. Ucucha (talk) 19:34, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

This is why I started with the tarsiers - there was enough data out there to support Groves's taxonomic changes this time. It seems Tarsius is a bit of a wastebin taxon, and I expect more shakeups will still happen, but the current organization seems to be broadly accepted by tarsier researchers and enthusiasts alike. I tried a few times to get Groves & Shekelle's paper a few times, but gave up in frustration. Why, oh, why don't they publish as open source? Some articles from the same journal are free, but not the one we really need to read.... - UtherSRG (talk) 20:46, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I got it; just email me. Ucucha (talk) 23:43, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Sapajus

An article from 2011 concluded that the genus Cebus, containing the capuchins, should be split between the non-tufted capuchins, which would remain in Cebus, and the tufted capuchins, which should be moved to the genus Sapajus.[3] The new classification seems to be getting used in recent articles, e.g., [4]. Does anyone have an issue if I begin to apply the new genus to our capuchin articles? Rlendog (talk) 18:50, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

No one has objected, so I assume there is no issue. But since there have been no replies whatsoever, I will wait a week or so before proceeding. Rlendog (talk) 17:31, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

What's a good rule of thumb for changes to taxonomy? Should we wait for a secondary source? Otherwise, I'm good with the change. Change is good. ;) - UtherSRG (talk) 04:32, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

This paper [5], which I don't have access to, discusses the changes. Jack (talk) 11:47, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

This is the paper in which Alfaro et al first seem to use the Sapajus vs. Cebus split.[6] Here is a secondary source in which Paul Garber applies the new names.[7] I can't access the paper Jack linked, but from the abstract that paper, especially with some of the co-authors, seems to further confirm the appropriateness of the new names. I think we changed the names of many lemur species based on a similar paper a couple of years ago. Rlendog (talk) 15:03, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Two "in press" papers uses Sapajus: BOUBLI et al. American Journal of Primatology 00:1–13 (2012) [Cebus Phylogenetic Relationships: A Preliminary Reassessment of the Diversity of the Untufted Capuchin Monkeys] [DOI 10.1002/ajp.21998] and RYLANDS et al. Int. Zoo Yb. (2012) 46: ••–•• [Neotropical primates: taxonomy and recently described species and subspecies] [DOI:10.1111/j.1748-1090.2011.00152.x]. Burmeister (talk) 15:23, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like we're overdue to make the change, then. :) - UtherSRG (talk) 15:28, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll try to get to it over the weekend then. Rlendog (talk) 17:34, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Looks like you got it done. Why gracile capuchin monkey and robust capuchin monkey as destinations instead of the genera? I fixed links and bullets on capuchin monkey. - UtherSRG (talk) 08:01, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I was using common names rather than scientific names. Cebus and Sapajus still redirect to the appropriate article. Rlendog (talk) 18:00, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

golden snub-nosed monkey

The new user editing this article keeps adding copyright images and a link to a video, all from ARKive.org. None are needed on the article, and their inclusion is against policy. Can someone please step in... I've exceeded my revert allowance... - UtherSRG (talk) 13:53, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

This user has been warned and continues to edit war. I'm trying to add this to the appropriate noticeboard, but because he doesn't add edit summaries to his edits, it's taking forever to track down the appropriate diffs. – Maky ^« talk » 14:33, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Eh... forget it. I've flagged the images for speedy deletion and left a note on the article's talk page. – Maky ^« talk » 14:58, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! - UtherSRG (talk) 15:34, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Probable list of new educational assignments

Looks like the following list of articles is being edited as part of a class project:

• Indri - C-class
• Olive baboon - B-class
• Coquerel's sifaka - start-class
• Golden snub-nosed monkey - start-class
• Red ruffed lemur - start-class
• Francois' langur - start-class
• Philippine tarsier - B-class (but may really be C-class)
• Green monkey - stub-class

There may be more. Luckily, the best of the bunch seems to be editing the more difficult article to work on: the Olive baboon article may be able to be pushed to GA status after this. However, all of these will need some fine-toothed combing (with a toothcomb?) to make sure they aren't adding incorrect info. For instance, some are using arkive.org as a source, so I'm iffy on whether the data being used is about the species as we know it or a former version before subspecies were elevated, or perhaps about the genus instead of the species, for a couple of examples. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:31, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

It's nice that class projects are trying to help fix up Wiki articles about primate species... but I just wish that students knew how to do research in libraries (or even Google Scholar) and not just on Google. Good luck to them with the Red ruffed lemur article. The Ruffed lemur article is pretty exhaustive, and I never rewrote the species articles because they only differ by color, range, and one vocalization. Eventually I need to figure out how to divide up the material between the three articles. – Maky ^« talk » 15:02, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

There's a genus of rodents like that, and they put all of the species articles together in one genus article, taxoboxes and all. I'll see if I can find it. I'm not sure I liked it, but if the species are so similar, is there really a need for species articles at all? - UtherSRG (talk) 15:30, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I've added green monkey above. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:30, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

I've gone through François' langur and cleaned up the glaring errors, checked most of the references, and a bit of copy editing. I've reassessed it as a C-class article now. Might have some time to look at some of the others too. Cheers, Jack (talk) 13:37, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Move Francois' langur → François' langur

See the discussion. Cheers, Jack (talk) 13:09, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:HighBeam

Wikipedia:HighBeam describes a limited opportunity for Wikipedia editors to have access to HighBeam Research.
—Wavelength (talk) 18:52, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Koolakamba

Anybody ever hear of this? There's a new article, and it needs work. LadyofShalott 03:40, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Needing proofreading and copyediting

I've just completed initial work on articles about several fossil primates: Djebelemur, Plesiopithecus, Algeripithecus, Altiatlasius, Azibius, and Azibiidae. All could use some proofreading and/or copyediting, if anyone has time. I'd appreciate the help. Otherwise the only things missing from the articles (from what I can tell) are detailed discussions of their dental and/or cranial morphology. – Maky ^« talk » 08:31, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Major primate divisions

Over the next few days, I'm going to be cleaning up and re-writing the articles Strepsirrhini and Prosimian. Does anyone have time to work on the complimentary set: Haplorhini and Simian? I might be able to help out a little bit. – Maky ^« talk » 07:33, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Sociality in primates

We really need a Sociality in primates or Primate sociality article. (The latter currently points to an odd place...) I don't have time myself, but I thought I'd suggest it. The best source to start building from (since it defines key terms, such as "social organization", "social structure", and "mating system", and then differentiates them) would be the following:

• Kappeler, P. M.; van Schaik, C. P. (2002). "Evolution of Primate Social Systems". International Journal of Primatology. 23 (4): 707–740. doi:10.1023/A:1015520830318.

If this were created, other stub articles like Solitary but social and Multi-male group could be merged in. – Maky ^« talk » 12:11, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking the same. I'll have a go at doing some changes to the social systems section of primates first, and then look to putting together an article on primate sociality --OpieKit (talk) 15:37, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Opinions needed: Infraorders within Strepsirrhini

In the academic literature, there is no agreement over how to divide the suborder Strepsirrhini taxonomically. Some favor lumping all the living taxa into "Lemuriformes" and most of the fossil species into "Adapiformes", while others break the lemurs into "Lemuriformes" and the lorises/galagos into "Lorisiformes". Some even add a fourth infraorder for the aye-aye. Unfortunately, Google search counts will not accurately reflect the consensus (since there is none). All of this has a significant impact on how I write articles about strepsirrhine primates—moreso than just the taxobox and a few quick sentences in the taxonomy sections. First, how do we refer to crown and stem strepsirrhines? If all living species belong to Lemuriformes, then they can be called lemuriforms or lemuriform primates. If not, then they are crown strepsirrhines. Again, this may sound trivial, but choosing the latter implicitly means that we are defining strepsirrhines as tooth-combed primates, and ignoring the nose (for which they are often classified). I could go on... but in short, we need to determine our terminology so that I know which articles to create, how to uniformly word the article texts, and how to order the taxoboxes and labels on cladograms. We cannot keep doing what we did in the Lemur article—saying "See text". We should definitely discuss the alternative taxonomies and their history (which I plan to do in the article Strepsirrhini and elsewhere), but we can't continue to discuss in each high-level article while wavering on terminology from article to article.

As someone who has spent extensive time reading the literature, not just in primatology, but also in paleoanthropology, I feel that there is a slight leaning in the academic literature towards referring to all extant strepsirrhines as lemuriforms (broken into lemuroids and lorisoids). This seems to be fairly uniform in paleoanthropology, whereas primatology seems to be split more evenly between the options—primarily because they hardly consider adapiforms... which I think is a major mistake. If anything, primatologists just refer to the extinct strepsirrhines as "adapids" (a family), oversimplifying the strepsirrhine lineage by ignoring several families of adapiform primates. (This is a common problem throughout the biological sciences: where people who study only living species make many over-generalizations based on a poor understanding the fossil record.)

Anyway, here are the 3 taxonomies that you will find explicitly or implicitly used in the academic literature:

2 infraorders, 2 superfamilies	3 infraorders, 0 superfamilies	4 infraorders, 0 superfamilies
Order Primates Suborder Strepsirrhini Infraorder †Adapiformes †Adapidae †Notharctidae †Sivaladapidae Infraorder Lemuriformes Superfamily Lemuroidea Family †Archaeolemuridae Family Cheirogaleidae Family Daubentoniidae Family Indriidae Family Lemuridae Family Lepilemuridae Family †Megaladapidae Family †Palaeopropithecidae Superfamily Lorisoidea Family Lorisidae Family Galagidae	Order Primates Suborder Strepsirrhini Infraorder †Adapiformes †Adapidae †Notharctidae †Sivaladapidae Infraorder Lemuriformes Family †Archaeolemuridae Family Cheirogaleidae Family Daubentoniidae Family Indriidae Family Lemuridae Family Lepilemuridae Family †Megaladapidae Family †Palaeopropithecidae Infraorder Lorisiformes Family Lorisidae Family Galagidae	Order Primates Suborder Strepsirrhini Infraorder †Adapiformes †Adapidae †Notharctidae †Sivaladapidae Infraorder Chiromyiformes Family Daubentoniidae Infraorder Lemuriformes Family †Archaeolemuridae Family Cheirogaleidae Family Indriidae Family Lemuridae Family Lepilemuridae Family †Megaladapidae Family †Palaeopropithecidae Infraorder Lorisiformes Family Lorisidae Family Galagidae

Here is a very general cladogram to help visualize the phylogeny:

Strepsirrhini	†Adapiformes Crown strepsirrhines or lemuriformes lemur clade Daubentoniidae other lemurs loris/galago clade

Again, this is not just some simple naming problem, to be fixed with a few redirects a few explanatory sentences in a few key articles. If you don't believe me, try reading the academic literature, where articles and books are confusing because it is unclear which families they are referring to when they use the terms "strepsirrhine" and "lemuriform". As I said, I've been dealing with this for years, and for the reasons given above, my own opinion is that we should favor the first option: 2 infraorders, 2 superfamilies.

I would like to hear people's thoughts on this. – Maky ^« talk » 20:23, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

After no comments or opinions in a week, I'm going to move forward with the rewrite of Strepsirrhini starting today. (The initial work will probably start offline, and could go live tonight or within a couple days. Alternatively I may publish it section by section... I haven't decided yet.) In order to define the language and scope used, I will favor the two infraorders and two superfamilies taxonomy, although I will certainly mention the alternatives in every article where it's appropriate. In fact, I will even use the tables and a comparable cladogram to what I offered above. As noted above, when you factor in the studies of both living and fossil primates, I think the option I am going with has a majority. Unfortunately, the studies of living primates often ignore the fossil primates in their taxonomy, which Wikipedia cannot do in its coverage of strepsirrhines. I will not start updating language and taxoboxes in other primate articles until the Strepsirrhini article is complete. Again, I am interested in hearing all comments and concerns, so post them below. – Maky ^« talk » 18:28, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable. Rlendog (talk) 18:56, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

The re-write is taking longer than expected, but a good chunk of it is already up—particularly the part about this taxonomic mess. I have a little more to add about adapiform taxonomy and a bunch about anatomy and behavior. After all of that, I'll write a new lead. People are welcome to review and comment. Hopefully everything I said above will make more sense after reading the article. – Maky ^« talk » 07:07, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Alright... the article Strepsirrhini is now done. Well... mostly. I still need to comb two hardcore primate anatomy books for relevant material in order to be truly comprehensive, but I know I've already touched on all the most intensely discussed traits. Regardless, I'm putting it up on GAN now. The article could probably also use a quick proofread/copyedit, particularly the Anatomy and Behavior sections, which were not covered in Ucucha's review. If anyone has time, I would appreciate a review from someone in the community. After GAN, the article will go on to FAC.

So in regards to what was said above, I hope this article now illustrates why I went into such a long tirade about the terminology. The article took longer than I expected to write it, but the reason was that few if any of the sources were 100% correct due to confusion over terminology. There were also a ton of misconceptions found in the sources that I had to work around by finding more accurate sources. Hopefully this article makes it abundantly clear how loaded the academic literature is with misconceptions about strepsirrhine primates, even today.

Anyway, next I will work on a rewrite of Prosimian (hopefully a lot shorter), and a new article for "Lemuriformes". I will start after a short but much-needed break. Once "Lemuriformes" is done, I plan to visit most of the primate articles and start adjusting to a standardized strepsirrhine taxonomy and terminology for the sake of consistency. Again, if there are any objections, please speak up. – Maky ^« talk » 09:47, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

New Member

Good evening everyone! My name is Len and I am senior at Washington University in St. Louis majoring in political science. This semester I am enrolled in Behavioral Ecology and I look forward to contributing to what is known about cooperation in primates. I will comment constructively on your pieces, and I hope you all will do the same. Thanks! Marklxb (talk) 03:12, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Welcome, Len! Articles about primate sociality, and sociality in general are certainly lacking on Wikipedia. Your contributions will be welcome. Please make sure you cite your work, and if you need any help, just ask. – Maky ^« talk » 04:12, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Pronunciations

Tonight I recorded and uploaded pronunciations for a few primate articles. The files include File:En-us-Lemur.ogg, File:En-us-primate.ogg, File:En-us-Primates.ogg, and File:En-us-Strepsirrhini.ogg. It was actually kind of fun, and IMO, it turned out quite well. (I normally hate the sound of my own voice, and for once, I pleased.) Anyway, since it's not hard to do and I can churn a bunch of them out really fast, I'm willing to do more for the project. If anyone wants to list some articles that would benefit from having pronunciation audio files, just give me a list and I'll make them. (Alternatively, try recording them yourself for fun!) The only catch is that the article will also need to have an IPA template, such as {{IPAc-en}} created (see Primate for an example)... and I suck and sounding things out and picking the correct IPA symbols. But anyway, I just thought I'd offer, in case anyone else liked the results and would like to see more. – Maky ^« talk » 02:10, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

New member

The entry for Colobus polykomos has a photograph of C. guereza not C. polykomos I have several publications on Colobus coat color. David B. Hull — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.104.152.60 (talk) 23:50, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. You are completely right. Not sure why this was missed; after all, the two species look quite different and there is a wide range of easily available literature that show the differences clearly (Kingdon's Guide to African Mammals, The Pictorial Guide to the Living Primates, etc; photo of real Colobus polykomos here). I've changed the photo in Colobus polykomos to one that actually shows this species, and will request file renames for all the misleadingly named files at wikimedia commons. 212.10.76.11 (talk) 21:07, 18 December 2012 (UTC)