Wikipedia:Peer review/Dire wolf/archive1

Dire wolf

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I've listed this article for peer review because it is to be proposed as a Featured Article candidate. There are currently no wild Canis-related articles at FA standard. It has recently undergone a rigorous GA review, followed by a review by the Guild of Copy Editors (details on Talk#Dire wolf). The entire article is open to comments, and this is my first experience with the peer review process.

Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 10:50, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Comments from FunkMonk

• Hi again, as I stated earlier, I'll give this a review with FAC in mind soon... Comments will be added continuously. FunkMonk (talk) 10:53, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
• I think it would be good to introduce all the persons mentions, for example, "the American paleontologist Joseph Leidy", etc. I will leave out saying "American" - most of the people involved with the Dire wolf were American (USA). I have now done so for the section "Taxonomy". I have kept the section "Evolution" brief - people will tire of me calling everybody listed there a paleontologist.

Yeah, especially for multi author articles, I'll just give the first author and et al. FunkMonk (talk) 11:35, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

• "vertebrae of an extinct canis" Any reason why this is not capitalised? Canis is now capitalized.
• You say "reported" and "discovery" instead of for example "described" or "named" a couple of times, wouldn't the latter two be more to the point? When I have used "reported", the information appears in an actual report or publication, usually to some organization. One instance of "discovered" has now been changed, the other three relate to the discovery of fossils and I see no issue with that.
• "name C. primaevus had previously been used overseas." For what? I think it is more important to note what than where in this case... Done!
• Is that a baculum between the legs?[1] Perhaps worth noting in the caption... Done! People can follow the link for more info - if I spell it out for them, someone will take offence and start an edit war.
• You give full names for Leidy and others, though not Merriam, Allen, etc.? Should be consistent, preferably all these names should be spelled out and presented at first mention. Good point. I can only go so far with some of them, who write all of their papers including only their initials and there is little further known about them.

That's ok, also after first mention, you don't need to spell out their names when they are mentioned again (like Nowak). FunkMonk (talk) 11:35, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

• "declared a synonym with C. dirus" This is more commonly phrased "synonym of". Fixed. Furthered my education.

I know I'm coming upon this a little late, but I thought I'd mention something. FunkMonk, you are, of course, right that the usual phrase is "synonym of" – something is a synonym of something else – but I'm wondering if "synonym with" is common in the literature of paleontology. It could be a usage within the field. But since I am not familiar with that literature, I can't check. Perhaps, though, FunkMonk is familiar with the literature and knows the usage.  – Corinne (talk) 16:11, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

"Synonym of" is commonly used in taxonomic literature, see for example[2][3][4]. When "with" is used, it would be as in "X is synonymous with Y". I don't think I've ever seen "synonym with" used anywhere. FunkMonk (talk) 16:32, 23 March 2017 (UTC) Amended. Also "had not been previously synonymized" and "placed in synonymy with", according to Tedford.

• The three noted paleontologists" Adjectives like these are a bit "un-encyclopedic". Why are they "noted", and not Leidy, who probably had much more significance within the field? Amended.
• You could also give years for when you mention some new study or conclusion, now much of evolution is just "then x said, later y said, etc. Partial amendment. Some of the group agreement occurs across a number of studies across time - it might be cumbersome breaking each up into their components based on year.
• "was a sister of C. lupus" I'd spell out and link sister taxon. Fixed. I didn't know that the sister taxon article existed.

Hehe, I often link something just to check if an article about it exists... Sometimes the article exists under another name, and you just have to make a new redirect for it. FunkMonk (talk) 11:42, 10 March 2017 (UTC) I often ask Mr Google - he can find related Wikipedia articles fairly quickly.

• I'll continue once the copy-edit correspondence is over, so I won't end up possibly making the same points. FunkMonk (talk) 09:01, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
• Have the last copy-edit issues been sorted out? FunkMonk (talk) 12:23, 18 March 2017 (UTC) I believe so. Corrine left me with some general advice (time to revisit my grammar book!) and has gone quiet on the article page. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 20:33, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
• "more recently, Tedford formally" and "have recently been found in" Saying something happened "recently" should be avoided, as this article will probably exist for a long time, which makes terms like that meaningless. Better to give dates, or state when studies were made in relation to each other (earlier/later). Personally, I'd give dates for all studies mentioned (you do this a few places). Agreed. Such terms as "recently" are undefined.
• "Tedford formally recorded a description" Recorded is a weird way to put it (you say this a few places), "published" or similar would be more accurate. I have used published where appropriate, however in some usages it relates to the "fossil record" so I have left those in.
• "a horse found in the room" I'd say in the cave. I have changed it to "Horse Room" - that is the more accurate description and the link to the proposed dirus specimen.
• " evolutionary derived genus Canis species" I think genus is unnecessary here. Agreed - redundant.
• It may seem redundant if most bones are similar to modern wolves, but I still think a more general overall physical description is needed, in addition to the information on size. We can't assume all readers are familiar with general wolf anatomy, so simply saying "this or that bone differs from those of modern wolves" probably isn't enough. What's the shape of the skull, the proportions of the limbs in relation to the body, length of the tail, tooth arrangement, etc. See again Smilodon for an example. There must be some osteological descriptions in older sources that could be summarised here. I will see what is available.

I think the old Merriam paper could be a good start[5], unless newer descriptions can be found. FunkMonk (talk) 12:32, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, I believe that you are right.

• "because the baculum" Gloss in parenthesis ("penis bone"). Done.
• You link to saber-toothed cat a few times, but that is only a very general article about all saber-toothed animals ever, not Smilodon in particular, which is the article you want. Have changed it to Smilodon, as I see from the saber-toothed cat article that there were no others around in NA at this time.

Further comments

• So since the only remaining issue above seems to be expansion of the description, I'll continue with the rest of the article below. FunkMonk (talk) 19:00, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

This undertaking will take some research time - the taxonomists are very good at measuring individual bones but a simple term like "overall height" is going to be difficult.

• One thing struck me which I haven't given much thought before, but which might be brought up during FAC; it seems somewhat random whether you refer to the subject as C. dirus or dire wolf throughout the article. I'd refer to it by its scientific name in the taxonomy section at least, but I'm not really sure what to do about other sections. Your call, but I think it needs some consideration. Also goes for some of the other Canis species mentioned throughout.

Agreed. I just had a massive edit prepared and was about to post when it was wiped out by another editor making a minor edit - I will come back to this later. The purpose of using dirus all the time was to ward off the GOT fans, but I think that issue is now resolved and we can go back to calling it simple the dire wolf where appropriate. Now done.

• There are parts of the sections under Adaptation that seem to veer off into very heavy detail about issues that are not directly relevant to the dire wolf. I won't propose any changes now, but it may be brought up during FAC, so you may want to consider whether you can prune/summarise some of it.

We can have that conversation at that time. This article is one of the few places where you will find any information on the dire wolf's environment. Researchers have assumed that if they dug up bones in what is now grasslands, then dire wolves must have lived in grassland - that may not have been the environment in that location during the Late Pleistocene. What we have is a description of the environment in which we know the dire wolf once lived and what it hunted. Clearly, this area was a glacial refugium - outside of it, there were few dire wolves left. The same may apply to Smilodon - this was their last bastion. Once this region went, so did they.

• "Canis dirus is regarded here as the most derived species of the genus Canis in the New World. The following combination of derived characters separates C. dirus from all other species of Canis: P2 with a posterior cusplet; P3 with two posterior cusplets; M1 with a mestascylid, entocristed, entoconulid, and a transverse crest extending from the metaconid to the hyperconular shelf; M2 with entocristed and entoconulid." I think it would better to summarise this than to quote it entirely. Also, the purely descriptive info would seem more relevant in the description section; the latter sections should be more about function.

The quote manages to convey a lot of information elegantly in a very compact space. I could put it into other words, but it would not be as elegant nor as compact. It has been placed in this section because it is an adaption to the pray that it hunts. Without this environment and the pray that it supports, there is no dire wolf. And that environment was about to change drastically.

• "The lower premolars were relatively slightly larger than C. lupus" Relatively seems redundant here? If you compare it with another animal, it is implicitly relative?

The term relative infers that when the same sized dire wolf is matched to the same sized gray wolf, the teeth of the dire wolf were still larger.

• "One study that compared the craniodental morphology of C. dirus to C. lupus noted the similarity in skull shape between the two, and the variations found in the skull shape of each, and proposed that C. dirus evolved in North America from C. lupus, which had originated in Eurasia." Isn't this more relevant under evolution?

Agreed and relocated.

• I just saw this paper about injuries in dire wolves and Smilodon has been published, perhaps usable here:[6]

I am not convinced that 2% and 4% vertebrae damage is statistically compelling - which indicates that 96%+ of the predators were successful sustaining little damage - and will not be including information from this publication in the article.

• "Large and social carnivores would have been successful at defending carcasses of trapped prey from smaller solitary predators, and thus the most likely to become trapped themselves." You haven't mentioned the tar pits in this paragraph, would perhaps be good to clarify what they were trapped in.

Thanks - good point.

• "C. d. guildayi and Smilodon are the two most common carnivorans from La Brea,[37] with C. d. guildayi the most common." and "Smilodon and C. d. guildayi are the two most common carnivorans found at La Brea, which suggests that both were social predators.". The contexts are different, but still seems repetitive.

Agreed, it has been removed from the section Radiocarbon dating, where it was not essential.

• "(although coyotes are technically an omnivore)" You go form plural to singular.

Fixed with better wording.

• "causing them feed more rapidly" To feed?

Fixed, also used the word eat.

• "changes in dire wolf body size correlates with climate fluctuations." Why not past tense?

Fixed.

• I think the meaning of "food stress" could be explained.

Fixed, then converted into proper grammar by Corrine. :-)

• The map[7] could need a source on Commons that says what the information is based on.

Excellent point. Fixed.

• You are inconsistent in whether you write full names or not in the references, and you will probably be asked to choose one style during FAC.

All references with a DOI or PMID have been referenced with Wikipedia's Citation Bot. Others have been referenced with the academic reference as provided. Some academic references do not provide a full name, and the full name of the authors have been lost in the mists of time. We will need to live with it.

Ok, but this is always brought up during source review at FAC, so it is better to just abbreviate them all now (so only last names are written in full). FAC reviewers can be extremely nitpicky when it comes to the citation-style (see this recent example[8]), so expect some work there... FunkMonk (talk) 22:06, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

One or two of the assessors needs to review WP:CITE and not branch off into personal preferences - WP:CITEVAR applies. In the case of the Dire wolf, Anyonge published two articles in 2005 with one signed as William and the other signed as W. These are in the published academic citations for those works, and a published academic citation should not be meddled with because of something a couple of FA assessors on Wikipedia might prefer. William Harris • (talk) • 00:27, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

• "a member of the "saber-toothed cat" group." I'm not sure all this detail about something that is not the article subject is needed in the intro.

Removed, unnecessary.

• "the dire wolf was thought to have been a pack hunter." Why past tense?

Fixed.  – Corinne (talk) 13:20, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

• I think that should be about it from me. Other reviewers will of course have further points, and some may even disagree with some of the suggestions I have made, but I think it should be safe to nominate the article once the listed issues are dealt with.

There are a couple of points for me to follow up on. Many thanks to you and Corrine - she is a gem, and you are very good at this; now I see why you did not get involved at the GA level. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 09:53, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

No rush, I'll of course give the expanded description section a read when it's added, and add comments if needed. Once you nominate it at FAC, I'll wait by the sideline while others review it, and then I'll chime in later. It is looking quite good so far, so once you're done here, you'll have my support at FAC. FunkMonk (talk) 22:06, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your guidance and critique. The description is proving difficult. The best approach might be to provide some dimensions using the Northwest wolf as a modern equivalent, however even that article lacks citation and I have recently queried where some of its info came from! I will continue the hunt over the next week and continue forming a description in my Sandbox. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 01:17, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

guildayiDescription section complete/deficient? What I have obtained was not an easy task. I am surprised by the poor standard of Wikipedia's extant wolf articles - they were no help at all. At least our collection of "Ice Age Wolves" are in reasonable hands. (One could even consider creating WikiProject Ice Age wolves........) Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 10:43, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Looking very nice there! Last thing that might need fixing is I see a bunch of duplicate links here and there, but apart from the name abbreviation issue mentioned earlier (you can wait and see if someone brings it up at FAC), I think you could nominate this when you feel ready. I would maybe use less hyperbolic wording than "extraordinary backward projection" in the description section. Beware that if you use different sources about different wolves for your comparisons, there might be WP:original synthesis issues, but I'm not sure what's acceptable in that regard. FunkMonk (talk) 10:56, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

One last thing, if possible, note what the name guildayi and dirus means? Though the latter may seem obvious, it may warrant an explanation. FunkMonk (talk) 14:40, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I will review it again for multiple hyperlinks. Corrine is already across some changes, as you will have noticed. My error on the wolf - it was the Yukon wolf. (This is what happens when I am also making edits on the Yukon and Northwestern wolf articles at the same time as doing this.) The meaning of dirus is in the first few words of the article, but guildayi was an excellent suggestion. We have now a table from Stock 1948 comparing guildayi to the Yukon wolf. We also have work by Hartstone taking that work, and the work of Kurten on dirus dirus, to give us percentage variances between the two. However, that work gave no absolute figures - it used Log (base 10), which I am not keen to reverse engineer. I could now apply Hartstone's percentages to Stock's guildayi numbers to derive numbers for a dirus dirus column in the table. However, given that dirus dirus is comparable with the Yukon wolf that is already given in the table, we should probably leave it as it is. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 01:26, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

May be interesting to give the dirus measurements anyway, just to show how well they compare with those of the Yukon wolf? We're not exactly running out of space in any case...FunkMonk (talk) 09:24, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

The femur measure for guildayi from Stock 1948 multiplied by 10% scaling from Hartstone 2015 gave the same length for dirus dirus provided by Kurten 1984 - so we run with the other 5 measures. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 11:05, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Looks good, it is interesting to see that some measurements are longer than the Yukon wolf, other shorter, which indicates different proportions, so well-worth the inclusion. FunkMonk (talk) 12:12, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

It raises the question of where and what they hunted. Was dirus dirus a grasslands runner with a lighter-coloured coat? Was guildayi an evolved dirus dirus that had adapted with a darker coat into an ambush and short-pursuit predator? It would be interesting to compare the limbs of the subspecies of lupus to see if there was any variation in their ratios; perhaps for another article at another time. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 20:03, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps even for a journal article... But I guess you'd need access to dozens of specimens... FunkMonk (talk) 20:07, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

In the case of Kurten 1984 - a couple of hundred of each! Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 20:16, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

• With the article finally up, this peer review should be closed (I think it's required before nomination). FunkMonk (talk) 09:28, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks mentor, I shall action. Many thanks for your comments - we have furthered the article. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 09:43, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I hope the experience will encourage you to improve more articles this way! FunkMonk (talk) 09:49, 20 April 2017 (UTC)