Talk:Arctotherium

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Leo1pard (talk) 06:40, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Appearance date
When did Arctotherium evolve, 2.588 million years ago or 2.0 million years. Provide with sources. Sarsath3 (talk) 18:04, 6 February 2019 (UTC) • contribs) 23:25, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The reference already present matches my just revised specification of the date range. Lavateraguy (talk) 14:42, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
 * However the 2008 report of an Arctotherium tooth from the Blancan of El Salvador might well be older than even 2.588 mya. Oddly, the same author who published that paper in 2014 refers to A. angustidens as the earliest of the 5 described species. This can be reconciled if the Blancan tooth was assigned to Arctotherium sp. indet. Lavateraguy (talk) 15:02, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Arctotherium size
I keep hearing that Arctotherium angustidens actually weighed between 600-1000 kg and that the femur was overestimated, thus making it not the biggest land carnivores ever. Is this true? Sarsath3 (talk) 13:01, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Could someone cite this for the Lifestyle section?
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03115510902844418, please? Sarsath3 (talk) 19:51, 24 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Done! SuperTah (talk) 17:40, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Synonyms
In general, synonyms are alternate names for the same taxon, which is not the same as alternate identifications of the same specimen. What if the "Panthera" fossil in question had originally been identified as P. onca? Would that make P. onca and Arctotherium synonyms? Under Synonym (taxonomy) it is explained that "Synonyms may arise whenever the same taxon is described and named more than once, independently. They may also arise when existing taxa are changed, as when two taxa are joined to become one, a species is moved to a different genus, a variety is moved to a different species, etc. Synonyms also come about when the codes of nomenclature change, so that older names are no longer acceptable..." A specimen reassigned to a new family would not be viewed as representing the same species to which it was originally assigned, so none of these situations appears applicable here. WolfmanSF (talk) 04:37, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Panthera balamoides was described as a new species (possibly) based on a bone of Arctotherium, and therefore either a synonym of whatever species within that genus it can be correlated to, or just a dubious name. If it was an Arctotherium bone incorrectly assigned to P. onca, it would simply be reassigned back to Arctotherium, with no bearing on the taxon P. onca, because it's not the type specimen of P. onca, just an assigned specimen. FunkMonk (talk) 15:10, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

How to request a new article assessment?
Hi! Seeing as this article has substantially grown in the past months, but has remained at a "start class" assessment, I was wondering how I could request an article assessment? This is more so that I can understand where the article is now, and how we can improve its quality. This also applies to Arctodus. SuperTah (talk) 00:21, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

The size of A. Angustidens may have been greatly overestimated
In a 2011 study, the weight of an A. Angustidens specimen, calculated from the humerus, ranged from 983 to 2042 kg, but later the upper limit was reduced to 1588-1749 kg, and this became a kind of meme. If you look closely at that humerus, a painful growth catches your eye. It could well be the result of a bone callus formed after a fracture. In addition, according to the results of a later study using radio as a similar object, its weight was about 1108 kg. I admit my guilt for prematurely making an edit about this without consulting the other editors. Cryzziermaximum (talk) 19:12, 4 March 2024 (UTC)