Talk:Asoriculus

Split proposal
The taxonomic history is confusing, but most recent taxonomy treats Nesiotites as a separate genus from Asoriculus. For a brief introduction the taxonomic history of these genera, see Bover et al, 2018 In the original description of Nesiotites by Bate in 1945, the genus also included the the species of Asoriculus from Sicily and Corsica-Sardinia. These however are now generally excluded from Nesiotites. These species may be assigned to a new genus in the future, but I think they should be kept in this article for now. Because Nesiotites on the Balearic islands is an anagenic lineage of sequential chronospecies. I see very little reason to have the article on the most recent species, the Balearic shrew as a separate article from the genus as a whole, and if they are split that article should be merged into Nesiotites. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:50, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I have read most recent literature on the topic of Nesiotites, and honestly there is very little to say about Nesiotites hilalgo/the Balearic shrew, in comparison to say Hypnomys, or Myotragus, both of which have abundant literature discussing them. The only things recent literature really discusses are its body size, its last appearance date, and its mitochondrial genome, all of which are included in this article. I don't think it would be reasonably possible to expand this article beyond anything more than a short stub.

There has been some discussion within the last decade about other species of Nesiotites particularly the validity of N. rafelinensis but this only supports the notability of Nesiotites, rather than of N. hildalgo. All of the species of Nesiotites are chronospecies anyway, meaning that they all essentially represent continuous changes within a single species lineage, which are all mostly distinguished via body size differences.

I previously supported the separation of Nesiotites and Asoriculus (and if that split was to happen, I would support the merging of N. hildago into it, as has been done for Hypnomys), but a year on since I've made the proposal I no longer agree with it, given that the two genera have an intimately associated taxonomic history, the fact all authors essentially agree that Nesiotites is clearly descended from Asoriculus, and as recently as 2010 some authors were still including the Sardinian species within Nesiotites as Bates originally proposed (at least provisionally) , meaning that it makes the most sense to cover both genera in the same article.

Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:32, 22 February 2023 (UTC)


 * It's been a while since you first proposed this, but since all the information can be fit into one comprehensive article, support merge. SilverTiger12 (talk) 20:41, 2 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Do you have any comment on this proposal? Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:07, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Hrm.... I'm much more conversant in extant species/taxa than I am with extinct/fossil species/taxa. Maybe poke on the Paleo project and wrassle up some active fossil folks. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:48, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I've tried that as well as at WP:TOL and nobody responded. What can you do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:51, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
 * - Any thoughts? - UtherSRG (talk) 15:39, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Seeing as Nesiotites redirects here already, why not. Support. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 16:22, 5 May 2023 (UTC)


 * ✅ Klbrain (talk) 15:44, 20 September 2023 (UTC)