Talk:Compsognathus/Archive 1

Untitled
I removed the following. There may be valuable stuff here, but it's very confusing, i.e. What islands? Why is the editor talking about an island on which the vegetarians are starving?! What does "run up a lizard" mean? Why is a long tail helpful for hunting? The Singing Badger 23:18, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * In spite of its small size, this dinosaur could have been the largest dinosaur on the islands. These islands could not have space for many plants, so the vegetarians did not get enough food. That made it easier for the flesh-eaters to catch them. The Compsognathus could run up a lizard, and probably also surprise and hunt down an Archaeopteryx. In the morning the tired lizards have been an easy prey. The dinosaurs have hunted down their victims, held them in their hands and bit them. The Compsognathus&#8217; claws have not been sharp enough to kill the lizard, and maybe some of the smaller animals have been swallowed in one piece. Its very slim body and long thin tail was perfect in the woods when it was hunting.

Deinonychosaurus
In the article there is an edit link to Deinonychosaurus. I notice that we already have articles for Deinonychus and Deinonychosauria. Should the sentence be rephrased to link to one of those? &mdash; B.Bryant 06:56, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Popular Culture
This is not the dinosaur featured in the Jurrasic Park movies. The dinosaur expert in The Lost World(film) explicitly states that the little creatures are Procompsognathus. There is therefore no incorrect identifications. And the section should be moved to the correct article.

- anonymous —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.50.83.126 (talk) 02:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC).
 * I remember double-checking this a while back. On the DVD at least, the Bakker-parody character clearly says "Compsognathus triassicus". Maybe somebody with a copy of the official script can check on this? Dinoguy2 03:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, interesting, it seems you are right. The subtitles (VHS release, irremovable) got it right though, corrupting my memory. As the speech itself is partly illegible where the "Pro" part would be. It is still uncertain for me wether he actually says Pro or not, a script would be nice. - anonymous again. God I am never going to learn this wiki formatting.
 * Ok, I asked about this on a JP messag board. A bunch of people there had the official script and it has "Compsognathus triassicus". One claims to have emailed Horner about this issue, and he apparently corroborated this. Why the used such a portmanteu of a dinosaur name, I have no idea, but there it is. My guess is that they wanted the smaller, more well-known Compsognathus for the movie and used triassicus in that one line of dialogue as an homage to the species used in the novel. Dinoguy2 03:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Wrong. I have both the Italian dub, and an English copy, both on VHS (Italian dub being original VHS, the English one is recorded from Slovenian TV), and in both, they clearly say "Procompsognathus triassicus". - 212.235.186.231 (talk) 14:53, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The only script I could find says Compsognathus, but it deviates quite a bit from the movie, and that scene with Burke saying the name isn't in it. http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Jurassic-Park-The-Lost-World.html FunkMonk (talk) 15:38, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Compsognathus (6 votes)
(Subpage here).
 * Status: Article status unknown.

Support:
 * 1) ArthurWeasley 04:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) J. Spencer 05:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) M&amp;NCenarius 00:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) Benosaurus 19:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * 5)  Firsfron of Ronchester  09:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * 6) Cas Liber 23:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Comments:
 * Another non-North American genus. Surely tiny "Compy" deserves a highlight in the land of giants. ArthurWeasley 04:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * A new article on the osteology of the French specimen came out in the Dec. JVP, which could be helpful. J. Spencer 05:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll break the $^%(##%#%(^#*% tiebreaker my self!! (But seriously we've had a run of herbivores and a tiny dino'd be cute) Cas Liber 23:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Hee! Good choice, Cas. :) Firsfron of Ronchester  23:19, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Moving towards FAC
Great work - the article is evolving nicely! To keep in line with the others a Description section above the Disovery and Species would be good, while more mechanical or details can come in a Paleobiology section. I was going to do it but haven't had much to do with the development of this article so I'll leave it to Arthur unless you're happy for me to do it. cheers Cas Liber 04:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * By all means go ahead, Cas, this article is IMO very far from FA status (especially if you compare it to Stegosaurus and Iguanodon!) and any help for expending it is welcome. ArthurWeasley 06:44, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * We had a description section, but I think it was merged into another section. Firsfron of Ronchester  04:50, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's right. The description section (which was extremely short) was merged with the paleobiology section because I found it hard to clearly delineate between the two. For instance, how would you describe the shape of the teeth without referring to the diet? Mmh let's see if I could resuscitate this section ArthurWeasley 06:44, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree it isn't very logical and didn't use it myself for a long while but for some reason the reviewers on FAC always want it. I guess think of it as structural with a paleobiology section as functional bits. cheers Cas Liber 07:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Arthur that this article is still pretty far from FA; it's only 16k long, which is considerably shorter than the shortest Featured dinosaur article, Albertosaurus, though Arthur's work has greatly expanded and improved it. Firsfron of Ronchester  17:19, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

It's certainly GA-class in its current state, though. J. Spencer 05:16, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

OK - I added a bit in pop culture. Question is can anyone remember which kiddies books it appeared in...........cheers, Casliber | talk  |  contribs 03:48, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Ask and ye shall receive. I'm sure it shows up in older books as well, but those are what I had on hand (and the first was done under consultation with Paul Sereno, so there!). It's also a great favorite of more "grown-up" popular dinosaur books, like the "dictionaries" and "field guides" and "encyclopedias" of the 1980s. J. Spencer 04:25, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

How long is long enough?
Righty-ho - Make Way For Ducklings is 17.2 kB (2665 words), which is smaller than compy is now at 18.7 kB (2681 words). Question is, how long should it be? cheers, Casliber | talk  |  contribs 08:29, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I guess emphasis should be on quality rather than size. Compy has more references than Albertosaurus and Psittacosaurus and equal the nb for Velociraptor. As it is now, it starts to be comprehensive (there isn't as much litterature written on compy than on the better known dinos so it's rather hard to find the infos) but needs to be better written, I guess. Section like the "feathers and the bird connection" need serious rewording (doesn't sound very good right now). We can add a tiny more bits on the description section and on the classification (more precisions on the related species and phylogenetical positions) and oh yes, all the ref should be put in the proper format (was a little bit lazy on that side). Cheers. ArthurWeasley 16:02, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
 * While size does matter (because both WP:WIAGA and FAC require an article to be "broad in its coverage" (GA)/"comprehensive"(FA)), Compsognathus really only has two relatively complete specimens, both of the same species. There's a lot less to talk about, here, than, say, the species of Iguanodon. Firsfron of Ronchester  17:18, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Citation needed
I'm pretty sure that tag can be fixed with a ref to Dinosauria II which I will check at home to see if it covers it, once I get home (unless anyone else wants to check first in the next 5 hours) cheers, Casliber | talk  |  contribs 02:34, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Got it. It was in Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. J. Spencer 02:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Cool. I just made the stubbiest stub I could think of for Canjuers too. cheers, Casliber | talk  |  contribs 02:48, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I added the other reference; I had added the "citation needed" templates so that I could add the references in later. J beat me to one, though. Thanks, guys. Alright, we have no paragraphs without citations now. Firsfron of Ronchester  02:53, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Are we there yet?
had a bit of a copyedit and added a teeny bit. What do we reckon guys? Go for it yet? cheers, Casliber | talk  |  contribs 10:38, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Hey, where'd everybody go......cheers, Casliber | talk  |  contribs 22:38, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know, may be give it a try and we'll get some feedback on what to improve if anything is left to improve. Cheers. ArthurWeasley 02:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I had crappy 'net access yesterday, and no time today. Yes, by all means, someone (Arthur?) should go ahead and nominate it. It's looking great. Whoever nominates it will need to note self-nom and be sure to enumerate all the reasons it meets the FA criteria, in a nice, strong speech. Since there were comments on the talk page about collaborators "voting" for their own article, it may be wise for others among us who support (or oppose) to present our comments as "co-noms" (underneath the main nomination) or "comments" instead of direct supports/opposes, to keep everything above-board. Firsfron of Ronchester  05:33, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I have some issues with that - how many edits counts as a collab? As well the fact that more folk worked on it should be a plus not a minus, but anyway I should take this discussion over there i guess............cheers, Casliber | talk  |  contribs 08:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

(PS:I left a note on AWs talk page :) cheers, Casliber | talk  |  contribs 08:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Questions and suggestions
Please make sure you use &amp;nbsp; as the space between number and unit of measurement, as suggested by WP:MOSNUM. Also consider whether you can and would like to upload the images to Commons and include them in Compsognathus, which you've already linked from the article. Otherwise, it looks ready to go. Best, Samsara (talk • contribs) 11:34, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Aw thanks, I was just about to do it and you beat me to it :)cheers, Casliber | talk  |  contribs 11:38, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The header is still left to do. Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:54, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

DOI
I'd also recommend adding digital object identifiers to all journal references. They can be easily generated using this search and added using this template. Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Good point. Will do later. Have to run. ArthurWeasley 16:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Picture
What is that picture of? Is that a model of one? It looks alive, which I'm going to go out on limb and say isn't the case. Aaron Bowen 17:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It is indeed a model. I have adjusted the caption to reflect that. Dinosaurs haven't been brought back to life just yet. Firsfron of Ronchester  01:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Another picture issue, why was the one on the right removed? Was it inaccurate? There is now a discussion on the DML where it is mentioned that the reported scales in Compso weren't scales after all, so the feathers shouldn't be an issue. FunkMonk (talk) 00:16, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Not sure, but based on the skeletals I have the head doesn't look right. Should have a narrower snout. Anyway Juravenator has scales on the tail and hind legs as well as possible feathers on the dorsal tail. Everyobdy involved in that DML conversation seem to be among the er, everyone who missed the follow-up paper on Jura reporting the feathers... Dinoguy2 (talk) 04:19, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
 * But isn't there uncertainty of whether Jura is even a compsognathid? As for the skull, isn't any guess as good as the other almost, as no complete skull is known? FunkMonk (talk) 08:09, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I suppose, I'm just going by my skeletals, all of which give it a narrower snout, I guess based on relatives. Dinoguy2 (talk) 20:55, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, I like the image, so I'll try to narrow the head a bit. FunkMonk (talk) 07:42, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * How about this? http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/9700/untitlffed1copy.jpg FunkMonk (talk) 14:47, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * That does the trick nicely. Dinoguy2 (talk) 16:57, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Based it on a Greg Paul restoration, by the way. FunkMonk (talk) 20:02, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Reference no. 12 needs a year number
Just noticed. Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Good catch. It's fixed. Thanks. ArthurWeasley 15:45, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Speed
I found that it could run up to 40 mph in a ScienceDaily article here:. Should I add this?

69.177.231.70 22:27, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I read the same thing at Times Online (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2433604.ece). Kazuko 19:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I think what you're looking for is This may be a preliminary version of Sellers, W. I., Manning, P.L., Crompton, R.H. and  Codd, J.R.,. (2007), "Exploring elastic energy storage effects in bipedal locomotion using evolutionary robotics", Journal of Biomechanics, in-review. See next thread, about Comsognathus size. I think Sellers and co. included their model's estimate of Comsognathus speed to illustrate that their model need some refinement (give them credit for honesty!). Even at the size of a turkey, Comsognathus was rather small to keep up with an ostrich. Philcha (talk) 09:38, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Size
I've just been informed by a member of Dino Mailing List (where some real experts hang out; I'm not a real expert) that the chicken-sized specimen was a juvenile and adults were turkey-sized. Dinosaurs: Size confirms this - not a peer-review article but it's by Don Lessem, a world-class paleontologist, so I'll use it as a ref if I find nothing with better provenance in the next few minutes. I'll correct Compsognathus and a mention in Tyrannosaurus. Anyone who knows of mentions in other articles please follow up as a matter of urgency - at present Wikipedia risks looking foolish. Philcha (talk) 09:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I haven't found a peer-reviewed ref for this but will take Lessem's word for it. Please add a peer-reviewed ref if you find one. Philcha (talk) 09:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Of course, a quick glance at the size chart will also show that this species grew well beyond chicken size... ;) Dinoguy2 (talk) 17:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe, but until I edited to-day the 2nd sentence of the intro was "The animal was the size of a chicken..." Philcha (talk) 18:00, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

More closely related...?
"Many other dinosaurs, including Deinonychus, Oviraptor and Segnosaurus, are now known to have been more closely related to birds."

In what sense could these three species from the Upper Cretaceous be more closely related to birds than one in the Upper Jurassic? Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:44, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Their ancestors lived in the Jurassic too. FunkMonk (talk) 21:37, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Right, it's just that Deinonychus etc. are more familiar to people than their Jurassic counterparts like Pedopenna, Lori, Koparion, etc. All the old, classic comparisons between Archaeopteryx and Compsognathus aren't because Compy was particularly bird-like among coelurosaurs but because for a hundred years or so it was one of the only recognized coelurosaurs (at least, the only one that's still included in that group. Others included at the time were far more primitive). Dromaeosaurs were generally poorly studied and considered to be megalosaurs until Ostrom came along. Dinoguy2 (talk) 00:20, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Disputable sentence
In the intro it states "Although not recognized as such at the time of its discovery, Compsognathus is the first dinosaur known from a reasonably complete skeleton." This can be disputed. Hadrosaurus (often mentioned as the first reasonably complete skeleton of a dinosaur) was first discovered in 1838, at least 12 years before Compsognathus was unearthed. True, the hadro article says the rest of the skeleton was dug up in 1858, but to muddle it up even more, the compy article doesn't give an exact year for the first specimen's discovery, only giving the 1850s as a date. Which one is correctly the first? Crimsonraptor &#124; (Contact me) Dumpster dive if you must 21:59, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess it depends on your definition of "complete." I would say Hadrosaurus is the first "reasonably" complete one known, though it lacked most of the skull, hands and feet, etc. Maybe this can be re-phrased as the first complete fossil theropod.MMartyniuk (talk) 01:38, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, rephrased it. Looks a bit clearer now. Crimsonraptor &#124; (Contact me) Dumpster dive if you must 01:49, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

"... The compsognathus in this picture was beilived to have been pregnant when it died. does thus prove that not all dinosaus layed eggs?... "
The subject heading above is given as the summary to the image in the "Diet" section. As I know absolutely nothing about whether dinosaurs could get pregnant or not, I pose the question: is this suggestion worthy of mention, or is it beneath criticism and should continue to be ignored? Old_Wombat (talk) 07:04, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I can't see it. FunkMonk (talk) 07:38, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Uhh, can't see what? Here is the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Compsognathus_Nopsca_1903.jpg  Look at the Summary. It's right there. Old_Wombat (talk) 09:20, 12 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, you meant the description on Commons, well, seems it was vandalism, I reverted it. FunkMonk (talk) 09:51, 12 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Remarkably, Marsh indeed once thought it was an embryo, though Nopcsa already in 1903 showed it represented a swallowed lizard. Old mistakes die hard...--MWAK (talk) 14:33, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanx to everyone for that. Vandalism, huh? Shows how little I know about anything. Old_Wombat (talk) 01:50, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Date error
Actually compsognathus was created 6000 years ago by God. It was not in existence 150 million years ago. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.251.129.134 (talk) 23:37, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Thankfully, the Lord created the world a bit more complex than some literal subjective gimcrackery based on some genealogy from the Old Testament. The scriptures don't go into the science side of creation, other than it occurred in stages (which science agrees with.) The universe around you is far more ancient and immense and impressive, and makes many to have faith for that reason. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.111.3.59 (talk) 16:32, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

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