Talk:Crocodilia

Eight or nine species that may attack humans?
The article refers in a couple of places to "eight species" of crocodilians that are known to have attacked humans, but then goes on to list nine: saltwater crocodiles, Nile crocodiles, American alligators, black caimans, Morelet's crocodiles, mugger crocodiles, American crocodiles, gharials, and freshwater crocodiles. 184.36.83.153 (talk) 04:54, 27 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Are there any good references of gharials actually attacking people? I know they scavenge human corpses frequently, but I'm having a hard time envisioning them predating humans. HCA (talk) 20:50, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
 * There are rare cases of (rare) false gharials attacking, such as when a man was killed by a nearly 5m false gharial in Borneo in 2009 near the orangutan research station. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:59, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Re footnote 3, I would think "pebble worm" simply refers to the animal's appearance. Sergevan (talk) 16:23, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The note is cited and gives Kelly's view of the reason; your interpretation is plausible, but do you have a citation that says that? We aren't allowed to state our own view in an article, that would be WP:OR. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Different language pages
I noticed that the English version of this page doesn’t have link to the Japanese page in the language bar. Nothing that’s a big deal, but I just thought it should be pointed out.

Original research in Spelling and etymology?
I'm not sure that recent changes to the etymology are correct reflections of the sources cited. In particular, the association of authors with etymologies is close to crossing the line to WP:OR: we should consider reverting these changes if they cannot be substantiated with direct quotations or more precise citations. To be clear, 1) the authors certainly existed and certainly created names; 2) the names seem to derive from Latin and Greek. What is not certain is that author1 used etymology1 and author2 used etymology2, this could be OR. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:31, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I have reverted the part of the edit discussed above, for the reason given. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:49, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I currently reverted things back as the cited data are correct. I am on board with using quotes from the originals, though it might be difficult. Owen's treatment of Crocodilia is readily accessible here: https://archive.org/stream/cbarchive_108440_1842reportonbritishfossilrepti9999/1842reportonbritishfossilrepti9999#page/n31/mode/2up (go to page 189) However, he doesn't do much more than state: The following are the names of the species of extinct Reptiles in the order in which they are described in the second and concluding part of the Report.


 * Similarly, Wermuth does explicitly state that he is opting for Crocodylia as an alternative to Loricata but it is all in German. The following quote comes from the paper: Zu der wissenschaftlichen Benennung der gesamten Ordnung der Krokodile nimmt in letzter Zeit anscheinend nur WERNER(1933b) Stellung, indem er den in seiner Synonymieliste zuerst aufgeführten lateinischen und von MERREM (1820)gepragten Namen ,,Loricata" als den ursprünglichsten betrachtet und ihn - offensichtlich auf Grund seiner vermeintlichen Prioritat - zur Benennung der Ordnung verwendet. Dieser Name erscheint mir nicht nur deshalb ungeeignet, weil er in der Gruppe der Mollusken auch fur die Placophoren gebraucht wird, sondern es spricht weiterhin gegen ihn, daß er keineswegs den Anspruch auf Prioritat erheben kann. OPPEL bezeichnet namlich bereits 1811 die Gesamtheit der Krokodile als Crocodilini, wahrend sich noch fruher bei GMELIN (1788) der Name Crocodili findet. Da aber die Namen sämtlicher Reptilien-Ordnungen die Wortendung ,, . . . a" tragen, mochte ich, um den Wortstamm bestehen zu lassen, zur Benennung der Krokodile auf den allgemein gebrauchlichen und anscheinend zuerst von OWEN (1841, Rep. Brit. Rept. - Zitiert nach v. WETTSTEIN 1937) benutzten Namen,, Crocodilia" zurückgreifen, ihn jedoch im Hinblick auf die zu erwartende Entwicklung der Nomenklatur-Regeln einer kleinen Korrektur unterziehen. Wenn namlich die Regeln, die bis jetzt nur fur die niederen Kategorien bis zur Hohe der Familie gelten, erwartungsgemaB auf die hoheren Einheiten ausgedehnt werden sollten, so waren als ,,Familia typica" fur die gesamte Ordnung der Krokodile die Crocodylidae (nach dem Genus typicum Crocodylus LAURENTUS 1768) anzusehen. Um diese Schreibweise auch im Namen der Ordnung zu berucksichtigen, schlage ich das Wort ,,Crocodylia" vor.


 * Google translate gets the gist across but I think that having someone better versed in German would be beneficial before using the quote. Note that neither Owen nor Wermuth talk about the etymology of the names. For that we are still relying on them following tradition and using standard Latin and Greek. Jura (talk) 18:04, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That's....pretty much what the definition of what OR is. You're making the claim that one author derived "Crocodilia" from the latinisation of one greek word for "lizard"/"crocodile" (fine, even though the word crocodile already existed), and that e other author derived "Crocodylus" from two Greek words roughly meaning "shingle worm". With respect, the latter claim is along the same lines of arguing that "history" comes from "his story" or that "human" came from combining the words "humid" + "man" Firejuggler86 (talk) 13:39, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Tlaltecuhtli
Tlaltecuhtli is NOT a sea monster in Aztec mythology. Read the linked article. This text should go. Senor Cuete (talk) 20:32, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The linked article does in fact give T. that description, among others. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:37, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * No, it says that a sea monster was torn in half and then one half became the Earth. He became the Earth God. A sea monster isn't a crocodile. Senor Cuete (talk) 01:22, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Reworded the sentence, with new refs. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:37, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

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"Differences between alligators and crocodiles" Section
There had at some point in the past been such a section, for which there is an existing Wikipedia redirect last edited on 25 October 2010. Since following a link there now leads generically to this page, and since this is a common point of confusion, I created such a section in my last edit. User:LittleJerry reverted it on the basis that the information it contained was already present in the article. While that's largely true, it was also scattered about in a way that would have required a general audience reader reviewing the entire article and taking notes when he/she came across differences, and making a judgement call about which were most salient. A dedicated section that centralizes and ranks these differences seems appropriate, and I would like to revert the reversion.Mikalra (talk) 18:00, 21 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I actually think it would be better to move it all to the Wikipedia redirect and make that a real page. It's a VERY common question, but also one that's difficult to fit into the format of the main Crocodilia page.  I'd lay $20 on the new page having higher traffic than this one within a year. HCA (talk) 19:27, 21 September 2017 (UTC)


 * The differences are noted in the "Morphology and physiology" section but also in the "Evolution and classification" section. The latter actually summarizes the major characteristics of each modern family. Hence a general reader can always go there to find the major differences, if the "Morphology and physiology" is too much to wade through. In addition, when it comes to differences between alligators and crocodiles, most readers are interested in outward physical differences. Things like glands and "alligators can survive better in cold" is not what they are looking for. Hence mentioning these things twice in two sections is redundant. LittleJerry (talk) 21:25, 21 September 2017 (UTC)


 * The information is in there, but it's not particularly distinct - it took me a few minutes of reading to find it, and I know what I'm looking for, in part because of the vast size of the page. And there will be plenty of readers who do not know what the words "morphology", "physiology" or "taxonomy" even mean.  What harm is done by replicating the information on a new page?  Then when they google "difference gator and croc", that page will pop up, and they'll have their answer without having to parse it our from a very long and detailed page.  And it doesn't disrupt the main page. HCA (talk) 22:46, 21 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Or you can move it to the crocodile or alligator article. LittleJerry (talk) 02:27, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Had it redirected to here. Problem solved. LittleJerry (talk) 12:55, 22 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Please don't repeat a previous edit without addressing the reasons for which the edit was reverted. But I see that 20 minutes after removing the section from here you incorporated the info into Alligatoridae - thank you.  But have you checked for links specifically to the section that was here and updated them?
 * But thinking about it now, there does seem to be a problem in that identical sections appear on Crocodile and Alligatoridae, and as such they are liable to be edited divergently.  The section really needs to be maintained in one place.  I'll tag these. — Smjg (talk) 18:58, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Duplicate sections
Now the same section is present on two pages - Crocodile and Alligatoridae. Currently they are identical except for the tag I've just added; they are liable to be edited divergently. As such, we need to resolve this duplication somehow. Options I can see:
 * Have the section once, be it here, on Crocodile, on Alligatoridae or some other page, and link to it from the others.
 * Expand the content into a new article, and link to it.
 * Create a template for this content and transclude it on the relevant pages (not sure what the rules are about doing this).

What do people think we should do? — Smjg (talk) 19:18, 23 June 2020 (UTC)


 * This article has that information spread throughout and we are under no obligation to ruin a featured article to create a neon-sign of information just to help people find an answer to a colloquial question. BTW this article is not just about crocs and gators but gharials as well. So putting it here is out of the question for me. I don't care about the other choices. LittleJerry (talk) 19:23, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

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Map legend
I see blue and green bits on the map. What do those colors stand for? PizzaMan  ♨♨♨  19:00, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, the green represents the terrestrial range of crocodilians and the blue is the adjoining areas of sea in which certain maritime species might be found I suppose. It is not a very helpful map. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 07:32, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
 * That was also my interpretation. I added it to the picture description. Thanks.  PizzaMan  ♨♨♨  12:05, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Date discrepancy?
The infobox gives an origin date of 83.5 million years ago, while the first paragraph says 95 million years ago... AnonMoos (talk) 21:30, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Please update with: "Environmental drivers of body size evolution in crocodile-line archosaurs"
I think some very short information on this study should probably be added to the article (and/or possibly another, related one). It's currently featured in 2021 in science like so:


 * Time-series representations of mean relative body size.webptists conclude that environmental factors played a major role in the evolution of the slowly-evolving, currently low-diverse Crocodilia (and their ancestor-relatives), with warmer climate being associated with high evolutionary rates and large body sizes.

I uploaded some of the images of this study to WMCommons.

--Prototyperspective (talk) 17:10, 27 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Done. LittleJerry (talk) 21:39, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Penis
" The crocodilian penis is permanently erect and relies on cloacal muscles for eversion and elastic ligaments and a tendon for recoil.[17]"

I don't think that this is correct. It's non-erectile rather than being erectile and in the permanently erect state. S C Cheese (talk) 09:57, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Archosaur relationships, introduction
I believe it's been proposed that testudines are also members of the archosaur clade. it may be worth mentioning instead of just saying that the only extant lineages are crocodilians and birds. 2600:387:F:4211:0:0:0:9 (talk) 17:40, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not seeing anything that supports that claim. Can you cite your source(s)? Thanks Cougroyalty (talk) 14:32, 28 March 2022 (UTC)