Talk:Elephant shrew

Untitled
pls note discrepancy/confusion in elephant shrew article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_shrew). Do they live in pairs, only associate for mating, or live close by and defend territory? Great article, including writing style. Celebrateoften (talk) 05:58, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Requested Move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 04:37, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Elephant shrew → Sengi — Elephant Shrew can be confused with two(!) orders: Scandentia and Soricidae. So move to Sengi, because this is the proposed anti-confusion name. --Eu-151 (talk) 13:11, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Oppose - I don't see a great potential for confusion between tree shrews and elephant shrews. It is true that they might be confused with some type of shrew, but set against that is the problem that "elephant shrew" still seems to be the most commonly used term for this animal. In order to support the move, I'd want to see evidence that "sengi" has become the standard term used by the IUCN, mammalogical textbooks, popular encyclopaedias of animals, and so on. Not necessarily the only term used, mind you, but at least the more common one, so that users are more likely to search for that term than for the older one.

At the moment, the IUCN prefers "sengi" for four species, and "elephant shrew" for thirteen, which, to my mind, favours the latter. Animal Diversity Web prefers "elephant shrew" for the group as a whole, as does tolweb (although the latter does list "sengi" as an alternative). MSW3 uses "elephant shrew" consistently, as do most older sources I've seen. On the other hand, google does return more hits for "sengi" than for "elephant shrew", and I don't have a good summary of how the term is used in more recent books. Nonetheless, I do not find the case convincing at this stage. Anaxial (talk) 13:35, 14 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose, essentially agreeing with Anaxial. I agree that there is little potential for confusion with treeshrews (and perhaps less than with otter shrews, which at least occur on the same continent). While it is unfortunate that macroscelideans—an entirely separate group—have a common name suggesting they are "shrews", it is not Wikipedia's job to change general usage. It seems to me that at the moment "elephant shrew" is still more common. Google Scholar since 2000 lists 678 results for "elephant shrew" and 348 for "sengi". Results since 2008 include 233 for "elephant shrew" and 146 for "sengi". For Google Books since 2000, the ratio is 1540 to 1190; since 2008, 307 to 294. "Elephant shrew" is not overwhelmingly more common and usage does appear to be shifting towards "sengi", but I think it is too early for a move. Ucucha 13:50, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move - more talk
Let me quote the world's most famous naturalist, David Attenborough on this issue. Quote from Attenborough: "It used to be called an elephant shrew, and now it's called by its African name of Sengi.YouTube video. Thanks,  Lester  03:04, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Are you saying that David Attenborough has officially revoked or banned the use of the term "elephant shrew"?--Mr Fink (talk) 05:37, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Not even the Queen can "ban" a word from being used. But you won't find much more of an authoritative source than Attenborough announcing on the BBC that the term has now changed.-124.149.160.161 (talk) 00:19, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, the facts remain that "Elephant shrew" still remains slightly more common than "Sengi," and the consensus as of last week was to leave "Elephant shrew" at "Elephant shrew." So, until David Attenborough is crowned Queen, I don't think there is much point in making a second move request so soon after the previous one.--Mr Fink (talk) 02:45, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I can now give a source, although it is not a real mammalological textbook, it still falls under "popular encycopedias of mammals". "The Encyclopedia of Mammals", edited by (or by?) David W. Macdonald, page 76, 77, 78 talks about sengis only and lists "elephant shrew" as alternative, on p.76 even as former name. It is not your "Mammal species of the World", but a written source using sengi consistently.--Eu-151 (talk) 14:38, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that that's a pretty reliable source, and a useful data point. But the existence of one such source does not (to my mind) demonstrate that most such sources use the term. When they do, I think it will be time for a change. Anaxial (talk) 23:11, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

So have they heard, we have taxonomic nomenclature for reasons and one of them is to scientifically distinguish taxa by classification rather than common names. Wikipedia allows for titling articles with the most common name, and elephant shrew is something that I assume most people know while sengis is in fact a newly introduced term by some biologists with an agenda to argue semantics. This is probably why the French Wikipedia prefers to use the scientific names of taxa instead of common names, to avoid the issue of semantics. --KaffirLemon (talk) 04:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
 * For all we know, sengis might as well be a Bantu word for rat, so what is the purpose of introducing new terms? Do these biologists think laymen are all stupid and taxonomic nomenclature is irrelevant to laymen? Again, looks like they have non-neutral POV when it comes to common names, they are trying to sway us from using terms that might be misleading, as if one would think a starfish can copulate with a swordfish. --KaffirLemon (talk) 15:56, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
 * If anything, if we do need to move this page, we should move it to the scientific name, rather than play "duck duck goose" with which politically correct common name is currently in vogue.--Mr Fink (talk) 22:10, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

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Cross-linguistic links
On the side-bar, where you hav the same article in other languages; Spanish, Portuguese and French are missing. Likewise, when i was on the equivalent article in the Spanish, Portuguese, and French editions of Wikipedia, there was no link to this English-Wikipedia article, even tho' English is the de facto global lingua franca and the mostly widely used internet language, and the language with the most Wikipedia articles. I tried to fix this, starting with French Wikipedia article, but i couldn't. How do we fix this?--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 09:03, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

This is a good idea — Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.180.99.89 (talk) 15:53, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

New reference for elephant shrew speed?
The linked BBC article giving the claim about elephant shrew speed now seems to be broken. 135.180.99.89 (talk) 15:58, 6 July 2020 (UTC) William