Talk:List of eurypterid genera

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Adelophthalmus
Added authors and date for Adelophthalmus. These are drawn from TIP, Volume P, p. P30.--Digthepast (talk) 04:22, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Dolichopterus
Added Name and Date for Dolichopterus from TIP Volume P, p. p39. --Digthepast (talk) 04:34, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Drepanopterus
Added Name and date for Drepanopterus from TIP Volume P, p. P36. --Digthepast (talk) 04:41, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Erettopterus
Added Name and date for Erettopterus from TIP Volume P, p. P31. --Digthepast (talk) 04:43, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

More names and dates
I have added additional names and dates. --Digthepast (talk) 11:34, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Diggy! Abyssal (talk) 14:28, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem. My plan is to follow up by going through and including descriptive information from the TIP.--Digthepast (talk) 22:53, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks! If I had access to TIP, this would have been completed a long time ago. Abyssal (talk) 23:56, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, come to think of it, maybe you should talk to User:ThaddeusB before continuing. We were collaborating on a bot that would fill in the tables automatically from the PBDB, but it fell into development hell. Should it continue it may render your work unnecessary. You should tell him your plans and ask him if any future work on the bot would effect your planned editing. Filling in a lot of data manually would be an unfortunate waste of effort if it ends up getting overwritten by the database-harvesting bot. Abyssal (talk) 00:02, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I will, but the time-consuming thing is inputting the species info, which I've done for the Hughmilleridae/Slimonidae and the Pterygotidae. I don't think a bot could do that, unless it can read paper sources.--Digthepast (talk) 19:14, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Format of the list and other things
As it stands now, I am fairly certain that the list contains all valid genera and a majority of synonyms. There might be a few synonyms missed out and some misidentified fossils that could be added but those are not nearly as important as the valid genera. What I would like to bring up is the current format of the list (a format for which I am responsible). As it stands it is almost completely lacks images, which is different from virtually all the other lists of prehistoric animal genera (examples linked below): I experimented with adding a column of images as in the above lists on my sandbox page; link but it was at the cost of removing the columns on "age" and "classification". These columns do not appear to be frequently used on the other lists anyway, with "classification" not on either of them and "age" being on many, but not all. Since eurypterid classification is seemingly constantly changing for several genera it might be better to leave it out of the list and save editing time later on anyway and with most of the individual eurypterid articles being updated with the current taxonomy it is not as important to keep it in the list in my view.
 * List of mosasaur genera
 * List of plesiosaur genera
 * List of dinosaur genera
 * List of ichthyosaur genera
 * List of pterosaur genera

Furthermore, perhaps it would be good to rename this article to "List of eurypterid genera" to keep it consistent with the other titles of articles of this type.

pinging you since you are the only other one who recently added stuff to the eurypterid articles and to this list. Ichthyovenator (talk) 13:24, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
 * It seems good to me, I can order the change of title, and I think that removing "Classification" and "Age" would not be so bad, so I am in favor of the change. Super   Ψ   Dro  15:25, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I added in the image column and removed the "Classification" one, I kept in "Age" since it appears in some other lists and I think this works pretty well. Ichthyovenator (talk) 15:51, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Alternative spelling
In the previous version of this list, (524586333) there are names that look a lot like the names of other euriperids, looking like misspellings. There is very little information about these names, of the 5, 4 have "reliable" sources: These two are defined in Fossilworks as an alternative spelling (Brachyopterella and Laurieipterus), and Laurieopterus has a source (Sources), where it is described as "Laurieopterus elegans", like Laurieipterus. I did not find anything about "Campulocephalus".
 * "Brachopterella"
 * "Laurieopterus"
 * "Vernopterus" has one, protected with copyright (Source). But this is strange, because it has as author "Waterson" instead of "Waterston", and 1968 instead of 1957.
 * "Nanahughmillera" is mentioned here.

Should we include these names as misspellings or alternative names?

I ping you for being the most active editor in the field of eurypterids.

Super  Ψ   Dro  14:57, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * These all appear to be misspellings. I am not sure what the policy is on including misspelled names in lists since they were not intended to replace the existed names and never formally described as proper scientific names (I suppose they are uninentional nomina nuda?).
 * As for the names in question:
 * "Campulocephalus", derived from this site: http://www.helsinki.fi/~mhaaramo/metazoa/protostoma/arthropoda/eurypterida/eurypterida_1.html is pretty clearly a misspelling of Campylocephalus since the author (Eichwald), year (1860) and species listed are all the same.
 * "Brachopterella" is actually only one of two different misspellings of Brachyopterella. The same site with the misspelled Campylocephalus also features "Brachypterella". Why one misspelling was used in the list on Wikipedia and another was not I do not know. Either way, "Brachopterella" is in general nowhere to be found in eurypterid taxonomical lists and has got to be a misspelling as well.
 * "Vernopterus" seems weird, yeah. The actual source listed (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-paleontology/article/morphology-taxonomy-and-classification-of-the-order-eurypterida-burmeister-1843/F3D57FFFD0549E9F0947E562D8307055) actually uses "Waterston" and not "Waterson", but still puts the year as 1968. Still, it is bound to be a misspelling of Vernonopterus since the names are similar and the author is listed as the same, no idea why they got the year wrong.
 * "Nanahughmillera" and "Laurieopterus" also has to be misspellings
 * Since these all appear to be misspellings, with only two or three actually being misspellings in academic literature I do not think we have to include them in the list. The List of dinosaur genera does not include "Stegasaurus" despite it being a surprisingly common misspelling of Stegosaurus (though a redirect, as with the misspelled eurypterids, exists: Stegasaurus). Only two other prehistoric genera lists, the List of placoderm genera and the List of pterosaur genera contain misspelled names (and only one each). We could put them in with this format:
 * {| border="0" style="width: 100%;"

! width="90%" | ! width="5%" | ! width="5%" | But it would be difficult since they were not intended as formal names and thus not described, which would render the "author" and "year" parts of the table void. We can not really source them as being misspellings either, since most of the names were really only used once or twice and then never again, not even in the context of being discussed as being misspellings. As such I think they should be left out, at the very least the ones that have not shown up in any scientific papers. Ichthyovenator (talk) 15:57, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * valign="top" style="border:0px" |
 * }
 * }
 * Ok, thanks for your comment, in that case, I think it would be best not to add them. Super   Ψ   Dro  16:36, 18 February 2018 (UTC)