Talk:Mesonychia

Order or suborder
I have reverted a recent change on Andrewsarchus mongoliensis where Mesonychia was listed as a suborder of Artiodactyla. There are two competing hypothesis concerning the nearest relatives of Mesonychia. The traditional morphological view suggests that they are related to whales. Under this view either Mesonychia, Cetacea, and Artiodactyla are separate orders, the order Cetacea (or Cete as seen in McKenna and Bell, 1997) includes a suborder Mesonychia, or Mesonychia is a suborder of Cetartiodactyla, an order uniting whales and artiodactyls.

Alternatively, recent molecular and morphological work suggests that whales evolved from within the "artiodactyls" and Mesonychia represents a close relative but a distinct group. Under this view either Mesonychia and Cetartiodactyla are distinct orders, or Mesonychia is the most basal suborder within the Cetartiodactyla. To my knowledge no authorities argue that the mesonychids are more closely related to artiodactyls than to cetaceans.

I think recognizing Mesonychia as a distinct order is consistent with any of these hypotheses for relationships and would be the most appropriate position for us to take. Alternatively, it could be treated as a suborder of Cete (Cetacea) if we accept the old morphological hypothesis, but I don't think that's the mainstream approach since the publication of the molecular findings. --Aranae 21:59, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Largest predator
Southern Elephant Seal is said to be the largest land predator, not Kodiak Bear, and the difference is very significant (2045 kg vs 700 kg for average males). On the other hand, seals are not hunting while on land. Proski 21:26, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Although seals are capable of moving onto land, they are not considered to be terrestrial carnivores. However, I wonder if Andrewsarchus was as big/heavy as a Southern Elephant Seal...--Mr Fink 21:30, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Separation
Ultimately, I think we should make Mesonychidae its own article, rather than just a redirect to this page. Good idea, bad idea?--Mr Fink 12:21, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes. Good idea. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:49, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

cetaceans
See wp:lead. The lead should summarize the article, which necessitates some redundancy. The lead should also make the reader care and be accessible. That's why I added reference to cetaceans. Leadwind 01:43, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Considering that fossil hippos and their ancestors don't enter the fossil record until millions of years after the first whales do, making hippos whale ancestors is kind of bogus, don'tya think?Ericl (talk) 15:55, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hippos aren't the ancestors of whales: they share the most recent common ancestor with whales.--Mr Fink (talk) 20:58, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Tiny hoofs
Can you really call it a hoof when it's just a tiny blunt nail at the end of the digit? Unless they walk on it, it really doesn't qualify as a hoof. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.70.113 (talk) 20:12, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes it qualifies, all hooves are modified nails. 05:26, 8 November 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by XtremeFanatic (talk • contribs)

Order or Suborder
Are there any papers explaining the demotion of Mesonychia from order to suborder?--Mr Fink (talk) 21:43, 19 April 2012 (UTC)


 * In Tabuce et al. (2011) [Naturwissenschaften 98 (2): 145–155] Mesonychia belongs to order Acreodi as an unranked clade. In Spaulding et al. (2009) [PLoS ONE 4(9): e7062] Mesonychia appears to be a paraphyletic assemblage outside Cetartiodactyla. In O'Leary & Gatesy (2008) [Cladistics 24, 397-442] Mesonychia forms a paraphyletic assemblage nested within Cetartiodactyla. In Geisler & McKenna (2007) [Acta Paleont. Pol. 52 (1): 189–212] Mesonychia is assigned to an order. In Thewissen et al. (2007) [Nature 450, 1190-1195] Mesonychia is outside Artiodactyla (Cetartiodactyla) and no ranked cited. Burmeister (talk) 15:12, 20 April 2012 (UTC)


 * The Mesonychia were assigned to an order historically when relatively little was known about them. The association with whales and their placement within the order Artiodactyla (or Cetartiodactyla) meant the rank had to be changed.
 * The Spaudling et al (2009) paper examines the position. They do their analysis with various non-artiodactylan outgroups in the analysis, which changes the position of Mesochychia. With a broad collection of Laurasiatherian taxa, they get the basal position. When analyzed without Carnivora and Creodonta, the Mesonychia pair with cetaceans because of homoplasy.
 * A more recent study using an even broader collection of placental taxa changes the position further. In Halliday et al (2017) the Mesochynia fall within Ferae. The Triisodontidae were basal to a clade showing a sister relationship between Carnivora and the unambiguous Mesonychid families (Hapalodectidae and Mesonychidae). This disagrees with the study of Spaulding et al (2009) and questions the placing of the Mesochynia in Euungulata and could restore the order rank (if Triisodontidae excluded). I would put more weight on the more recent broader study and the placement within Ferae, because of the sensitivity of the analysis to outgroups demonstrated by Spaulding et al (2015). However the abstract of another broad study (Shelley et al 2015) supports Spaulding et al (2009). Unfortunateley it doesn't seem to have been published yet. My suggestion is to change the taxonomy template for Mesonychia to unranked clade and change the parent to Laurasiatheria, while the higher level relationship remains unresolved. Jts1882 (talk) 10:17, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Why can't mesonychids be classified are carnivorous artiodactyls
What's the difference. 05:24, 8 November 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by XtremeFanatic (talk • contribs)
 * Mesonychians can not be classified as "carnivorous artiodactyls" because they are not artiodactyls. Among other things, if you had bothered to read the article, artiodactyls and primitive whales have an astralagus bone shaped like a pulley, which mesonychians do not.--Mr Fink (talk) 06:04, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Pronunciation?
How are "mesonychid" and "Mesonychia" pronounced? I would guess and ; note the different emphasis. On that note, what's the source language? I think it's Greek but I didn't see it mentioned on this page or Mesonychidae or Mesonyx. — W.andrea (talk) 16:31, 28 March 2023 (UTC)


 * It's Latin - literally "middle claw". A quick Google search reveals two different pronunciations in use (rightly or wrongly) but seems to be the most popular. But I don't have a reliable source for that, and so can't add it to the article. Anaxial (talk) 17:32, 28 March 2023 (UTC)


 * It's Latinized Greek. There is no single correct pronunciation of a scientific name. In classical Latin, "c" is always hard (and "v" in Latin has a different pronunciation than it does in English). In English and Spanish, "c" is soft when followed by a "e" or "i". Americans and Spanish speakers in Latin America tend to follow the rules for the language in pronouncing "c"s in scientific names. In some countries in continental Europe (e.g. Germany, (?)France), biologists may follow the rules for classical Latin even if that differs from the usual pronunciation in their language (in my experience, Vietnamese biologists go with hard "c", and I assume that was influenced by French biologists). When I was in grad school, another grad student from Turkey pronounced Pinus with proper classical Latin vowel sounds, which brought laughter from the undergrads (it sounds pretty close to "penis"). Scientific names often are formed from surnames of scientists from a variety of languages. Do you pronounce those as an ancient Roman would, as the surname is pronounced in it's native language, or as that combination of letters would usually be pronounced in your own language?


 * In short, the "correct" pronunciation depends on your audience. I'll pronounce "c" differently when I'm speaking to Latin Americans vs. Vietnamese. I'll go with the usual English vowel sounds in Pinus when talking to English speakers. I would pronounce the "ch" in Mesonychia as "k" (following Greek), but if it turned out that I was talking to somebody who was familiar with the word, but expected a different pronunciation, I would try to clarify. Plantdrew (talk) 19:34, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 11 October 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved (closed by non-admin page mover) BegbertBiggs (talk) 13:56, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Mesonychid → Mesonychia – Taxonomic names for extinct taxa themselves should be prioritized over taxonomic term versions, consistent with taxonomic clades where WP:CommonName doesn't apply. In this case, Mesonychia should be prioritized over "mesonychid." PrimalMustelid (talk) 17:57, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Palaeontology has been notified of this discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 18:05, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Mammals has been notified of this discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 18:05, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Cetaceans has been notified of this discussion. UtherSRG (talk) 18:05, 11 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Conditional support - From the article: Technically speaking, the term "mesonychid" refers specifically only to the members of the family Mesonychidae, such as the species of the genus Mesonyx. However, as the order is also renamed for Mesonyx, the term "mesonychid" is now used to refer to members of the entire order Mesonychia and the species of other families within it. If this is moved, then the resulting redirect should be a disambiguation that states something similarly to this. - UtherSRG (talk) 18:07, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Support, and redirect mesonychid to Mesonychidae (I will check incoming links to mesonychid; there aren't that many and most seem to be coming from taxoboxes). Mesonychid=Mesonychia seems to be a Wikipedia invention; the sources in this article are using "mesonychian" for the broader group and seem to be restricting "mesonychid" to the family. Other articles are using "mesonychid" for the family (e.g. Harpagolestes is described as a " mesonychid mesonychian ") This is yet another failure from misinterpretating WP:COMMONNAME to mean "prefer any title that isn't a scientific name without any concern for the precision of that title or whether that title is actually more commonly used than the scientific name". Plantdrew (talk) 18:36, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Support Unambiguous. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:16, 11 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Support per above, esp. Plantdrew's note about Mesonychia vs Mesonychidae. Having this article as mesonychid is like having France at French. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 17:47, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

"Proto-Artiodactyl" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Proto-Artiodactyl&redirect=no Proto-Artiodactyl] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Plantdrew (talk) 21:36, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

"Cete (clade)" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cete_(clade)&redirect=no Cete (clade)] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Plantdrew (talk) 21:52, 19 October 2023 (UTC)