Talk:Nedcolbertia

It has been proposed that Christopher H. Whittle be merged here. I do not think that is a good idea. (1) The individual people who discover new species are by well-establishedc practice here, individually notable as scientists. (2) Whittle has done significant other scientific work. (3)Whittle is at least somewhat notable for other things also, including his fringe ideas in paranormal phenomena.  DGG ( talk ) 04:36, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * the ediscussion seems to be on the other p.,  DGG ( talk ) 05:02, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Whittle's role
From Talk:Christopher H. Whittle: "'From the journal articles cited in the Spanish Wikipedia, it appears that a team, not an individual, discovered this genus--and Whittle was not even on it. Whittle did later describe and name the genus--but only as part of a team.' - 160.39.212.104 (talk) 12:14, 4 September 2010 (UTC)" Joja lozzo  16:12, 9 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not seeing anything in the Spanish Wikipedia about who discovered the fossils so I'm not sure what the basis of 160.39.212.104's statement is. The initial paper (J. I. Kirkland, B. B. Britt, S. Madsen and D. Burge. A Small Theropod from the Basal Cedar Mountain Formation (Lower Cretaceous, Barremian) of Eastern Utah. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 15(3), 39A 1995) does not include Whittle as an author but apparently the authors named the species Nedcolberti whittlei which suggests Whittle may have had a role (or was being honored). It would be helpful if someone would post any parts of that paper that mention Whittle - I don't have access to a JSTOR account. Joja  lozzo  22:23, 9 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The article in which Nedcolbertia was formally named is the 1998 article in the New Mexico volume. On p. 241, it states that "C. Whittle discovered these sites [this is unclear; only one site was discovered, and I suspect "specimens" was intended] during a CEU excavation of the Gaston Quarry in 1993." The article can be selected from this page and viewed (with a certain amount of patience). I don't remember the story, but at some point the authors of the JVP abstract obviously decided to incorporate Whittle as a coauthor and officially named the animal N. justinhofmanni instead of N. whittlei. N. whittlei is a nomen nudum or "naked name" that has no official standing because it was never formally published; it just escaped inadvertently. J. Spencer (talk) 02:42, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That's a big help. I revised the article to clarify this. Joja  lozzo  02:02, 11 December 2011 (UTC)