Talk:North American box turtle

All the content except for a phrase in first sentence is about Terrapene
I would just leave the common name, merge the page with Terrapene (keeping content for each and making a redirect), probably leaving it under this name. Then just make some sort of explanatory note that some Asian turtles are also referred to as box turtles (and just give links to them). Or maybe a hatnote. Just trying to help...TCO (talk) 02:17, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree that most of topic, it's sources at least are about terrapene, although it's implications to the reader is that it's about all box turtles. Not sure that agreement will be reached on other parts. We will find out in time I guess. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 02:28, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

You could just edit it to that point. Add the content from the Terrapene page. Add a hatnote. Make the comment about Asian turtles more of an "explaining a naming oddity" thing (after all there really isn't content in article on them anyhow, so why are they topic sentence prominence in the lead? Then before you know it fait accomplis!  Wolverines!  TCO (talk) 02:36, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Amending composite article to be about terrapene
This article contents is mainly about the terrapene and USER:L.tak is boldly changing that. Personally I'd have got consensus for such a confusing re-arrangement with many pot holes but given that the change is happening I'm updating the article accordingly. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 22:14, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Merge proposal
What seemed very clear was that the american and the asian box turtles can not plausibly share an article as they are polyphyletic. Therefore, the article box turtle was already for 90% about one species: the american box turtle (terrapene). If that is the real main topic (rather than asian box turtle) I don't know, but for now I have changed the box turtle article to a 100% american box turtle article (for consistency sake) for now. I am open however to arguments why the the other box turtle should be the main topic... Having done the change to the american box turtle however, it seems logic that the (short) taxonomic article with (Terrapene) be integrated in this article; and so I proposed.... Let me know what you think (but please distinguish between your comments on the integration of Terrapene in this article -whatever the name of the article-, and the question whether the american box turtle is the main topic for box turtle and should be under this name)! L.tak (talk) 23:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Just add the tax data into this article. It's like in all those Balkan countries when they move people across the border before a plebscite. I'm being sarcastic, but really the needs of the reader are much better served with that data here where there's some text and description of the animals. OVer there it's practically an index page. Just put it over here and then you can end up putting a bullet to that other page. TCO (talk) 23:15, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * following your advice with pleasure ;-) L.tak (talk) 23:17, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Cool. Anyone up for a Mud turtle? Regards, SunCreator (talk) 23:46, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

article looks good!
Actually a pretty decent article. HAs content, has species. Pretty good for a genus article. Might want to do talk page archiving (have no idea how to put it in myself).TCO (talk) 01:58, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Have made archive and moved old talk into it. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 02:06, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

pokey turtle is moving to start to look like a real article
Think we still have one sentence in the lead (description) that gives content that is not in the article (so we should develop a longer section on Description). Then we have a few sections that could be summarized in lead. And we are maybe missing some "traditional" sections like Distribution. But it is getting there...TCO (talk) 17:21, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Wow, some new stuff since last I looked. Nice map!  Should we add the usage of box turtles by Indians for rattles?


 * Is it ready for GA? TCO (talk) 06:50, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * We're getting somewhere slowly but surely! I think the rattle-part should indeed be added (found it also at some other place already). Main thing to do is to improve the paragraph on pets. As it is a rather incoherent collection of trivia.. When that's done, I think most is done. I have no experience on the good article review. Would you think it would pass? L.tak (talk) 10:12, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Box turtle and parentheses (continued)
moving this from the user page of 74.109.236.194; it's a reply to my request to explain the edits regarding parentheses... L.tak (talk) 14:07, 12 May 2011 (UTC) (I don't know how to do the talk thing; so I'm replying here. I hope you get this message.) I'm not experienced with microbiological nomenclatural rules, but from your description they are much different from common practice in zooology and, more specifically, herpetology. If a species was originally described in a genus different from the genus in which it is now placed, the name of the binomial authority and date are placed in parentheses. For example if Linnaeus in 1758 described a new species as Frogus greenus and it is currently placed in the genus Froggie, it should be listed as Froggie greenus (Linnaeus, 1758). Now let's suppose that in 1950 Dr. Joseph Schmoe revised this group of frogs and thus was the first to use the new combination Froggie greenus. One would list this new combination as Froggie greenus - Schmoe, 1950 (note the hyphen or dash). Assuming that these were the only nomenclatural changes over the last 253 years, the complete synonymy would look like this:


 * Froggie greenus (Linnaeus, 1758)
 * Frogus greenus Linnaeus, 1758
 * Froggie greenus - Schmoe, 1950

Of course most synonymys are more complicated than this. For instance, let's suppose that in 1900 Dr. Joseph Palooka had described what he thought was a new species of frog as Froghiella kindagreenus. 50 years later Dr. Joe Schmoe in his revision determined that Dr. Joe Palooka's new frog was not new, but rather was the same old Frogus greenus, which had been described by Linnaeus in 1758. Now the synonymy would look like this:

I hope that I've explained this clearly. I think there is a WP article entitled Binomial nomenclature which also explains this. By the way, "parenthesis" is singular; "parentheses" is plural.74.109.236.194 (talk) 12:46, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Froggie greenus (Linnaeus, 1758)
 * Frogus greenus Linnaeus, 1758
 * Froghiella kindagreenus Palooka, 1900
 * Froggie greenus - Schmoe, 1950
 * that's different in from the microbiological use indeed one would probably write:


 * Froggie greenus (Linnaeus, 1758) Schmoe, 1950, with other synonyms (heterotypic or homotypic) between " " or not depending on whether they have appeared on the approved list of microbiological names of 1978... I have no stance on the issue here however and will leave it up to others to decide... L.tak (talk) 14:23, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Turtle or Tortoise?
The article does not make a clear distinction between a turtle and a tortoise. I defer to experts to explain, but it seems to me that a tortoise lives its life almost exclusively on land. For that reason, I prefer to call them a Box Tortoise. --74.107.74.39 (talk) 22:43, 5 June 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.107.74.39 (talk)
 * All tortoises live on land, but not every animal that lives on land is a tortoise. e.g. a cat, hedgehog etc. In biological classification there are 14 families of turtles, see List of Testudines families of which tortoise is only one. The box turtles (Terrapene) are members of the Emydidae pond turtles. There is no basis to call them tortoise except a misconception. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 14:37, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * More or less; SunCreator's right in that the term "tortoise" is, in terms of taxonomical classification, usually reserved to the one family. And while common language may be less precise in this matter, and these land dwellers are sometimes called "box tortoises", they are primarily found in North America, where the default is to call all shelled reptiles "turtles", so the term "box turtle" is almost universally used for them. In short, the term "tortoise" is a vague term in common language, not always used, while in scientific classification, it's very specific, and doesn't include box turtles. oknazevad (talk) 15:00, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Habitat question
"The single location where Coahuilan box turtles are found is a 360 km2 region characterized by marches, permanent presence of water and several types of cacti." Should this read "marshes" not "marches"? Jornadigan (talk) 17:14, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Corrected. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 18:17, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

See https://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/rdcheck.py?page=Box_turtle Regards, SunCreator (talk) 15:58, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Box turtles are in Canada too
The North American "Distribution of the four species of Terrapene" map doesn't show any box turtles in Canada, yet it is fairly well known that they are fairly common in Southern Ontario. I don't have the editing skills to edit the map however. Hmm, it does seem kind of odd their range would stop exactly at the United States border with Canada. My information on that, however, is lacking. All I know is that Eastern box turtles are common here in South Carolina. Apparently, when I lived in the midwest, we had Ornate box turtles where I lived but I never saw them. Anyway, if you can find some reliable sources saying that they live in Canada (I have no doubt they do) and which species or subspecies, I am sure someone will be glad to add the information Adam (talk) 14:10, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Alright I'm sorry I took so long to answer back at this but I found something I can't remember for the life of me where I found it that said that box turtles did live in Canada but are now extinct there. Specifically the Eastern box turtle. I can't for the life of me remember where I found it but there was apparently a study done in Ontario and they found 10 box turtles but they think they may have all been released captive box turtles. So from a historical standpoint yes but it seems that they've been extirpated other than some pets that got out or that someone released. Adam (talk) 02:35, 15 June 2016 (UTC) Adam (talk) 02:35, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

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