Talk:Ontonychophora

Contradiction as to the scope of the article?
In its current shape, the article asserts that Ontonychophora is an extinct order of onychophorans consisting of organisms with simple lobopods that lack terminal feet.

However, the article journal used as the only citation, which coined the order Ontonychophora, says the exact opposite in its abstract: ...the order Ontonychophora n.nom. for extant onychophorans possessing legs with a differentiated "foot" portion....

What should we do? The article's current scope is the exact opposite of how the term is defined in (Poinar, 2000). Chaotic Enby (talk) 22:51, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * @Chaotic Enby Hi! Checking the full article for myself, it turns out the abstract is in error: in the actual text of the article, Euonychophora was intended for all onychophorans with a "well-defined foot" with claws (including all extant ones), and Ontonychophora for those without. However, Grimaldi et al. (2002) suggests that the lack of feet or claws in the members of the latter could be preservation artifacts, putting into question the validity of Ontonychophora as a taxon. The order is not widely recognised in later scientific literature for Onychophora anyway as it turns out. I have now turned this into a redirect of Onychophora following discussion at WikiProject Tree of Life. Monster Iestyn (talk) 10:34, 26 September 2023 (UTC)