Talk:Ornithopoda

Untitled
I added a link to the (non-existent) Wikipedia article on "cursorial grazers," because this is a technical term and it seems perverse to have a link to "herbivore" but to assume readers know what a cursorial grazer is. Hopefully someone can write an article or stub - I'm not sure what the term means with any precision, so I'd best not have a go myself. --Jeff Medkeff | Talk 00:08, September 13, 2005 (UTC)

Browsers?
I think they would be more properly described as browsers. It may be presumed from their anatomy that they usually ate off the ground. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:14, 18 December 2010 (UTC)


 * the article follows the Reliable Sources HammerFilmFan (talk) 18:20, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Size Range Inaccuracies?
In paragraph 3 of the Description section, it says that Shantungosaurus could reach a mass of 23 metric tonnes. Is there a source for this that I'm missing? Otherwise this should be amended, as I've never seen estimates for its mass exceed 16 tonnes, and as far as I can tell all other references to its mass in other articles use the 16 tonne estimate as well. Ballendorf (talk) 00:01, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

No Beak?
In the Description section, in the sentence starting "They were also characterized..." (Paragraph 1, near the top), it states that one of the defining characteristics of Ornithopoda was "not developing a horny beak," which as far as I can tell, is completely incorrect. All Ornithopods (as far as I know) had beaks, (in fact I'm pretty sure the trait is ancestral to Ornithischia as a whole), so either this is just straight-up inaccurate, in which case it should be removed; is a mistake, and meant to say "developing a horny beak," in which case it needs correcting; or is referencing the original description/definition of the clade, in which case it is misleading, and needs to be sourced/cited and clarified to be outdated. Ballendorf (talk) 00:08, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Content Disagreement - Genera Included in the Taxobox
Since there's been a back-and-forth on the main page, I wanted to bring my opinions here rather than get involved in an edit dispute. A few taxa have been removed from the taxobox for Ornithopoda (namely Gideonmantellia, Convolosaurus, and Cumnoria). The reason I'm bringing it to the talk page is because this seems to be emblematic of a difference in the philosophy of what should be included.

All three of these taxa have been recovered as members of smaller taxa nested within ornithopoda, but this is not universally accepted. Convolosaurus has only been recovered as a rhabdodontomorph in the recent paper as far as I know, and I don't think that's cause to remove it from this page, although I do agree with it being added to the page for Rhabdodontomorpha. Gideonmantellia has been recovered as a member of Hypsilophodontidae, but there isn't even a consensus on whether or not that's even a valid taxon. Cumnoria has also been recovered as a non-ankylopollexian iguanodontian, which would make its inclusion on this page justified.

My general philosophy about controversial taxa is that their taxoboxes should show the smallest uncontroversial clade they belong to and they should be included in the taxobox for every larger clade they have been recovered to belong to. I would add the caveat that all three taxa are generally agreed to be unambiguous ornithopods, which is why I don't think they belong in the "genera of uncertain affinity section" and that they should be included in the main taxobox section. Please let me know your thoughts so we can resolve this minor issue rather than simply revert each other's edits. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 02:54, 23 June 2024 (UTC)