Talk:Pithecanthropus erectus

Pithecanthropus erectus‎
Hi, the redirect "stood" for eight years for the same reason why many other obscure incorrect redirects do: No one searched for it, so no one discovered the mistake. Pithecanthropus erectus‎ is a binomial. The species erectus is now classified as Homo erectus. Therefore the genus name Pithecanthropus becomes a synonym of Homo, and P. erectus‎ becomes a synonym of H. erectus. It cannot be a synonym of "java man", because Java man is at best a subspecies of Homo erectus, H. e. erectus. A species cannot be a synonym of a subspecies. FunkMonk (talk) 17:42, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
 * "Pithecanthropus erectus is a binomial." By that you mean Binomial nomenclature? The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs; the second part identifies the species within the genus. So, Pithecanthropus is the genus and erectus‎ is the species? Well, this is interesting. You have found yet another "obscure redirect" to correct? Wbm1058 (talk) 17:57, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
 * A binomial is a name consisting of a genus and a species name. Bi refers to two, and nomial refers to name. A genus name can only be a synonym of another genus name. A binomial can only be a synonym of another binomial, etc. That's just how it works. FunkMonk (talk) 18:10, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
 * OK, I see that you've been participating at in an article review at Talk:Java Man/GA1. If there is a consensus there for your changes to these longstanding redirects, then I suppose it's OK by me. I'm not near being an expert in this area. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:19, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, you should be aware that there are many taxonomic synonyms that are left redirecting to the wrong articles due to reclassification, and many other such issues that are left for years. An example from today, Lepidotus. It has been a separate article since 2009, though it is just a disused spelling of Lepidotes. I just redirected it earlier. FunkMonk (talk) 18:28, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I just ran into this when patrolling Category:Invalid redirects. Java man said that Pithecanthropus erectus‎ redirected to it. So those disambiguation hatnotes need to be moved to the new destinations of the redirects. – Wbm1058 (talk) 18:41, 7 October 2014 (UTC)


 * OK, I fixed the hatnotes to be consistent with the new redirect targets. I do find it curious that the new target of Pithecanthropus (Homo) doesn't mention the word (other than in the hatnote), whereas in the former target—Java Man—"Pithecanthropus" is repeated 25 times. – Wbm1058 (talk) 20:23, 9 October 2014 (UTC)