Talk:Psittacosaurus

Tail hairs/spines on Psittacosaurus?
Apparently there has been a relatively recent fossil discovery of spine-like hairs along the tail of psittacosaurus. It was published in Nature and later on a more detailed examination in Naturwissenschaften

--BobBobtheBob 19:05, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Minor aesthetic issue...
There's a lot of white space in the taxobox with the picture set to 250px. 200px only makes it a little smaller and streamlines the whole thing. As others are pretty heavily invested in this article I'm going to refrain from changing this myself. Just throwing it out there. :) Dinoguy2 14:55, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Good suggestion, I'll change it. Feel free to make any changes you think would improve the article. It's not "my" article after all, or anyone else's. Sheep81 23:17, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Picture
Thanks to User:Brian0918 we have a great new picture for the taxobox, drawn by Rainer_Zenz from German Wikipedia. The original picture was moved into the text. Originally it was in the Description section, but I felt it better illustrated the tail bristles, plus there was need for an image down there. If anyone has other ideas, go ahead and implement them. Thank you! Sheep81 08:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Funkynusayri recently removed this image on the grounds that it was derivative of a copyrighted work and "uninteresting." I'm not sure about the permissions issue here, but if we're replacing the main image, the mounted specimen doesn't strike me as an ideal substitute--while it's good in that it's a photo of a real specimen, it's a bit dull and hard to make out detail at that size. What about using the (really striking, IMO) illustration down in the integument section? I think it does a great job of "summing up" current knowledge of this genus, and is almost reminiscent of the Ernst Haeckel illustrations used in articles such as Turtle and Lizard. Dinoguy2 (talk) 00:48, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The current image is even more "uninteresting" than the first and really doesn't show anything. At least the skull image could be identified as a Psittacosaurus at first glance. I'll change it to one of Arthur's images... the one in the integument section is nice but might not be completely accurate given Lingham-Soliar's recent work, which I have yet to read (working on that). Sheep81 (talk) 02:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, ok, by "interesting" I mean that the fossil is positioned in the way it was found, therefore it is closer to the actual posture of a living Psittacosaurus than for example a skeleton mounted by humans. But yeah, I agree that Arthur's image is the more obvious choice. I found the previous image uninteresting for aesthetic reasons, but wasn't going to replace it due to that, but it seemed familiar to me, so I looked up Psittacosaurus in my Danish edition of "The Ultimate Dinosaur Book" and realised the drawing was traced directly off, not just based on, the photo of a skull found there. Here's the drawing and here's the photo. That makes it a derivative work, and "illegal". In fact, if you look closely, the original photo is visible underneath the drawing! Also, seems like Dorling Kindersley charge money just for downloading the image:

Feel free to revert all my edits on that matter though, my stance on it isn't exactly strong, but I thought copyright issues would be more important to clear out on featured articles than on regular ones. Funkynusayri (talk) 10:57, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh no, I don't want even the hint of copyright issues on this page. Good looking out, I never suspected. I just didn't think the replacement was good for the taxobox. It would be great to see somewhere else in the article though, if you can find space for it without being crowded. Sheep81 (talk) 20:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll take a look at that. By the way, I nominated the previous taxobox image for deletion on Commons, and it seems like it was a clear copyright violation according to the guys there too. Funkynusayri (talk) 21:17, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Could it (the fossil) maybe be placed next to the text in the classification section? Also, maybe the drawing of the type skull in the description section could be put in the taxobox, as the current taxobox drawing is already featured twice on the page (already in the compilation of heads). Funkynusayri (talk) 15:51, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

New research
Someone might want to look at a new article "Endocranial morphology of psittacosaurs". Lejean2000 11:26, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

400 individuals
Where does the 400 specimen figure come from? Xu and Norell 2006 reported over a thousand specimens in the Yixian Lujiatun beds alone! Dinoguy2 (talk) 11:59, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Is this true?
According to this article I read, some paleontologists believe that this animal's quills aren't real, and that the animal died on a plant. Is there any information about this idea, or is it outdated? Star Hound For those who want to see the article, go here: http://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/blah-blah-feathered-ornithischians-yawn/ (talk) 04:30, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Huh. Is that published, or what people have said off the record? (I haven't paid a lot of attention to the issue) J. Spencer (talk) 23:35, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I've seen this idea on a few blogs but as far as I know it's never been suggested in print. None of the blogs cite any evidence for features that could identify the quills as plant material. One blog even suggests they're not plants but long-bodied nematode like parasites! Right now this all looks like wild speculation with no evidence behind it. MMartyniuk (talk) 00:36, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Forelimb function
Senter (2007) says that Psittacosaurus was an obligate biped, yet nearly every full-bodied reconstruction in this article has it walking on four legs. Edit pending? Albertonykus (talk) 12:19, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Probably, though as it was also likely a burrower some exceptions can probably be made based on posture. Too bad, that one with the offspring is awesome. MMartyniuk (talk) 23:48, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I read somewhere it couldn't pronate its hands either, which makes those poses impossible anyway... FunkMonk (talk) 00:04, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, not even Triceratops fully pronated its hands. Ceratopsian hands stuck out to the side, like pterosaurs, when parasattagial. (But since the inner fingers are fare larger and more robust than the middle and outer, they *look* pronated, basically achieving the same effect by distorting the shape of the manus). MMartyniuk (talk) 01:14, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Speaking of which, a lot of the ceratopsian reconstructions on Wikipedia (not just this article) appear to show them with pronated hands. Albertonykus (talk) 08:36, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I fixed AW's Triceratops in photoshop but he produced so many ceratopsians I haven't had time or patience to do them all. They're all inaccurate in the feet i'm afraid. MMartyniuk (talk) 22:26, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I noticed that one. Perhaps we should just remove them from the articles for the time being. Albertonykus (talk) 02:41, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Dinoguy, could you maybe erase the hand that touches the ground in your size diagram? That would be enough to fix that image I think. FunkMonk (talk) 13:40, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * On this topic, the current taxobox image looks very nice, but is it me or are the radius and ulna partially crossed? How rigid were the arms? FunkMonk (talk) 17:00, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Biochron and "index fossil" are not synonyms
The article cited does not call the Psittacosaurus an "index fossil," instead, it uses two sets of index fossils (without Psittacosaurus in either set) and the first appearance datum and last appearance datum of Psittacosaurus and its field distribution to define a Pisttacosaurus biochron for the Early Cretaceous of East Asia, not "central Asia."

It is not an index fossil, but defines a biochron according to the citation. It is not Central Asian, it is an East Asian biochron. Also, the sediments are Lower Cretaceous, the time is Early Cretaceous.

This sentence should be changed to read:

"The abundance of this dinosaur in the fossil record has led to establishing the Psittacosaurus biochron for the Early Cretaceous of east Asia.

See 978-0231084833, pp. 168-170 and the cited source, Lucas, Spencer G. (2006). The Psittacosaurus biochron, Early Cretaceous of Asia. Cretaceous Research 27: 189–198.

I posted this also on the main page. There are many other problems with this article, but I don't have time to go into them.

--68.107.134.74 (talk) 01:19, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks then! More suggestions would be welcome. FunkMonk (talk) 06:52, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Gregarious juveniles
A special thanks to FunkMonk for making an important revision to this high-profile featured article, reflecting the new find that an adult specimen was added, literally glued, to a matrix of 34 juveniles, in an apparent attempt to give the appearance of parenting behavior in Psittacosaurus. The 2013 paper by Zhao, Benton, Xu, and Sander demonstrates not only that some scientists are inclined to engage in deception to make the evidence fit their narrative, but also that science, when employed in the pursuit of a provable truth, can be self-correcting. Our commitment here in Wikipedia to promulgate facts that are carefully referenced is exemplified by our friend FunkMonk, who edited this article on May 16th, just one day after the Zhao et al. paper became available online. I wanted to take this opportunity to acknowledge FunkMonk's outstanding efforts.Evangelos Giakoumatos (talk) 02:45, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

New study suggesting several species of Psittacosaurus are just one.
Here is the abstract:

"Psittacosaurus is one of the most abundant and speciose genera in the Dinosauria, with fifteen named species. The genus is geographically and temporally widespread with large sample sizes of several of the nominal species allowing detailed analysis of intra- and interspecific variation. We present a reanalysis of three separate, coeval species within the Psittacosauridae; P. lujiatunensis, P. major, and Hongshanosaurus houi from the Lujiatun beds of the Yixian Formation, northeastern China, using three-dimensional geometric morphometrics on a sample set of thirty skulls in combination with a reevaluation of the proposed character states for each species. Using these complementary methods, we show that individual and taphonomic variation are the joint causes of a large range of variation among the skulls when they are plotted in a morphospace. Our results demonstrate that there is only one species of Psittacosaurus within the Lujiatun beds and that the three nominal species represent different taphomorphotypes of P. lujiatunensis. The wide range of geometric morphometric variation in a single species of Psittacosaurus implies that the range of variation found in other dinosaurian groups may also be related to taphonomic distortion rather than interspecific variation. As the morphospace is driven primarily by variation resulting from taphonomic distortion, this study demonstrates that the geometric morphometric approach can only be used with great caution to delineate interspecific variation in Psittacosaurus and likely other dinosaur groups without a complementary evaluation of character states. This study presents the first application of 3D geometric morphometrics to the dinosaurian morphospace and the first attempt to quantify taphonomic variation in dinosaur skulls."

link to study: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0069265 News: http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/8762/20130812/three-species-plant-eating-dinosaur-really-one.htm

We do not know if there is consensus regarding this. There was no consensus that Triceratops that Torosaurus were one and the same, and a study was published soon after disputing it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DinopediaR (talk • contribs) 14:05, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The article has already been fixed to reflect this it seems. The Torosaurus issue is different, because it was about it being grown individuals of Triceratops. In this case, it is just that some differences were shown to be due to crushing of skulls. FunkMonk (talk) 14:08, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Update and FAR needed
Citations need to be cleaned up, and as one example of how badly outdated the article is, this source says there are 1,000 specimens, while the article mentions 400. Is anyone able to restore this article to Featured standard to avoid a Featured article review? Sandy Georgia (Talk) 20:41, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * ,, ,and would probably be the ones to ask. FunkMonk (talk) 21:55, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * has resurfaced too and would (I suspect) be happy to help too. I am a little busy with a few things but might have some time here and there :P Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:04, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Good news ... missing nominators are popping up all over the place! Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 22:27, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm in. Not much else going on, so I'll generally help with the stuff. IJReid  discuss 17:27, 2 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Comparing with other dinosaur FAs, there could be some more historical info. Where were the first specimens found, etc. Some of it could perhaps be copied from List of Psittacosaurus species, along with other relevant info that is missing here. This article certainly isn't too long yet anyhow, only 42,000 bytes, when 100,000 is the split limit. FunkMonk (talk) 14:08, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Better to measure that in word size, since byte-size doesn't account for citations. Per WP:SIZE, the article is currently 3400 words, with 10000 as an outer limit.  That's a pretty short FA, raising the issue that comprehensiveness should be examined.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:46, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the problem is partially that much of it ended at List of Psittacosaurus species, which was demoted from GA and renamed some time ago, because it was found to be a list rather than a proper article. Perhaps the articles should be merged? FunkMonk (talk) 15:48, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
 * That article is another 3,000 words, and linking to it does seem to be a good application of Summary style ... but perhaps it should be renamed as an article rather than list? With that much content over there, I am less concerned than about the size/comprehensiveness here, but topic-area editors should still make sure this article is comprehensive.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 16:01, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Not that I know whether it was a proper move or not, but demoted it from GA because he found it to be a list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_Psittacosaurus_species#Good_Article_Reassessment FunkMonk (talk) 16:06, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. Well, I think I'll stay out of that controversy, then.  I do think it makes a good stand-alone article/list/whatever.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 16:08, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it does need some looking into, because no one really responded to his demotion, and he is not a regular dinosaur article editor, if at all. FunkMonk (talk) 16:09, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
 * There is a reason as to why I put that article up for reassessment. It was during the time when the Good Article Sweep was coming to a close. Looking back I was definitely not the best person to review it, what with being fourteen at the time. Though comparing it to what it looked like when I demoted it. But hey, I don't mind it becomes an article again. Whatever gets it to become a decent page on the site is fine my me. GamerPro64  16:39, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Is anyone planning to work on this, or should we head to WP:FAR (which often entices people to dig in)? Sandy Georgia (Talk) 15:21, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * is doing some work. By the way, it seems Psittacosauridae should redirect here, as the family has been left monotypic. FunkMonk (talk) 14:39, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

There is one part that says "it has been suggested" but doesn't say who suggested it. There is also a mixture of American and British spelling. DrKay (talk) 19:11, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

remove
Do remove A 2016 study by Ji Qiang and colleagues was published in the Journal of Geology. Their conclusion was that these were actually highly modified scales because the morphology and anatomy did not resemble feathers ? Towccf (talk) 05:19, 9 April 2023 (UTC)