Talk:Spermophilus

cladogram
I wish we could see these clades (clade one, two three, referred to in the article) on a cladogram. It's hard to visualize this way. Chrisrus (talk) 07:56, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's very much certainty, but I don't really know that, or if it would affect the point of having a cladogram on this page. You'll have to ask Ucucha if one is possible. &mdash;innotata 15:43, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Interesting! Chrisrus (talk) 06:09, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

MSW3 Comments are here.
 * I mean uncertainty on the exact relations, not that Spermophilus is paraphyletic to marmots et al. The MSW3 was published before the many of the genetic studies and Helgen's revision. &mdash;innotata 15:24, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. Chrisrus, that "key" is simply a dichotomous key used for species identification. I've added a cladogram; although some relationships—those among Spermophilus s.str., Marmota, Urocitellus, Callospermophilus+Otospermophilus, and Ictidomys+Poliocitellus+Xerospermophilus+Cynomys—are not well-resolved, the others are, at least according to the studies published so far. Ucucha 22:27, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Excellent, thank you so much! Now we readers can understand the way experts seem to think it happened, even though it's just the best guess so far.   I can think of several other articles also with complicated situations that would also benefit from such a diagram.  Finally, I'd like to say that if you ever get a chance to visit the fourth floor of the Natural History museum in Manhattan, it will give ideas about how all such wikipedia articles could be similarly improved. Chrisrus (talk) 16:23, 30 November 2010 (UTC)