Template:Did you know nominations/Cornus clarnensis

Cornus clarnensis

 * ... that out of about 20,000 Clarno Formation fossils, only 5 were from the extinct dogwood Cornus clarnensis?
 * Reviewed: Boletus subluridellus

Created by Kevmin (talk). Self nominated at 05:12, 26 September 2013 (UTC).


 * Symbol question.svg The article was created 26 September 2013‎ and is about 2700 characters, satisfying date and length criteria. The article is clear and sourced. My only quibble is that it uses only one source, and that source is not available online. I will assume good faith for this, but will note I found a few other sources online from a quick search (Palaeontographica Americana at Project Gutenberg, a brief mention here, and the tables at Fossil record and age of the Asteridae at The Free Library) that could be incorporated into the article. The hook fact is spread over a full paragraph, but it appears to be OK and sourced. QPQ has been completed. Mind  matrix  19:53, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The Palaeontographica Americana link is the pdf of the monograph. I didnt realize it was online anywhere. The biostore link is for one sentence that is a direct repetition of Manchester 1994, and Fossil record of the Asteridae is simply a table saying endocarps(fruits) of Cornus clarnensis are found at clarno, with no additional information not found in Manchester 1994. This is very typical and normal for obscure taxa of fossils.  Only the type descriptions exist as sources of unique information, with maybe a mention in later article, but with no additional information.-- Kev  min  § 04:07, 1 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Symbol question.svg Doh! I can't believe I missed that the Palaeontographica Americana link was the reference you were using. (BTW: I also found this index for Cornus clarnensis in Palaeontographica Americana at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.) I've reviewed the article again while perusing the ref, and I think the hook should eliminate the word 'only', as this appears to imply something it shouldn't (the situation isn't even rare among species for which specimens were collected at that site). I've reformatted the citations to be able to add page ref numbers for each citation. Could you please add page numbers for the two remaining citations for which I didn't find an appropriate page in the source (both in the article's first paragraph, with empty p= in the sfn footnotes. Once this is done (and the hook updated), this DYK will be good to go. Mind  matrix  22:12, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
 * What specifically is only implying that is not consistent with the reference/type description? The Manchester specified that the description was based on the 5 specimens identified and that 20,000 specimens were examined in the writing of the manuscript.  I have to say I loath the use of footnotes in articles with a single reference.  And would prefer not to have to use them in the article.-- Kev  min  § 23:32, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Symbol voting keep.svg I've undone my changes to the ref format, though I'd like to point out how utterly frustrating and time-consuming it was for me to verify the information in the article. A reviewer shouldn't have to hunt for information to verify claims. (I still couldn't find info for two of the claims in the text; I'm sure it's in the source, somewhere.) Regarding 'only', it's a filler word that's usually irrelevant, or sometimes used to imply that a situation is rare. In this case, there were many other species for which only a few specimens were collected at that site. I suppose it's harmless, but words like 'only' and 'just' are too often correlated with an unjustifiable POV, which is why I wanted to excise it from the hook. Mind  matrix  09:43, 2 October 2013 (UTC)