Template talk:Taxonomy/Mammalia

Question on procedure
This is my first time editing a taxonomy template. How careful is it necessary to be about rank order? There are huge inconsistencies between Wikipedia articles, reflecting huge inconsistencies in the literature. Now I have Class Mammalia subordinate to Branch Synapsida, which in turn is subordinate to Superclass Tetrapoda. Is that OK? I'm not even sure where a branch falls in the rank hierarchy, but I suspect that it is not intermediate between a class and a superclass. Peter M. Brown (talk) 22:56, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean by "How careful is it necessary to be about rank order?" I don't understand why you reparented this to Synapsida; did you think it was better for Synapsida to show up in Mammalia's taxobox, or was there another reason? ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 06:28, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
 * My concern was not so much to include Synapsida in the taxobox as to eliminate Mammaliaformes as the parent. Mammalia is ambiguous; including Mammalia in Mammaliaformes follows the POV advocated in Rowe (1988) but not the more traditional use discussed in the lead to the Mammaliaformes article. All parties agree, however, that Mammalia is included in Synapsida, so specifying Synapsida as the parent meets the requirement of neutrality.


 * I initially created a template Taxonomy/Chiniquodontoidea/Amniota to serve as the parent of Mammalia. Synapsida is a much more significant taxon than Chiniquodontoidea, though, so I did not follow through. I shall request that Template:Taxonomy/Chiniquodontoidea/Amniota be deleted.


 * Peter M. Brown (talk) 15:55, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok; I see. thanks! I've deleted Template:Taxonomy/Chiniquodontoidea/Amniota. ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 16:19, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

We have a problem. Sorry I didn't realize that this wasn't fixed after the above conversation. Synapsida is showing up in all the mammal taxoboxes that use automatic taxoboxes, which I think is not good. The root of the problem—and many other problems—is that the automatic taxobox system shows any ancestor with a "main" rank (ie phylum, class, order, family, genus), even if another taxon with that same rank has already been displayed. If the system were altered to only show the most recent ancestor with rank "Class" and no others then this wouldn't be a problem.

The way to solve this problem, given the above bug in the automatic taxobox system, is with a "skip" template. There are two different approaches. One is to make Template:Taxonomy/Mammalia/skip, parented to Chordata, and have most/all of Mammalia's children use that. The other is to make a "skip" copy of the most immediate parent of Mammalia, eg: Template:Taxonomy/Chiniquodontoidea/skip. The difference between these two approaches is in what Mammal's taxobox looks like—the advantage of the second option is that the immediate parent of Mammalia will show up there without Synapsida showing up there. I'm assuming we want that? So I'll go ahead and make one but I don't know what we want to use as the immediate parent of Mammalia. There seems to be some objection to Mammaliaformes for some reason. I know not about such things, but it sure is annoying that we can't have a consistent tree here—eg, is it really "correct" in any sense to have a "Mammaliaformes" node in our tree with only these two children: Docodonta and Morganucodonta? If Mammaliaformes is controversial should we get rid of it? What about the article?

Anyway, what is the most immediate parent of Mammalia that we can all get behind? IOW, what should show up immediately above "Mammalia" on Mammal's taxobox? ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 18:22, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I've tried to solicit opinions about Mammal's taxobox at Talk:Mammal; the outcome of that question will ultimately determine how this is fixed, I think. ErikHaugen (talk &#124; contribs) 18:35, 28 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I list seven possible immediate parents for Mammalia at Talk:Mammal. My preference would be for Probainognathia. I suppose that's consensus, if no one else weighs in. Whatever is used for Mammalia should also be used for Mammaliaformes since there's no general agreement as to which is more inclusive (see the Mammaliaformes lead). Whatever is chosen must be coded with, not with  ; we don't want both Mammalia and Mammaliaformes to show up. Peter Brown (talk) 01:56, 8 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Docodonta, Morganucodonta, and Hadrocodium all show Mammaliaformes, not Mammalia, as parents. That's required by neutrality; while these are mammals according to traditional criteria, some writers employ a narrow definition that excludes them; there is no dispute, however, that they are mammaliaforms. When someone writes an article on Tikitherium, it should be treated similarly. The infoboxes for Mammalia and Mammaliaformes both show Multituberculata as a subgroup; that's also fine, because the consensus view of their phylogeny puts them in Mammaliaformes and, uncontroversially, in Mammalia. The infobox for Multituberculata specifies Mammalia, not Mammaliaformes, as parent; quite appropriate, since Mammalia has a long tradition going back to 1758 while "Mammaliaformes" was coined in 1988. As of now, these infoboxes are as they should be. Peter Brown (talk) 01:56, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Request to remove /skip
@Peter coxhead I don't see where there would still be a taxonomic conflict when /skip would be removed (see previous edits). Please remove /skip (and revert immediately if taxonomic conflicts arise) Jmv2009 (talk) 15:55, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Since the skip edit, there have been rank changes in the classification hierarchy, e.g. Therapsida was an order. So, yes, there wouldn't be a rank conflict now. On the other hand, two clades are always display, Cynodontia and Therapsida, so would appear in all mammal taxoboxes. I think there should be consensus at WT:MAMMALS for this change. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:17, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Therapsida is an unranked clade
Replace Mammaliaformes/skip with just Mammaliaformes. Magnatyrannus (talk) 23:42, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Therapsida is usually regarded as an unranked clade nowadays, so there is no issue Magnatyrannus (talk) 23:44, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 8 December 2021
Therapsida is usually regarded as an unranked clade nowadays, so there is no issue Magnatyrannus (talk) 00:25, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Don't understand. What edit would you like to make?  P.I. Ellsworth &numsp;- ed.  put'r there 02:18, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template . Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:23, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

What do you exactly mean? Magnatyrannus (talk) 23:22, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
 * You opened an edit request presumably to improve the Taxonomy/Mammalia template. It is unclear what edit you want to make, and it is even unclear where you want to make it.  P.I. Ellsworth &numsp;- ed.  put'r there 02:40, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I want to change the The Mammalia parent taxon from Mammaliaformes/skip to Mammaliaformes. Magnatyrannus (talk) 00:07, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * ah, okay then, removal of the skip was discussed about a year ago as seen above by editors and . At that time it was thought that a consensus to remove the skip would be needed at WT:MAMMALS. Therapsida does not appear to have ever been discussed on that talk page; however, I could be wrong. So let's see if Jmv2009 and Peter coxhead can give us some guidance on this issue?  P.I. Ellsworth &numsp;-  ed.  put'r there 08:33, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Template:Taxonomy/Mammalia
Hello and happy new year, I would like to point out that the classification presented on the article dedicated for mammals is only used for the famous "mammal-like reptiles" and it is more preferable to leave it like this: Amniota, Synapsida, Mammaliaformes/skip, as the same way for the article dedicated to birds, who are include in theropod dinosaurs. Amirani1746 (talk) 14:44, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Are you commenting on the correct page? This template is an automatic taxonomy template and is displayed according to the options chosen on the page in which it is transcluded. You might want to experiment with the template as transcluded at mammal. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:47, 2 January 2022 (UTC)