Wikipedia:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles

WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles is a WikiProject that aims to expand and organise Wikipedia's collection of entries about amphibians and reptiles, both living and extinct.

Related WikiProjects
This WikiProject is an offshoot of WikiProject Tree of Life


 * WikiProject Science
 * WikiProject Biology
 * WikiProject Tree of Life
 * WikiProject Animals
 * WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles
 * WikiProject Dinosaurs
 * Pterosaurs task force
 * WikiProject Turtles

It is worth keeping an eye on several Wikiprojects that overlap with this one or that have made significant progress towards completion, including WikiProject Birds, WikiProject Ecoregions, WikiProject Conservation worldwide and WikiProject Marine life.

Writing an article
At what level is it worth having a separate Wikipedia article for a particular amphibian or reptile? Any level you like! If we write individual articles for all the species, we will be at it for a long time! The simplest (and probably best) rule is to have no rule: if you have the time and energy to write up some particularly obscure subspecies that most people have never even heard of, go for it!

As a general guideline though, combine several species or subspecies into a single article when there isn't enough text to make more than short, unsatisfying stubs otherwise. If the article grows large enough to deserve splitting, that can always be done later.

Structure
This project follows guidelines discussed at WikiProject Tree of Life/article titles and Naming conventions (fauna).

Amphibian and reptile articles can be on any level that makes sense in context. Most will be about particular taxa. For example:


 * Class:  Amphibian, Reptile
 * Order: Frog, Squamata, etc.
 * Family: Ichthyophiidae, Chameleon, etc.
 * Genus: Litoria, Geochelone, etc.
 * Species: Great barred frog, Nile crocodile, etc.

In many cases, it makes sense to combine several taxonomic levels in a single article. For example, the subfamily Rheobatrachinae contains only one genus, Rheobatrachus. All rheobatrachids are gastric-brooding frogs, so the one article covers both subfamily and genus levels.

Conversely, sometimes it is better to cover only a part of a taxon: Corroboree frog deals with two different (but related) species and ignores the other species in the genus Pseudophryne.

Some of the larger taxons, such as frogs, must be broken down into smaller articles to reduce article size. For example, with frog, the biology related sections remain in the article, and the popular culture section and list of families within that order are split into the Frogs in popular culture and List of Anuran families articles. A paragraph with a link to the separate article should be left within the main article (e.g. Frog).

It may be useful to start with a high-level article, such as a family article, and then split off genus and/or species articles as the material builds.

Create links to articles on the levels immediately higher and lower. An article on a family such as true toads should link back to frogs, and down to the genus articles.

Article contents
The following items are desirable for articles of all levels, although the detail will vary depending on several factors. These items do not need to be separated into distinct sections; text should flow in continuous prose so far as possible. The order this information is included is also relatively unimportant, although the order listed is generally preferred.
 * Taxonomy (classification) - who discovered it? what's it related to? how does it fit into the tree of life? how many subspecies are there?
 * Description (physical, behavioral characteristics) - what makes this (group of) critter(s) different from its close relatives?
 * Distribution and habitat - where does it live? How broadly does it roam? Map images help.
 * Cultural, religious, economic, etc. importance - what impact has it had on humans? Include use for experimental purposes that do not relate to other headings.

Taxonomy
Certain choices have been made to follow specific taxonomies for the different groups of articles that fall under this WikiProject. Excluding our three descendant WikiProjects, the following sources are used as our primary taxonomic references:


 * Amphibia - The Amphibian Species of the World (AMNH database) together with Frost et al. (2006).
 * Taxonomy in Wikipedia is mostly in sync with the ASW one. List showing discrepancies is available here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles/Amphibian taxonomy (lasted updated 31 March 2014).


 * Reptilia - ITIS, Reptilia (higher level classification)
 * Crocodilia - (none)
 * Rhynchocephalia - (none)
 * Squamata - ITIS, Squamata (higher level classification)
 * Amphisbaenia - (none)
 * Autarchoglossa - (none)
 * Gekkota - (none)
 * Iguania - (none)
 * Serpentes - (none)
 * Testudines - The IUCN TFTSG extant checklist (all levels) is most up to date. For extinct turtle, see the IUCN TFTSG extinct checklist.

In cases where a taxonomy has been selected, articles for newly described taxa that are not (yet) included in these taxonomies may still be added, but those articles describing the parent taxon should not be changed to suggest their inclusion. This rule does not apply if no taxonomy has been selected.

Cladograms can be requested for creation here: WikiProject Tree of Life/Cladogram requests.

In general, amphibian and reptile entries should have a taxobox, a feature we inherited from the Tree of Life WikiProject. See WikiProject Tree of Life/taxobox usage for guidelines on how to use a taxobox. Using an automatic taxobox/speciesbox simplifies future maintenance as a taxon will automatically inherit its parent taxon's parents — see Template:Automatic taxobox/doc and Template:Speciesbox.

Photographs
Please help find images for Category:Amphibian and reptile articles needing images and also remove those from list that now have a picture.

Please use and help maintain collections of photographs and other images such as:
 * Category:Chordate images

Note that Wikimedia Commons is the recommended repository for uploading images:

Sample articles/lists
Some article under this WikiProject have been recognised for their excellence by the Wikipedia community as featured articles, and may serve as good models.

Recognized content
See full list at WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles/Recognized content

Featured articles
• Amphibian

• Australian green tree frog

• Bog turtle

• Black mamba

• Blue iguana

• Cane toad

• Common toad

• Crocodilia

• Cyclura nubila

• Eastern brown snake

• Eastern green mamba

• Frog

• Galapagos tortoise

• Green and golden bell frog

• Hawksbill sea turtle

• King brown snake

• Komodo dragon

• Loggerhead sea turtle

• Noronha skink

• Olm

• Painted turtle

• Red-bellied black snake

• Wells and Wellington affair

Featured lists

 * List of amphibians of Michigan
 * List of dinosaur genera
 * List of snakes of Trinidad and Tobago
 * List of Testudines families
 * U.S. state reptiles

Former featured lists

 * List of Anuran families

Good articles
The following are classified as good articles and may need some more work to reach featured status: • Archelon

• American alligator

• Banded bullfrog

• Beaded lizard

• Black-necked spitting cobra

• Ctenosaura bakeri

• Decline in amphibian populations

• Gaboon viper

• Gila monster

• Green iguana

• Many-banded krait

• New Guinea crocodile

• Nerodia clarkii

• Northern red-legged frog

• Oriental fire-bellied toad

• Poison dart frog

• Puff adder

• Russell's viper

• Salamander

• Sea snake

• Slender glass lizard

• Snake scales

• Solomon Islands skink

• Trachylepis tschudii

• Tuatara

• Wood turtle

• Varanus salvadorii

• Vipera berus

• Yellow-lipped sea krait

Some articles specially created under auspices of the WikiProject are:
 * Snake scales [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|15px]]
 * Category:Snake scales

Popular pages
See WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles/Popular pages

WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles barnstar
WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles barnstar is awarded to recognize great devotion in the creation and maintenance of high quality articles related to amphibians and/or reptiles. Use  to award this barnstar with the frog/amphibian image.

Use  to award this barnstar with the snake/reptile image.

Associated portals
Associated portals include:
 * Portal:Amphibians
 * Portal:Frogs
 * Portal:Reptiles