Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive 31

New editor changing ranks in taxonomy templates
persists in changing the rank in templates like Template:Taxonomy/Theropoda. Since such changes can affect many article's taxoboxes, I have reverted and asked them to seek consensus here, but they just keep on. As I'm in danger of being accused of edit warring, please could others look at this? Peter coxhead (talk) 21:30, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with their changes either. Judging by their edit summary, they are not a native English speaker. They also do not understand the definition of a reliable academic source. I'll add that they appear to be clinging to some outdated notions of taxonomy which are less popular than they think; the French edit summary reads something like "Cynodontia is usually considered to be the suborder containing mammals, and likewise for birds". Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 22:04, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * It's worse than I thought. The user is replacing automatic taxoboxes everywhere with manual taxoboxes because they don't like the classifications presented. There is no indication of willingness to engage with other editors. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 22:25, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Are we talking about imposing a temporary ban?  User:Dunkleosteus77 &#124;push to talk 03:38, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I believe that would be in order. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 04:05, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Definitely. No willingness to engage. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:09, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Discussion initiated at the incidents noticeboard  User:Dunkleosteus77 &#124;push to talk 21:21, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
 * FYI, Prehistoricplanes has been blocked indefinitely. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 08:04, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * What we must do with fact that most biologist including "class" Aves in class Reptilia (unranked clade Sauropsida usually considered as obsolete). In the last article where proposed solution to this problem Aves was ranked as subclass. Maksim Dolgun (talk) 13:11, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * What we do here is to reflect reliable sources, which means using different systems of classification for different taxonomic groups based on the preponderance of sources. Within any one system we need to have consistent ranks (and the automated taxobox system flags inconsistencies), but there's no need for consistency between systems. There is no agreed 'universal' system. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:26, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Deletion of "2020 in archosaur paleontology"
Recently article "2020 in archosaur paleontology" was proposed for deletion. Please join the discussion. I know, this article not only about dinosaurs, but it highly related with this topic. Maksim Dolgun (talk) 15:55, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion over at Talk:Bird
There has recently been a bit of an argument going on about how early to clarify that birds are dinosaurs on Bird. I feel that the two concepts are so important that they should be linked within the first paragraph of the introduction, as occurs on Dinosaur. Several of the Bird Wikiproject people disagree and want to wait until the second paragraph, and even then only if we clarify that birds are dinosaurs in a strictly cladistic sense. I disagree with this greatly as it serves to confuse the general public, which in general are unfamiliar with the concept of cladistics. I wanted to inform you all of this development in the hopes that someone could offer a better rationale than I could. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 14:56, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, but we also need to see it from the viewpoint of ornithologists and people interested in birds in general, few of which are really concerned about their evolutionary origins past the crown group. The dinosaur angle is mainly a concern of the paleontologically minded, not neontologist ornithologists. FunkMonk (talk) 15:17, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * My main concern is that they feel the need to clarify that birds are only dinosaurs in a cladistic sense, without regard to the fact that "the cladistic sense" is the mainstream method of classification in modern biology. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 17:04, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The discussion has gotten a bit out of hand. Apparently there are some editors who argue semantics by saying that "birds are dinosaurs" is not a true statement. They argue that we should appeal to the general public, which uses a paraphyletic or polyphyletic "common" definition of dinosaurs that excludes birds. This looks to be contrary to the job of scientific articles on Wikipedia and it is a major problem for us and I would like a bit more support over there. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 16:19, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * When "bird" and "dinosaur" are used as English words, there's no reason whatsoever to insist that they refer to clades. Precisely the same argument applies to other English words like "fish", "monkey", "ape", etc. They are widely used in the traditional sense to refer to grades, including by scientists. There's not a 1:1 relationship between English words and scientific taxa. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:36, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Basically all modern paleontologists and science communicators use dinosaur in a monophyletic sense, as should we as science communicators. Bird is a scientific Wikipedia article (specifically a level-3 vital biology aricle) about a clade (it specifically refers to crown-birds), so it makes no sense to arbitrarily avoid using the scientific definitions of "bird" and "dinosaur". Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 19:48, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't really understand how adding technical scientific terms like stem or class proper or theropod will make it easier to understand for laymen, but I guess I can't really do anything about it  User:Dunkleosteus77 &#124;push to talk 23:22, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

First dinosaur of 2020 Yunyangosaurus megalosaur from the Middle Jurassic of China
Paper is here (Open access and images can be uploaded to commons. An exciting discovery, less exciting than Asfaltovenator though as it's pretty scrappy by comparison. Does someone want to make a size comparison? Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:05, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The trees in that paper probably contain the most taxa in a polytomy I have ever seen. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 03:06, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I think it's because the specimen has so few characters that it renders the whole tree unstable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:59, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Invalid names in Scientific Reports
A discussion beginning with the taxon Yunyangosaurus on the DML has found that no dinosaurs first described in Scientific Reports except for Shishugounykus have been properly registered in ZooBank. Probably has no bearing on the articles for these taxa yet, but whatever taxonomic acts arise from this will be worth mentioning. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 02:34, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Also Matheronodon, Nemegtonykus, Iberodactylus, Notocolossus, Vespersaurus, Ferrodraco, Chongmingia, and Kamuysaurus are all good (I sent the list of invalid named to the DML). Marjanovic is planning to send a petition to the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature to remove the Zoobank registration requirement which would make all these named valid as of their original publication dates and replace it with a journal standard for saving papers, so I suggest we wait for action until that is either accepted or rejected. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 02:39, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I suspect that this extends to other taxa like pterosaurs, as the Mimodactylus Life Science Identifiers were giving me 404's Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:44, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Mimodactylus feels like a different case. It has IDs that don't work, but it still has IDs documented. For all we know they could be validly registered, but there is some other hiccup preventing them from showing up. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 03:53, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * You can always search directly in ZooBank for the taxa. But yeah I didn't account for non-dinosaurs because I went through the 20XX in paleontology pages and just found dinosaurs named in Scientific Reports before searching them in ZooBank to confirm they lacked an LSID. My list was no where near exhaustive. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 04:22, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Zoobank doesn't list a lot of extinct creatures, like Zygophyseter or Neanderthal, and lists some erroneous names like Homo Sapiens Americanus (Native Americans) and Homo Sapiens Europæus (Western Europeans). Didn't realize it was such an authoritative site  User:Dunkleosteus77 &#124;push to talk 16:01, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It is in the situation for online-only publications. Something published physically is not tied to having to go through Zoobank.  Luso titan  (Talk | Contributions) 19:10, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

New tyrannosaurine Thanatotheristes, 3rd dinosaur of 2020
Paper is here, from Campanian of Canada, known from parts of skull, closest relative of Daspletosaurus. Given this is a tyrannosaur I expect the article will be fairly substantial once created. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:28, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Ontogenetic synonyms
With this paper on Nanotyrannus as juvenile Tyrannosaurus just out, I think it's a good time to discuss our stance on maintaining separate articles for possible ontogenetic synonyms (contra to the proposal in this edit summary ). I'm for erring on the side of caution by keeping them separate - in addition to the relative uncertainty in these proposals, taxa like Nanotyrannus, Stygimoloch, and Dracorex do have some degree of historical significance. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 21:26, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * While this isn't about ontogeny specifically, has unilaterally redirected the dubious "Iguanodon" genera named after Norman 2010 into Mantellisaurus Barilium and Hypselospinus. I don't disagree with this, but this needs to noted in the destination articles, and for the dbious genera to be removed from Template:Ornithopoda. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:34, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Taxonomic synonyms shouldn't have their own articles. Historical significance can be discussed in the Taxonomy/Research history section of whatever article it got merged to. I don't see any reason for Stygimoloch and Dracorex to be separate from Pachycephalosaurus as there seems to be a consensus. As for Nanotyrannus, maybe wait a little to see if anyone else agrees or disagrees with their conclusions  User:Dunkleosteus77 &#124;push to talk 22:03, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Regarding the iguanodonts, they have received no recognition in literature since Norman cleaned them up, Paul himself has not published on them in years, and they are coded into their respective synonyms in modern phylogenetic tests. So I feel reasonably confidant we can merge them now. An abstract did defend Huxleysaurus, but that does not hold any weight until it is published. If wind changes on that in the future that it a problem for a future split. Anyways, there is some cleanup to do with the merges, yes, I just didnt get around to it immediately since I did the merges very late last night. Removal from the template and Ankylopollexia page, incorporation into the taxoboxes of the valid taxa, rescue some orphaned refs lost when I transferred the Mantellodon text to Mantellisaurus, and include info on the synonyms in the bodies of the current articles. While I am here, I believe the Bagaceratops synonyms are also worth discussing as potential merges. Luso titan  (Talk | Contributions) 22:54, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I think the synonyms of Bagaceratops are plausible, but I would hesitate to merge until the revised taxonomy is used by at least one other paper (particularly since the synonyms were proposed in a single-author paper). The current Bagaceratops article definitely warrants some mention of the synonyms though. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 23:49, 1 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I also agree that all synonyms should be redirects; I don't see how historical importance is relevant if the information in question is just moved to the senior synonym article, where it would have to be discussed anyway, and we'd therefore just end up with a WP:content fork.  In the case of Nanotyrannus specifically being merged, I think much of the info in that article could be moved to for example Specimens of Tyrannosaurus to keep the size of the huge Tyrannosaurus article down. That said, I think it's just a matter of time until the other camp publishes a paper arguing Nnnotyranus to be valid, so I think it's too early to merge. FunkMonk (talk) 03:58, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd be most OK with merging Dracorex and Stygimoloch right now, since there seems to be relatively little dissent in the literature on this subject. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 05:49, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Of course, we'll only be safe when the describers of those taxa agree on the synonymy, because until that happens, we might assume they disagree. FunkMonk (talk) 06:04, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Even if they disagreed, the rest of academia is still at consensus towards their synonymy. Should we open a merge discussion?  User:Dunkleosteus77 &#124;push to talk 14:48, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I think keeping them separate off the disagreement of the authors would be valid, but off of a hypothetical disagreement is certainly not.  Luso titan  (Talk | Contributions) 17:50, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * With respect to the pachycephalosaurs, there certainly has been radio silence from the describers about these taxa in recent years... Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 17:54, 2 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Okay so I started a merge discussion for Stygimoloch and Dracorex into Pachycephalosaurus and I support. There doesn't seem to be anyone saying these 3 aren't all the same species since their synonymy was suggested a little over a decade ago. A juvenile Pachycephalosaurus specimen from 2016 seems to confirm their synonymy, and there have been no dissenters.  User:Dunkleosteus77 &#124;push to talk 18:14, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Are you saying that Dinosaur train lied to me? --Nessie (talk) 23:17, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I've been waiting a very long time for a paper that validates them, but I guess we have to follow whats published, so I support the merging of all these taxa. I would like to note there are abstracts that leave Huxleysaurus and Stygimoloch spinifer separate, but they are unpublished so not that useful. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 00:14, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I support the merge as well, subject to possible future literature which may retain one or both as being separate (per IJ). Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 00:51, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Support on the same logic.  Luso titan  (Talk | Contributions) 01:34, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Support - probably about time, Nano seems a bit too recent though. FunkMonk (talk) 05:22, 4 January 2020 (UTC)


 * They've been merged. All the information on those two were already in Pachycephalosaurus in the Growth section, but feel free to add more if you think you should  User:Dunkleosteus77 &#124;push to talk 06:43, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I did some cleanup. I'm OK with the article as it is. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 08:42, 9 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Getting some responses on the Pachy page: FunkMonk (talk) 22:00, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Nanotyrannus and "Phantom controversies"
Over the days following the release of the new Woodward et al. paper on Tyrannosaurus rex ontogeny that rejected the validity of Nanotyrannus, I witnessed a growing concern by people in the online palaeoart community to update Nano's article, and add in more arguments in favour of it being a separate genus to make the article "less biased". Shortly after looking at the article myself, I started sharing this concern as well. But then I did a little digging into the actual scientific publications cited on the page, as well as some other, formal discussions, and noticed that most palaeontologists (as well as professional natural history illustrators and palaeoartists) agree that it is a dubious and probably invalid taxon likely representing T.rex juveniles. This has led me to think more closely about these "Phantom controversies", which seem to be a common phenomenon among online palaeoartists, most often originating from sites like Instagram or DeviantArt. As some examples (I'm more familiar with research on spinosaurids so I noticed these more readily), if you were to go off the claims in discussions on either of the aforementioned sites, you'd get the impression that most palaeontologists now agree Ichthyovenator's sail shape represents a taphonomic distorsion/breakage of the bones or a pathology. And also that Oxalaia is highly debated by researchers as to whether or not it simply represents a smaller, Brazilian species of Spinosaurus called "Spinosaurus quilombensis". When in fact, neither of these alledged debates show up anywhere in the actual body of published and peer-reviewed research, however, lots of people seem convinced they do, and it seems to be affecting Wikipedia articles now as well. The same appears to apply to the case of Nanotyrannus, as after the Woodward paper came out, a few self-proclaimed "NanoGang" members started editing its article to shift the focus more in favour of its proposed validity. At least (in regards to Nanotyrannus) these are the impressions I've gotten from the little investigating that I've done. However, I'm still wildly unfamiliar with that particular taxon and T.rex's history as a whole. So anyone's free to let me know if I'm getting something wrong here; is Nanotyrannus really that controversial and does its article have any sort of bias/lack of research that needs improvement? ▼PσlєοGєєк ƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼  00:12, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I think the main issue here is that many people online talk shit about fossils and are unreasonably skeptical of actual palaeontologists judgements when they have no actual practical experience technically describing dinosaur bones (let alone ever having read a VP textbook), or ever observed specimens in person. This is as true of people on deviantart as with Dave Peters or Ulansky. Diagnosing fossils requires enourmous amounts of knowledge and experience and viewing a fossil close up in person is a totally different experience than viewing it as a figure in a paper as you can get a true sense of the 3d topology and surface texture and make proper judgements on it. I think the main difference between an amateur and an expert is the fact that an expert can contradict other experts judgements, and none of these people have anywhere near enough experience to know what they're talking about.  Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:40, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * So then should we start a merge discussion if there's no controversy? The article doesn't seem to report much any controversy at all outside Peter Larson, 2013  User:Dunkleosteus77 &#124;push to talk 01:09, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I think after the Pachycephalosaurus mergers, I think a merge discussion is definitely due. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:17, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, it's a little different. There are in fact recent papers supporting Nanotyrannus as distinct - not limited to Larson but also and  (granted, the latter is somewhat of a crank paper). Others are also noncommittal and use the name Nanotyrannus (either labelled as "controversial" or with no comment), e.g.    Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 04:54, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the difference is there has not been any scientific dissent to the Pachy synonyms. I think a merge of Nano is inevitable down the line, but I wonder whether we should wait until the debate dies down. There will probably be some scientific response to the new paper. FunkMonk (talk) 13:18, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I am simply holding off until Carr's paper comes out, because it will be just as influential if not moreso than Norman's work on hadrosauroids we follow, even tho some of Norman's synonymies are a bit contested. If Carr's paper follows his current idea, Nanotyrannus will be lumped and Tarbosaurus will become the next potential synonym that we wait for more opinions about. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 15:26, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd think there would be a larger scientific backlash to a Tarbo synonymy, as that is more of a lumper/splitter argument. No one doubts they are distinct taxa, and there are several proponents of them being distinct genera. FunkMonk (talk) 15:30, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with that sentiment, which also applies to Gorgosaurus from what I can tell. But Nanotyrannus probably will not and I genuinely plan to redirect the page with moving info over after the paper comes out depending on its conclusions. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 15:46, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * @IJReid So you are suggesting we have to wait for more papers to make conclusion? In that case I totally agree--Bubblesorg (talk) 20:30, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
 * in order to ping someone you have to put in not put an @ in front of their name lol.Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:25, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, sure--Bubblesorg (talk) 22:51, 11 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I say: Leave the articles distinct for now. This is something which must first be resolved in the scientific community. The Nano article clearly says in the first line, at present, that the genus is dubious. That is enough, for now. Feel free to reference that article in this one and explain the questions concerning distinguishing the two genera if you want, but Wikipedia should not be deciding the science. Leave that to the scientists. IbexNu (talk) 14:57, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * That wording is in itself dubious: dubious name has a specific meaning in taxonomy, which does not include synonyms as Nanotyrannus might be, but taxa that don't have discernible distinguishing features. Nano does have distinct features, the issue is just whether these represent juvenile features of Tyrannosaurus or a distinct taxon. I haven't read the latest paper, but if it states Nano is indeed dubious, then we might have a problem with merging, because we don't merge dubious genera even if they are possible synonyms. Otherwise Agathaumas would have to be merged with Triceratops, for example. Which is also why Koutalisaurus shouldn't have been merged with Pararhabdodon. FunkMonk (talk) 15:12, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I changed it to "controversial". It's clearly not dubious: it's very diagnostic by its distinctiveness from adult Tyrannosaurus if you consider it as a separate taxon. The word dubious does not appear once in the newest paper. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 16:42, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Then there should be no problem with a merge down the line. On this topic, I just revived Koutalisaurus; merging it with Pararhabdodon, which is not even considered its senior synonym any more, goes against our guidelines (dubious genera are not to be merged), and was not discussed. FunkMonk (talk) 17:21, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok, though it has been policy for the entire existence of the project, there does not seem to be any word on how to treat dubious taxa on the project page. I added the following, any thoughts? "Dubious genera warrant separate articles and should not be redirected. Dubious species and species that have been incorrectly placed in a specific genus should be redirected to the closest higher level taxon it can be assigned to." FunkMonk (talk) 17:27, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I support this. However, it might be a good idea to make it clear that the List of informally named dinosaurs is for nomina nuda and manuscripta instead of unnamed species (as "not been assigned a valid scientific name" would include). Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 21:18, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * You mean so that stuff like Sinopliosaurus fusuiensis doesn't end up there? Also, Category:Invalid_dinosaurs seems to be redundant or misleading, shouldn't it rather just be a redirect to Nomina dubia or be renamed to something like "dubious dinosaurs"? FunkMonk (talk) 21:26, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It would make more sense to redirect dubious dinosaur taxa to a list of dubious dinosaurs, particularly the dubious Megalosaurus species, as the long list on the Megalosaurus article is unwieldy and distracts from the main purpose of the article, which is about M. bucklandii, not about taxonomic issues. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:48, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * You mean dubious species? Not sure it would be a good idea for dubious genera, we have many very sizeable articles about dubious genera, such as Monoclonius, Ceratops, Troodon, etc. No doubt more could be written about them, and their long histories and historical significance could even warrant featured articles. We just need a cut off point, and species seems a good place. FunkMonk (talk) 22:54, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes I did mean species, as most "Megalosaurus" species have nothing to do with the type material and are better discussed separately. If created "Zanclodon cambriensis" should probably be transferred there as well, as I see more often referred to by that name than Newtonosaurus. Some dubious theropod tooth taxa I see often used deliberately as a form taxon for isolated teeth, like Paronychodon, Richardoestesia etc, It's not really a nomen dubium in that case if the tooth is being deliberately used as a form taxon. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:00, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Such a list would logically also have to include dubious species within valid genera, such as the type species of Stegosaurus, Diplodocus, and many others. So it would be potentially very long. Unless we just link to the main pages in their entries. FunkMonk (talk) 23:05, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

José Bonaparte, pioneer of Argentine dinosaur paleontology, has died today at the age of 91
José Bonaparte (14 June 1928 – 18 February 2020) essentially founded dinosaur paleontology in Argentina during the Mid-Late 20th century and is easily the greatest argentine paleontologist since Florentino Ameghino. The article is quite lacking though, can a collaborative effort be made to expand it? The news is in spanish here but I can't access it due to GDPR. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:34, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
 * On this occasion it should be noted that Argentinosaurus, which he co-described, is being prepared for FAC. If anyone has anything to add, there's a peer-review section on the talk page. FunkMonk (talk) 17:56, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

New abelisaurid from the Huincul Formation of Argentina.
Tralkasaurus has been described, paper is here, as usual has written a barren two sentence stub that barely any better than having no article at all. Does someone want to take a shot at expanding it a bit? Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:51, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Looks like it finally got a ZooBank ID! Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 21:16, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I've started an expansion. I have yet to write up its paleoecology, which is perhaps the "core message" of the paper... Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 08:14, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Here's something I'd like to get a few opinions on... the paper is very evasive about the size of Tralkasaurus asides from comparisons to other taxa. News sources report that it measured 4 m long, but this figure is not directly quoted to the interviewed author (Cerroni) anywhere except for one source, an Indian publication: This quote appears to be original. Is the figure worth reporting? Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 08:25, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Issues for discussion
"This is the longest known foot claw among all theropods that lived during the Cretaceous period."
 * is adding unsourced superlatives about many taxa. In addition to being unsourced, they strike me as being way too close to trivia to be notable or useful; I'm bringing this up for discussion to get some secondary opinions on whether they constitute trivia. For instance, on Utahraptor:


 * On Silesaurus:

"Speed estimates have suggested 28 km per hour, making this the fastest dinosauriform known from the fossil record."

Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 08:03, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * appears to be adding the word "lithostrotian" to the leads of all lithostrotian articles - in addition to existing descriptions of these taxa as "titanosaurs" and/or "sauropods". Any thoughts on whether this additional descriptor is necessary?
 * If there is no reliable source stating precisely this information (no WP:OR or WP:Synth allowed), these additions have to be removed via basic Wikipedia rules in any case. No need for further discussion imo. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 08:23, 12 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I would agree, although I'm thinking about the hypothetical situation where the user learns from the blanket revert and decides to start adding sources. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 16:59, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I just reverted a similar edit from Deinocheirus. Strange, because he usually added sourced information in the past. FunkMonk (talk) 21:22, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If I had to guess, the information is coming from this book, which I'm not sure is the most rigorous technical source anyway. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 21:44, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * "The longest foot claw" is technically incorrect or at least misleading, as we only have the ungual and don't know how long the claw was. The claim on the speed is imo unscientific, we just cannot estimate speeds much more accurately than "cursorial" or "non-cursorial". I think we should be very careful in general when citing books that are written for children/the general public. Such books possibly are not even meant to be reliable sources, given all the simplification that is needed to be accessible for their target readers. I personally would use such sources only in exceptional cases. Regarding the "lithostrotia" additions, I personally dislike this, not only because titanosaur phylogeny is still unstable, but also because something like "lithostrotian sauropod dinosaur" is too much detail for the first sentence and awful to read. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:13, 12 January 2020 (UTC)


 * An edit on Ohmdenosaurus has been taken down without a real argument, beyond "that book isn´t a suitable reference". Why? I´m a co-worker of the book, and for Ohmdenosaurus we contact the Urweltmuseum Hauff to get measurement of the Tibia, also comparing with the size cited with the original author. It measures 407 mm. Extrapolating we calculated a 70-75 cm femur for the specimen and use 2 models to measure it: Rhoetosaurus, due to recent studies of the genus and Tazoudasaurus. The two led to a size of 6.3-6.7 m, not the 4 m of Wild. Use the Theropods book, that is rigth now old and a bad reference to block anything of the NEW 2020 sauropods book is really unfair (The book is LARRAMENDI MOLINA-PEREZ (ASIER.). (2020). DINOSAUR FACTS AND FIGURES: The Sauropods and Other Sauropodomorphs. PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRES). And has been revised to the exaust to 2019 data, even the possible presence of a "beak" in sauropodormorphs. Our work cannot we dumped like that due to the theropods book being from 2016 and have a few fails. Also, it wasn´t added as an absolute truth, it was post as another measure from other autors, on the same way there are books cited on a lot of taxa. Why hasn´t been taken down any data from The princenton guide of the dinosaurs following the same idea? of from The Dinosauria that is full of mistakes?

--Yewtharaptor (talk) 18:37, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Citing a book that you have written without disclosure is a violation of Conflict of interest guidelines. I'm shocked you have managed to get a book published at Princeton University Press considering how much cleanup of spelling and grammatical errors I've had to do on articles you have written or expanded, as well as very serious plagiarism of research papers you directly copy and pasted into articles, which you have been repeatedly warned about. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:12, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't have the book and thus cannot say anything about its quality, but I don't think we can include any speculative information from sources that are not authored by an authority of the field in any case. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:42, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * To the best of my knowledge, this book hasn't even been published yet. It supposedly will come out in June 2020 according to the Princeton website . Perhaps we should wait for its publication before citing it? --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 15:38, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It's probably inevitable that the book will be cited here in the near future, so we might just as well prepare for it somehow. Darren Naish gave it a very good review here: FunkMonk (talk) 18:26, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Naish is reviewing the theropod volume of the series, and Mark Witton gave a rather scathing review in response on Facebook... Either way, we should judge the upcoming sauropod volume by its own merits, once it is released of course. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 23:39, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Please check text of Macronaria
Macronaria currently reads


 * Several Nigersaurus', characteristics passed down from ancestral species, exist for Dentist

This was the result of vandalism on 23 January 2020‎ by 167.98.94.147

(May be a school account, has been warned several times -  )

I tried to fix this and user  reverted my edit.

I think that both of us might have gotten this fix wrong, but I don't want to run afoul of WP:3RR,

so therefore I'm asking the folks here to take a look at it.

Thanks - 2804:14D:5C59:8833:0:0:0:1000 (talk) 18:43, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ reverted to edit before 23rd January vandal, hope this helps. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:48, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That being said, IP, please note the convention about duplicate links: in the main body of an article (excluding the lead section), each link should be made only once unless inside some kind of special template (like a cladogram). Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 19:12, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I am sorry! I was reverting via Huggle and pressed the wrong button by mistake. Sorry for the inconvenience!  Java Hurricane  02:59, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Oldest crown bird
The oldest crown group bird Asteriornis has been described from the Maastricht Formation, consisting of a mostly complete skull and some limb bones. Paper is here, not open access unfortunately, but definitely worth an article. is a co-author on the paper, so congratulations are in order. Hemiauchenia, trapped in Cyprus because of the Coronavirus. 185.230.112.252 (talk) 16:48, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you! :) Albertonykus (talk) 17:04, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Cool, and congratulations! And I guess we're all affected by the current events, so good vibes to everyone! FunkMonk (talk) 17:13, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Oculudentavis
A new paper on a bizarre skull in Burmese amber was published in Nature recently. The paper interprets the fossil as a basal avialan. However, they only put the fossil in a bird matrix, which created a huge polytomy and other researchers believe based on anatomical features that the fossil is a misidentified lepidosaur, based on the spike like coronary process on the dentary and "the scleral ring is very large and is formed by elongated spoon-shaped ossicles; a morphology similar to this is otherwise known only in lizards" (literal quote from the paper). While none of this is published in WP:RS yet I would expect a response paper soon. If it is a lepidosaur through it's still an unusual and spectacular find. This is Hemiauchena but I can't log into my account at the moment. 185.230.112.252 (talk) 19:53, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, we should avoid using blogs and social media, but we could probably quote dissent if expressed in news reporting, for example. FunkMonk (talk) 20:02, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I have heard that a dissenting paper may be published within the next few months. The idea that Oculudentavis is a lizard is widespread among paleo-social media, and I for one don't doubt that interpretation. But we can wait to discuss this once it gets published. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 04:20, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Oculudentavis is on the front page! Of course, there's the inevitable discourse about the wording of the blurb, including its dinosaurian affinities: Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 00:48, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Considering theres already a formal reply that describes it as a definite squamate, this might be an issue. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 15:18, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Neocoelurosauria validly named by Hendrickx et al. 2019
Apparently The Theropod Database is the only website that seems to mention it after its description. The definition is Compsognathidae+Maniraptoriformes. The website says it isn't synonymous with Maniraptoromorpha as it shows compsognathids are non-maniraptoriform maniraptoromorphs and that Ornitholestes is a non-neocoelurosaur. I wonder if we have to edit a few pages to fit these new findings?

Hendrickx, Mateus, Araújo and Choiniere, 2019. The distribution of dental features in non-avian theropod dinosaurs: Taxonomic potential, degree of homoplasy, and major evolutionary trends. Palaeontologia Electronica. 22.3.74, 1-110.

https://www.theropoddatabase.com/Phylogeny%20of%20Taxa.html

Atlantis536 (talk) 03:05, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
 * This definition would be at odds with the composition of Maniraptoriformes sensu Qin et al. (2019), whereby Compsognathidae is closer to Maniraptora than Ornithomimosauria. I would therefore caution against editing a few pages to fit the definition of Neocoelurosauria outlined by Hendrickx et al. (2019).70.175.134.8 (talk) 01:48, 21 March 2020 (UTC)Vahe Demirjian

IP editor making unexplained changes
I've recently reverted several changes to dinosaur articles by the IP editor 2001:2D8:E20A:1F92:F7FB:C5A2:ADAC:ED09. From what I can tell virtually all of the changes are unsupported by sources, but some of them may be genuine I suppose. I've started blanket reverting these changes, but this is not an area that I spend much of my time. Mikenorton (talk) 09:34, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The sources he is adding justify his conclusions, he's obviously not familiar with wikipedia editing but blindly reverting edits by new users just discourages new users becoming regular editors without any justification. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:54, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * This was actually a separate IP user on one page, my mistake, he's not making any useful edits at all. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:57, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Nomen Dubium articles
I was recently thinking about "Zanclodon" cambriensis otherwise known as Newtonsaurus (which there are some spectacular photographs of), and It got me thinking, what's the difference between "Zanclodon" cambriensis and other nomen dubium articles like "Sinopliosaurus" fusuiensis or "Megalosaurus" dunkeri?. While ''"Z". cambriensis'' has been given an informal name, it has and is regularly referred to by its formal (dubious) name, which should put it in the same class as the latter articles. There are also other taxa like Siamosaurus which I would consider nomina dubia as they aren't diagnostic. I was wondering what other contributors thought about this, as there doesn't appear to be a clear answer either way.Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:26, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The problem is we don't have any guideline for what to do with dubious species that may not belong in the genera they have been assigned to. I'd support merging them instead of leaving them having around, but the question is to where. If a species is dubious within a genus, then it just goes to the genus, of course. As for dubious genera, they are always kept separate. FunkMonk (talk) 08:51, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * To solve this conundrum, "Sinopliosaurus" fusuiensis should be mentioned at the Spinosauridae page, and Megalosaurus dunkeri should go to Megalosaurus page (in the latter case, Maisch [2016] noted that Huene [1923] never intended Altispinax to be a new genus for "M." dunkeri and instead merely adopted the epithet dunkeri for NMNHUK R1828 because he knew Lydekker [1888] mentioned NHMUK R1828 in passing when listing some theropod specimens from the lower part of the Wealden Supergroup of Southern England under "Megalosaurus dunkeri Lydekker (Koken)"), but "Zanclodon" cambrensis should be kept in the page List of informally named dinosaurs until it is renamed as a new genus by virtue of being in high probability valid because the description of Dracoraptor from Wales and Notatesseraeraptor from the Late Triassic of Switzerland highlight a greater diversity of basal theropods from Europe, and Rauhut & Hungerbuhler (2000) only chose to declare it a nomen dubium because they said on page 83 that its systematic position was unresolved and didn't have the opportunity to compare it with other European theropods from the Triassic despite raising the possibility of it being a distinct taxon.70.175.133.224 (talk) 14:55, 28 January 2020 (UTC)Vahe Demirjian
 * That sounds sensible to me. FunkMonk (talk) 15:04, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I concur with the above. Dubious species shouldn't warrant separate articles, but those with an informal name and a high probability of being named as a distinct taxon should go on the informal names list. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 19:33, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

As an aside, in order for a specimen to be placed onto the List of informally named dinosaurs does it need to have been given an informal taxonomic name like "Ronaldoraptor" etc? As I was thinking about adding an entry for the "Barnes High Sauropod". Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:09, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * No, stuff like "the Archbishop" is there too, for example. Any informal name goes, it took quite a few tries to find an article title that was as inclusive as possible... There are a bunch more names that could be added to the list here at the Equatorial Minnesota blog: FunkMonk (talk) 16:10, 28 January 2020 (UTC)


 * There's dedicated article for dinosaur specimens with nicknames. Abyssal (talk) 20:16, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Somewhat different scope though, mainly specimens of validly named genera. Surprised not to see Leonardo there, by the way! FunkMonk (talk) 20:19, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
 * There are even more informal named if you go through Mortimer's blog, but at least we have a start and cover the ones that were previously with their own article/in an uncertain placement within an article. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 01:37, 30 January 2020 (UTC)


 * seems to be ignoring the consensus and is engaging in an edit war over at the nomen dubium Koutalisaurus (redirecting it to a genus which is not even considered its senior synonym). We need a wider discussion on this. FunkMonk (talk) 22:42, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It is entirely the same as the FA approved situation in the Irritator article. In the cases of both Angaturama and Koutalisaurus there is nearly nothing to say about that is not about them in relation to the subject of their parent articles, and they are of extreme importance to the subject of those parent articles. So it seems only natural to sort them with that instead of forcefully chopping these clearly unified topics between one long and one tiny article. I would also dispute this is edit warring on the grounds you raised some concern when this was first done ages ago and yet chose not to push any further at the time. Given this and the lack of anyone else raising concern it seems clear that the new format was deemed acceptable, and it is you that should be having a discussion to re-separate, not me having one retroactively to merge them months after the fact.  Luso titan  (Talk | Contributions) 22:54, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll probably be merging "Sinopliosaurus" fusuiensis later today then. Since Buffetaut and Suteethorn (2008) considered it almost identical to Siamosaurus and at least three other sources have referred it to that genus (a genus which, mind you, is itself rather dubious). So I see very little reason why all of the information on "S." fusuiensis needs to be, as stated above, forcefully chopped aside into its own article, instead of being covered in Siamosaurus and Spinosauridae. Even Angaturama has more support in the literature. ▼PσlєοGєєк  ƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼  09:30, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I think that's the best course of action too. The Siamosaurus article is shaping up well, funny that a tooth taxon has more restorations than many other much better known taxa! FunkMonk (talk) 09:34, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Indeed! Haha. I believe this one has some problems with the sauropods' anatomy that I never addressed in the review, so definitely gonna be fixing that. ▼PσlєοGєєк  ƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼  10:06, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Here's a paper with a Phuwiangosaurus skeletal  if you need one. --Slate Weasel ⟨T - C - S⟩ 10:52, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Automatic cladogram
Since we already have taxa in correct order with Template:Automatic taxobox, can we use this info to create something like ? The idea is you put two parameters, name and depth and it would automatically draw a cladogram for you. For example: would create a cladogram with Dinosaur as parent and two taxon ranks below.  Dinosaur    (talk)  🌴🦕🦖-- 20:34, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: this discussion is a duplicate of Wikipedia_talk:Automated_taxobox_system. Please discuss this proposal there. Primefac (talk) 21:07, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Cultural depictions of dinosaurs
Category:Cultural depictions of dinosaurs has been nominated for merging with Category:Dinosaurs in popular culture. You are encouraged to join the discussion on the Categories for discussion page. Place Clichy (talk) 16:24, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

A reflection on the Spinosaurus controversy, 5 and a half years later.
I'd like to discuss and reflect on the 2014 Spinosaurus controversy, 5 and a half years on. It's amazing to me it was over 5 years ago now, time really flies doesn't it. I'm sure all of you remember in 2014 when Sereno and Ibrahim published their new Spinosaurus reconstruction with short legs, and the controversy that followed it. To me the big problem with it wasn't that the paper was a speculative reconstruction, it was that there was the Predator X and Ida/Darwinius style PR blitz with National Geographic, which made the paper seem like a much more definitive interpretation than it actually was. You can see how the 2014 "correct" reconstruction has almost completely displaced the old reconstruction in paleontology related media, with most casual dinosaur enthusiasts assuming it is the "correct" one and the controversy is settled, despite that in the literature that is clearly not the case. I ended up speaking to one of the co-authors of the [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667117303427?via%3Dihub#! 2018 study] at ProgPal 2019. Part of the issue is that for the most part that associated skeletons in the Kem Kem are extremely rare, so many estimates are made on the proportions of single bones. In retrospect I think Hartman's decision to debate proportions of the bones based on photos was a mistake, we all know that drawing stuff based on viewing the bones in images, particularly at an angle skews the measurements, and you really need to be there in person to appreciate the 3d nature of bones, drawing solely of images leads to the same kinds of systematic errors Dave Peters makes. Also afaik the promised monograph still hasn't been published unless someone wants to correct me.I personally would like to see Spinosaurus gotten to GA or even FA at some point, and much of the Spinosaurus article hinges around this controversy, so I thought it would be worthwhile having this discussion. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:37, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I think an equally serious problem for Spinosaurus is what is actually Spinosaurus these days. Various specimens that have been assigned to Spinosaurus, including the famous large snout and some other elements used in Sereno's reconstruction, have also been assigned to Sigilmassasaurus by other workers. To me, until that is settled, I wouldn't even attempt an expansion of the article at this point. But if someone wants to do it, it should be possible, as long as the article is written in a way that always reflects the differing interpretations without presenting one as fact. FunkMonk (talk) 08:27, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * That said, I'm pretty sure has it on his to do list... Maybe we could have it as a collaboration some day, when the dust has settled. Spinosaurus is already a GA, but that happened long before all this new info came out, and without any real review, so it would hardly pass today. FunkMonk (talk) 19:10, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with, it's probably best to wait until more papers come out before attempting an expansion, since currently the situation is rather messy and unsettled (same probably goes for Sigilmassasaurus). Which is why I left this article for last on the list of the spinosaurs I'm working on. A future collab sounds like a good idea, since taking on the cluttered and heavy research history of Spinosaurus largely by myself seems rather daunting. Even Irritator's GA and FA expansion ended up being a pretty large undertaking, so I can only imagine how big this article will get once we start good work on it in the future. ▼PσlєοGєєк  ƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼  18:26, 2 March 2020 (UTC)


 * A huge monograph on the fauna of the Kem Kem Group was just published, which has a bunch of taxonomic implications, seems like there will be rival interpretations of the theropod diversity there for years to come, but more importantly for us, it is CC licenced, and has a lot of nice photos of specimens we can use. Probably of quite some interest to ... FunkMonk (talk) 14:58, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Haha, was literally just about to comment on that here, beat me to it by 3 minutes. I'll start uploading some of the photos, of which there are 140! So we definitely hit the jackpot when it comes to free images for Kem Kem fauna. Also nice to see we finally have an unambiguously free skeletal reconstruction to use in the article. ▼PσlєοGєєк  ƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼  15:08, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it'll be quite a task to get it all uploaded. Also note that some of the images seem to be a bit unclear in copyright, for example the Carcharodontosaurus skeletals that say "after Ibrahim et al. 2017" and "after Sereno et al. 1996". So are they redrawn? Or taken directly? I think it might be judged on an individual basis for each image. FunkMonk (talk) 16:30, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * While this isn't directly related to Spinosaurus, a related issue of permission on open access papers are images that use Ron Blakey's maps. I think most of you will remember when most geological period articles would have one of his maps in the infobox. They were all deleted in 2012 because he wasn't very happy about his commercially valuable images (They are often licensed by petroleum exploration companies) being available for free. I have opened up a discussion on commons about the issue. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:44, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Looks like there's a Deltadromeus skeletal too! Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 18:33, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

For the next WikiProject Dinosaurs/Palaeontology collaboration, I think it might be nice if we could get all articles related to the Kem Kem Group to GA/FA, making it a good/featured topic! It'd be a pretty sustained effort - there's a lot of information and history in both this monograph and other sources for these articles. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 19:24, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The sheer number of taxa would probably be hard to manage, though, the fish alone could take a decade, hehe! But I've considered doing Carcharodontosaurus for a while (it's one of the most popular dinosaur genus articles), and now we at least have more images of it. FunkMonk (talk) 19:30, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

The newly discovered Spinosaurus tail seems to pretty conclusively confirm that Spinosaurus is indeed semi aquatic, but this was the kind of unambiguous evidence that should have been presented initially in order to justify the PR blitz. The fact that the tail also occurs in Ichthyovenator (per pers comm from Allain to PGS, 2020) and the fact that the tails are largely unknown in Suchomimus and Baryonyx means that there is much left to be said about the morphology and ecology of the group. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:17, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Low-quality years in palaeontology pages
[Moved from being incorrectly placed at WP:DINOART.]

Don't know if this is more appropriate at WP:PALAEO, but the problem is most severe for dinosaurs. A lot of low-quality content has been inserted into taxon listings on the older "years in palaeontology" pages, including nonsensical etymologies and nicknames: e.g. I feel like some cleanup would be useful. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 07:44, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Maybe more for the general dino project page than the art page? FunkMonk (talk) 08:04, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh, oops. I'm dumb. Moving. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 16:48, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * When I went on a brief time of improving the years in paleontology pages (starting with the first years of dinosaur descriptions), I simply used the basic taxon info templated and expanded those, and I think that's now I would say all those prior to at least the 1880s should be organized, since we don't have enough content to fill the current format of taxon but also non-taxon content. The test format of encompassing basically all aspects of the year is probably a bit too inclusive, or too difficult to uniformly fill depending on the output of a year. I can probably fix up the worst articles if people can find them for me. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 18:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

New paper on Riabininohadros
A new paper by Alexey V. Lopatin and Alexander O. Averianov was recently published in Paleontological Journal - so far only in the Russian version, but English translations of articles from this journal usually come out within a couple of weeks after Russian versions. The title seems to indicate that the authors consider Riabininohadros to be a valid genus. However, it's not clear whether Lopatin and Averianov accept it as validly named by Ulansky in 2015, or name it themselves. Could someone with an access to the article clarify this?--188.146.231.232 (talk) 12:38, 2 May 2020 (UTC)