Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive 35

Taxa named by Malkani
An article was recently published in which M. S. Malkani described several new dinosaur taxa from PakistanJurassic-Cretaceous and Cretaceous-Paleogene Transitions and Mesozoic Vertebrates from Pakistan (that previously was known as nomina manuscripta). Malkani does not have a very good reputation, and it would be good to discuss how we should accept his findings. It is problematic, for example, that he described several new clades without phylogenetic analysis. HFoxii (talk) 08:34, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Is the paper peer-reviewed? Do the journal and article themselves qualify as WP:RS? I don't think taxa should be left out because of the conduct or reputation of the scientist behind them. Ichthyovenator (talk) 09:42, 7 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Scientific Research Publishing has been described as a vanity press and a predatory publisher, so no, it should remain on the informally named dinosaurs list. Hemiauchenia (talk) 10:24, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation. In that case, I agree that Malkani's "taxa" should remain on the List of informally named dinosaurs. HFoxii (talk) 10:36, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, in that case I agree as well. Ichthyovenator (talk) 10:38, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Peer-review is not required by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Although it was published in a predatory journal, this paper meets the requirements of the Code to make the names within available. Each taxon has a declaration of "new genus/species" and a diagnosis, which were lacking in Malkani's previous papers. All but one of these names are now formal and have the publication date of 2021. The only exception is Brohisaurus kirthari, which does not have a declaration of "new genus/species" and is instead attributed to Malkani (2003). That publication did not meet Code requirements so Brohisaurus is still a nomen nudum. Although I agree that this paper is low-quality and ethically dubious, I begrudgingly accept the availability of the names and suggest that they be given their own pages again. Carnoferox (talk) 02:04, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
 * This has shades of the Homo longi move discussion... Although they probably don't belong on that list, I'm not sure they deserve their own pages either per WP:GNG standards. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 02:42, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
 * If they are indeed valid, as you said, should we add them to the 2021 in paleontology pages? Or should we wait for a while? Atlantis536 (talk) 03:05, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
 * A predatory journal without proper peer-review does not comply with WP:Reliable Sources, I think, so I don't think we can give them their own pages. It also does not comply with WP:PRIMARY, which states that "primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them"; but this source was not reputably published. Last not but least, I think that this predatory journal is online-only. If this is correct, than a ZooBank entry would be required per ICZN rules to make the names valid. This does not seem to be the case here, so they remain technically invalid (which could be an argument to keep them on the list of informal dinosaurs). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 08:53, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
 * has just resurrected affected articles. I hope we can reach a consensus here so that we can silently reduce those articles to redirects again. Otherwise, I might consider listing these articles for deletion per Vanity and predatory publishing. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 13:19, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I resurrected them because the guy who added Saraikisaurus on the 2021 in archosaur paleontology page claimed many people online think the names are valid. Atlantis536 (talk) 13:22, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I see, but I think that 1) these taxa are not valid (see my comment above) and 2) we need to follow Wikipedia policies, which seem to be very clear in this case. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 13:27, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I'll let others do the redirecting/deletion/whatever however they wish. I'm honestly too confused at this point! Atlantis536 (talk) 13:28, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
 * the guy who added Saraikisaurus on the 2021 in archosaur paleontology is an IP user. I do not in-fact see any commentary on Malkani's naming other than what is on carnoferox's twitter thread. Atlantis536 given that there is currently no consensus for the recreation of the articles, and per WP:ONUS [{tq|The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.}} can you revert the articles for now? Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:44, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Done. If consensus is in favor of resurrecting the pages, feel free to restore the versions in their history. Atlantis536 (talk) 14:12, 8 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Per WP:Predatory, even if the info seems correct, it's considered a not-peer-reviewed primary source and should be avoided  User:Dunkleosteus77 &#124;push to talk 16:52, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
 * If the Open Journal of Geology is online-only then it would be required to have a ZooBank registration, which it does not. In that case all of these names would still be nomina nuda. The best thing to do is conclusively determine if the Open Journal of Geology has a print edition or not. Carnoferox (talk) 18:15, 8 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I checked, there are no ZooBank registrations, which means that they are indeed nomina nuda for the purposes of the ICZN. I'd normally be lenient on this for something like Scientific Reports, and I notice that a lot of recent journal articles have corrected the articles to include the ZooBank registration. That said, given that it is a predatory publisher combined with there being no ZooBank registration, I think a confinement to the list of informally named dinosaurs remains appropriate. I cannot find any evidence that Open Journal of Geology has a print edition. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:27, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

Carnosaur scavenger paper
Pinging here to discuss. The agent-based simulation of Pahl & Ruedas (2021), which suggested that Allosaurus relied on carrion for sustenance, has been added by this user to both Allosaurus and Sauropod. Given the status of this work as a significant minority opinion that contradicts the majority of published literature, I have strong concerns about giving it undue weight. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 05:25, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Reminds me of this weird paper someone was spamming everywhere some years ago that suggested dromaeosaurs were parasites or something, completely forgotten today... FunkMonk (talk) 13:04, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The old problem. I'm not sure we are allowed to ignore the paper completely, since it is published in what is considered a reliable source. I think, however, that we could remove it from the sauropod article – because that article might be too general to discuss minority opinions. When mentioning it in the Allosaurus article, we could state that Allosaurus and similar theropods are generally believed to be predators, and then just mention that this paper offers an alternative possibility. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 13:22, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

has now created an account. Crimins, please read the above; we are open to the inclusion of this paper, but it is a minority view and can't be given undue weight. In the case of the sauropod article, it does not fit where you inserted it in the article. The section talks only about sauropod size and not at all about their roles in ecosystems. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 16:37, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Crimins comparion of sauropods to whale falls shows that they don't understand why whale falls are important in the first place. Per WP:ONUS, While information must be verifiable to be included in an article, not all verifiable information needs to be included in an article. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article, and that it should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:07, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate this, thank you. Also, thanks for discussion - I responded to many critical viewpoints in a Reddit thread, but very happy to discuss ideas in any venue. I should mention a couple of things, though: Farlow et al., 2010 also compared sauropod carcasses to whale carcasses, so while this might be a minority view, the premise is not without precedent. Whale-fall ecology is not controversial. If we are to accept that sauropods were whale-sized animals, it seems illogical to argue that their carcasses were not significant resources to their communities. Beached whale carcasses in the arctic sometimes support hundreds of polar bears over several months, and this fact is not part of hypothetical fringe theories about polar bears. It is just a fact about where bears get their calories. The point is: we know what happens to whale carcasses. Allosaurs lived with whale-sized animals. To me, it seems unreasonable to argue that sauropod carcasses were not a major source of calories for allosaurs and others. Unlike the dromaeosaur paper you mentioned, the findings are falsifiable, and probably wouldn't have passed peer review by ecologists, in an ecology journal, if the results or arguments were unfounded. With respect to the Sauropoda page - I recognize that comments about the study may be more appropriate in an ecological section of that article, but it seemed to fit in the size section because, like modern whale-falls, their carcasses would have been valuable as a direct result of their size and not because of other factors. I did not mean to disorganize the article. Also, please forgive any formatting issues. Crimins (talk) 19:17, 25 September 2021 (UTC)


 * , thanks for discussing here. I think the main concern is the claim that carnosaurs were obligate scavengers, since this contradicts a large body of literature, and thus is a minority opinion. If this minority opinion is included in the sauropod article, then the mainstream opinion must also be provided there, and it must become clear that the new hypothesis is not the mainstream idea. Since we cannot include all minority opinions in a broad article like sauropod, we usually have to go with the predominant views that are ideally reflected in secondary sources. We do not decide here what is correct and what is wrong, but we try to summarise the existing body of literature without bias. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:52, 25 September 2021 (UTC)


 * FYI: Based on the information provided by Crimins, I have reason to believe that they are in fact one of the authors of the study. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 22:01, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Further on the authors, neither of these authors are paleontologists, with their publication records having nothing to do with paleontology. The first is employed as a "Data Support Research Analyst" Cameron Pahl Cameron Pahl the second is a virologist and evolutionary biologist specialsing in recent and Cenozoic mammals Luis A. Ruedas. Given that these authors have no relevant expertise as paleontologists, or ecological modelling of ecosystems as far as I can tell I don't see why they should be included. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:30, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * As interdisciplinary as paleontology is, I doubt this can be a criterion, and I guess that ecologists can be better suited to answer ecological questions on extinct animals than many full-time paleontologists with different specialisations are.
 * Back to the topic; maybe a compromise could be to add a sentence just on the whale fall comparison (avoiding reference to the carnosaurs) – since this can be found in two separate papers, it could be relevant enough. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:45, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It's still only weakly relevant to the topic, given that the article is supposed to be a summary of all literature published on sauropods to date. The WP:COI allegations are concerning. If it's an author trying to promote their paper then it isn't a legitimate debate. Whale falls are significant because they provide sustenance to nutrient deprived deep-sea ecosystems for substantial periods of time, which is not true of terrestrial animal carcasses. I can find no examples in the literature of people comparing elephant carcasses to whale falls for instance. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:23, 25 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi Hemiauchenia and Jens Lallensack - I apologize for the late response.

I agree with Hemiauchenia on one point: it would make little sense to compare whale and sauropod carcasses to those of elephants. Elephants are an order of magnitude less massive than even moderately sized whales and sauropods. On the basis of mass alone, it makes more sense that sauropod carcasses behaved as modern whale carcasses do. Luckily, direct observations of actual whale carcasses in terrestrial environments exist in the literature currently, see Laidre et al., 2018. However, my paper was not meant to be a summary of sauropod literature. It was about the results of an ecological model I wrote. Ecological models are almost always oversimplified representations of the systems they are meant to describe, but please see the following citations for more on this if you are curious:. The model itself was based on Wolf-Sheep, which has been replicated in some form more than 4,400 times, across many scientific disciplines including paleontology. There is also much research about elephant carcasses both with and without vertebrate scavengers. You'll notice that in the first article, authors found that insect larvae only consume 5% of an elephant carcass even when vertebrate scavengers are absent, and that many vertebrate scavengers target elephant carcasses for weeks post mortem. It is not logical to assume that gigantic sauropod carcasses were somehow less available to local consumers than elephant or whale carcasses.

Having said that, if you have suggestions for improvements to the model, please be specific. Were the sauropods, as I modeled them, too large? Was their population density too high? I followed the most conservative estimates from published work elsewhere, but I am definitely open to the possibility that sauropods were rarer than Farlow estimated. My model was potentially incomplete with respect to any of its other parameters as well and I mentioned this explicitly in the Conclusion. I should also mention that if the paper itself is indeed pure nonsense, it should be easy for you to publish a rejoinder paper that dismantles the concepts entirely. I agree with you on another point, though: I think it is strange that researchers have spent decades describing sauropods as characteristically huge animals, but have not seriously investigated the role their carcasses played to ancient ecosystems. I know of no other research that attempted to answer how much carrion their bodies would have provided to ecosystems. Why not? Finally, I must apologize for one more thing: I did not realize that adding my own research to a Wikipedia article was such a heinous crime. I am probably the first person ever to do this. It won't happen again.Crimins (talk) 03:23, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * To clarify the issue of policy (see WP:SELFCITE)... researchers are not prohibited from adding their own work. As with any platform, however, the distinction between sharing and promotion applies, which would be assessed by e.g. how many of your edits pertain to your own work. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 05:33, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

One more note: I am not a research data analyst, but a software engineer. My position should not disqualify my ideas, see the Courtier's Reply fallacy or its sibling, the Argument from Authority. I worked in Ecology previously, and Dr Ruedas is an ecologist himself. Again I doubt the paper would have passed peer review in an ecology journal if the arguments were baseless or unfounded. Crimins (talk) 03:39, 26 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Since you asked for our thoughts on this – one point of discussion I didn't saw addressed in the paper: What about juvenile sauropods? The body fossil record is heavily biased against large sized sauropods, and there are very few juveniles known from skeletons. This becomes obvious when we look at the track record – the average body size indicated by footprints is distinctively smaller than that indicated by the body fossils. Sauropods must have been r-strategists, with plenty of offspring. So I would think that suitable prey items were readily available in a sauropod-dominated habitat. Carcasses certainly played an important role too, but I'm not sure this necessarily means that the theropods relied solely on them. At least, the presence of carcasses cannot prove this. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 13:05, 26 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Yes - Others have asked me about juvenile sauropods as well, and I have a few thoughts. From an ecological perspective, I would expect there to be very few juvenile skeletons precisely because they were r-selected species.  Wild populations of r-selected species are heavily skewed toward adults and this is well documented . Sometimes 80-90% of a population consists of large animals at any given time.  [but: many fish species, and indeed some other vertebrate groups, do not exhibit this demographic pattern, because commercial fishing influences population structures significantly, so juveniles often outnumber adults, but I don't think commercial sauropod hunting existed, so not relevant to this question.] I could have reasonably modeled sauropod demographics after extant r-selected species where *most* animals are large adults, but I felt like it would have stacked the deck in favor of my hypothesis way too much. It seemed like a more responsible choice to model 30-36% share of adults, much more conservative. I had more about this in the original draft of the manuscript, but it was over 16,000 words.  One reviewer, along with the editor, thought it was too long, and suggested I cut it to 8,800 words. Anyway, the reason for this is because hatchling sea turtles and crocs, etc. usually die within the first year of their lives. Almost everything targets them. Herons, gulls, other crocs, snakes, lizards, etc.  Notably - large predators don't normally consume them in appreciable quantities. Adult Great Whites don't wait around for baby sea turtles to hatch. It isn't profitable for them.  Adult sharks are too expensive, they need to eat pinnipeds and other large animals in order to keep the lights on. In my view, hatchling sauropods were probably not profitable to adult allosaurs, either, but: if we are right that large theropods inhabited different niches through ontogeny, it would be reasonable to think that small, juvenile allosaurs targeted baby sauropods during seasons of availability. I doubt large animals would have done this regularly.  But regarding preservation: mortality of juveniles was probably very high during early years of life, and mortality *causes* were probably not favorable to fossilization of their skeletons. At-large mortality of larger animals was probably lower, but ultimately due to different factors - exhaustion and starvation are the main killers of adults in migratory species like whales and elephants, and it has been suggested that this was also the case for sauropods .  As we know from modern carcass research in vertebrates, large cadavers are usually disarticulated by vultures and mammals very quickly post mortem, sometimes in a matter of hours.  I think scavenging dinosaurs would have also done this to sauropod remains, which might partially explain why some of the biggest fossils we have are from a single shoulder blade, a cervical vert, etc in isolation.  The larger carcasses would have been torn apart by scavengers very rapidly because htey had the most calories. So the result is low preservation of babies, higher preservation of larger adults.


 * The difference between footprints/trackways and fossils is also something I would naturally expect from an r-selected species of whale sized animals, for a couple of reasons. Muddy depositional environments that preserve trackways might not have been preferred by large sauropods because of substrate viscosity. There is probably some math to calculate the maximum stability of animals with respect to their (undue?)weight vs the viscosity of their substrate. In my perspective, a muddy floodplain was probably dangerous for larger animals from a quicksand and or/tar-pit/'predator trap' direction. This could be totally wrong, but it would seem reasonable to me that a 20 tonne sauropod, that couldn't see its own feet, would realistically avoid areas with soft/muddy substrate when possible. I could be totally wrong about this but someone needs to do the math before I would be able to argue this, maybe they already did, I am not sure but it could also be a good project if no one has done this yet.


 * Another thing about my model, is that it was really tough for endotherms to survive. They were expensive. It is entirely possible that actual densities of allosaurs were 3x higher than what carrion alone could support in my model. If so, sauropod carrion would have only provided ⅓ of their calories, and they would have been forced to make up the difference by hunting for the remaining 2/3 of their needs.  We will probably never know the actual densities of allosaurs in their natural environments, but the point of my study was to show that it was POSSIBLE that a population of allosaurs COULD have been *sustained* by sauropod carrion as a primary resource. If conditions were similar to those I modeled (and they truly might have been much different), it is POSSIBLE that they evolved as analogues of modern vultures, adapted to eat sauropods for a big chunk of their needs. Ultimately, if they got 51% of their calories from carrion, they were technically scavengers, but that is not super important to me and I doubt the allosaurs cared, either. In my view this problem makes the Late Jurassic, and indeed other environments, much more interesting because it means sauropods were probably ecosystem engineers even after they died, which is pretty incredible and much different than what we have now in terrestrial biomes.


 * Okay I need to take a break from this but also I really appreciate that you read my paper and considered my ideas. I love this discussion. I really hope this type of conversation can expand how we think about dinsoaurs and other ancient animals. Oh and one more thing - I'm working on another 2 papers that will also use computational methods to answer some questions about dinosaurs that haven't really been asked yet. Let me know if you want to be involved (I totally understand if not - I have committed serious Dinosaur Heresy and there is a big letter A on my chest, probably forever). But it would be excellent to have your expertise for especially one of my ideas, no worries if not. Crimins (talk) 20:54, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I sent you an email (since this discussion is becoming increasingly unrelated to Wikipedia). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:05, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Pendraig
New dinosaur from the Late Triassic of the UK, Pendraig had just had a news blitz. The paper however doesn't seem to be out, yet, giving a 404 error. Should we merge to the list of informally named dinosaurs for now, as we did for Vectaerovenator, or is that premature? Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:29, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

The paper is up now crisis averted, feel free to improve the article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 07:46, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Baryonychinae
Thought this may be significant enough to say here. I've been working on a draft for a Baryonychinae page, and will eventually work on Spinosaurinae, so whoever would like to review or add to it before I eventually move it to article namespace is free to do so: Draft:Baryonychinae Hiroizmeh (talk) 22:41, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I think it already looks better than most "subfamily" articles we have. And for the record, I'm in favour of merging subtribes etc. to there. FunkMonk (talk) 22:52, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Uhmm... So, apparently, about 5 hours ago, DGG deleted the Baryonychinae draft. Would you know how to go about recovering a deleted page and its contents? Hiroizmeh (talk) 15:18, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, why, was there copyrighted text? FunkMonk (talk) 15:32, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't believe so. A lot was paraphrased from the Spinosauridae article, so I don't think so.
 * Perhaps it was a mistake, since the Spinosaurinae draft wasn't deleted, and it has no content. It was listed as an "uncontroversial maintenance deletion," although the page was not blank or a duplicate. I messaged the administrator that deleted it on his talk page about it. Hiroizmeh(talk) 16:34, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, probably the best way to go. Alternatively, you can also write such drafts in your sandbox page, then no one will come and mess with it. FunkMonk (talk) 18:33, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I've opened up a request at Requests_for_undeletion. Likely to get undeleted. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:22, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, truly appreciate it. Hiroizmeh (talk) 15:48, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Genus and species
Hey question I keep noticing certain dinosaur species being redirects to genus articled.

Like the article on Pterodactylus lists species of Pterodactylus but, there is no articles on each Pterodactylus species. Also the species T-rex and the genus Tyrannosaurus are merged into one article.

Sure I understand about Monotypic taxon, there are moments where some genera have only one species.

But, some of these dinosaur genuses have many species, like the Pterodactylus articles lists like 50 Pterodactylus species. Not to mention I believe I have seen some reliable sources mention that the genus Tyrannosaurus has other species in it other than the T-rex.

Sorry if it seems like if this question or this kind of thing has already been discussed. Do some of these species not pass the notability test?CycoMa (talk) 20:58, 16 October 2021 (UTC)


 * All species are notable. But in dinosaur paleontology, genera are the units we work with. Species are almost always contested, and rarely generally accepted. It's simply extremely difficult to tell species apart when you only have a few bones. 50 Pterodactylus species may have been named in total, but at the moment, most paleontologists may accept one or two of them only. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:08, 16 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Also might I point out the second sentence of Pterodactylus: "It is thought to contain only a single species, Pterodactylus antiquus". That's what most reliable sources say nowadays, although other sources find that there are up to three. Many of these genera are functionally monotypic despite their historical status. There is no way to reconcile all reliable sources in one article, that is why we can only represent the consensus per WP:NPOV. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 22:38, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Big John
I recently created an article for Big John (dinosaur), a fossilized triceratops that was recently sold at auction. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you, Thriley (talk) 04:48, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Now up for deletion, see Articles for deletion/Big John (dinosaur). Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:45, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Scelidosauridae
I redirected Scelidosauridae to Thyreophora a while ago, though it has been reverted by a apparently new IP. Apparently because this is contested, I have to go through a merge discussion. As such I have opened one at Talk:Thyreophora. Participate if interested. Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:58, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Ubirajara paper withdrawn
The paper describing Ubirajara jubatus paper has now been officially withdrawn, nearly a year after initial in press publication, see WITHDRAWN: A maned theropod dinosaur from Gondwana with elaborate integumentary structures. I think at this point the article should be redirected and a section made on the List of informally named dinosaurs. This is different from the "Temporary Removal" seen earlier like this Wayback machine from May. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:27, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think it has any taxonomic consequences if the paper is withdrawn, wasn't there a similar discussion about some other taxon recently? FunkMonk (talk) 20:45, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I think you're thinking about Oculudentavis? Also I checked and Ubirajara has an official Zoobank entry, see ZooBank.org. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:48, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, there was a Dinosaur Mailing List thread from 2020 that indicated the name wasn't registered at Zoobank, so must have been fixed since... And in that case, I wonder if the withdrawal makes any difference. FunkMonk (talk) 20:51, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It is a "withdrawn article in press". The article was never published, and will not be. The taxon should therefore be invalid according to the ICZN? The Zoobank entry should not be valid as well, since it refers to a non-existing paper. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:29, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * A concern I have is that given the paper is now inaccessible, many of the claims made in the article fail WP:V. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:36, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the point is that this was not an online-first article, it was only "in-press". That means that it was not yet final, and not yet published. The Zoobank entry was provisionally, and the taxon has never been valid. We never should have created that article, and we should not cite any manuscripts "in review" or "in press" in the first place. Yes I agree, the info would have to be removed if there is no other source. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:41, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, in that case yeah, I agree it should be placed in the informal list. FunkMonk (talk) 21:45, 28 September 2021 (UTC)s
 * Sci-Hub has a copy of the paper. Unfortunately, there are probably no other ways to check the information. HFoxii (talk) 15:11, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

There's a new story in Science. I'm now thinking the article should be kept, but reworked to focus on the controversy, alongside an entry on the list of informally named dinosaurs. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:08, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I like this idea. The topic is clearly relevant enough to merit its own article. We just have to remove the taxonbox, the italics from the title, and the information that can no longer be cited. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:19, 29 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi fellows! I searched for this discussion since the paper withdrawn and finded it yesterday. Today I made some changes in line with your suggestions here. Looks good? Cheers! Ixocactus (talk) 23:05, 10 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Unfortunately there is an eager editor who doesn't understand that an invalid taxon cannot have a taxonbox, and reverts respective changes. Could somebody please have a look? Thanks. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:33, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Historically has been willing to discuss. Pinging to notify of the above discussion. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 13:21, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
 * THanks for the ping Lythronaxargestes. The main argument for removal of the taxobox is that invalid taxa don't have taxoboxes, however multiple invalid taxa such as Asfaltovenator; Narynsuchus (both also nomina nuda) do have taxoboxes, I said as much in my revertion that other invalid taxa have taxoboxes. Lavalizard101 (talk) 13:27, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Pinging . Lavalizard101 (talk) 13:35, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for discussing here. Regarding Narynsuchus, I think the taxonbox should be removed as well. I'm also at a loss where to find the publication of "Averianov et al., 1990" which is cited as authorship. It is not cited in the article. Regarding Asfaltovenator, it is more complicated: It is technically a Nomen nudum but not practically (i.e., the one ICZN rule requiring ZooBank registration gets ignored by both the journal (Scientific Reports) and the scientific community). We discussed this before, and we consider those valid taxa here, also because there is not even a paper that does not accept Asfaltovenator as a valid taxon, so calling it a Nomen nudum would be close to original research from our side. A completely different thing with Ubirajara: The paper does not exist, so the taxon can't be valid either. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 13:47, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Those were just some examples, quite a few articles in Category:Nomina nuda have taxoboxes but are invalid. Lavalizard101 (talk) 13:55, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
 * They should not have one if they are Nomina nuda. But before removing taxonboxes, we need to look at them case-by-case. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:01, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Lavalizard, I'll remind you of WP:OTHERSTUFF: just because some pages don't follow proper conventions, doesn't mean that this one should. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 14:30, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

FYI: An IP has rewritten the page to make it seem like a valid taxon. Miracusaurs (talk) 02:09, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I've reverted. I think it's a kid. They reverted the Ceratosuchopsini redirect and replaced it with simply the word "yes". The Toronto IP suggests to me it might be the same kid who was vandalisting the paleoart review archives around a year ago. It might be worth going to AIV and getting a long-term block because silent, semi-vandal IPs that make prolific edits are an enormous nuisance to deal with. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:58, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Seeing that the article is still not redirected, contra the initial proposal - what should the course of action be? Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 20:13, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Two of us (Hemiauchenia and me) thought that it might be worth considering keeping the article (see comments above), since it is clearly relevant as a topic. My opinion is not a strong one, but I also don't see any consensus yet. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:23, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I think the Ubirajara controversy has recieved enough news coverage that it probably passes the WP:GNG even if it doesn't pass WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:59, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
 * That's fair enough. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 21:41, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
 * The current controversy aside, there's still a specimen representing a distinct taxon (unlike Archaeoraptor), isn't it fairly certain it will be renamed one day? FunkMonk (talk) 21:49, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Most likely only if the specimen is returned from Germany to Brazil; then publishing journals like Science will likely accept a 'redescripton' and the name will become valid again. But it may not happen if Germany and Brazil never resolve it... Hopefully that's not the case. Hiroizmeh (talk) 00:00, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

FA collab proposal: Proceratosaurus
Given the recent success of the Bajadasaurus FA, I thought that I would propose Proceratosaurus as the next FA collab. It's a really nice specimen, and it was given a thorough description in 2010 1, so there's a lot to say about it's anatomy, and its position as one of the oldest known coelurosaurs and tyrannosaurs makes it an important specimen. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:18, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
 * It would probably be an easy one, given the limited material. The current collab, Confuciusornis, is still in limbo, though. Perhaps it was a bit too complex to begin with, simpler articles might be more ideal for collaborations. FunkMonk (talk) 17:28, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I question the effectiveness of the model to begin with; collaborations beyond two or three people, are relying on far too many people to all be reliable and have time to do their part.  LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 23:39, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
 * I think it's fine to have formal and informal collaborations working in parallel. FunkMonk (talk) 17:58, 18 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Speaking of collabs, the very last dinosaur TFA will be Bajadasaurus at the end of this month, and seemingly for the first time, there will be no dinosaur FAs left to feature on the main page. So yet another reason to write more! FunkMonk (talk) 00:28, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Speaking of Proceratosaurus, a 3d turnaround has been released you can see how flattened it is. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:36, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * A shame we don't have more free images of it, it appears the 1910 description doesn't contain images, though if it did, they would probably be public domain? FunkMonk (talk) 00:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Seems it just wasn't included in the pdf version linked in our article, but an image can be seen here:The Quarterly journal of the Geological Society of London. I'll check tomorrow if it's pd. FunkMonk (talk) 00:49, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Can't figure out who the artist "J. Green" was or when he died, so I've just uploaded the image locally here. FunkMonk (talk) 14:12, 22 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Patagotitan is on my list of articles to improve at some point, as is Rahonavis (this one is probably less stable). Any interest? Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 01:39, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, some thoughts on the collaboration model... I think for the most part collaborations don't really work out unless there are one or two editors who spearhead the majority of the work. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 01:42, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
 * And it doesn't always have to be within the formal voting model, for example Lythronax was done parallel to that. If you're still up for it,, I could join on Proceratosaurus, we just need to split what parts we want to work on, and of course, anyone is welcome to join. FunkMonk (talk) 17:58, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Honestly Protoceratops is well outside my area of knowledge, but I'd be happy to assist if theres areas you'd think I'd be able to contribute. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:22, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, every article I've written was outside my area of expertise until I worked on it hehe, I mainly learn by doing here. And since it's known from so little, Proceratosaurus could be a good stepping stone towards writing more complex articles, if you want to do that some day. FunkMonk (talk) 20:26, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Are you talking about Proceratosaurus or Protoceratops? I was assuming that you were talking about the latter because that's you were actually saying, but Protoceratops is known from whole ontogenetic sequences. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:37, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Proceratosaurus, not sure what happened there, but yeah, the one you proposed at the beginning of this article, we don't have any FAs about its part of the tree. Just a partial skull, should be easy to write about in a complete manner. The first dinosaur article I wrote was about a tooth taxon, Dromaeosauroides, so an easy start. FunkMonk (talk) 20:59, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I was thinking Protoceratops seems like a pretty complex topic, heh. I've written most of what I can find about the discovery secton. If you write the description section, I'll write the paleoenvironment section. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:11, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, cool, I wonder if we can cobble anything together about palaeobiology. Perhaps there is some general information in the Dave Hone tyrannosaur book. FunkMonk (talk) 21:23, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I have this one on my to do list, but I won't begin any time soon unless others join in. FunkMonk (talk) 13:27, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Mention of feathers in our article Psittacosaurus
The lead of Psittacosaurus reads:


 * One individual was found preserved with long filaments on the tail, similar to those of Tianyulong,


 * one specimen had feathers on its tail and scales across the rest of the animal.

Since the issue  of which archosaur taxa really had feathers, versus which had "non-feather featherlike structures", is currently contentious  (i.e.,  did only theropods evolve true feathers?), I assume that we want to be careful to get this right. (If Psittacosaurus really did have feathers, cool. If not, then we should rephrase this.)

The section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psittacosaurus#Soft_tissue_and_coloration also has discussion of this and people might want to take a look.

- 2804:14D:5C59:8693:ED5D:39FC:315E:2428 (talk) 02:13, 12 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Unlike the latter section, the bit of quoted text is very strange and doesn't fit at all. Removed. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 22:49, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Velociraptor
This 2006 FA promotion is one of the oldest unreviewed ones left at WP:URFA/2020. To my untrained eye, I don't see any major issues with uncited text or unreliable sources, but I don't follow this field of study closely enough to really judge currency or comprehensiveness here. Do any major issues stand out with this one? Hog Farm Talk 21:04, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I think there are parts of the article that could definitely use expansion (for example, Classification is not particularly well-organized) but I'm not sure any of this warrants delisting. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 21:25, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
 * At a glance, I don't think it's out to date or such, though it could certainly be expanded, but by how much is probably a matter of taste. FunkMonk (talk) 22:11, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Tangential: should Velociraptor in popular culture even exist? It looks like a bit of a mess. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 22:36, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Seems too short and messy to warrant an article, I'd agree. And like a magnet for WP:trivia, but that goes for all these pop culture articles. FunkMonk (talk) 13:26, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Should this project include non-dinosaur dinosauromorphs?
I just noticed that dinosauromorphs such as Marasuchus, Lewisuchus and others are not tagged as part of the dinosaur project. While I think it would make sense that they are, given their close relation to dinosaurs, and the fact that some of them are dinosaurs by some definitions, I think it should be discussed before we do anything. If there is agreement on this, the scope description of the project should also be adjusted. FunkMonk (talk) 13:32, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * The fact that we have two separate wikiprojects who's members strongly overlap is fairly redundant anyway. I don't think this has any practical effect. Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:39, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Wikiproject tags barely have any practical effect in general, but the point of this section is more about organisation. Right now, the tagging is inconsistent and confusing, but there is no reason why it should be. FunkMonk (talk) 13:42, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * what two projects? Because if you’re thinking of the parent project, WP Palaeontology, then 100% of WP Dinosaurs articles are overlapping. That is why you should only tag with a child WP and not all the parent and grandparent projects.
 * many other WPs adopt paraphyletic taxa. WP Fungi handles oomycetes and slime moulds, for example.  I think including dinosauromorphs would be a good.  Its pretty easy for new users to understand what’s included and what’s not.  It even has “dinosaur” in the name :) --awkwafaba (📥) 13:54, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I also think WP palaeo tags are redundant on dinosaur articles, but it seems to have become the norm. FunkMonk (talk) 14:01, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * The majority of non-dinosaurian dinosauromorph are silesaurs which are considered possible dinosaurs anyways, and so should probably be included either way; lagerpetids are being considered possible pterosauromorphs nowadays. Nyasasaurus and herrerasaurids are considered dinosaurs a lot of the time. As far as I can tell the only taxa this would even apply to are Marasuchus and Lagosuchus... and they're probable synonyms. To that end it seems harmless to include it, I would support that idea.  LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 20:01, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I think we discussed this before years ago and decided to include dinosauromorphs, but I can't remember where. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:21, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * In the broad view of the project, I think this makes sense. Dinosauromorphs provide important and necessary context for early dinosaur evolution, so they seem to fall under the same broad umbrella to me. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 23:11, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see I included a mention of this under project scope long ago. Overlooked it because it's not in the intro text at the start of the project page. I think it was discussed at a time when we were mainly discussing how to cover birds, so it wasn't out main focus of the discussion. But yeah, there are a few stragglers left, in addition to the ones I mentioned above, so I guess they're fair game for tagging. But maybe we could discuss whether we should remove palaeo project tags from dinosaur articles? FunkMonk (talk) 20:36, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I think that removing the palaeo project tags would be technically correct. I'm just not sure if its worth the effort. As with the category wild growth, there is some risk that somebody adds them all in again at some point. The double project tags are not a super pressing issue in any case. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:54, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm certainly not the one who is going to start doing it, hehe... But I'll try to tag the rest of the dinosauromorph articles soon. Part of this query is also due to me thinking what would happen if a dinosauromorph article was featured. Would it count as a Wikiproject dinosaurs article? Certainly not a pressing issue, but since I dabble in that a lot, certainly something I'd want a solution for. FunkMonk (talk) 21:10, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Now the missing six have been tagged. I replaced reptile and animal projects in some of them, as these would be fairly redundant. FunkMonk (talk) 17:37, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Stegouros
I'm sure some you guys have heard of Stegouros by now. I was going to propose making a preliminary draft page for it to be worked on, but a Stegouros page was already created as a redirect to Ankylosauria, so a draft page couldn't be created and moved to article namespace with that already existing, unless the existing page was deleting first. And since I don't have administrator permissions, all of that would take a while.

I guess what we could have more control of is to start a "draft" in one of my sandbox subpages and just copy & paste the text into the existing redirect page for Stegouros once the publication becomes valid. Hiroizmeh (talk) 17:30, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I think this is probably worthy of having a temporary entry on the List of informally named dinosaurs, same as we did for Vectaerovenator when the press release came out a month before the actual paper did. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:37, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
 * If it means anything it seems that the author's did not intend for the name to be in the preprint, so it may be more academically respectful to not have any content surrounding it until the paper is actually published. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LittleLazyLass (talk • contribs)
 * All sorts of inadvertent names that were never intended to be published are included in the List of informally named dinosaurs, I see no reason to exclude this one. The cat is well and truly out of the bag at this point. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:35, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and created an entry, see List_of_informally_named_dinosaurs. It could potentially be months before the paper is published (I am fairly sure it is going to be published in an open access publication like Nature Communications or Scientific Reports, which generally have high acceptance rates) but we will have to see. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:05, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

The study has now been published as a non-open access nature paper. Due to this am I correct in assuming the this image taken from the preprint will need to deleted from Wikimedia Commons? The preprint is openly accessible and the figure is slightly changed in the final paper but I don't imagine either of these things override the copyright of the actual study. I assume the figures from the paper's supplemental data isn't something we can use either? On a related note I had been working on a draft for Parankylosauria, named in the paper, and have copied that over to mainspace. I expected to have more time to finish up the article before publishing but I'll keep working on it. LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 17:07, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * No the figures from the preprint are fine and can remain on commons, as they were released under an open access license at the time, and the preprint is still up. We can't upload the new versions of the figures from the closed access paper obviously, but why would we need to when they appear to have been barely modified? Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:12, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The supplementary material is also part of the preprint and hosted on researchsquare, I therefore think they also fall under the CC-BY 4.0 license. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:15, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * In that case could we get those other figures uploaded? Some of them look pretty useful.  LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 22:16, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Two of the other figures are on researchgate, see, other images can be ripped out of the pdf using something like PDFcandy, have you not uploaded to commons before? Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:22, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I've uploaded to commons but lack any experience of pulling an image from a pdf; I didn't even know that was a thing until your message just now. I can handle the ResearchGate ones.  LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 22:37, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * If you tell me which figures you want from the paper I'll upload them, how about that? Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:11, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * On something else, should the preprint be referenced in the article for Stegouros? If not, I'll remove it. Hiroizmeh (talk) 17:24, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd use the direct link for the preprint in the |url= parameter. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:26, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Thagomizer article merge
I see no reason why the short, underdeveloped article thagomizer which about a topic entirely within the broader topic of Stegosauria should not be merged into the latter article.  LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 20:56, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I tried to take it to AfD, but the discussion closed a keep, with the basic reason being "but it's funny" and it had received some media coverage. I notice that academic literature avoids the term, arguably because there is a continuum between plates and spikes in many stegosaurs. I moved all of the relevant information about the use of spikes as a defence into the main Stegosauria article a while ago. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:58, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It seems ridiculous to me that notability overrides how little there is to say about the topic when it can be covered appropriate as a section in another article, and likewise that an entirely unrelated form of mathematics sharing the name somehow justifies the existence of some Frakenstein article propped up by the notability of both. But that certainly seems like an impossible weight of keep votes to overturn. Having all relevant information at Stegosauria and pretending it doesn't exist seems like the best way to handle things.  LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 21:05, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * This is a case where we're fighting Wikipedia's love for pop culture trivia, which we probably can't win... FunkMonk (talk) 21:34, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Precedent clearly calls for a Macuahuitl (dinosaur) article ;) Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 21:35, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The article once had a section on paleobiology. If we keep this article, and I don't see why this would hurt, we could consider adding it back in, as it is a clearly relevant aspect of the topic (redundancy with the stegosaur article isn't a strong argument as far as I understood). This would make the article a bit more substantial at least. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:50, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Polar forests of the Cretaceous
Seems relevant to plug this discussion at WT:PALEO here regarding the potential merging of the mentioned article, as it hasn't garnered much attention.  LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 01:32, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

WelcometoJurassicPark is back
is back socking on a hungarian IP address fucking around with dinosaur sizes, see, I noticed him socking as around a year ago as well. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:13, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, it's way more than that, I've identified at least 4 other recent IP socks. Blocked at SPI of course. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 22:45, 1 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it's also time to discuss Magnatyrannus. Seems they're leaving a mess everywhere they go. FunkMonk (talk) 23:35, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Already some discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Palaeontology. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:44, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Currently they're insisting on switching the Taxonomy template of Pisanosaurus from Dracohors to Ornithischia because two random recent papers found it in the latter and so clearly the entire debate about its possible silesaurid identity is put to rest... the Convolosaurus paper cited isn't even about basal dinosaurs. Bringing it up here to avoid an edit war (and since the talk page of a taxonomy template won't garner any attention).  LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 14:09, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * On the topic of Magnatyrannus, they recently initiated a merge tag to merge Parksosauridae into Thescelosauridae (and subsequently flip-flopped yesterday), which then prompted an interesting debate between LittleLazyLass and myself here: Talk:Thescelosauridae. I feel like we are nearing a consensus, but to me it is an unusual situation that others here on the project might be interested in weighing in on. Cougroyalty (talk) 18:25, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The taxonomy of Late Cretaceous Laurasian basal neornithischians is still really contentious, I have no strong feelings about the merge. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:39, 2 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm going to add User:Rex65mya to this list. This user has added large paragraphs of text to multiple articles, cited to only popular science sources. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 05:30, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The biggest warning sign is the "65mya", when everybody whos in the know, knows that the end of the Cretaceous is actually 66mya. Hemiauchenia (talk) 06:26, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I am fairly sure that the recently active IP is . As such I have opened a sockpuppet investigation, see Sockpuppet investigations/Falconfly. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:51, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Didn't even realize that he was still going... Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 15:08, 8 December 2021 (UTC)