Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mammals

New citation template for ASM Mammalian Diversity Database
I've created a new template,cite mdd, for citing ASM Mammalian Diversity Database. It uses the same module as, which will work identically, but I've updated the code to fix options that were broken when they changed the website. I thought thus was a good to to create a dedicated template with a documentation page.

For linking to species there are two approaches,:
 * 1.) using {para|id}}, optionally with either title or both genus and species. This links to the explorer page and opens very slowly This links to a new fast taxon page.
 * code 1a:
 * output 1a:
 * code 1b:
 * output 1b:
 * 2.) using the genus and species parameters, which links to the treeview page and opens the species infobox.
 * code:
 * output: *
 * There is a quirk in that their permalink has a url like  where the genus and species parts don't do anything and only the third id part is needed. Cite mdd links to this page if all three of the id, genus and species parameters are included as that should be a permalink. The genus+species variant without the id (option 2) is quicker with a better output, but would break if they changed the genus assignment. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 17:06, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
 * There are now links of the form https://www.mammaldiversity.org/taxon/$1 (where $1=ID) which open the species info page rapidly. The template has been updated. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 15:30, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

New soft-furred hedgehog (gymnures) species
There is a new paper describing new Hylomys species of soft-furred hedgehogs (gymnures) making the news today. The paper describes two new species from museum species and elevates three subspecies of  Hylomys suillus to species status. The study includes an analysis of mitochondial and nuclear DNA and used morphological and biographical considerations as part of their decision. In part, it confirms earlier studies so is likely to be accepted. It also discusses the conservation and green status, so there may be IUCN assessments in the pipeline. While we should wait on acceptance elsewhere before creating new articles, a mention of the proposal in existing articles is probably warrranted.

The introduction also has a good overview of family Galericinae and discusses other recent changes, like recognition of Otohylomys for the former Hylomys megalotis. This has been accepted by the MDD (Apr 2023), but hasn't been implemented on Wikipedia. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 09:05, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

—  Jts1882 &#124; talk 09:05, 22 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I saw the primary author of the paper started the work on the Hylomys article. I cleaned it up, created some stubs, moved short-tailed gymnure to Javan short-tailed gymnure and left a disambiguation in its place, and updated a bunch of templates and listicles. Whew! That was fun. XD I only tagged some of the listicles as needing an update. I may get back to them later, but I wouldn't be upset if someone else fixed them. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:55, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I see you have already created the articles, but I thought it worth noting here than the ASM-MDD now recognise the extra five species of Hylomys. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 14:16, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yup. They are all made. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:52, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

ASM's MDD v1.12 is now live
It's been live for a few days now. I meant to post here about this earlier. There are 115 deltas from 1.11 to 1.12, including the following new species:

Looks like about a third of the list already have at least a stub created! - UtherSRG (talk) 18:51, 10 January 2024 (UTC)


 * And one of them is Leopardus narinensis! Yes! Now I just need the IUCN to catch up to the Leopardus splits. SilverTiger12 (talk) 17:06, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * It would be nice, but we can at least create the articles for new species. New species would need fresh assessments before the IUCN will list them; splits could use the subspecies assessment, if it exists. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:09, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I note that the species list above only includes de novo new species. There are another 38 extra species due to splits and one "revalidation". There are also some lumps. The list of changes can be got from the "Diff_v1.11-v1.12.csv" file at https://zenodo.org/records/10463715. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 18:16, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Correct. Like I said, 115 deltas. de novo species are the easiest to deal with, as they generally don't have any impact on other articles, other than adding them to lists, so I looked for those, first. Splits and lumps are the more difficult changes to deal with, as the existing articles will need a fine attention to details. Moves from one genus to another (or from subgenus to genus) are somewhere in the middle. And yup, I'm looking directly at the CSV, too. I did the download from the MDD website. - UtherSRG (talk) 18:23, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Looks like all of the additions don't meet the current standard for being added to their family/order lists (e.g. IUCN and ASM agree on a change from MSW3), though I need to check the non de novo species as well as double-check the moonrats. (I did catch the IUCN updates last month). If I'm wrong and any of these match up with our slow/conservative friends at the IUCN, please let me know! -- Pres N  20:39, 12 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I've added a manual option for the taxonbar. Just add ID to the taxobar, e.g. for the leopard: . If there is more than one wikidata item add the number to the parameter, e.g. for the lion.
 * It would be better to request an identifier on Wikidata, but my experience trying this was shall we just say discouraging. This works until someone sets it up on Wikidata.—  Jts1882 &#124; talk 15:19, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'll request on Wikidata. I was going to do one for IRNMG, but because that is an interim solution, the previous request was already denied. MDD should be permanent, so should be easier to get through. But yay, thanks! - UtherSRG (talk) 15:25, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Do you mean IRMNG? It already has one that is supported by taxonbar.
 * I think an identifier for MDD was requested early on but there was an issue with their permalinks. The current links of form https://www.mammaldiversity.org/taxon/1006020 look stable and load fast (unlike a previous version). —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 15:50, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Um... not IRMNG... I misspoke but can't remember the ID db that I Was thinking of. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:55, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah... it was Mindat's taxon db. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:06, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Errr... nope. Not that, either. I know I was going to request a property, but it was already declined. Ah well. I'll put in a proposal for MDD when I have the time. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:08, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Proposal: here, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 16:21, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Dude. I just said I woud... and now have as well... here... - UtherSRG (talk) 16:44, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that (you did say "when I have the time"...), Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 16:46, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, so if you'd said "I have time, should I? I would have said go ahead. Please comment on yours that you support merging in the info from my proposal, since there are some additional fields I included, and some that we filled in differently. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:49, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Which location is the correct place to put an initial proposal?
 * Anyway, we shouldn't add the manual parameters for now, as this identifier should get approved and the manual parameters would need deleting. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 17:03, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Use Mac's proposal. That's in the right spot. I saw that when I was about to transclude into the proposal project, so I came here with my WTF. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:00, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Now I might understand the system. I hadn't noticed that the edit option on Property proposal/Natural science redirects to the proposal page. I have a bunch of new Species Files that need an ID. Do you know if there is a method to make a bulk request or must all be done separately? —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 08:49, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't, sorry. - UtherSRG (talk) 10:42, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The identifier has been created at and I've updated taxonbar. I've added a couple on Wikidata for testing, but it will need a bot to update other mammal species. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 07:45, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
 * See! Not such a difficult process. :) - UtherSRG (talk) 12:22, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Wolf Populations from Blanco and Sundseth (2023). The situation of the wolf (Canis lupus) in the European Union.
This wikipedia article List of gray wolf populations by country needs a bit of actualization. However, we do not necessarily need to remove something to add more updated information. We could showcase the progress (or decreases) made by wolf populations with estimates of populations by time.

In "Blanco JC and Sundseth K (2023). The situation of the wolf (Canis lupus) in the European Union – An In-depth Analysis. A report of the N2K Group for DG Environment, European Commission." 

It is said (page 8) under the sub-section : Updated information on wolf numbers in the European Union

"In 2023, wolves have been detected across all EU Member States except Ireland, Cyprus and Malta, and there are breeding packs in 23 countries. In this analysis, about 20,300 wolves have been estimated in 2023 across the EU, a figure slightly higher than the 19,400 wolves estimated by Boitani et al. (2022) and significantly higher than the 11,193 wolves estimated in 2012. Overall, the number of wolves in the EU is increasing."

There are multiples pertinents tables and figures in this documents (such as table 2.2.1, figure 2.3.1, table 2.4.1 (NOTABLY), table 2.4.2 (Notably), and others)

I'm particularly busy with time. But I felt important to share this updated source that covers most European countries, so that one or many members could help out updating this article, in a cooperative manner. Thank you.Gimly24 (talk) 02:02, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Grizzly bear subspecies
There's a conflict on Wikipedia regarding how many subspecies of grizzly bear there are. The intro text on the grizzly bear page (which mentions other North American brown bear subspecies besides U. a. horribilis) directly contradicts the page's taxobox (which treats all non-ABC Islands NA bears as being U. a. horribilis and lists the rest as "former subspecies now synonymized"). The pages for California grizzly bear, Mexican grizzly bear and Ungava brown bear treat them as extinct populations of U. a. horribilis, while the pages for other North American brown bears, as well as subspecies of brown bear, treat all these populations as distinct subspecies.

The approach should certainly be consistent across pages, but what approach should be taken? Miller et al. 2006 suggested that previous subspecies definitions of non-ABC Islands bears didn't line up with mtDNA, but made no specific synonymizations. I'm not aware of other recent works that explicitly support lumping of North American bear subspecies (but please link them if you know of any). Mychajliw et al. 2024 provisionally considered at least the California grizzly bear as a distinct subspecies, following ITIS and Wilson and Reeder 2005, but in the SOM acknowledged Miller et al. 2006 and highlighted that further work on grizzly bear taxonomy is needed. Personally, I think that the subspecies should be treated as separate here unless there's explicit support for lumping in the literature. What do you all think? Shuvuuia (talk) 01:24, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * The Handbook of Mammals of the World still recognized 14 extant subspecies, and the text seems to imply that two extinct subspecies (californicus and crowtheri) are also still valid. Ucucha (talk) 15:19, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I've went ahead and made edits. If no taxonomic authority supports NA grizzly bear synonymy, and since Miller et al. 2006 does not perform an explicit taxonomic revision, I would argue it is misleading to present the synonymy as a done deal. Better to explain that things are uncertain at the moment (e.g. de Jong et al. 2023 recovered Kodiak and Alaskan Peninsula bears as within a Eurasian clade and separate from other North American bears entirely) and further work is needed. Shuvuuia (talk) 20:23, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Riversleigh rainforest koala
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Riversleigh rainforest koala that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 00:20, 25 February 2024 (UTC)