Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology

Discussion on use of palaeoart in FACs
FAC discussion relevant to editors here, and perhaps the MOS for images should have a note on how to deal with palaeoart once consensus emerges. FunkMonk (talk) 13:45, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Merge proposal for Caenagnathoidea into Oviraptorosauria
I've added a merge proposal to Talk:Caenagnathoidea to merge it with Oviraptorosauria for the following reasons: Thank you for your time. --A Cynical Idealist (talk) 19:32, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) The vast majority of constituent taxa are shared by both clades.
 * 2) The taxa excluded from the smaller clade are ambiguous due to conflicting taxonomies.
 * 3) Any new information added to caenagnathoidea would need to also be added to oviraptorosauria for that reason.
 * 4) Portions of text from both pages are copy/pasted onto one another.
 * 5) Similar merges occurred recently for Tyrannoraptora and Maniraptoromorpha for reasons that apply equally to this merge.

Mass merge discussion notice
A collective merge discussion on a number of potentially redundant clade-level articles has been opened at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Dinosaurs and may be of interest to this WikiProject.  LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 21:56, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Editor altering fossil age ranges, introducing contradictions and spurious accuracy
User:Mannlegur is changing a large number of fossil age ranges, as at Fish, without checking to see if these contradict cited descriptions in the bodies of the affected articles, as they did in Fish's case. Sometimes they replace names like "Silurian" with numeric ranges, which may convey spurious accuracy: that too can be misleading. I've posted a note on their talk page, but the project may need to check all the edits for appropriateness. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:41, 19 May 2024 (UTC)


 * We'll keep an eye on it. Thanks for letting us know! The Morrison Man (talk) 22:01, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Harpetida
https://mapress.com/zt/article/view/zootaxa.5450.1.1 Is a new article on Devonian Harpetida from Morocco.

Now, from the abstract (the only section I have access to) they basically:


 * Redefine several genera, but i will focus on Eskoharpes being redefined, with Globoharpes a Jr. synonym.


 * And the second thing I will focus on is the erection several genera (or in this case, re-erection) of Fritchaspis out of Lioharpes and Helioharpes out of Harpes.

This could lead to conflict, as in the Order page Helioharpes is listed as a synonym of Harpes, Fritchaspis as a synonym of Lioharpes, and Globoharpes seperate from Eskoharpes.

I don't know what to add, but I will keep this in here for further discussion. Abdullah raji (talk) 09:55, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
 * also I'm adding this to the talk page for Harpetida.
 * I think the abstract won't be enough context here. Either this paper or prior scholarship would be needed to show whether this is a revision that workers generally agree is necessary. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 21:14, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Proposal to merge Neodiapsida into Diapsida
Hi, I've proposed to merge Neodiapsida into Diapsida, since the two are largely synonymous. Discussion can be found here. —  Trilletrollet  [ Talk &#124; Contribs ] 13:45, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Ornithischian Silesauridae?
In light of a new ornithischian phylogeny published today and a number of results from recent years, should we update the status of Silesaurids to fall under Dinosauria/Ornithischia? The position seems to have been recovered more often during recent years, and to me at least it feels appropriate to change this now. The Morrison Man (talk) 22:13, 21 June 2024 (UTC)


 * I don't agree with changing the taxoboxes. The best take here, I think, is the review of Lovegrove et al.: "There is no sign of an emerging consensus." Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 22:32, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I think with something so far-reaching, we should hold off on changing the automatic taxoboxes. It's a lot of work to redo and undo if an alternative consensus emerges, and I think recency bias is playing a part here.  I haven't done a full count, but I reckon the number of matrices that recover silesaurs outside of dinosaurs is probably similar to those that unite the two.  The best course of action, in my opinion, is to leave it as is for now. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 23:08, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree there shouldn't be any change on Wikipedia (yet) since there is not a satisfactory agreement regarding their placement. -SlvrHwk (talk) 23:54, 21 June 2024 (UTC)


 * I think that might be premature, 2019 isn't that long ago, and we had this study which found silesaurs to be a natural, non-dinosaurian clade. Better to wait and see if an overall consensus emerges. FunkMonk (talk) 14:12, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't think theres much issue right now with listing Silesauridae? in both places, and within the automatic taxoboxes make the parent clade as ornithischians. Within Ornithischia it only barely survives as a clade anyways, Pisanosaurus, Technosaurus and Sacisaurus have been described as ornithischians for a long time, and Gamatavus and Amanasaurus were *only* described as ornithischian silesaurs. These five genera at least *should* have Ornithischia as a parent, since its OR to include especially the latter two as non-dinosaur silesaurs. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 04:08, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * A quick correction: Gamatavus was entered into two phylogenetic analyses, one of which considered it non-dinosaurian, and the systematic paleontology of the Amanasaurus lists it as a silesaurid dinosauromorph, skipping over Ornithischia. Miracusaurs (talk) 07:55, 26 June 2024 (UTC)


 * One thing to note is that all ornithischian-related papers that include silesaurs within Ornithischia, including the most recent one, have Rodrigo Müller and Mauricio Garcia on the author team. There is barely a consensus, since only those two researchers actively fight for it and its level of acceptance just looks overwhelming simply because they published multiple papers on that topic within a short span of time. I suggest we wait until other researchers unaffiliated with them come to the same conlusions (as far as I know, Cau’s 2024 theropod megamatrix is the only indepedent paper with the same results).
 * A similar situation happened in 2019, when the major pterosaur papers of that year included Borja Holgado and/or Rodrigo Pêgas on their author teams, overstating the importance of the “Brazilian camp” pterosaur matrix that recovers Tapejaroidea and a large Anhangueridae. Wikipedia only followed it in subsequent years when other independent researchers adopted the Brazilian matrix. Miracusaurs (talk) 11:53, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * And more importantly, none of these studies are based on any groundbreaking new evidence. This hypothesis won't be proved until we discover fossils that are clearly transitional between silesaurs and Jurassic ornithischians. —  Trilletrollet  [ Talk &#124; Contribs ] 13:11, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Both of these statements are kind of incorrect. Its not at all uncommon for independent teams to come together and include authors from both. Norman & Baron are unaffiliated with Muller & Garcia but still collaborated to make the paper. Cabreira et al. 2016 does not share authorship. Langer & Ferigolo 2013 does not share authorship. Cau 2024 does not share authorship. If you include all authors that have supported ornithischian silesaurs you have teams from Europe, Australia, South America and North America, with Asia lacking silesaurs and Africa not being involved directly in phylogenetic studies (Nesbitt et al., 2019 are all North American authors).
 * The Fonseca et al. study is explicitly stated to not be focused on and derived from studies on dinosaur origins and divergences, it is an Ornithischian study that includes relevant outgroups and finds support for one of three hypotheses, which is discussed in the text. That's as much an "independent" result as you will get, and just as groundbreaking as anything short of new fossil discoveries. We now have dinosaur origins (Norman et al.), ornithischian (Fonseca et al.) and theropod (Cau) analyses that all recover the same result, in comparison with one single study and its followups, 2/3 of the original authors no longer in published support, and all followups using the same modified analysis. Yet I am still saying listing Silesauridae? in both locations is what we should be doing. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 01:30, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Cabreira et al. 2016 actually has Müller on the author team, but not with Garcia. Nevertheless, even if three studies focusing on different areas of the dinosaur family tree recovered an ornithischian Silesauridae, having the main proponents of that hypothesis on the author teams of two of them means the results may have been biased a little. Also, thanks for telling me about Langer & Ferigolo 2013. That makes two papers without Müller and/or Garcia recovering an ornithischian Silesauridae, just one short of my personal “three independent studies to change the taxoboxes” rule. Miracusaurs (talk) 13:43, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * A correction to my above message: there’s a third study that recovers Silesauridae in Ornithischia: Pretto et al. 2019, the description of Bagualosaurus. That satisfies my personal rule for changing the taxoboxes, but I still agree this change can be controversial. Thus, I will start a formal proposal. Do you support or oppose a change to the taxoboxes such that silesaurids will appear as ornithischian dinosaurs? Miracusaurs (talk) 06:01, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Support as nominator. Miracusaurs (talk) 06:02, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Given that there’s been no responses for more than a week I adjusted the taxobox to Ornithischia/? Feel free to discuss if you feel it should be changed back. Miracusaurs (talk) 01:58, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I am not fond of condensing all of the taxa into one link to Silesauridae in the Ornithischia taxobox; nobody on either side is suggesting that there is a monophyletic Silesauridae within Ornithischia containing all of its traditional contents. To display it as such and put paraphyletic with a question mark as if it's up for debate is, in my eyes, misleading. The attempt at being conservative and neutral ends up just being patently inaccurate.  LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 08:35, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Added back all silesaurids individually. 2001:4453:522:7700:C93F:768:6DB2:45C6 (talk) 17:20, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, either they're a grade of basal ornithischians or they're the clade Silesauridae outside Ornithischia, not both, is also my understanding. FunkMonk (talk) 17:34, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Lusitanosaurus and Taveirosaurus
Recently changed the taxoboxes for these two taxa to place them in Archosauromorpha and Eutriconodonta, respectively, following Fonseca et al. 2024. However, this may be problematic for two reasons: 1) the study just came out, so no consensus could develop of these results, and 2) their username matches the initials of one of the paper’s authors, which could fall afoul of WP:Conflict of interest guidelines. In light of this, what should be done about these changes? Miracusaurs (talk) 10:43, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * See WP:SELFCITE on that page - I think the changes are a bit too sweeping but in principle there is no reason why IJReid cannot cite his own paper. Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 22:01, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It says you can’t place undue emphasis on your own work. I think unilaterally changing the taxobox places undue emphasis on their paper. Miracusaurs (talk) 23:51, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * No disagreement there, hence "in principle". Lythronaxargestes (talk &#124; contribs) 05:03, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Established practice would be to set the taxobox to the smallest group that's common to all competing models, so Lusitanosaurus should be fine as Ornithischia is contained within Archosauromorpha. Even if the paper cannot be taken as the definitive source on their placement, there is no grounds to ignore it either. That logic would dictate Taveirosaurus be listed as merely an amniote, but I would posit that a quick Google Scholar search fails to retrieve any serious consideration of Taveirosaurus within the 21st century. All I can find is offhanded mentions of it with no evident original comment on its taxonomic nature. The most recent authority appears to be The Dinosauria which even then only lists it as dubious with no commentary, and is so old that Reveultosaurus is listed as an ornithischian right alongside it. If the new paper is the first to make concrete anatomy-based taxonomic arguments in literal decades, I think that perhaps there should not be so much weight against its conclusion.  LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 07:38, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * There is no discussion on Lusitanosaurus or Taveirosaurus placements since their original descriptions, with all subsequent mentions being cursory notes within review papers like The Dinosauria that give no justification for the taxonomic placements of dubious species. Between this vast sample of 2 papers for each taxon that discuss reasons for the species' taxonomy, the taxonomic decisions here are explicitly provided and in reference to an analysis. The only reason to wait to make the change would be so that later papers can establish consensus between competing hypotheses or the current paper can become accepted. The latter has already occurred in multiple public places by multiple commonly-cited authors (Holtz, Cau, Mortimer, etc), while the former is almost certainly never going to happen. IJReid { {T - C - D - R} } 00:56, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Notability discussions
Two discussions that might be of interest to the project: Wikipedia talk:Notability and Village pump (policy). The Morrison Man (talk) 12:24, 26 June 2024 (UTC)


 * I am putting together a draft WP:PROPOSAL at Notability (species). This is meant to formalize the long-standing practice, rather than coming up with new rules.
 * We might include some of the advice at WikiProject Palaeontology. We could also choose not to mention extinct species at all.  If you have a preference, or if you have advice for how to accurately represent the community's long-standing practices around extinct species, please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (species). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:41, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I think projects should be allowed some degree of autonomy on this issue, as there are often vastly different coverage of prehistoric compared to extant species, for one. Same can probably be said about even some modern invertebrate groups. FunkMonk (talk) 21:10, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * As always, I disagree with Funkmonk's view that fossil species should be considered non-notable. I think that any species for which a reasonably long article (i.e. clearly exceeding stub length) can be written should be presumed notable, whether fossil or extant, and don't see why we should arbitrarily treat extant and extinct species differently. Ornithopsis (talk) 15:07, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * No one has ever said they're "non-notable", but there has been a very long consensus, from way before my time here, that prehistoric species are better covered at genus-level articles. In fact, you've been the only persistent dissenter. FunkMonk (talk) 16:17, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't go so far to say there's been consensus, as i have rather regularly had to step in an push back against a bias towards treating all fossil taxa as the extinct vertebrates are with all information at the genus, and even extinct species in extant taxa should only be discussed at the genus level. Id say there's a general trend in the actual editing towards Genus article for most, but with a branch away from that in Cenozoic taxa and in plants and insects due to the differing methodologies of the paleontologists.-- Kev min  § 17:28, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * My view has also remained that I think having it as some kind of strict rule is needlessly restrictive and that there are both cases where it makes sense to separate out different species and those where it does not.  LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 20:23, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, hence my comment about autonomy for individual projects. That doesn't rule out having any prehistoric species articles at all, which we already have dozens of, it's just too much to make them obligatory. FunkMonk (talk) 22:08, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(species) could use comments from all paleo editors on the genus/species article question. The Morrison Man (talk) 22:09, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Pierre Hupé book/thesis
Hello, I am working on a Moroccan palaeontology article about the Tata Group, and I am trying to access the following work by Pierre Hupé:


 * Hupé, Pierre. 1959. Nouvelle contribution a l'etude du Cambrien marocain. These Scientifique de la Faculte des Sciences, Universite de Paris, 447 p.

Does anyone know where I could find digital access to the publication? I understand it went unpublished, but it is referenced in a few articles and it would be good to review.

Thank you in advance! --Classicwiki (talk) If you reply to me here, please ping me. 03:05, 1 July 2024 (UTC)


 * , as you've no doubt noticed, Google Search comes up negative - Google Books knows it exists, but doesn't have the contents. Gallica and HAL also come up negative, as does ProQuest. I don't have much hope that it's available digitalised and open access, or even just digitalised; it's too recent for the programmes of digitising public domain content, and too old for the emerging practice of including theses in university or other repositories. Lavateraguy (talk) 22:13, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Certain Japanese user claiming Tyrannosaurus is not capable of binocular vision
It seems that certain user edited Japanese Wikipedia article of Tyrannosaurus only to propose their own theory that Tyrannosaurus is not capable of binocular vision. Here are deletion request of files, if possible please join the discussion. Ta-tea-two-te-to (talk) 06:25, 21 July 2024 (UTC)