Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology/Archive 8

Fossil range
Hey there,

I've been going through the "missing taxobox" category and adding taxoboxes to the articles there, which are largely on extinct species. However, I don't have enough knowledge on the subject to fill in the "fossil range" parameter of the box, so if anyone feels like doing that, take a look in my recent editing history to see what articles I've been dealing with and please help out if you can. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 03:10, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * You should only fill in the fossil range when its fossil record is known. Otherwise you can simply leave it blank. If you do know the fossil range of the taxon, use the template.


 * I've tried to fix what I can see from your contribs. Let me know if I missed anything. You should just list them here. Another thing, when you are adding taxoboxes to extinct taxa, add a † to the extinct groups and include the authors. In genera and species also add to the articles and italicize the   parameter. In monotypic genera, add a   field for the only known species.--   Obsidi ♠ n   Soul   09:48, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If you have troubles finding the dagger, you can always just type, which will replace itself with the dagger when you save the page. Bob the WikipediaN  (talk • contribs) 15:44, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the help! –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 16:25, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, you don't need to add italic title any more; just leave the name blank and the template will automatically italicize the page title and the taxobox. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  19:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * That's a feature on all flavors using taxobox/core now? I thought it was just the ones that used the automatic stuff? Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 21:40, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Has been for a number of years now... e.g. Daphnia Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  15:15, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately this is not totally true. italic title is still needed for extinct taxa as the auto-italic parsing does not function if the genus or species name has a dagger in front of it.-- Kev min  § 18:06, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Fixed with this edit, if the dagger is specified using or as a †.  See Phragmoteuthis Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  14:15, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Will it work with just a † in front of the name (eg †Phragmoteuthis ) or is the bulky templating needed?-- Kev min  § 17:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Just a dagger is fine. Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  14:03, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Deletion proposal
For info, the article Paleostatistics, which is within some of this project's categories, has been proposed for deletion (PROD) on grounds of no sources for content. Melcombe (talk) 19:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Many new articles with incorrect geological time
It appears that most of the new articles (stubs) created by an editor use the wrong name for geological time units, periods instead of ages, stages instead of ages, periods instead of epochs. It's a mess, and almost all of the articles appear to need corrected.

I don't have time to do the rest. I suggested to the editor that she leave off the period/epoch, etc., to prevent future mistakes, or click and verify before posting.

Under the theory that no information is better than wrong information, I think project members may want to check her contributions via the new article bot an incomplete example or her edit history to correct these.

Pseudofusulina (talk) 16:59, 9 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Do you mean User:Wilhelmina Will? Also... come to think of it, why do we have a fossil parameter in the conservation status? o_O -- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  19:22, 9 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes. Sorry for not including a link to her contributions. There are a lot, and I only touched one page of the most recent. Many did not have taxonomy boxes; I did not notice some had conservation status for fossils. She should be fine if she excludes "epoch," "age," "period," etc., from her stubs and copies taxonomy boxes from related fossil taxa. Pseudofusulina (talk) 19:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

"Creationist Arguments" section in Transitional fossil article.
I have put forward a proposal involving the Transitional fossil article. Your input would be greatly valued. Please leave a comment on the talk page. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 16:32, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Transitional fossil article improvement
I've done some edits to the Transitional fossil article today, but it still needs a lot of work. It is a top rated article, as it should be, and with some work we can get it to FA status. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 20:47, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Transitional Fossil peer-review

 * Peer_review/Transitional_fossil/archive1
 * Transitional fossil

It is a very important subject, and I wish to take it to GA/FA status in the future. Input from members of this wikiproject would be highly valued. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 00:26, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Paleontology
Infobox Paleontology has been nominated for deletion. 70.24.251.71 (talk) 08:51, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to merge Evolutionary Biology and Palentology templates:
I have left a message on the Evolutionary Biology template talk page about expanding it to include more Paleontology topics. Please go here to discuss. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 00:22, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Paleontology Template:
I have created a Paleontology template for Paleontology articles. It's just a start and needs a lot of work. I am not any kind of expert, so I do not know what articles are relevant or what order they should be added. Please review it and give your thoughts. Once it is good enough, it can be added to some Paleontology articles. I am not sure which ones should be added though. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 04:05, 28 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Looks very good, imo. It will help tie down the most important topics. That said, could the picture on be scaled so that they're the same widths? There might be topics they'll both be in.--  O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  05:07, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Looks good so far, though the "Taxa evolution" section seems a little arbitrary and disorganized. I'm not sure how it'll be possible to narrow that section down to a fairly small but relevant set of articles. -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 06:40, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Few notes:
 * Everyone should add that that template to their watchlist (same with the Template:Evolutionary biology. There seems to be few people who add templates to their watchlist, which means that people such as myself have a disproportionate say in those templates. They serve as gateways for the average reader.
 * What I plan on doing is to incorporate everything from the old Evolution Template into the Paleontology and Evolutionary biology templates. So I took the "taxa evolution" section and added those that seem to have evidence coming from paleontology.
 * For the image for Evo Bio template, I actually left a suggestion on the talk page that it needs a new image. The text is too small to read as a thumbnail. That's the reason why the image is as large as it is now. Once fixed they can bet put to the same size.
 * I also plan on making a template for Geology and Climate Change. I think all the major sciences should have templates similar to the Evo Bio one.

--Harizotoh9 (talk) 04:16, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Teylers Challenge: paleontology
Allow me to draw your attention to the Wiki Project Teylers: a collaboration between Wikipedia and Teylers Museum (Haarlem, the Netherlands) to improve the content of articles related to Teylers Museum and its collections: GLAM/Teylers/Multilingual_Challenge. Established in 1778, Teylers Museum was originally founded as a centre for contemporary art and science. Martinus van Marum the museum's first director acquired, among many other things, fossils that quickly gained an international reputation by arousing the curiosity of the French paleontologist Baron Georges L.Ch.F.D. Cuvier: a mosasaurus and the Homo Diluvii Testis (Diluvial man). Later the museum also acquired the first mammoth discovered in the Netherlands (in 1820) and the very first specimen of an Archeopteryx (known as the Haarlem Specimen). You can find more information on the paleontological collection of Teylers Museum on a special website:| Teylers Universe 1778-1826. For the Teylers Challenge we are still looking for people who'd be interested in writing / expanding articles on paleontological subjects related to the Teylers collection! The museum can supply pictures and sources. Gjjanse (talk) 12:14, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Read here how the Atoposaurus (Holotype) made its way to Teylers Museum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Teylers/One_on_one_collaborations#Atoposaurus Gjjanse (talk) 14:34, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Interesting, is it possible to get photos of the fossil specimens there? FunkMonk (talk) 16:10, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Bioevent
While creating an article on the Kačák Event, I noticed that it was referred to as a 'bioevent' in many of the sources that I was looking at. I couldn't find a good definition of this term, although I take it to be a period of significant faunal turnover, which may or may not related to extinctions. I was planning to create an article, but I'm a bit out of my comfort zone here and would like to make sure that my understanding is correct and that there isn't another existing article that covers this. Thanks, Mikenorton (talk) 12:41, 4 March 2012 (UTC)


 * The term seems to be a contraction of "biotic event". It encompasses large-scale rapid changes in a certain ecology or the entire biosphere, cf. a geological event which itself usually causes a bioevent. The following source defines global bioevents to include innovation events, [adaptive] radiation events, [geographic range] spreading events, and extinction events. There are a lot more if you google for "biotic event". It's all too technical for me as well though.-- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  14:02, 4 March 2012 (UTC)




 * Thanks, it seems likely that Walliser coined the term 'bio-event' in 1984, although the critical bit is hidden by Google Books for me. He says that "The bio-event ... is characterised by an extinction/radiation sequence". I note that 'bioevent' (with or without the hyphen) is now used much more than 'biotic event'. I'll see if I can come up with something sensible. Mikenorton (talk) 16:21, 4 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't there be a short article on the word? Petter Bøckman (talk) 07:54, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * That was my plan, when I get some time to devote to it. Mikenorton (talk) 08:06, 5 March 2012 (UTC)


 * A bioevent stub now exists. Mikenorton (talk) 23:07, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Part of a series on Geology template
Link to template You can leave comments about it on the talk page, or at the Geology wikiproject talk page. It needs review, and an image. After enough review it can be added to Geology articles--Harizotoh9 (talk) 15:04, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikiproject pterosaurs merger
This has been brought up before, but now that the project is finally dead (inactive), maybe it would be good to "swallow" it here, by making it a task force? Otherwise it is just a sad waste of space. FunkMonk (talk) 21:21, 6 March 2012 (UTC)


 * If "swallowing" means the banners used for it gets replaced with the Paleo banner, then I guess so. BTW, is there a way to automate that? It would be a shame to project-orphan the pterosaur articles.-- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  14:10, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, and it would show under task forces in this template: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:WPPalaeo And I think it could still have it's own banner, like such task forces have (see top): FunkMonk (talk) 09:22, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Dadoxylon
I have just created the above page for a form genus widespread in Mesozoic southern Afria, but I get that it is a form genus and has sometimes been used occassionally with Araucarioxylon. Would appreciate input. Babakathy (talk) 09:54, 7 March 2012 (UTC)


 * The entirety of the Araucarioxylon complex is so confusing I don't even know where to start. Anyway, please use an, form genus or not.-- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  10:21, 7 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Brilliant, thanks. Babakathy (talk) 11:31, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Chondrosteidae
Please, does anyone know why it appears Chondrosteus redirected to Chondrosteosaurus? In the List of prehistoric bony fish is correct, as bony fish fossil, and also in files of Commons as. Thanks.- Misigon (talk) 19:57, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Chondrosteus seems to have been a misspelling. More importantly is Chondrosteosaurus valid? Sources seem to consider it nomen dubium and synonymize it with Ornithopsis hulkei, since it was one of Owen's "I don't agree with you, so I'm going to pretend you never described the fossil" namings, heh.


 * Anyway, I've tried to fix Chondrosteidae, Gyrosteus, Strongylosteus, and Chondrosteus. Please correct any mistakes I may have made.-- O BSIDIAN  †  S OUL  04:37, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Paleozoology Page
Currently, the Paleozoology page has two infoboxes. It sort of clashes and looks a bit funky. I'm not an expert and I'm not exactly sure which infobox is more fitting, anyone care to take a look? Thanks all! cReep talk 04:02, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

This book
http://books.google.com/books?id=TTKhrnw23MkC&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Does anyone have this book? It appears to have a really great section on the research history of Encrinus starting on page 164, but not all of it is included in the Google Books preview. If anybody here has the book, could you use it to help expand that article? Thanks. Chris the Paleontologist (talk • contribs) 20:15, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Transitional Fossil GA review
I've nominated transitional fossil for GA review. Essential article for Paleontology. Someone needs to start the review. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 02:23, 26 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Review has started. Read it here Talk:Transitional fossil/GA1. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 07:34, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Aguascalientia panamaensis
I started the article Aguascalientia panamaensis, but I had some difficulty with the taxobox. If someone else could take a look at it, I would be grateful. Eastmain (talk • contribs) 03:09, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Burtele Foot
Well I saw this BBC News article about fossil hominid foot bones and I couldn't figure out where to make use of it in wikipedia, I thought I'd mention it here in case someone else could. EdwardLane (talk) 17:48, 28 March 2012 (UTC)