Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 23

Who am I?
Thailand Feb 2008. The bad news is that there are quite a few butterflies to come.
 * A damselfly (something like that in India has the English name of "forest glory" Vestalis sp. fam:Calopterygidae ) and an Auchenorrhynchan. Try WP:ARTH or User:Dyanega. Shyamal (talk) 04:43, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, will do Jimfbleak (talk) 07:16, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

cultivated status for cultivated plants?
What conservation status applies for cultivated plants (I refer here to cultigens, or other plants for which neither a wild status nor "extinct in the wild" applies)? For animals, DOM (domesticated) is the right status, but that doesn't work for plants because it adds the page to Category:Domesticated animals. My first idea on how to solve this would be to add "cultivated" as a possible status, which would be just like domesticated but which would add the page either to no category, or to a new one. Because domesticated is a wikipedia-specific category, and the Red List or NatureServe categories don't seem to provide anything equivalent, there doesn't seem to be an issue with consistency with an external classification. Another solution would be simply to rename Category:Domesticated animals to Category:Domesticated species (or domesticated taxa or ... I'm not coming up with a good name). I guess another solution is just to omit status for cultigens (which I suppose is closest to the status quo, although the discrepency between animals and non-animals seems a touch jarring). The subject came up for Nicotiana tabacum. Kingdon (talk) 15:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Category:Domesticated taxa would do the job methinks. And indeed, the common tobacco-plant is DOM if one just applies the criteria we've always applied.
 * If we want to be naughty in the future, we could go as far as to add another category for extinct/critically endangered/endangered cultivars/cultigens/animal breeds. I mean, we got cultivar boxes, dog breed boxes etc, which are a sort of a taxobox equivalent. DOM, as it is used, always refers to the species-group taxon as a whole. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 01:35, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Linking (not parsing) EoL
The new Encyclopedia of Life can be used as a source for Wikipedia.

Pro: has info where WP might only have a stub

Con: taxonomic/systematic information is usually better on Wikipedia as of now, and looking at the bugs they introduced with large scale parsing of often-obsolete databases, this is not gonna change soon...

What could be done, then, is this:
 * make a EoL template yielding a standard "external link"
 * bot-add this template to any WP:ToL stub where info on the EoL exists.

That way, one gets a source of further info for readers. For editors, the EoL link is present if one wants to expand the article. Non-stub articles are usually better and more correct than EoL in its present state. If there really is a very cool EoL article alrady (like the EoL example articles, Kiwa hirsuta is one I think), this can be added manually.

What would need to be done is to check how easy it is to exclude EoL entries that only have bare-bones info. Because if only the name and systematic placement exist on EoL, it can add nothing positive. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 01:46, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I browsed through a handful of plant articles, and I'd generally tend to prefer other sources, like PLANTS or efloras. Doing some kind of bot-run (at least on wikipedia articles marked as stubs) might not be a bad idea, although I'm not sure I'd single out eol.org as opposed to other sites. Kingdon (talk) 03:28, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The intro for Amanita phalloides on the EOL page actually comes from the wikipedia page..(egads, a loop of cross-referencing!!) :) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:53, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * There is Template:Eol for external links. I added it to all our articles matching their exemplar pages. A bot run (following Dysmorodrepanis' description) would be interesting. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:59, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Animal kill?
On Talk:Fox hunting, editors are debating whether to keep or remove an image purported to be of a fox killed by hounds. The question has come up: what does such a kill look like? Would any wildlife biologists here care to respond? --Una Smith (talk) 15:31, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

This could be big
Anyone know about Cetartiodactyla? (note that the subject's page lists it as an unranked clade, but Laurasiatheria lists it as an order containing two now-suborders, Cetacea and Artiodactyla.

Here is my question: How should we take care of this?

If the proper solution is to list it as an order containing two suborders, there are three options:

a) list the order b) list the suborder c) list both

Otherwise, appropriate actions need to be taken to ensure that there are no conflicts in the related articles. Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 16:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The proper thing to do is to follow Mammal Species of the World (3rd ed 2005), which lists Cetacea and Artiodactyla as orders and ignore, for now, Cetartiodactyla. However, MSW3 is the authority more on species than on orders. Anyone know a good modern reference for mammalian orders that we should be following? - UtherSRG (talk) 16:30, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Doesn't the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature put out any publications? I should think that the codes they set should regulate this sort of thing-- or am I way off-base?Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 16:35, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * No, they don't make scientific decisions. They make the rules that dictate how things are named when a scientist makes a scientific decision. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh. So who is responsible for maintaining the most up-to-date catalog? Anyone? Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 16:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Many folks. That's why I asked the question in my initial reply. MSW3 (http://www.bucknell.edu/msw/) is the canonical listing of mammalian species, and it gives some information about higher ranks. On Cetartiodactyla vs Cetacea and Artiodactyla it silently lists the two orders with not a mention of the combined taxon. This is understandable to some degree as the various Order listings in the book were each written by different authors, so it is likely that one author wrote the Cetacea section, and another the Artiodactlya section. (I can't say which since I'm away from home until the end of May. I'll be bringing my copy of MSW3 with me next time.) - UtherSRG (talk) 17:02, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, and artiodactyl specialists are likely to be different than cetacean specialists (Artiodatyla in MSW 3 is by Peter Grubb, Cetacea is by James Mead and Robert Brownell). However, MSW 3 makes no mention at all (as far as I can see) of this matter (not in the introduction either, which includes a brief section on the taxonomic arrangement).
 * However, it seems that recent publications mostly still use the two-order system (Cetacea and Artiodactyla). I think it is now too early to merge the orders, though it may well have to be done in the future.
 * Also, there are no institutions that make really official taxonomies for any group of mammals, as far as I know (though there are some quite commonly accepted reference works, of which MSW 3 is the prime example). The ICZN does not have any jurisdiction over matters of taxonomy, it only rules on nomenclature (that is, on the names that are to be used in taxonomy). Furthermore, the ICZN does not extend above the level of superfamily, so it does not have anything to do with orders. Ucucha 17:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't know which authors are to blame, but MSW3 really dropped the bal in continuing to recognize a paraphyletic Artiodactyla. This is an example where MSW3 contrasts with the vast majority of current (primary) literature on the topic.  Even most (but not all) paleontologists have come around to the idea that Cetacea evolved from within the Artiodactyla.  The remainder at least recognize that they are sister taxa.  The correct answer in this case: discuss the controversy.  Either way the Cetacea+Artiodactyla clade exists (either at the level of order or at an above-ordinal rank) and that discussion should be discussed in the artice Cetartiodactyla.  Right now, there's a political inertia to continue to recognize these as separate orders (much like "Aves" vs. "Reptilia"), and we are probably better off have our quick overviews treat them as separate orders.  --Aranae (talk) 18:10, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Everything looks OK to me. Cetartiodactyla discusses the differing hypotheses, evidence, etc, concerning the origin of the cetaceans.  Laurasiatheria links to all three articles (reflecting the fact that there isn't consensus on how to name the orders and even if there is, there will be lots of older sources with older names).  The key thing here is not to get bogged down in paragraphs and paragraphs of taxonomic minutia, and try to avoid taking sides until there really is a scientific consensus (especially, try to avoid taking sides in such a way that thousands of pages need to be updated whenever a new paper comes out). Kingdon (talk) 05:50, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Software ideas
This is sort of off-topic, but I figured this is the best place to get the response I'm looking for. I'm going into software design, and I want to focus my software to a zoological aspect. I was wondering if anyone here has any ideas for a useful piece of software which has to do with zoology? Useful = something people would be willing to pay for. Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 16:56, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * This probably isn't the place for this type of discussion, but I toss out a quick answer before the discussion gets deleted. Biologists are stuck holding on to old computers because there's no motivation for programmers to upgrade (it's not a financially booming industry) so that their apps can run on new OSs.  I think anyone who upgraded those programs (involves working with the companies) or created new apps that did the same thing could be sucessful (note that it's a limited market with limited funds, though).  For example, the fact that PAUP won't run in OSX essentially requires most systematists to hang onto an old Macintosh (unless they want to go back to command-line interface).  --Aranae (talk) 17:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Long-standing template problems
Template:Clade is an immensely useful template, sadly however, it has problems (noted on the Template talk page) and no fixes have been attempted so far. It would be great if some of the concerns noted could be fixed. Just to make usage of the template easier, I have hashed up a visual editor and have made the code and binaries (M$ Windows only) available here http://code.google.com/p/claded/downloads/list. Shyamal (talk) 07:50, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Fossil range vs. molecular divergence
I've been helping out with fossil ranges the past few days on all kinds of animal and bacteria articles, when it suddenly hit me that the fossil range was being used for two different purposes. In the dinosaur articles, "fossil range" refers to the first known fossil. In the extant articles, the "fossil range" does not refer to fossils at all! Instead, it is the estimated point of molecular divergence.

In response to this misuse, I propose adding a field to the taxobox for the molecular divergence. That way, this information does not need to be removed, as it is nice to be able to find it quickly. Otherwise, we need to remove all non-fossil-record-based fossil ranges. Either way, it will definitely take a little while to fix this big error, but I think it's possible, especially if a couple of us work hard for a one or two hours. Opinions? Bob the Wikipedian (talk) 13:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I would be willing to take on this task myself, although as far as editing the taxobox code, I might need assistance. Bob the Wikipedian (talk) 14:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree, those are two very different things. GoEThe (talk) 15:09, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Of course, the fossil range should not be constructed to mean a divergence date estimate: the first is observation, the second is inference, and such different things should be separated.
 * I'm not quite in favour of adding a field about divergence date either. Those estimates (at least for mammals, I don't know about other groups) differ widely among studies,1 there is significant opposition to their use, and I do not think they are relevant enough to be placed in the taxobox. The taxobox should give a quick overview of basic information on the article's subject, not an exhaustive account. In my opinion, it should be limited to plain nomenclatural and classificational data and other noncontroversial things (such as the IUCN status and the fossil range), while all other information can be placed in the text. Ucucha 15:20, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * 1 For example, the divergence between the rodent genera Mus and Rattus has been estimated to have been between 12 and 43 million years ago in different studies, and phylogenetic studies of related groups usually assume that they diverged 10 million years ago for calibration purposes (this is based on "paleontological data", which seems questionable since we hardly know the relations among Mus, Rattus, and their relatives, let alone the full relations among the fossil species; the first Rattus-like animals date from the Late Pliocene). Which divergence date estimate should then be used for the Murinae (note that the Mus-Rattus-split is not even the basal split among the Murinae)? Ucucha 15:20, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree, divergence estimates are far too controversial to include in the taxobox. Stick with fossil range. Ideally, there should be a cite somewhere in the text for the earliest known (and last known, for extinct groups) fossil representatives so the range listed is verifiable. Dinoguy2 (talk) 21:42, 13 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Since divergence is something which could technically be in any life article, perhaps there is a sort of template someone could create. Maybe it would appear at the bottom, like the old fossil range diagram (is this still in use?). However, I don't know anything about making these, so I won't worry about that right now.
 * In the meantime, I'll begin removing (or moving, where appropriate) the information from taxoboxes. If I have any troubles determining whether it is fossil or divergence, I'll move it to the article's talk page for disambiguation.  (Objections? The fastest way to stop me is to post on my talk page.) Bob the Wikipedian (talk) 22:05, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Virtually the same discussion was had here a week or so ago. Hesperian 00:03, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Not really, this here is about how much of the fossil range must be supported by fossils and how much can be supported by phylogenetic inference. I have always understood it as 100% vs 0%. (I may have erroneously added "- Recent" for taxa just because they are extant, which is not always correct.) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 21:57, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Tree of Life/taxobox usage (multi-template)
This page documents how to use the old multi-template version of the taxobox, and has therefore been redundant since late 2005. Would there be any objections to me deleting it? Hesperian 04:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * As for usages of the taxobox itself, there's one at WikiProject Birds (family taxobox example) (and likewise for a handful of other wikiprojects), plus a fair number (<100) on talk pages and user pages. Does the existence of these stragglers argue for keeping something saying "this is obsolete" (perhaps in the doc for Template:Taxobox begin?).  Has advice like "Extinct subgroups should be indicated with a dagger † (&#x2020;) or the word (extinct)." been carried over to the new documentation (I didn't see it, nor did I look through the whole multi-template documentation for similar items)? Kingdon (talk) 15:11, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Archive time!
Can someone please archive this page? It's getting unwieldly again... Werothegreat (talk) 23:54, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Taxobox update
There is a discussion to add interproject links (such as Commons and Wikispecies) to taxobox. Your input will be welcomed. OhanaUnitedTalk page 05:18, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

New multi external link referencing template?
I have always liked the good information that wikipedia have, but also how it often have excellent links to other more in depth web pages. Now we have commons, wikispecies, ITIS, FishBase_species, eol templates and many many more. But most is not used on most animal pages. I have been playing around with making a new multi external link template for any species. The template is not completed yet and lots more work have to be done to make it good enough to update thousands of articles, but the general idea is there and I would like to see if there are any strong arguments against a template like this, if there are any critical changes that needs to be done to it for it to be accepted, or if it would be accepted in principle until I get some help from better template coders or more time to learn on my own. I know that it is a very tedious template to add to pages by hand so I have also planned a bot that would fill or add the applicable arguments, so please do not argue against it because it is to hard to figure out all the magic numbers for the arguments, I promise to try to make a bot, although it might take some time. Due to my limited templates writing skills the template now does not have any subsections, only a general section, but the plan is to have a fish subsection with specific links for fishes, one for birds, one for mammals and so on. Also please advice if the links are not appropriate or what more that should be included (or help to put them in :-) )


 * I also forgot, I am open to renaming it, I would prefer species but that is taken, think it is part of the old taxobox template. Any suggestions welcome. --Stefan talk 13:51, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Subst of templates to preseve them as they looked when discussion was held, current template is at Taxon --Stefan talk 11:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

--Stefan talk 13:22, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Neat... but... Commons and Wikispecies don't always use the same taxonomy as we use. Also, the IUCN redlist entry is used as a reference, so it shouldn't be in the external links section. (Likewise, it was good that you did not put a link in for MSW3.)... Otherwise I think this is good. Maybe some tweaks, but certainly worth exploring how to make it enhance our articles. Yes, species is part of the old taxobox system. If it is still being used, we should hunt down the usages and see if we can free it up, but still, taxon could be used for something more than just species. Since this is a way to consolidate external link boxes, perhaps make it look more like an external link box instead of a navbox? - UtherSRG (talk) 14:07, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Any links can be added or removed, this is just examples, sad if commons and species does not use same same taxonomy, I guess I can add special arguments for them. Their special boxes are well used so not much problem if left out (but if they have that box the bot can grab that link automatically). I can redesign this as a external linkbox, but it will be quite long. I like the line instead of column layout and that it can be collapsed, is there a collapsable external link box anywhere??
 * I know that this can be used for more that species, but I aim low :-), I do not dare to think how many species we have articles about, but yes should be used for genus, families, orders and so on also. OK, I will continue my long road of learning template hacking :-) --Stefan talk 00:53, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Taxoboxes and cladistics
Our taxoboxes still use the traditional Linnaean taxonomy, while, more and more, revisions of taxonomies move into the direction of cladistics. This is especially true of the class Gastropoda and the new Taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005). This taxonomy uses unranked clades for taxa above the rank of superfamily (replacing the ranks suborder, order, superorder and subclass), while using the traditional Linnaean approach for all taxa below the rank of superfamily. "Translating" these clades into taxa constitutes, in my opinion, original research and should be avoided. However, with the present taxoboxes and its templates we have no other choice. A good example of such as taxobox can be found in Tornidae, where each taxon above the rank of superfamily and beneath the rank of class is actually a clade. Therefore I propose the introduction of templates such as "clade 1", "clade2", etc... (with clade 1 = the highest ranking clade) to replace taxons that are no longer in use in such taxonomies. A discussion of such an introduction is in order. JoJan (talk) 15:08, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree in part. We need the ability to assign more than one unranked level above a given taxon.  Primates, for example are in the following comonly used unranked clades in ascending order: Supraprimates Primatomorpha, Euarchonta, Euarchontoglires, and Boreoeutheria before there's a ranked clade (infraorder Eutheria).  At present the taxobox only employs one of these, Euarchontoglires, which some sources will informally call a superorder (a choice we apply here).  At a minimum, it seems that the clade immediately above the taxon should be present in a taxobox.  That would be Supraprimates Primatomorpha (which is a bit controversial) or Euarchonta.  --Aranae (talk) 16:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * A bit off-topic: Isn't Supraprimates a synonym of Euarchontoglires? It sounds like you're using it for the primate-dermopteran clade. Ucucha 16:51, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You appear to be correct. I did mean a primate/dermopteran clade: Primatomorpha.  --Aranae (talk) 17:02, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * If the sources don't give it a rank, we shouldn't either. For example "unranked_classis=eudicot" at .  So is the problem that there is no "unranked_subclassis" (or other way of having more than one unranked clade in a given slot)?  I could see how that could sometimes be a problem, but I guess part of my answer is that we shouldn't try to have taxoboxes depict every branch point in a phylogeny.  For example, although there are about 30–40 orders in the eudicots, I would tend to prefer a taxobox which jumps straight from eudicot to an order, even though there are some clades in between which are moderately well accepted (there are others which are not well settled by current research, which provide an even stronger case for leaving them out of the taxobox). Kingdon (talk) 01:30, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Cladistics is a method to give ideas how to set up any taxonomy. What you mean is phylogenetic taxonomy. I'd estimate that 85-90%+ of taxonomists would agree today that taxa ought to correspond to clades if there are no very good grounds against it (eg incomplete lineage sorting, hybridization etc).
 * "If the sources don't give it a rank, we shouldn't either" - yep. I would be glad about the inclusion of more "unranked" - probably best building new "unranked" code from scratch. I think the de: has such a system. There are a few taxa where I missed the possibility.
 * Overall, I find Linnean taxonomy useful enough and on a falsificationist basis (what doesn't work in one or the other system) they're about equally bad: n tiers with n unequal "indefinite" is gonna run out of tiers, and phylogenies don't map very well on individuals taxonomically.
 * People like Engel/Grimaldi etc would seem to have a sensible approach. See the discussion about Isoptera taxonomy in Biol. Lett. which seems a good approach until the issue is resolved (oh some more decades from now I guess...) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 21:36, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

unidentified ducks
Hi! I'm hoping that you might be able to identify the ducks in the following photos (I think they're all one family)

--Fir0002 04:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Where did you take the pictures? - UtherSRG (talk) 05:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Whoops sorry - Melbourne Botanical Gardens, September 2007 --Fir0002 06:46, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Australian Wood Duck or Maned Goose, Chenonetta jubata.
 * Beautiful series! Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 21:16, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your help! I've reuploaded under correct filenames --Fir0002 07:13, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Archaea
Hi everybody. I've nominated this article as a FA, comments and reviews would be most welcome at Featured article candidates/Archaea. Thank you Tim Vickers (talk) 17:19, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization
Here: Talk:Snow leopard + Talk:Snow leopard is a discussion going on, which is probably of interest for many people here, not only for Snow leopard fans. What do you think about that problematic?--Altaileopard (talk) 18:27, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the more I stay out of this (perennial) debate, the happier I'll be :-). Kingdon (talk) 15:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That is also true for me, and actually I do not care to much about such formal things. But I think a consistent use of names would bring much more seriousness for wikipedia. --Altaileopard (talk) 10:42, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That's a good argument against consistency. -- Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 13:04, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I understand you but I do not agree.--Altaileopard (talk) 15:07, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Infoboxes for paraphyletic or polyphyletic groups
As long-time followers of such things are aware, there have often been debates about whether the article for a paraphyletic or polyphyletic group such have a taxobox. For example, fish, reptile, dicotyledon, protist, etc. A few of us are playing around with one possible solution, which is to design an infobox specifically for this situation which is similar to a taxobox but different enough to handle this situation. The template as it exists now is Paraphyletic group (with a redirect from polyphyletic group). I'm content with letting people use it or not as they see fit, but there are some details which we've been trying to hash out at Template talk:Paraphyletic group ("group" versus "clade", showing the classification which the various branches share, etc), some of which could benefit from other people's input. Kingdon (talk) 18:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
 * The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
 * The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
 * A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot  ( Disable )  21:27, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Formal definitions
Where can I find formal definitions of various taxa? I'm working on a taxonomy project for the upcoming video game Spore, and I've been using Wikipedia as my main source. Unfortunately, these articles discuss common features among the members of each taxon, rather than giving the formal definition. This makes my job rather difficult. Anyone know where I can find formal definitions? Thanks! Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 15:44, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * By the way...these formal definitions really need to appear at the head of each taxon article. Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 15:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I assume you mean cladistic definitions? I think they are missing for several reasons: for many taxa, such definitions do not exist, for others, they are disputed, and for still others, they are too obscure to deserve much mention. Ucucha 16:28, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * So basically, taxonomy is not quite so straightforward...there is no special formula for finding the exact place a species belongs, other than..."Hmm, this kind of looks like that." Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 16:39, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I really don't understand your question. What do you mean by formal definition?  Are you looking for the type attached to a name? --Aranae (talk) 19:50, 9 July 2008 (UTC) --Aranae (talk) 19:50, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Perhaps part of the misunderstanding is that taxa are discovered (being entities in nature) rather than defined. They once had formal definitions (that was a major part of Carl Linnaeus's work), but that didn't work out so well.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:14, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess you want a defining list of characters for each species. This is not as simply done as said, because you would want to exclude characters that are not phylogenetically important. For example, a species might be most easily recognised by its big ears, but ear size is so plastic that it doesn't tell you anything about phylogenetic relationship. You also want to ignore primitive characters; for example, flies can be defined as insects that possess halteres, but that doesn't mean all the insects that do not possess halteres can be lumped together in a taxon, because the absence of halteres is the primitive state.

Modern cladistics is essentially all about the identification of these phylogenetically important characters: known as synapomorphies. It is most certainly not a case of "Hmm, this kind of looks like that". But there is still plenty of room for argument over whether a shared character is a synapomorphy, primitive, or the result of convergent evolution. Right now there is broad consensus on the basic overall shape of much of the tree of life, but very little consensus on the details. If you want an overview, I recommend Colin Tudge's The Variety of Life.

Hesperian 03:00, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Further, consider that formal circumscriptions of plants must be given in Latin. For the Lepicoleales Stotler & Stotl.-Crand., this is: "Plerumque, folia dissecta, triseriata. Plantae perigyniis succulentis, perianthiis reductis vel deest (praeter Ptilidiineae). Setae grandes, capsulae parietibus multistratosis."  This diagnosis is not useful in an encyclopedia article, and could very well be modified or emended by a later author who chooses a different scope for the same taxon.  This kind of information might be better added at Wikispecies. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Redirects on "G. species" disambiguation pages
Based on the deletion discussion for "Miserabilis", the creation of species epithet disambiguation pages was disavowed. The need for some kind of disambiguation to address the issue was recognized, however, and therefore the creation of "G. species" disambiguation pages was accepted instead (such as C. aurantium and C. miserabilis). The value of these disambiguation pages has been attested to in the consensuses of several subsequent discussions on the subject (example discussion).

While some "G. species" disambiguation pages (such as C. aurantium) consist entirely of entries with corresponding articles, the majority rely on redirects to a genus or a list of species within the genus in order for the "G. species" disambiguation page to be effective. The creation of these species name redirects has been questioned by EncycloPetey, who has deleted several of the redirects used by "G. species" disambiguation pages. He feels that this type of redirect deters users from creating articles about the species they name, and that this possibility is more problematic than having redlinks on the "G. species" disambiguation pages. I feel that the usefulness of "G. species" disambiguation pages is significantly decreased when the redirects are deleted, and that the redirects do not deter users from creating species articles.

After a significant amount of discussion on both of our talk pages, we have been unable to come to a consensus between the two of us, therefore we have agreed that bringing the discussion here and notifying the relevant WikiProjects would be best. Please feel free to add your comments and concerns here so that this important issue can be resolved. Neelix (talk) 22:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

The objection viewpoint: While I agree with Neelix that the disambiguation pages are potentially useful (e.g. C. aurantium), Neelix has converted any red links in them to blue links by the addition of redirects. This means that the disambiguation page does not link to an article at the link target, but to a redirected location. In some cases, this is fine, such as redirecting a scientifc name to a common name where the article is located. However, Neelix has also created many redirects such as Mermessus proximus → List of Linyphiidae species I-P, thereby redirecting the species name to a taxonomic list, and is some cases to regional lists such as Bolboschoenus maritimus → List of Canadian plants by genus B. Many other redirects point to the genus article. The net result of these latter redirects is (1) users are led to believe by the presence of blue text than an article exists, rather than a list or broader article, and (2) links on the target list or genus page are now self-redirects to that page. Neelix's proposal to solve this unfortunate consequence is to de-link the target of the redirect (so that, for example, those species on List of Canadian plants by genus B that have no article, but have a redirect, would be de-linked). I object to this approach, as it is clear (to me) that ToL project members would prefer to have the red links and plan for future articles than to eliminate links and have species-to-list redirects. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:54, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I question the usefulness of the G. species disambig pages. How many people will come looking for a G. species without knowing the genus name or a common name to track down the species in question? The use of the species redirects to the genus or a list of species has, from my experience, been discouraged in the past and I concur. Binomial redirects have typically only been used for 1) monotypic genera and 2) synonyms. --Rkitko (talk) 22:51, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I hate having alot of redirects created already, as it confuses me over what needs to be created or not, hence hindering creation of new pages - a much simpler remedy if a certain species is mentioned in an article is making that link go to genus, or leaving it black/unlinked until a new page is made. By having a non-redirect, it also encourages browsers and non-editors to join in and make a new page - promoting the idea of 'the encyclopedia anyone can edit'. A redirect can give the false impression there has already been a decision that the species is not improtant enough to have its own article. There are numerous highly important plant and invertebrate species that still lack articles. So in summary this is a strong oppose to the automatic mass creation of redirects. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:58, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Although I've never created a G. species disambiguation page, I did make a few such redirects a while back. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but then I started to have doubts about it so I stopped. I still can't make up my mind, so I will have nothing more to say on the matter, and defer to whatever you guys decide. However, I must say that I am very strongly opposed to a species name redirecting anywhere other than to an article about that species e.g. at a common name or monotypic parent taxon. I have been speedying any and all redirects to non-monotypic genera that I come across, and I will certain speedy any redirects to even more ludicrous locations. Hesperian 23:27, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I also strongly agree with EncycloPetey. Links to species which do not have articles should be redlinks. That's always been the way we do things. Kaldari (talk) 02:01, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with EncycloPetey that redlinks of species are important, and with Rkitko that G. species dab pages are of questionable usefulness. An additional reason for the latter is that adjective epithets must agree in gender with the genus, but the gender of the genus may not be clearly agreed upon. So E. alba and E. album might be the same species, yet different from some other E. alba and yet another E. album.--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I voted to delete on the deletion discussions and can still see no reason for this. The use of a term like E. alba is never found in isolation. The full name is always used on first use, and in many journals, with the authority in full. If I remember right, the original proposal suggested that people might be unable to reach the right page if they knew only things like T. rex and E. coli - I just tried a google search and it hits the right pages anyway. Shyamal (talk) 05:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * E.coli and T.rex are the only examples of species commonly known in this way that I could think of when ready this. I agree with Shyamal, we don't need these redirects. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  05:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually there are at least a couple of others: C. elegans and S. cereviciae, but this does not invalidate your point. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:17, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Add me to the list of strongly oppose votes, for reasons enumerated above. MeegsC | Talk 06:34, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with EncycloPetey and others, above, that this type of disambiguation page can cause confusion while adding little of value. Let's avoid using them. Redirects to pages that aren't devoted to single species are especially objectionable in my opinion.  Tim Ross   (talk)  11:33, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose as above jimfbleak (talk) 12:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose and completely concur with Hesperian's last points of 23:27, 14 July 2008. I always use G. species as soon as the genus name a) has already been mentioned and b) is not ambiguous in the scope of the text section where it occurs. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 23:51, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with most of the points raised in the above discussion. Red-links serve an important purpose of making it clear what articles need to be created. Redirecting them to mere lists counteracts this purpose. I don't see this as being an issue specific to taxonomy; its just the application of a generic Wikipedia principle to the specific area of taxonomy. --SJK (talk) 12:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I fully agree with the opposing votes in the above discusions. JoJan (talk) 13:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm an infrequent contributor to articles on species, but the existence of G. species articles makes no sense to me, and I agree that links to species names should be left red if they cannot be linked to an existing article (synonym, common name, monotypic genus). -- Donald Albury 14:05, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure exactly what the issue(s) here are, but: (1) I oppose redirects from a species name to a genus, list, etc (I'm sympathetic to the idea of pointing the reader to someplace useful, but a redirect creates more problems than it solves). Linking the genus or piping is an acceptable alternative, for example Quercus arizonica or Quercus arizonica, although of course that wouldn't make sense in all contexts and I'm not sure everyone agrees with me on this usage (2) With the exception of E. coli and perhaps a very small number of others, I don't know of any case where a C. aurantium style disambiguation page makes any sense (and I see that E. coli is currently a hatnote rather than a disambiguation anyway). Kingdon (talk) 15:15, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm too tired to figure out the point at issue, except that I agree in disliking redirects of a species name to anything but a species article. However, I suspect that G. species redirects to the species or a dab page would be useful to many people.  They've seen the name abbreviated inappropriately in sloppy journalism or popular writing, or jocularly in imitations of scientific style (H. sapiens often gets this treatment), or they're confident of the epithet but don't have a prayer of spelling the genus.  I imagine most people don't read scientific articles or careful popularizations but come across scientific names elsewhere. &mdash;JerryFriedman  (Talk) 02:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I see the value of both arguments, but my preference is still to see a redlink to a non-existent article rather than a redirect to a less relevant article. Neil916 (Talk) 15:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * How could even the most knowledgeable person have enough insight to make such a disambg. page that was even fairly comprehensive? After all, we're talking about entire domains, literally millions of species - Eukaryote, Archaea, Cyanobacteria, etc. Add to that the problem of on-going re-classification with ever-changing genera. We'd end up with a bunch of incomplete G. species redirects, that only rarely would be added anything to, as I doubt there are many people actually doing such searches (it hadn't even crossed my mind before seeing this page). Further argument against such pages are presented in some of the above comments (see e.g. Rkitko's comment). So, while I know this perhaps wasn't the main intention of this discussion, I strongly question the value of such G. species pages, except in the small handful of cases where they regularly are referred to as such without an inclusion of the full genus name elsewhere (the previously mentioned T. rex, E. coli and alike). There might have been several discusssion where the use of these pages have been supported by a consensus, but the single example linked to in the initial post shows a discussion involving three people, two of which agreed, and one who didn't take a clear stance. That's a pretty small consensus. Rabo3 (talk) 04:13, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Since the conversation has generally turned to the question of "G. species" disambiguation pages rather than their corollary redirects, I feel that I should add that it is certainly possible to create such disambiguation pages with a reasonable degree of comprehensiveness. All such disambiguation pages which I have created have been constructed by doing a complete search through all articles on Wikipedia which contain the species epithet.  In most cases, there is somewhere between 100 and 400 pages containing a given species epithet.  A list of all the species to which the epithet referred on all those pages is subsequently written (not on Wikipedia).  Then, the list is divided into smaller lists based on the first letter of the genus, and disambiguation pages are created based on those lists.  It is a lengthy process, but it results in "G. species" disambiguation pages which are as comprehensive as Wikipedia is itself, in that all applicable species mentioned on any article are included. Neelix (talk) 16:37, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * In that sense, the pages would fall exactly into the gap between Wikipedia and Wiktionary, narrow as it may be. There are maybe some articles dealing with Classical words that served as Roman cognomina etc which are mainly disambiguation between persons; under such a guideline they would get lists of species too. No opinion in this here post, just wanted to remark that this particular overlap exists. See also List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 00:27, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I must agree with Rkitko and Robo3 above. We are talking about almost 2 million species names that repeatedly use a much more limited set of species epithets. Moreover, the system is dynamic, and species are routinely transfered from one genus to another as our understanding of their phylogeny becomes clearer. "G. species" disambiguation pages will soon be a hinderance when they are not updated.--Wloveral (talk) 01:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Although I personally think that G. species dab pages are stupid, they don't harm the encyclopedia, and I'm willing to tolerate them. But "fixing" redlinks in the method outline IMO does harm the encyclopedia.--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:00, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It seems that the overwhelming consensus is in opposition to the redlink redirects. Neelix, can you please delete all of the redlink redirects that you created? Kaldari (talk) 19:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for declaring a consensus, Kaldari. As it does seem that nearly everyone disagrees with the creation of these redirects, I have no objections to the ones currently in existence being deleted.  I was under the impression, however, that only administrators could delete articles.  I am not an administrator, but anyone who wishes to delete the redirects may freely review my edit history and delete the applicable redirects.  They should all be in distinct groups throughout my edit history.  Still, it may be a good idea to determine whether or not "G. species" disambiguation pages should exist first, because if they are to be deleted, it would be much easier to delete them along with the redirects as they would be listed along with the redirects in my edit history.  I believe these disambiguation pages to have merit, but this question has been raised by several users throughout this discussion, and I don't want to continue to create them if it will eventually be decided that they should be deleted. Neelix (talk) 21:51, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I've done June and July: ~400 deletions. I'm over it. Hesperian 00:50, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Genus/species
Just noticed that there are several articles on Wikipedia that use the term "species" where "genus" should really be used. Not sure what to conclude, other than that it's kind of a problem. I just fixed it in the moa articles, but there are probably loads more that should be fixed. So watch out. FunkMonk (talk) 08:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It appears that you actually made it erroneous in parts. Moa does refer to multiple genera, but multiple species can be in different genera as well. Shyamal (talk) 09:02, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Have you actually checked what I changed? Take this sentence for example: "The largest genus, the giant moa (Dinornis robustus and Dinornis novaezelandiae)" It used to say species instead of genus, which is of course, incorrect, since D. robustus and D. novaezelandiae are the species, not Dinornis itself. The giant moa is not "a species". See also this sentence, which also used to say species instead of genus: "Ancient DNA analyses have determined that there were a number of cryptic evolutionary lineages in several moa genera. These may eventually be classified as species or subspecies;" The individual articles about moa genera had the same problem.


 * I see though, that what you just changed is plausible, since "moa" is the same word in plural. But I think it's misleading, since most people who read it would think that species refers to Dinornis as a whole. FunkMonk (talk) 09:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes. I understand what you are saying but if Moa is a group of multiple species, and the "largest" refers to the group, it would be incorrect to say "largest genus" unless it is specifically known that Dinornis as a genus is always larger (in size of the animal, not in number of species) than the rest. Perhaps the folks on WP:BIRD will know. 09:15, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * In that case, the wording is odd, since both species of Dinornis are subsequently mentioned. Isn't that rather redundant? FunkMonk (talk) 09:20, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * By "species" do you mean biological entities or the "species epithet" (the second part of the scientific name)? In the entire text, the term "species" refers to biological entities and not merely to part of the scientific name. Shyamal (talk) 09:24, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Biological entities. The intro now says "The largest species (plural), the giant moa (plural)", which would mislead the average reader, who would probably think both are singular, and thus believe that the giant moa are a species. Of course the two species are mentioned in parenthesis afterwards, but that's rather redundant. This could be easily made clearer by simply writing "genus". FunkMonk (talk) 09:27, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, perhaps dropping the common name of "giant moa" which referred to two species improves it. Shyamal (talk) 09:32, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, seems better. But now there's of course the problem you mentioned before, of whether Dinornis as a whole is larger in size than all other moa. FunkMonk (talk) 09:34, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * "Largest genus" seems to refer to the number of species within the genus; Pachyornis is a larger genus (3 species) than Diornis (2 species) (see for examples). So I wouldn't use that phrase to talk about the (physical) size of the birds. I've changed the sentence a bit to make it clearer that "species" is plural here: "The two largest species ..."; that reads better to me. -- Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 13:44, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Duplicate articles?
I've found the following articles with Taxoboxes with very similar names (only differing in capitalisation). I know that some of these are automatically generated duplicate articles and some refer to more specific classifications, but this is not my area of expertise. Could someone more knowledgeable in this area take a look at these please?

Thanks --193.34.186.55 (talk) 08:54, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Most seem to be related to Polbot created articles. Shyamal (talk) 09:40, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Note some may be slightly out of date as I made this list from the May Wikipedia download data --193.34.186.55 (talk) 10:50, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Note: Double caps in hyphenated words are not frequently used (essentially they are an Australian specialty these days) and IIRC it is Wikipedia SOP not to capitalize the part behind the hyphen. So African Pygmy-Kingfisher ought to be African Pygmy-kingfisher or African Pygmy Kingfisher (I think BirdLife, HBW & IUCN use the former). Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 11:44, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Have moved it to the non-hyphenated version following worldbirdnames.org Shyamal (talk) 16:32, 1 August 2008 (UTC)