Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology

Early Toarcian extinction event

A discussion at Talk:Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event failed to reach a consensus about whether to retitle the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event page to "Early Toarcian extinction event" (or "Toarcian turnover", or some other term that applies to the Early Toarcian palaeoenvironmental crisis at large).

I created and wrote the entire article and titled it the way it's currently titled, but the article has always discussed the smaller (though still significant) PTo-E extinction pulse that occurred shortly before the TOAE and is considered a different event from the TOAE. Furthermore, many peer-reviewed papers have a broader scope and don't discuss which taxa went extinct in which individual pulses, or the stratigraphic sections they studied don't have sufficient resolution to distinguish which taxa went extinct in the TOAE and which ones in the PTo-E. This, plus the fact that these two events occurred in close temporal proximity and are generally believed to have the same root cause makes it difficult to neatly separate the two pulses. For all these reasons, I think a title reflecting the broader Toarcian crisis is much more appropriate than the current title that only applies specifically to the largest anoxic event within this extinction event.

Since the talk page discussion reached no consensus as previously mentioned, I decided to bring forward this discussion here. Anteosaurus magnificus (talk) 04:45, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm inclined to side with those who want to keep the current name per WP:COMMONNAME, although a retitle to "Toarcian oceanic anoxic events" might also work. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 06:25, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

“Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Events” is not a scientifically used term at all. It would be far more confusing and inaccurate than either of the other two options.

Technically, “Toarcian extinction” (or some variant thereof) is the common name for the whole crisis, as “Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event” refers strictly to the TOAE, to the exclusion of the PTo-E as well as the hyperthermal climatic events and negative CIEs that led up to the positive CIE which defines the TOE. No peer-reviewed article says it can be used to refer to the multi-pulsed crisis at large. It would be akin to titling the Late Ordovician Mass extinction the “Hirnantian Oceanic Anoxic Event” when the wider biocrisis was far more than just that one biogeochemical event. Anteosaurus magnificus (talk) 15:40, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I am currently working on such events, both on the Pl/To and on the Jenkins event. And I have to make a number of incisions: The actual name of the extinction interval that takes place in the upper biozone Polymorphum is defined as Jenkins event, as it includes also events that have taken place in non-marine (Posidonienschiefer f.e.) and/or lacustrine areas (Sichuan Megalake), as may be the ongoing project for the basin of the Cañadón Asfalto Formation, which has been discussed in the publication of the Eusauropod Bagualia alba. Technically, the TOAE refers to only the marine facies, yet is actively used as a synonym of JE. It is not the same as the Pi-Toa, as it occurs near ∼1 Myr later (How for example it is cited here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1464343X15301412)

They are 2 separate events, but both fed by the growing Ferrar-Karoo-Chon Aike volcanism in the south, and Skane 1 in the north. In the first one, changes happen due to a Hyperthermal transition and includes an initial extincion, the second one, motivated by a radical change in the terrestrial hydric cycle, with erosion and displacement of sediments to increased marine zones (I recommend to look for the Tagoudite Formation, it is the best example) and black shales facies. It has to be noted that a lot of taxa, tought to be extinct in the Pli-Toa, on reality disappears or is clearly left as a dead clade on the TOAE (Example the Lithiothis facies https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018217313172). Overall Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event is the most used term, tought beware of sinking the Pli-Toa on it. I recommend to rename the article to "Toarcian Extincions" to not create too many splits, and so add the Middle Toarcian Cold Snap on it Yewtharaptor (talk) 00:10, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/Biological and health sciences/Animals : 2023 Edition

Ok, so it has been brought to my attention that some changes could be made quite soon to the Vital article page. I'd like to have everybody's educated opinion on which taxa (preferably families, but also genera and/or species, both extant and extinct) are missing (I don't really need another reminder that putting in Incisivosaurus and Brontoscorpio was a bad idea, so try sticking to the missing stuff, not the ones to remove.) Hopefully, we'll have finished dealing with that mess by the end of the month. Try bringing members from other Biology wikiprojects to see and comment on that discussion. Try not suggesting an article you've been largely involved with if it isn't specially notable too. Extinct hominids are on another page. Larrayal (talk) 23:12, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Link: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5/Biological and health sciences/Animals SilverTiger12 (talk) 17:01, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

Choosing only one representative of temnospondyl as Koolasuchus may weird? Even through it is important as the youngest member, it is still only known from partial remains. Probably Eryops, Paracyclotosaurus, Mastodonsaurus would be easy to understand what temnospondyl is but not sure. Ta-tea-two-te-to (talk) 03:19, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Also why Orthoceras is within Octopus and Hallucigenia within onychophora? Ta-tea-two-te-to (talk) 03:25, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Size of Aristonectes parvidens ?

Hello everyone, I am currently writing a draft to expand the article about the plesiosaur Aristonectes. I am first writing it in French before translating my work into English. However, in the original article, only the size of A. quiriquinensis as well as an indeterminate specimen having been discovered in Antarctica are evoked. However, in the article officially describing the second known species, it is clearly mentioned that A. parvidens would have been larger than A. quiriquinensis, without showing its true size. So if you ever have the answer from a valid source (ex: The Princeton Field Guide to Mesozoic Sea Reptiles by Gregory S. Paul, which I don't have access to), I would be grateful. Sincerely, Amirani1746 (talk) 05:32, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

It is generally agreed that recent work by GSP, such as the Princeton Field Guide to Mesozoic Sea Reptiles, is not really a reliable source and should therefore not be used. While I don't really have any proper length estimates, I'll check around with people more experienced in the matter of plesiosaurs to check on your request and see what they can dig up.Armin Reindl (talk) 15:12, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Changes to palaeoart review templates

At the Discord server (feel free to join) we've been discussing how to improve the inaccurate palaeoart and speculative palaeoart templates, the various points of what I'll list below in order of when they came up in the discussion. FunkMonk (talk) 18:46, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

• 1: Is "speculative palaeoart" a fitting name, or will it be confused for speculative evolution, and what would be a better term, if "hypothetical palaoart" also has problems? Palaeoart is inherently hypothetical, so how do we convey in the name that the categorised images are particularly so?

• 2: Should the inaccurate and speculative templates be rolled into one template where each category is just its own parameter? Different template images for each probably won't be possible then, and it may be harder to identify which template is used at a glance.

• 3: Should we have a parameter/template for palaeoart what has been approved at the WP:palaeoart review (and WP:dinoart)? That will make it much easier for us and editors outside the project to identify which images are reliable (but will be a huge task). In this scheme, images that have just been reviewed will get tagged, but we will also have to retroactively tag already reviewed images.

• 4: What criteria for inclusion of each parameter do we need for specific types of images?

• 5: What else do we want added/changed to the templates to make them extra useful and easy to work with?

FunkMonk (talk) 18:46, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Interesting. My two cents:

• 1: "Speculative palaeoart" sounds ok to me.
• 2: I didn't even notice that these are in fact two different templates. I am all for simplicity, joining them into a single template sounds sensible. Maybe the template image could show both possibilities.
• 3: I am worried about the amount of work this will cause long-term. Also, would this add more pressure to the image review by setting standards higher, so that we could get a backlog like we have at WP:GAN? At the moment, the lack of a tag implies that the image is ok to use, which seems to be sufficient to me (we cannot, and don't have to, be perfect). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:09, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I've discussed my perspective over on the discord and I can summarize it here:

• To me, the biggest issue is that our current set of templates fail to draw a distinction between "reasonably conservative paleoart of a fragmentary taxon inferred from better-known relatives" (for clarity I will refer to this as "FRAGMENTARY TAXON PALEOART") and "overly-imaginative paleoart with speculative behavior and anatomy that is not explicitly contradicted by the literature" (what I will call "ARTISTIC LICENSE PALEOART"). Our current "speculative paleoart" template corresponds to art in the first category, but we have no explicit disclaimer template for art in the second category.
• I agree with FunkMonk's concern over the "speculative paleoart" template name. Not only does it unintentionally imply a relation to paleontology-themed speculative evolution (such as dinosauroid imagery), but I would also argue that "speculative" is a term more appropriate for "ARTISTIC LICENSE PALEOART" rather than its current use in the template for "FRAGMENTARY TAXON PALEOART".
• I would personally rather see separate templates for all of these paleoart "types" (FRAGMENTARY vs ARTISTIC LICENSE vs DOWNRIGHT INACCURATE/HISTORICAL), but I wouldn't protest too much if they were used as separate parameters in one unified "Problematic paleoart" or "Paleoart disclaimer(s)" template.
• I agree with Jens' concern that applying a template to every single piece of paleoart in Commons is a massive amount of work. We'd also be forced to reckon with abundant edge cases for what constitutes a proper review or approval. I would argue strongly that templates are only warranted for images which people have voiced issues with on the review page. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 01:43, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm erring on the side of perhaps not needing an "approved paleoart" tag/parameter, if people will just assume that non-tagged imagery is correct. But that of course leads to another problem, which is that these days, a large amount of paleoart is added to Commons and articles by "drive-by paleoartists" who never send it to review, and in many cases don't even know the review exists. So all these images will remain untagged, even if inaccurate, because we simply aren't aware of their existence often, but this will also mean that if people assume untagged paleoart is approved, they will assume that inaccurate paleoart we have never reviewed is accurate simply because it isn't tagged? Which leaves another issue, some editors simply remove inaccurate/speculative/unreviewed paleoart from articles without sending them review or adding tags to them, which then leaves them in this limbo floating around on Commons where others might find and use them, which we should really advise against (looking at you, Hemiauchenia!). FunkMonk (talk) 15:13, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Do we consider images to be "approved" if they were 1) listed in the image review and 2) did not recieve a tag before being archived? If so, then we should already have all required information right at the Commons image pages. An editor can assume that an image is approved if 1) a tag is absent and 2) the image is linked to one of the image review archives. Which means that, if we want these tags, we could have a bot that keeps adding them to the image pages. We would just need to screen the review archives for any images that are not paleoart to start with. Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:09, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Paleobiota page for the Cañadón Asfalto Fm.?

While looking through some of our pages on geological formations I stumbled upon the page for the Cañadón Asfalto Formation. This page was recently nominated for GA review, but quick-failed due to multiple issues with sourcing and the presence of the template "too many charts". Looking at the article, it seems to have a giant paleobiota list in comparison to the main body, which seems to be the main complaint. Maybe it would be a good idea to split this list out into a seperate Paleobiota page like we have for the Morrison Formation? The Morrison Man (talk) 06:28, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree that a separate page for the tables is a good idea here, especially since the biota is so extensive. The Yixian Formation also implements a similar separate biota page. -SlvrHwk (talk) 06:43, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Be WP:BOLD and do it- the list is big enough to warrant it. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 13:37, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Done. The list can now be found at Paleobiota of the Cañadón Asfalto Formation The Morrison Man (talk) 11:46, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Unnecessary split of the Cañadón Asfalto Formation Page

I, as the person who made the new biota tables and redid the Cañadón Asfalto Formation article, am against the split of a Paleobiota page. The article alone barely gathers visits (about 100 in 3 months, if not less), subdividing it will only make it even less noticeable. Even more, the proper Cañadón Asfalto page actually is basically useless. I ask that it be reverted and returned to its original state. (talk) 17:02, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Did you see the discussion above about this split? (I think the split was a very good idea.) Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:15, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

No, neither I was quoted for it (Not necesary but I would have liked to have an opinion back when 1st discussed) Yewtharaptor (talk) 15:40, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

First of all, is there a reason for this to be a seperate discussion from the one above about the split?

As for your request, I don't think that making the tables and redoing the article gives you any more sway in this, frankly. It might have been good to ask for your input, but as it stands there are still three users in favour (one of those being myself), while you seem to be the only one against the split. As for the reasoning for the split, I decided to do so because of a maintenance template (specifically the one for surplus data without context) that was present on the article, which the creation of a seperate paleobiota page has solved. Aside from this, a similar system with dual, inter-linked articles is currently in effect and working quite nicely on Morrison Formation, Hell Creek Formation and La Brea Tar Pits, all three of which have seperate pages for paleobiota.

Finally, I do not see how the splitting out of the biota list has somehow resulted in the fact that "the proper Cañadón Asfalto page actually is basically useless.", as it still provides plenty of information about geology, stratigraphy and related topics. I also do not believe that the article will become "less noticeable", readers will be most likely to find the main page first before moving on to the biota page. The Morrison Man (talk) 15:29, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Better known formations such as Morrison benefit from being split because they have a higher visitor base. The Cañadón formation does not, it is much more obscure to the eyes of the public, who, at best, will go directly to look for the name of X taxon. As a whole it is a long page? Yes. But all together it feeds better the possibility of giving visibility to topics such as the environment, an aspect that I have seen that is often ignored when there is a split (For example, in the Paleobiota of the Posidonia Shale page, and that is a relatively well-known unit). And yes, it was not necessary to make a new entry, but that was my human error, my apologies. Yewtharaptor (talk) 15:47, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

If people, as you say, look directly for the name of "X taxon", I don't see why we're discussing pageview statistics in the first place. Because if that is the case, people will find the pages of the individual taxa first, and will find those first regardless of whether or not there is a seperate paleobiota page. Aside from that, if the formation is as obscured as you're making it seem, shouldn't we expect low pageview counts anyways? The Morrison Man (talk) 16:13, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

The point here is, precisely, that this visit, which could be to see taxon X, can more easily turn into "Oh, I'm going to see its ecology, which happens to be available on the same page". The summary would be, make those few visits more useful/more prone to a greater context and/or information framework. Yewtharaptor (talk) 18:26, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I very much agree with The Morrison Man here. The paleobiota tables are arguably too extensive to be included on the page where the focus should be the geologic formation, rather than the formation's biota. For formations with a more limited biota and fewer sources, it is understandable to combine the two concepts. As a side note, I do think it would be appropriate to include at least some information (just a brief summary) of the biota on the formation page. -SlvrHwk (talk) 18:47, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I would also agree that a brief summary would be good to have (again, maybe something akin to that seen on the Morrison Formation?) I just did not write it out for lack of time. The Morrison Man (talk) 19:13, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I have to agree with the others here- the Paleobiota tables are far too big to leave on the formation's article and definitely needed their own. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 19:18, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Again, that would make sense, in a context where such geological unit is widely know or the article without the Paleobiota can stand by itself alone, which in this case none of both are accomplished Yewtharaptor (talk) 23:49, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I think the article stands on its own quite nicely, actually. It provides decently comprehensive information about the Formation itself. The Morrison Man (talk) 07:00, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Seeing that the consensus is then to split it, that it stays that way then. I will only ask that a summary of the biota be added to the main page. Yewtharaptor (talk) 12:26, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

List of Lagerstätte?

Sorry for mass edit in Lagerstätte page recently. As suggested by User:Fanboyphilosopher, I think it is good to separate "Important Lagerstätten" section to own page? Also this page shows age as "millions years ago", but since many of sites are not decisive to decide how old it is, and there are some inconsistencies with the actual page (such as Hunsrück Slate, while own page shows 408–400 Ma, Lagerstätte page shows 390 Ma) it would be better to change it to Stratigraphic range like "late Pragian to early Emsian" and only shows age if it is clearly shown in paper? Ta-tea-two-te-to (talk) 03:38, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

"Coelacanthus whitea"

This image was uploaded by @Apokryltaros: in 2007, descripting fish named "Coelacanthus whitea", descripted as from Permian of Alberta, Canada. Older version of page shows "Lehman, 1952" as authority. Question is, is that species actually exist? I actually can't find name "Coelacanthus whitea" in any publications, one document in researchgate shows that name[1] but that looks like just copied after Wikipedia, considering status of this publication. ("Coelacanthus sharjah" described in that document is just invalid considering described in predatory, or at least journal not acceptable with ICZN, and origin of specimen is unknown) As I see coelacanth species described in "Lehman, 1952" is Piveteauia madagascariensis and not species of Coelacanthus. Considering there is genus that is historically confused with Coelacanthus called Whiteia, it is just confused with that? Ta-tea-two-te-to (talk) 13:01, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I think it's just confusion like you state in the end. FunkMonk (talk) 13:29, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I think you solved your own mystery here ^_^. I've got nothing to add. --Licks-rocks (talk) 18:19, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, it's an old picture, I've replaced it with another one.Mr Fink (talk) 18:41, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

File description should definitely be modified to avoid future confusion, yeah. FunkMonk (talk) 22:17, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

What species should actually be drawn here? As I see Deviantart[2] fish on background is Bobasatrania, but I can't find any Permian record of coelacanth in Alberta or Canada with Bobasatrania. Ta-tea-two-te-to (talk) 01:27, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Mesonychid#Requested move 11 October 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Mesonychid#Requested move 11 October 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 18:05, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Requested moves at Talk:Palaeopteryx#Merge with "List of informally named dinosaurs" and Talk:Sinopterus#Revision

The two merge proposal discussions have been hanging around for months now without clear majority consensuses. I'm a bit cautious on merging genus articles unless it's clear that they are dubious/invalid, so I require more consensuses on the articles before closing them. PrimalMustelid (talk) 22:27, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Synthy cladogram on the Mosasaur page

The Phylogeny section on the mosasaur page contains a cladogram that appears to be a mix of different sources cobbled together. Should it be removed as a violation of WP:Original synthesis or should it be replaced with a single yet comprehensive cladogram? Miracusaurs (talk) 00:12, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

The best option is to replace it with a non-synth diagram. I'm not familiar with the literature on mosasaur relationships, so I can't recommend an alternative. If necessary, more than one can be included to illustrate the relationships of lower-level groups. -SlvrHwk (talk) 00:23, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Probably Macrophyseter we need to ask. FunkMonk (talk) 04:28, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm open to splitting the higher groups into separate cladograms. Personally against replacing everything with a singular source because of focus biases (i.e. placement of taxa A being wonky because the study's focus is on optimizing taxa B and so taxa A's accuracy is less concerned). Regarding the speculative fix tags on where I placed polytomies, it could be argued that they represent the acceptable use of WP:Original synthesis on account that sources explicitly acknowledge differences with each other and conclude that the phylogenetic consensus is closer to unresolved. However, I need to check whether the particular sources I cited do that. Macrophyseter | talk 21:17, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

It was established a while ago that editors may not combine cladograms from two or more sources; you may only show a cladogram as arranged in one source. To do otherwise is a violation of WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. The solution to perceived biases is to show multiple cladograms from different sources. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 22:23, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Do you have the link to the page for this discussion? Macrophyseter | talk 22:51, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

You can read the discussion here. -SlvrHwk (talk) 23:26, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Requested merge at Talk:Barosaurus#Merge proposal

There is a requested merge discussion at Talk:Barosaurus#Merge proposal for merging the Gordo (dinosaur) page into the Barosaurus page that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. PrimalMustelid (talk) 15:26, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Fossil X described in 2023

A few days ago User:Tyroxin started unilaterally moving the mammal and bird pages from the "Fossil taxa described in 2023" and "Fossil taxa described in 2022" categories to the "Fossil mammals described in X" and "Fossil birds described in X" categories, contrary to the precedent set by earlier years, which include all fossil taxa under one category except for parataxa like ootaxa and ichnotaxa. Because I disagreed, I restored the "Fossil taxa described in 2023" categories on the affected pages alongside Tyroxin's ones in order to create a compromise, also similar to e.g. Musivavis which has both a "fossil taxa described in 2022" and a "birds described in 2022". However, User:SlvrHwk reverted me. What should we do in this situation? Should we revert Tyroxin's changes and add everything back to the "fossil taxa described in 2023 category", follow my compromise of adding both the "fossil taxa" and "fossil mammals/birds/etc.", or something else? 49.144.201.224 (talk) 01:40, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Such changes should never have been made without consensus. For this reason, they should be reverted to the original state in my opinion. If somebody wants to create new categories such as "Fossil mammals described in X", they should open a discussion here at the WikiProject, and only make such changes when the majority here agrees. Jens Lallensack (talk) 02:01, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

I suppose these additional categories should first reach a consensus before being widely implemented (unfortunately, I didn't think of that earlier), and it should be understood which categories are best for taxon pages under the scope of this WikiProject. For some taxa (i.e. dinosaurs), only the "Fossil taxa..." category is used. However, for bird (like the aforementioned Musivavis) and mammal pages, two categories are often used: "Fossil taxa described in X" and "Birds/Mammals described in X" (I presume the latter is acceptable to use despite the fact that the taxa are extinct?). This is doable because neither category is "nested" within the other. Anyway, the new categories for "Fossil birds/mammals" combine the previous two into a single category, being placed in turn within the "Fossil taxa" and "Birds/Mammals" categories. Thus, I am afraid the solution proposed by the IP user to include both "Fossil taxa" and "Fossil birds/mammals" categories on pages cannot be implemented, as that is unnecessarily repetitive. I don't have strong opinions either way regarding whether or not the new categories should be kept. -SlvrHwk (talk) 05:42, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

There is an argument to be made about keeping Fossil taxa, as many of these extinct species are described as monotypic genera and the page handles both the species and the genus. In the tree of extant species, the latter would still allow for Fossil taxa described in, if the fossil tree was to be diversified accordingly. But off to discussion on that, my motivation was to not mix up these extinct species into categories of extant species. --Tyroxin (talk) 17:55, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

The thing is -- as is evident from this discussion -- there is no consensus for you to unilaterally separate the fossil birds from the extinct ones, or to remove them from the main "fossil taxa described in xxxx" category. Pending a community consensus, I will revert the categories to their original state. 49.144.201.224 (talk) 01:17, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I'd prefer not to split the Fossil taxa described in X categories into mammals/birds/etc, personally. SilverTiger12 (talk) 14:54, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

For the monotypic pages that cover both the genus and species, it is typical to have a redirect pointing to it, so that if the article's title is the genus, the redirect is from the species, and vice versa. The redirect is then a valid place to put the categories that don't exactly fit the main article, but do fit the redirect's title. (For instance, "taxa" categories typically go on levels of taxa above species, while "birds" or "mammals" would go on the species-level title. So if you have a species name redirecting to a genus name, "fossil birds" would fit on the redirect, and "fossil taxa" would fit on the genus article. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:06, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I would not be aware of that being a discussed guideline either, to be honest, by my perception it was somewhen started and stuck. But there has not been a concerted effort of enforcing it, yet (see Lepidogalaxias and Lepidogalaxias salamandroides). I do support that setup, and would also do so in fossil taxa, though it has to be acknowledged, that this would require the creation of redirects in every case. Not sure whether that collides with other Wikipedia guidelines keeping the creation of redirects in check. --Tyroxin (talk) 21:44, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Diversification of the "Fossil Taxa described in X" categories

I propose the diversification of the "Fossil Taxa described in X" category on the species level. The level of detail is debatable, though in the chordata, it would be sensible to match the related categories (for example "Mammals described in X" <> "Fossil mammals described in"), with possibly an adaptation regarding clades containing dinosaurs.

Initial proposed categories

Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Dinosaurs, Amphibians, Fish, Insects, Molluscs, with parent category Animals and Plants

Reasons

Specified categories would help narrow down the search for articles from a specific clade, especially as the overall taxa category has regularly exceeded 100 articles for the last two decades. In some cases, a diversification has been accomplished by also using the Species description categories mainly used for extant species. New, more specific categories would prevent the mixing of extant and fossil species in the established categories. In some cases fossil species have been described in still extant genera (example: Homo), here specified/species categories would separate them from the genera in Fossil Taxa.

Open questions

• How to handle species of monotypic genera? Options include housing both "Taxa" and "Species" categories at the primary article, or housing the "Species" at the full species name which redirects to the genus.
• What is the cutoff to consider a species being a fossil species? Is it sufficient if a species was extinct at the time a holotype was selected?
• Where do cases of microorganisms land, that have been "resurrected" from permafrost soil? --Tyroxin (talk) 21:44, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Comments

There are the "Prehistoric X genera" categories which could provide some of that functionality, but they end at the genus level and do not cover species, which specifically affects extinct species in extant genera. --Tyroxin (talk) 21:48, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I am not that much into categories, so the following points are questions rather than strong opinions. But:

• I understand your argument regarding more fine-scaled categories, but note that we already have the "year in paleontology" lists for precisely this usecase, e.g. 2023 in archosaur paleontology, that list the new taxa of dinosaurs, pseudosuchians, etc. Do we really need to duplicate this function in the categories?
• If I understand your proposal correctly, we would get two very similar categories in an article like Waltonavis: "Birds described in 2022" and "Fossil birds described in 2022". That seems mostly redundant (if not to say chaotic). I think we should try to simplify rather than making it even more complicated. Maybe we don't even need separate "fossil taxa" categories? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:29, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

The existing non-fossil categories are subcategories of "Species described in XXXX". As a genus, Waltonavis should not be in "Birds described in 2022" (however, higher taxa do get placed in the categories by editors who are unaware that they are subcategories of species categories). Plantdrew (talk) 22:51, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I see. But if this is the case, then the new system as proposed by Tyroxin does not seem to work: A category "Fossil birds described in 2022" cannot be nested within both "Birds described in 2022" and "Fossil taxa described in 2022", because the former is for species while the latter is for all taxa. Or do I miss something? Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:31, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I do believe you are correct. It would almost be more appropriate to remove "Species described in XXX" altogether, since it is a subcategory of "Taxa described in XXXX". Furthermore, none of the categories within "Species described..." directly infer that pages with that category are strictly for species rather than genera as well. -SlvrHwk (talk) 00:49, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

"Species described in" categories pre-date "Taxa described in" categories: Category:Species described in 1753 was created in 2009, Category:Taxa described in 1753 was created in 2018. I hadn't thought about the implications of the taxa categories for the species categories before, but now that the taxa categories exist, I wouldn't mind upmerging the species categories. In retrospect, having species categories instead of taxa categories is an unnecessary level of intersectional categorization. Plantdrew (talk) 04:04, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

In theory, any specialization of categories is "unnecessary", because combinations of any number of large overarching catch-all categories (Example for Waltonavis > Categories: "Described in 2022", "Genus", "Extinct taxa", "Eocene", "Birds", "Europe") can be returned by a SMW-query - with some barrier of entry, and corner cases be damned.--Tyroxin (talk) 15:51, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

In Waltonavis, "Birds described in 2022" would be replaced by "Fossil birds described in 2022" according to the proposal. Monotypic genera sometimes appear to be erroneously placed with these species, because placing the species category on the redirecting page is either not yet fully established or not correct. According to Taxon, species can be considered taxa just as well as genera, Fossil birds as a category dedicated to species thus can be considered a logical section of Fossil taxa, as a category for genus and higher. In the "species described in"-tree, a genus placed "Birds described in" would conflict with the precedent set by the "Species described in" parent category, which at least hint at a limitation to Species by its name (monotypic genera apply...). --Tyroxin (talk) 15:51, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

What is with the fixation on monotypic genera mixing in with species of multispecific genera? That just complicates the situation at hand. I thought we were talking about whether or not to split a category designed for all taxa (generic and specific) by classification, not Linnean rank. 49.144.201.224 (talk) 01:17, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

I acknowledge, 2023 in archosaur paleontology could fill a similar role of collecting (links to) articles that fit the respective delineation. I think this pushes towards a more general discussion of whether categories and "lists" are mutually exclusive, or whether both should be utilized to their respective strengths. --Tyroxin (talk) 15:51, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Jens Lallensack that splitting the main "Fossil taxa described in XXXX" taxa into separate categories for clades would be chaotic and redundant. I also agree with SlvrHwk that we should remove the "Species described in XXXX" and just create a category for all taxa, genera and species, fossil and extant, that are described in a certain year. 49.144.201.224 (talk) 01:16, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

At time of commenting, "Taxa described in 1912" would hold 2500 articles. Just for reference, half of that are moths. --Tyroxin (talk) 15:58, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose, per Jens; it will just be chaotic and annoying. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 04:15, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
• Support Per the explicit instructions governing categories. "Fossil taxa described in XXXX" articles do not perform the same function as the categories at all, The articles "ostensibly" are an overview of the everything that happened that year, REGARDLESS of if actual articles exist (Which for the majority of not Vert taxa, they dont). Categories are a system of sorting, collating, and connecting articles that share characteristics, so "Category:taxa described in XXXX" would link all the articles that actually exist in wikipedia. Additionally the category rules are clear that overly large categories should be subdivided.--Kevmin § 16:22, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

  I don't know … in the article 2023 in arthropod paleontology, the few existing articles are easily identified as such by the blue links. Categories, on the other hand, hide the fact that only a fraction of the taxa is covered. Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:36, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

  I am not sure categories must cover the outline of how many articles are missing, this is where List articles can complement a category - or a wiki project. Note that a wikipedia redlink is a fairly specific way of transmitting the information of a missing article, mainly catering to the visual impression of us editors. Other tools and means of data processing may be able to draw this information from a list article.

  Another pitfall, in Mucrospirifer, the species list consists of blue links, suggesting all described fossil species have created articles. However, all but M. mucronatus are redirects back to Mucrospirifer. (In the category view, redirects sorted in this category are shown in italics) --Tyroxin (talk) 21:18, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

  I was rather asking what the proposed categories would add in addition to the lists. Regarding redirects: For most fossil groups, including dinosaurs for example, we only have articles at genus level. That does not necessarily mean that the species are not sufficiently covered within those genus articles (and neither lists nor categories will tell if they are). Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:28, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

  @Tyroxin:, you can set redirects to display a different color. There's a more complex user script out there somewhere that also incorporates a different color for disambiguation links, but I'm using a simple one at User:Plantdrew/common.css. Just make a common.css subpage for yourself and copy the code over. Plantdrew (talk) 22:39, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

• Support, with caution. This should be tried first with experimental goals, to make sure this doesn't reveal itself impossible to manage in the long run. Categories are an useful navigation tool, our Year in XXXX articles are a good tool but they are different ; categories are also much easier to navigate. I'm much more concerned at our general capacity to manage large and regular masses of information into more precise categories. If that can be automated, it would be a definite "Support", though.

Larrayal (talk) 22:34, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

One thing I forgot to add to my previous comment is that some of the proposed categories aren't mutually exclusive. For example, Reptiles includes Dinosaurs which includes Birds. If there's a new fossil bird described, will it be added to Birds and/or Dinosaurs and/or Reptiles? (and not to mention the definition of "bird" is arbitrary; does it start at Avialae, Pygostylia, Euornithes, Aves, or what?) Having a single category for all taxa, generic and specific, will eliminate that problem. (And to eliminate Tyroxin's confusion over "taxa" and "species", just eliminate the "species" category altogether or at least clarify that the latter doesn't refer only to specific-ranked article titles.) 49.144.201.224 (talk) 01:25, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to remind you of Paraphyly, the groups in question are established concepts in public discourse (albeit delineations may vary) even though they can be traced back to a common ancestor. I acknowledge that considering the nature of fossil taxa, possibly being more basal branches and their ranking sometimes being reconstructed from relatively narrow findings, this might go either way for corner cases. (I wish to note, that I took offense at your second bracket.) --05:31, 23 November 2023 (UTC) Tyroxin (talk) 05:31, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, no offense is intended. I was just proposing a solution for the problem you have regarding the specifics of the "taxa" and "species" categories. 49.144.201.224 (talk) 06:37, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose, for the already highlighted reasons, I only think this will seek to create more chaos, more unessesary levels of intersectional categorisation, and is redundant given the already existing articles such as 2023 in archosaur paleontology which do the exact thing being proposed. I will say that there is merit to the concept of fusing 'Fossil Taxa Described in XXXX' articles into 'Taxa Described in XXXX' articles and I would be more cordial to that idea as oppose to uplifting a system that already works well. Sauriazoicillus (talk) 08:41, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
• Comment: As I said earlier, I do not have a strong opinion in support or opposition of the current category issue. I do think (however this discussion turns out), that the categories should be applicable to pages representing both genera and species (the suggested solution being to eliminate "Species described in XXX"). The current method of categorization (using both "Fossil taxa..." and "Birds/mammals/etc. described..." categories) seems to work fine, but it would also be nice to be able to separate fossil taxa from extant ones (by the new proposed "Fossil birds/mammals/etc." categories). If we go with the proposed new categories, we should try to limit them to avoid overcomplicating categorizing pages, but I don't have a solution as to how to best do this. Hope that makes sense. -SlvrHwk (talk) 00:39, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

It would be possible to to move genera and higher taxa to these new more specific categories as well, in the fossil tree, there is no "Fossil species described in" existing, nor proposed, that would semantically prohibit that. If "eliminating Species described in" means, to cut it as middle parent category, to free up moving genera, familia and ordo accordingly - I am actually not opposed to that either, but its not a thing of WP:PALEO to decide. Prevention of 'overcomplicating' could be exercised by introducting these branches step by step, starting with Fossil animals described in and Fossil plants described in. Further branches could then be established upon (popular) demand (a dinosaur category is likely in higher demand than a cnidarian category). This stepwise progression would however bring repeated maintenance edits, setting up a larger initial tree would reduce the edit load. (as opposed to "Dinosaurs described in" evolving over Animals>Vertebrates>Reptiles>Dinosaurs). --Tyroxin (talk) 04:55, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

That could work, but let’s return to the main topic of the discussion here: what are the advantages of having separate categories for say, animals and plants, instead of having an all-encompassing “Fossil taxa” category? 2001:4453:575:AB00:3057:2310:DC6:617F (talk) 05:39, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

The technical problem with your proposal is is: You want to have your categories, say "Fossil birds described in 2022", as a sub-category of "Birds described in 2022". That is not possible, because the latter is only for species. These are incompatible. But when it is not possible to nest them, then, logically, any fossil bird species needs to be in both "Birds described in 2022" AND "Fossil birds described in 2022", because the bird meets the criteria for both. This is the sort of chaos and inconsistency that I was talking about that think we really should seek to avoid. Getting rid of species categories altogether as proposed above (i.e., "Birds described in 2022" would be for all taxa, not just species) makes a lot of sense, and would solve this issue. But you are right that such a change is more far-reaching, and a separate proposal at WP:TOL would probably be required. Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:36, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

If "Fossil birds described in" is a subcategory of "Birds described in", That fossil species would only go into "Fossil birds", as usually parent categories can be expected to be inherited. If genera remain in Fossil Taxa, that is not a problem at all, if genera should be moved as well, as seems to be favored by the majority here (_if_ something is done at all) - then it might become a problem for people adhering to flawless consistency to the t for the category tree. In light of our article structure, the considerable amount of monotypic genera in fossil taxonomy is a challenge. But with adding the "species"-categories to the redirect coming from the binomial species name, there is a solution that as far as I have gathered from here is not controversial at all. --Tyroxin (talk) 20:15, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Forgive me if I misunderstood, but are you suggesting that the new proposed categories (such as "fossil birds described in year") should contain species only? So that the parent-category "Fossil taxa" would contain everything (from every group) except for the species? But you also proposed the sub-category "Dinosaurs described in year"; do you know that we don't have any dinosaur species articles in the first place? Anyways, I still think we need something much simpler and less confusing. Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:31, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

No, I did not take note of that yet.

Though in the case of Daspletosaurus, the three species referred to in the text exist as redirect pages, so this is a solvable "problem" in my book. --Tyroxin (talk) 22:26, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

So you argue that, for example, Oblitosaurus should be in the category "Fossil taxa described in 2023", while its only known species, Oblitosaurus bunnueli, should be in "Dinosaurs described in 2023"? And that "Dinosaurs described in 2023" category would contain nothing but redirects? Hmm. Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:42, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

I’m not sure redirects should even have categories... 49.144.199.79 (talk) 06:01, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

This is a long-established and accepted practice. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:18, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Evolution of fish

This article, along with other "Evolution of" articles, is simply highly outdated and still contain many contents that is highly inaccurate considering from recent views. Due to main editor have no particular background in fish evolution and suffering with terminal health issues, it is hard to extend article as accurate view, and best way of this article would be WP:BURNWITHFIRE. This article mainly focuses on the content up to the Devonian period, giving the impression that fish evolution did not occur during the Mesozoic or Cenozoic eras. So perhaps this list of fish should be redone, or perhaps the article itself should be rewritten to not include a monotonous list of fish. Since this list is created "by periods", groups and species are listed alternately, which may be difficult for beginners to understand. If anything, I feel that if listing up fish is needed, it's best to do it per groups. Honestly, I feel that selecting "important species" is quite difficult. If you collect only famous species, the results will be biased, and if you choose minor species, there are often no articles on them. What should we do? Ta-tea-two-te-to (talk) 09:07, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to structure this any differently from any number of reviews out there, such as this one: [3] I think the top-level headings can stay, except the timeline should be merged into the sections for high-level groups in prose form. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 19:55, 26 November 2023 (UTC)