Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology/Archive 7

Pterodactyl as a common name for Pterosauria

Sparked by the above (retracted) move request. We need more opinions to get a resolution. Please reply at Talk:Pterosaur#Pterodactyl as a common name for Pterosauria. Thanks.-- Obsidi♠n^Soul 09:28, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Merging genus stubs into family articles

Stemonitis has merged the Monjurosuchus article on with the Monjurosuchidae article. I have no idea why that article is more fit for such than all other genus level stubs we have, but I think we should at least be consistent. FunkMonk (talk) 12:15, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Don't really like it, to be honest. Genera seem distinct enough to warrant separate articles and it's not like the family article has more info than the genera stubs. Unless the genera are usually described together as a family, merging them into the family article by virtue of them being stubs would make expanding such articles more likely to contain synthesis. Redirecting to family also makes it harder for people not familiar with redirects to attempt expansion, every time they click the genus link they'd be taken to an unexpected page. Species would be alright I guess, but family seems too high a rank.-- Obsidi♠n^Soul 13:24, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree, but was reverted. I just hope it isn't an ongoing operation. FunkMonk (talk) 13:56, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree. I can understand what he's doing in this case because the family only has that one member, so they're practically synonymous, but still, we have every reason to think more monjurosuchids will be discovered in the future so even that justification is weak. I think the articles should be split back up. Abyssal (talk) 15:19, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

The family is not synonymous, so I see no reason that there should be redirects. And even if there were, don't we usually direct the family to the genus? If it's a matter of the genus articles being too short, I can expand them. Smokeybjb (talk) 15:37, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Relax, I said I support reseparating them. Abyssal (talk) 16:13, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I will note that this is something Stemonitis has been doing for a year r two now, and a number of trilobite and ammonite genera were redirected along with living genera articles in the mites etc. I have reverted this when it happens to my watch-listed articles. --Kevmin § 17:21, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

It would have been courteous to let me know this discussion was going on, to say the least. The responses that you have all written here make it clear that you have entirely misunderstood the motivation behind the edits I have made. "Genera seem distinct enough to warrant separate articles." Yes, but that's not the point. We're not talking about notability here, we're talking about content and context. Where a subtopic of a larger topic (and that includes daughter taxa of larger taxa) has an article that contains no information not presented in the article of the larger topic, then there is no reason to maintain its separateness. There is generally more context at the larger article, and it saves the reader from clicking through each of the genera in turn (for instance), only to be told something he or she has already read. (Having learnt that "Randomidae is a family of things, containing Randomus and Neorandomus", we learn nothing from a page that says "Neorandomus is a randomid thing"; we have wasted a click, and have to click again to go back to the previous article, causing frustration rather than education!) It is standard practice to merge articles in this way, and is entirely laudable. Until my edits, these articles were awful substubs with just enough information to save them from speedy deletion, but not enough to be actually informative. Philydrosaurus was in a cleanup category, where it had been for months, and where it had deserved to be for even longer. Nothing had been done to improve it in that time. It is therefore harsh to criticise me for taking a couple of almost worthless articles and making one half-decent one out of them. Yes, each could be improved (and has, I am glad to see), but my edits were undoubtedly constructive. It is much better to have a rounded article on a family that lists its members than a series of pointless substubs that each add nothing to the reader's understanding. That is the motivation, and that remains true. Reverting on sight is not constructive, as it leaves readers at uninformative pages, having to trudge through a hierarchy to find anything informative. That should not be anybody's policy. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:43, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for not notifying you, but I thought you had this page watchlisted since you're interested in palaeontology. And it doesn't look like the family is monotypic, but if it had been the case, family is usually redirected to genus, not the other way around. FunkMonk (talk) 10:41, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Stemonitis, but I think you got it wrong in this case. The "before" version had a good source with which the article could easily be improved. And you could have done it in less time and work than you've spent in this discussion. --Philcha (talk) 18:26, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

That's an unfair reply. This discussion was just as much brought about by others reverting my work. (Since then, the articles have been improved greatly, which is excellent, but the discussion was instigated by the reverts.) I could have expanded it, but I found another solution – one that removed no information, and gave more context to the genera in question. To suggest I "got it wrong", when the encyclopaedia was improved by my work is simply untrue. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:11, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

On my part, I assumed you were already aware of this discussion.

That said, I still disagree. Philydrosaurus and Monjurosuchus each have information scattered online and offline that simply have not been placed on their stubs, that doesn't warrant their immediate dismissal is inconsequential. You are judging their notability/worthiness based on their status as Wikipedia articles and not on the actual information they can potentially hold.

Notability is not something we have to worry about anyway, all taxa are notable by default, the only problem is when information is scarce or bound to be repetitive. Not the case in most paleontological taxa. If anything in paleontology, families tend to be monotypic, and thus should be redirected to the most specific identity rather than the highest distinct one.

Stubs have also one great advantage over merged articles - they invite the reader to contribute. Merged articles meanwhile are confusingly difficult to sift through, vague by its nature, and poses more technical and organizational difficulties for expansion if ever more information warrants their separation again. Re-splitting, histmerge, trying to describe two or more genera on a single page without hopelessly confusing them all together, etc. all of those are barriers to a new editor. In fact, by merging them into a single article you are virtually condemning them to never be expanded at all.

Most family articles contain nothing but taxonomic information, not a lot of authorities publish studies by family. And most importantly, people don't search for families. Species and genus articles meanwhile can hold a lot more. More specific things like pictures of fossils, distribution ranges, discovery, time ranges, authors, type species, synonyms, holotypes, restorations, etc. with no need to constantly point out which belongs to which genus.-- Obsidi♠n^Soul 18:28, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

You still appear to be missing the point

1. It doesn't matter how much information isn't presented about a taxon on a page. It doesn't matter if whole books have been written about them. If all we've got is "Neorandomus is a randomid thing", then it deserves to be merged. They could all be expanded, but the decision to merge or separate is based on the content that is there right now. If more information is provided, they can be de-merged. It isn't
2. This isn't, and never has been, an argument about notability; every taxon could be worthy of an article, but not every article is worthy of separation. The two are entirely unrelated. If families are monotypic, then obviously they will redirect to the genus. That is also irrelevant to this discussion.
3. I don't accept the argument that family-level merged articles discourage involvement, and I would also argue that there is just as much information about families as there is for genera, if not more. Every family has characteristics that justify grouping its members together; it has a geological and a geographical history; there may be theories about its origins and spread in space and time, far more than there will be for single taxa, which typically just have a range. (For example, if early randomids were all from Laurasia, while some later ones are found in Africa, then there's an interesting story of range expansion. Perhaps they show the same trends seen in species of Stochasticus...) There are characters that its members have in common, and characters which separate them, and all the evolutionary theorising that that can entail. If a family has been described, then there is information about it; they are not mere arbitrary groupings. In fact, I think there is a strong case for generally working "top-down", and filling in the families before the genera. In this case, there was no article about the family, which would have made it harder for readers to take the usual hierarchical route to the articles in question. That point is open to argument, and I won't insist upon it, but my main point – that edits such as the ones I made should not be reverting purely on some misguided principle – still stands.

Incidentally, if you are interested in preventing all future mergers, then you might like to address yourselves to the remaining articles in Category:Missing taxobox. They're mostly fossils, and they're mostly very short articles indeed. There's generally at least one good reference for each, but in my opinion, many of them would be better merged into more informative family-level articles. If you don't want to take on that burden, I'll quite understand, but please don't undo my actions if I try to clean them up. We're all working together here, and undoing one solution because you'd rather another happened (at some later time) is not helpful. Well done on the good work on Philydrosaurus and Monjurosuchus; I'm glad some good has come out of this débacle. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:11, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

For information on families, of course. That's why they also deserve separate articles unless monotypic after all. But any article talking about the family will undoubtedly have a very different coverage than the genus/species articles, they will always focus on the similarities and not on the differences; and per your own argument family-level trends. The difficulty in trying to put across genus and species-level descriptions in a merged article is prohibitive, whether you acknowledge it or not. If I would have wanted to add specific info on a merged article, I'd have problems even finding a place to insert the information. Where do you place authority data and synonyms if the article only has one taxobox? Where do you place characteristics one genus exhibits but not another? What if you have more info on one genus than the other? Like in the previous case, Monjurosuchus is more well-covered than Philydrosaurus. Do you simply ignore one genus and describe the previous genus further or do you not expand any of the genera at all for fear of upsetting the 'balance' of data weight?

Most importantly, WP:MERGE does not support your first rationale. All the points I've offered are explicitly stated on the section on merges that should be avoided. To quote:

Merging should be avoided if

1. The resulting article is too long or "clunky"
2. The separate topics could be expanded into longer standalone (but cross linked) articles
3. The topics are discrete subjects and deserve their own articles even though they may be short

I've mostly done stub expansion and will try to do so on that list then... if I can access the sources, heh. IMO, expanding stubs is still a better alternative than simply hiding them again. Like Monjurosuchus and Philydrosaurus, the result is a more lasting solution rather than a temporary one. Although admittedly, it does take more involvement than (at least on my part) most of us can spare.-- Obsidi♠n^Soul 20:03, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

This advice on when not to merge is, however, contradicted by "If a page is very short and is unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it with a page on a broader topic" (no. 3 of "good reasons to merge"). The articles I merged had been there for a year, and without my taking an interest, could have gone unimproved for another year. I had no reason to believe any expansion was forthcoming. I don't insist that everyone make the same descisions I have made, but I can't accept that my actions deserved such criticism. Anyway, I only came here to explain my actions, and I reckon I've done that now. --Stemonitis (talk) 21:22, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Have you seen the example it gives? Monjurosuchidae and its relationship with Monjurosuchus and Philydrosaurus don't exactly compare to the "parents or children of a celebrity who are otherwise unremarkable."

You misunderstand the stipulation that it is 'unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time'. It doesn't contradict anything at all. It doesn't mean it's unlikely to be expanded by an editor, it means it's unlikely to be expanded because it does not have enough coverage yet or ever. Hence the specific example and its wording.

Like I've mentioned earlier, it's about potential content, it has nothing to do with the abilities or inclinations of Wikipedians (i.e. nothing to do with the span of time it had remained a stub). If you can expand it, why would you merge it? It's a step back rather than a step forward.

"Unlikely to be expanded" = "Can't be expanded". I'm sure you've noticed that this rule is applied most often to WP:ONEEVENT subjects rather than to all stubs in particular. The type of articles were we get one mention, create an stub for it, then wait if there are more coverage forthcoming before deciding to merge it or not. If that hadn't been the case, there would have been no point in stubs at all.-- Obsidi♠n^Soul 22:18, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

It's also important to note that there's often debate over the validity of families, but not as much over genera and species. For example, Monjurosuchidae includes Monjurosuchus and Philydrosaurus, but recent studies separate the two genera, making the family invalid (or at least monotypic, since it was originally based on just Monjurosuchus). The genera are still valid, only their relationship with each other is in question. Therefore, a family article would only include its taxonomic history (who named it, who included what in it) and not much else in the way of evolutionary history, anatomy, paleobiology, etc. That's why it's sometimes preferable to include most of the detail in the genus rather than family articles. Smokeybjb (talk) 20:26, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I have to add my opinion - the genus is the standard 'page' much like the species is a standard 'page' that folks look to information in sources. Hence I agree with separate genus articles. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:36, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Several examples have been specified above where it makes sense for each genus to have its own page, and I agree that in most cases this is the right thing to do. However, there are surely cases where a separate page is redundant. Monogeneric families cannot support two separate pages: there is surely nothing that is true about the family that is not also true about the genus. If a new genus is discovered, then in my opinion, that would be the time to split them. By this logic, we'd also need separate pages for species within a monospecific genus, which I hope all would agree is over-enthusiastic. There are many other cases where very little separates genera in a family: I have come across some which are basically identical but are put in separate families based on their geographical or temporal occurrence. A genus article in this case could only be a duplicate of the family page with the addition "from the Devonian of China", and I don't see what purpose this serves.

To put forwards a practical example, I have created a few short articles about Cambrian cap-shaped shells. There are many such genera, most of which are distinguished by relatively simple details: proportion of this to that, angle of curvature, number of septa. To my mind, the best approach here is for a comprehensive page covering most Cambrian cap-shaped fossils and putting them in context. Then, genera about which little is to be said can be covered here, whereas more extensive genera can be summarized in the overview page as well as having a page of their own. To me, it would seem a little much to have a genus page that had (and could have) no more information that the summary in "Cambrian cap-shaped shells". This example may be unusual, but to my mind demonstrates that there are some cases where the general rule (one page per genus) should not be applied. As I see it, editorial discretion (preferably by the editors creating content) should be promoted over instruction creep. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:04, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

The only problem with that is we're not talking about absent articles that have yet to be made, but existing stubs. I would argue that moving those stubs back again to a higher group, while it does provide context more accessible to the reader, loses valuable information that could only be placed on its own article in the process (excluding monotypic taxa of course). Unless you create complicated tables detailing collection sites, range, authorities, synonyms, etc. instead of simple lists in the group page. And that is a significantly more taxing task as well as being prohibitive to later edits. In addition, this does affect more than one editor as someone must have created those stubs in the first place. But yeah, I admit, it does sound more sane in some cases.

Nonetheless, the question here is should we simply move stubs which do not contain much information to its family article without trying to ascertain if it can indeed be expanded? i.e. should we judge on existing information on the Wikipedia article or on possible information (existing outside Wikipedia) that can still be added?

For example, Stegolophodon contains nothing more than two sentences and a picture. Is that enough to warrant merging it into Stegodontidae?-- Obsidi♠n^Soul 15:32, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Help needed in AfD

Please see AfD discussion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Miocene fauna of north - eastern Paratethys - any help is appreciated. Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 14:20, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

New article about Snowmastodon, Ice Age fossil dig that made the NYT today

Wikipedia's "Did you know ...?" project features interesting new articles with links from the front page. I think a small-but-good article on Snowmastodon would be a natural. The time limit is that it needs to be big enough, good enough, and nominated for DYK within 5 days of the article's creation. Really a nice topic for interesting a wider audience, if anybody wants to help write or proofread. Sharktopus ^talk 21:15, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Hmm... shouldn't it be the The Snowmastodon Project? Seems to be the official name for the dig at least (http://www.dmns.org/science/the-snowmastodon-project). That way it also won't be mistaken for an individual animal.-- Obsidi♠n^Soul 21:28, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps -- I took the article title out of the NYT article's saying "Here at Snowmastodon, as the site is called..." I will not object if you want to rename it, since you probably have more experience in such matters than I do. Sharktopus ^talk 21:33, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Heh, I'm definitely not (more experienced, I mean). But yeah you're right, Snowmastodon Project seems to refer to the main excavation efforts by DMNS rather than the site itself. Though again, 'Snowmastodon' seems to be always followed by 'dig' or 'site' to indicate that it's a fossil site rather than a single fossil find. But I'll be happy to help expand the article within the next few days. :) Not just now though, too sleepy, heh.

I also suggest you email the Denver Museum of Nature & Science immediately (if you haven't already) for the possibility of obtaining free photos we can use for the article. They seem to be releasing press and teacher kits, so I'm sure they'd be willing to provide some for Wikipedia. -- Obsidi♠n^Soul 22:02, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Great idea, will do. I just hope they don't get any ideas about tracing my email back to capture a real live sharktopus. I don't want to live in a museum at the moment. Sharktopus ^talk 22:25, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Excellent! *starts auctioning you off to cryptozoologists*. >:D Seriously though, I've done it a few times myself (picture-begging that is, heh). Academics are usually very accommodating when it comes to Wikipedia.-- Obsidi♠n^Soul 00:07, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Eurycleidus?

We have a really short article about Eurycleidus with no citations, and in the Rhomaleosaurus article it is stated that the species "R. megacephalus" has been assigned to Eurycleidus. But I can find no mention of this on the web, anyone knows what's going on? FunkMonk (talk) 20:28, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Here's what I found: This paper says ""R." megacephalus is referred to Eurycleidus" and this one cites Storrs and Taylor (1996) for the assignment. There's no open access version on the web, but Storrs and Taylor mentions that "Eurycleidus is a large "pliosaurian" form, closely allied if not identical to Rhomaleosaurus megacephalus." Eurycleidus arcuatus was named in 1840 and R. megacephalus was named in 1846, so Eurycleidus wins out. Smokeybjb (talk) 04:39, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't. Eurycleidus arcuatus was named in 1840, as Plesiosaurus arcuatus, but the genus Eurycleidus was only named in 1922. See doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1994.tb00316.x. Ucucha 15:27, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Storrs and Taylor (1996) don't say anything substantial about Eurycleidus except the bit already cited by you. Rhomaleosaurus Seeley, 1874 has Plesiosaurus cramptoni Carte and Bailey, 1863, as its type species. If Eurycleidus arcuatus and Rhomaleosaurus megacephalus are the same, the species would be called either Eurycleidus megacephalus or Rhomaleosaurus megacephalus, depending on whether the cramptoni and megacephalus are considered congeneric. Ucucha 15:35, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

If Eurycleidus arcuatus is the same species as Rhomaleosaurus megacephalus, then the species should be called either E. arcuatus or R. megacephalus, but not E. megacephalus. At least I haven't seen the name E. megacephalus in the literature. Smith and Dyke (2008) separate R. megacephus from the other Rhomaleosaurus species in their phylogenetic analysis and put it close to E. arcuatus. There's no mention of it being a distinct species of Eurycleidus as far as I can tell, so its probably the same as E. arcuatus in this case. Smokeybjb (talk) 16:49, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant to say "would be called either Eurycleidus arcuatus or Rhomaleosaurus arcuatus", but confused the names. If that phylogeny is correct, then yes, there's a good chance the two together would be Eurycleidus arcuatus. On Wikipedia, we'll have to wait until someone formally makes that change, though. Ucucha 17:03, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Prehistoric Lepidoptera

I usually dont work on fossil species, but I made a fist draft for an article on Prehistoric Lepidoptera. The lead section is from the main Lepidoptera article, while the list comes from various sources. If anyone is interested in expanding the article and/or make articles on genera and species, all help is welcome! Cheers Ruigeroeland (talk) 10:24, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Two fossil moth articles

I have just finished writing up the two fossil Tortrix species named by Cockerell in 1907 and 1917. Tortrix? destructus and Tortrix? florissantana are both over the minimum for DYK so if anyone thinks they are interesting go ahead and nominate them, I'm not participating in that project at this point. --Kevmin § 02:46, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Great! Really nice to see all the response to the Fossil Lep article. I never did anything with DYK, so I really wouldn't know how the nomination process works.. plus I'm going on vacation in a few days, so I dont know if I have the time to figure it out just now. Maybe someone with experience would like to nominate them? Anyway: great articles! Ruigeroeland (talk) 07:32, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I've brought this to the attention of User:Smokeybjb, a paleontology editor whose active in nominating DYKs. Abyssal (talk) 13:38, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Hello, I've nominated them here, let me know if you have better ideas for the hook. Smokeybjb (talk) 16:52, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd remove the question marks, but it looks good to me. Is using two articles with one hook common? Abyssal (talk) 18:20, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Smokeybjb. Abyssal, the question marks are there as that is how carpenter designated then, and it is the common practice for species of uncertain assignment. Double nominations, two articles, one hook, are fairly common actually.--Kevmin § 18:36, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I still think the question marks are superfluous; I'd let the reader learn about the uncertainty of the referral in the article. But, like I said, I'm not opposed to passing it as it currently stands. Abyssal (talk) 19:16, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Some questions have been raised about the articles over at DYK (see here). I don't know anything about fossil moths though, so I can't be of much help. Looks like the hook is too boring as well, any other suggestions? Smokeybjb (talk) 03:07, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Access to journals on Palaeontinidae

Resolved

Hello, does anyone have a copy of or access to the following journals?

• Bo Wang, Haichun Zhang, & Jacek Szwedo (2008). "Jurassic Palaeontinidae from China and the Higher Systematics of Palaeontinoidea (Insecta: Hemiptera: Cicadomorpha)". Palaeontology. 52 (1). The Palaeontological Association: 53–64. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00826.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Arthur Gardiner Butler (1869–1874). Lepidoptera Exotica; or, Descriptions and Illustrations of Exotic Lepidoptera. E. W. Jansen. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)

The second one is technically public domain and optional, but it would probably be useful to fill in the Discovery subsection. They are for a sandboxed article of Palaeontinidae that I'm currently working on.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 03:26, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Scratch second one. I found a copy here. \o/ -- Obsidi♠n Soul 03:28, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Obtained a copy.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 01:43, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Another fossil moth

I just finished up and added an article on Neurosymploca? oligocenica. I think a good hook for DYK.. would be:

• "...that when the extinct forester moth, Neurosymploca? oligocenica was described a second fossil was known but not available to be studied?" --Kevmin § 17:07, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I just completed another article, Hydriomena? protrita, and nominated it.--Kevmin § 08:35, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Polycotylus news item

Good day, WikiProject Palaeontology editors. There is growing consensus on WP:ITN/C to post a news item on recent findings related to Polycotylus. The page has received an update from Smokeybjb, but ITN reviewers believe the page could use more expansion. Any assistance from more knowledgeable editors would be greatly appreciated. —Arsonal (talk + contribs)— 04:46, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I could expand it some more, but I don't have full access to the article in Science (abstract here) that the new info comes from. Anyone who has full access to the paper is welcome to help me expand it! Smokeybjb (talk) 16:01, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

use of symbols

There is a discussion going on where people are unhappy with the biological use of the symbol † to denote extinction. Since this has the potential to affect quite a few articles it might be worth a look. Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:34, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Allenton hippopotamus

If anyone is familiar with this animal, could they clarify whether this is actually H. amphibamus, which the article states, or one of the three extinct species that lived in Britain, Hippopotamus antiquus, hippopotamus major or Hippopotamus gorgops? All one can fnd via Google is either complete crap or Wikipedia mirros. FunkMonk (talk) 11:36, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I think it may be correct; see [1]. Did H. amphibius get that far north during the interglacials? I'm not familiar with hippo paleodistributions. Ucucha (talk) 11:41, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

It seems a bit odd, since the northernmost sub-species of Hippopotamus amphibamus is only mentioned as having been present as far north as Egypt (on th Wikipedia page), so in any case this one must have been a unique subspecies... But it is really hard to come by any info of those extinct species. FunkMonk (talk) 12:03, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Hippopotamus cites a good source [2] for the occurrence of H. amphibius in Europe during the Eemian. I agree, though—there's very little good summary documentation (of the sort that Mammal Species of the World provides for living species) for extinct mammals. Ucucha (talk) 12:26, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Transitional fossil and ID-pushers

Some determined ID-POV pushing going on at Transitional fossil and on its talk page. Could do with eyes being kept on it. DuncanHill (talk) 22:18, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Paleodb

Is Paleodb down or is it just me? :( -- Obsidi♠n Soul 00:02, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Must be just you, I can get to it. Smokeybjb (talk) 00:10, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Aw man. Must be those frakking browser updates again. Anyway thanks. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 00:22, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

FAR notice

I have nominated Homo floresiensis for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Dana boomer (talk) 13:12, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

WT:TOL#The biggest clades of them all...which ones belong on Wikipedia?

Please see the link above. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:34, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

New resource on Burgess Shale

Those interested in Cambrian life may find a new resource helpful in their editing: http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/. The associated template {{Burgess Shale species}} has been created to easily reference species pages where appropriate. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:47, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Paleoneurology

My name is Lauren and I am an undergraduate senior in Dr. Joseph Burdo's course Introduction to Neuroscience at Boston College in Massachusetts. As students in this course, we have been given the assignment to expand one of many article stubs on Wikipedia pertaining to neuroscience. We will be learning more about specific topics in neuroscience as well as familiarizing ourselves with Wikipedia. We have chosen to expand on the topic paleoneurology and as it has much information pertinent to Paleontology, I would like to draw anyone's attention to it in hopes that it was a help expansion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoneurology. Okadala (talk) 00:21, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Please make sure that every student edits under separate accounts, and have a quick look at Wikipedia:Five pillars and Wikipedia:Your first article. The most pertinent guidelines are perhaps WP:Verifiability (in connection to that, also WP:Referencing for beginners and WP:Referencing for beginners with citation templates) and WP:Neutral point-of-view. Please don't hesitate to ask questions if you run into problems.

However, just a note, Paleoneurology is not a stub article, but you're still welcome to expand it.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 01:05, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Okadala (talk) 15:05, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Interesting; I've been working on Tilly Edinger's collection of brain casts in the MCZ recently. She was a very interesting woman. Ucucha (talk) 15:34, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

WP Palaeontology in the Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Palaeontology for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 19:41, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Archaeopteryx specimens

I have started a discussion about whether or not we should create a new article or multiple articles from the specimen list in the Archaeopteryx article. Please feel free to offer any input here. (I've cross-posted this section to WP:DINO in order to get more input.) -Ferahgo the Assassin (talk) 22:24, 14 January 2012 (UTC)