Talk:Spermophilus

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cladogram[edit]

I wish we could see these clades (clade one, two three, referred to in the article) on a cladogram. It's hard to visualize this way. Chrisrus (talk) 07:56, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's very much certainty, but I don't really know that, or if it would affect the point of having a cladogram on this page. You'll have to ask Ucucha if one is possible. —innotata 15:43, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting! Chrisrus (talk) 06:09, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

MSW3 Comments are here.

I mean uncertainty on the exact relations, not that Spermophilus is paraphyletic to marmots et al. The MSW3 was published before the many of the genetic studies and Helgen's revision. —innotata 15:24, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Chrisrus, that "key" is simply a dichotomous key used for species identification. I've added a cladogram; although some relationships—those among Spermophilus s.str., Marmota, Urocitellus, Callospermophilus+Otospermophilus, and Ictidomys+Poliocitellus+Xerospermophilus+Cynomys—are not well-resolved, the others are, at least according to the studies published so far. Ucucha 22:27, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent, thank you so much! Now we readers can understand the way experts seem to think it happened, even though it's just the best guess so far. I can think of several other articles also with complicated situations that would also benefit from such a diagram. Finally, I'd like to say that if you ever get a chance to visit the fourth floor of the Natural History museum in Manhattan, it will give ideas about how all such wikipedia articles could be similarly improved. Chrisrus (talk) 16:23, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]