Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive 28

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Paleoart

Does anyone know if File:Isisaurus DB.jpg is entirely accurate? There aren't any tags but the same sauropods were removed from the background of File:Rajasaurus narmadensis DB.jpg for being incorrect, and the legs look like they're bending the wrong way   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  19:21, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

It should probably get the tag, see this SVPOW blog post:[1] By the way, queries like this may be better suited at WP:DINOART. FunkMonk (talk) 19:27, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
Nobody knows, certainly nobody has a better reconstruction, as it was traced over one of Jaime A Headden's skeletals, There seem to be issues with the scale bar and the actual measurements in the paper, as well as skeletal incompleteness.Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:34, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
The image showing only the sauropods was updated after the same sauropods were removed from the Rajasaurus image. Not sure if they're otherwise accurate or not. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 20:34, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
Its worth noting that Headden's skeletal was done two decades ago, but nothing better seems to have been published since, If somebody wanted to do a better reconstruction they'd need to do it fresh from the original paper again, preferably using the given measurements of element lengths rather than scale bars. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:50, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Three simultaneous dinosaur FAC nominations

We currently have three dinosaurs nominated for FAC simultaneously, which I think is the first time in the project's history (Oxalaia, Gallimimus, Cetiosauriscus). So go ahead and review, so we can get them all through the hoops! FunkMonk (talk) 17:36, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Oh I forgot Oxalaia was currently FAC hahaha. Cetiosauriscus has taken a lot of work since it was quickpassed as a GA (I dislike quickpasses because then I have no idea what to fix), and it probably has the most work left to do but I think it is close enough. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 23:00, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
Once two of them pass (and Oxalaia should be passing soon, it's got obvious support and no outstanding criticisms) we'll be at 50 FAs. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 23:13, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
Only 2500 left to go   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  23:58, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
So now we're at 50, two of them promoted the same day, I think this might also be a first? Also, we have had more FAs promoted so far than all of last year combined... FunkMonk (talk) 17:26, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
Ah, pardon me, I've been very busy during the past few weeks, so I've kinda been on a semi-wikibreak. I'm very happy to hear that Oxalaia got promoted! I'm quite proud of the work I put into that article, and enjoyed taking my first crack at the FA process. I definitely learned some things during the review that should help me write/expand more articles. Glad to see Gallimimus passed as well, so props to FunkMonk for helping get that one through! ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 05:05, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
Congratulations with Oxalaia, it should be a good springboard to other articles. Went very smoothly for a first FA, a good example of how most issues can be ironed out already at peer review and GAN. Maybe we should use the momentum to get Brachiosaurus ready? FunkMonk (talk) 05:18, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
This is kindof the exact opposite of Cetiosauriscus haha. GA fail, GA quickpass and after a lot of work FAN. Lets just hope I didn't jump the gun. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 05:36, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
I'd love to help with Brachio but unfortunately I know next to nothing about sauropods and I've got too many things going on irl and with studies to take on "extra projects" like that, so for now I'll continue to focus on spinosaurid articles. My next milestones atm are to get Ostafrikasaurus and Siamosaurus to GA and then nominate the latter for FAC after a peer review. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 07:40, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
The FAC will also need reviewers, so it is of course best some are left to do that, because nominators of course can't review... Looking forward to a shiny Spinosauridae, last that was attempted was for Tyrannosauridae, but of course many new members of the family have been named since... As for Cetiosauriscus, as long as we can get most issues ironed out before the non-dinosaur project reviewers arrive, it should be ok. FunkMonk (talk) 14:06, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
You guys ready for another one with Rajasaurus?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  04:50, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
Will have a look soon. Lucky that someone took a photo of the reconstructed skull in an Indian museum recently, good timing... FunkMonk (talk) 20:22, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Supersaurus Size

The Supersaurus article currently lists its length at 42 m, added with this edit. Is this correct? It's said 33 to 34 m for quite awhile, so I'm dubious about it. I do not have access to the source, unfortunately. Can anyone determine which is correct? --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 19:41, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

No it's not its available free on researchgate on page 541 it says 33-34 which is what the previous edit said, feel free to revert. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:46, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Oh, I didn't realize that since there's no link in the article. I have reverted it back to 34 m. Could someone add the link to the citation? --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 19:51, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
The change was reverted to a revision by a WelcometoJurassicPark sockpuppet, but if the content is correct then there would not be a problem. 128.189.202.100 (talk) 23:26, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
As indeed the person who reverted the sockpuppets edit was also a sockpuppet, this time of Raymondskie99, it's sockpuppets all the way down Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:39, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, it does appear to be quite a complicated history, with a sock accusing another sock of being a sock. By the way, thanks for adding the link. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 11:09, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

"Choyrodoninae"

In the creation of the Choyrodon page, an editor created a taxonomy template for the non-existent subfamily "Choyrodontinae". How are template subpages filed for deletion? Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 18:30, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Take it to Wikipedia:Templates for discussion. In the interim, I've commented out the code in the template and have added it to Category:Unnecessary taxonomy templates (really should go through and clear out everything in that category). Plantdrew (talk) 19:12, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

The editor is a likely sockpuppet of Ozarcusmapesae and these edits are consistent. 128.189.200.5 (talk) 01:54, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Ugh, wasn't this new sock already banned? Why have the paleo articles suddenly become a magnet for sockpuppets recently? That Hungarian size queen and the hoaxer keep coming back. FunkMonk (talk) 02:34, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
Not sure if the editor is a sock or not, but they're trouble either way. Adding copyrighted images to assorted articles (including the same one to Bonapartesaurus and Willinakaqe...), outright copying the Choyrodon paper's entire description section, giving the image of it he uploaded a nonsense title, and making stuff up outright like Choyrodontinae and a sister relationship between it and Altirhinus. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 02:59, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
I don't get the impression they're acting entirely in bad faith, I bet the nonsense name of the file was just the default name and he didn't bother to change it. I get the impression that they are more acting stupidly more than maliciously, given their previous edits consisting of a mixture of legit edits and vandalism, they give off the impression that the user is definitely an immature child who doesn't know how to edit wikipedia properly, we should at least try to get them to talk first. Hemiauchenia (talk) 09:16, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Statement on individual species articles

Right now, the "Which articles should be created" section contains the following:

Individual species should be discussed in their respective genus articles, but in some cases (eg. Edmontosaurus annectens) species which are known to possibly belong to different genera than the one they are currently assigned to may be kept separate, to make it easier to move information once such a revision happens.

The information here is all correct, and the Edmontosaurus species articles are the main examples of separated species articles, but said example does no apply to this case. There's no debate about the monophyly of the genus. So it's saying one valid thing and giving an example of another valid thing. Could a better example be found? The only one that comes to mind is "Sinopliosaurus" fusuiensis. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 19:45, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

A much more relevant example would be Hypsibema missouriensis. Edmontosaurus is more an example of an article becoming too long if it isn't split. Personally, I don't think there should be exceptions, but in these two specific cases, I'm not sure what else to do. I don't think "Sinopliosaurus" fusuiensis should be separate, by the way, and we need some guideline for cases like that. FunkMonk (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
I think perhaps Megalosaurus given that many theropod remains were assigned to this genus in the first half of the 20th century like Megalosaurus dunkeri Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:01, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Question is whether that should be separate, though. FunkMonk (talk) 20:02, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
It absolutely should. The tooth and most of the material dubiously assigned to the genus is clearly not megalosaurian, and having all of the indeterminate material assigned to the genus in the article would clutter it, and distract from the discussion of the actual dinosaur, M. bucklandii as it was found to be all the material from the Taynton Limestone formation probably belonged to the species. it should probably be discussed in the taxonomy section of the Megalosaurus article and perhaps a list article of "list of material dubiously assigned to Megalosaurus" or similar. It was such a mess when this got resolved about a decade ago they were seriously considering making Megalosaurus a nomen dubium.Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:11, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
That's a general issue with wastebasket taxa, though, and not unique to Megalosaurus. The issue here, as with Sinopliosaurus fusuiensis, is when the species is dubious, it will never be assigned to any genus with certainty. There are probably dozens of dinosaur species like that, and if we start making articles for them all, well, I don't think that would be a good idea. But if we keep those two articles without any guidelines, we're setting a precedent that would green light more of such articles. FunkMonk (talk) 20:41, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
"Sinopliosaurus" could easily be touched on in the Spinosauridae article. For Megalosaurus, we could consider a "Species of Megalosaurus" article, given how damn many of them there are and that Allosaurus already gets one (of questionable GA status...). On the topic, I still advocate for a separate article for phylogenetically unstable Hypacrosaurus stebingeri. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 20:56, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Since the Hypacrosaurus article itself is so short, I'm not sure what the gain would be, though. As long as everyone still uses the name Hypacrosaurus for the species, there isn't really a controversy or problem for our purposes, unlike for example the Syntarsus/Megapnosaurus/Coelophyis situation. And now we also have a similar issue with Heyuannia/Ajancingenia. Hypsibema missouriensis at least has Parrosaurus to go to... FunkMonk (talk) 21:01, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Since the Hypacrosaurus article itself is so short, I'm not sure what the gain would be, though. As long as everyone still uses the name Hypacrosaurus for the species, there isn't really a controversy or problem for our purposes, unlike for example the Syntarsus/Megapnosaurus/Coelophyis situation. And now we also have a similar issue with Heyuannia/Ajancingenia. FunkMonk (talk) 21:01, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Splitting based off of taxonomic uncertainty is based off just that, uncertainty, not length of the article. Not to mention it could easily be made significantly longer if anybody ever got around to writing it properly. Not using a new name isn't, in my eyes, an issue here - it's still agreed it may well be en entirely separate entity. Regarding Heyuannia, I feel that merge was a poor choice, given it was just one study that had just come out advocating for the split. Going off the conclusion of one paper like that is ridiculous. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 21:07, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
I agree on Ajancingenia. But on Hypacrosaurus, at this stage, we can't be sure if the solution won't simply be that Olorotitan is simply sunk into Hypacrosaurus, while the other species then retain their names. That could happen, if Ajancingenia/Syntarsus/Ugrunaluuk is anything to go by. Which also makes a split even more premature. Better to wait until we even know whether it will be split. FunkMonk (talk) 21:09, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Anyway, if we agree on Ajancingenia, should we go ahead and revert the merge? Under the name Ajancingenia, per Delapparentia. I suppose Hypacrosaurus isn't an important issue until someone starts working on the genus article anyway, so I'll drop it for now. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 21:54, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
We are only two, though, might be best to bring it up on the article's talk page. 01:13, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
For most wastebasket taxa though, the type species is almost always a nomen dubium, which isn't the case for Megalosaurus. As for "Sinopliosaurus" fusuiensis, if more diagnostic spinosaurid material were to come out of the Napan Formation, and a new species were named, it would not be unreasonable to have the species as fusuiensis. It's not unprecedented, given the fact that Suchosaurus is almost certainly synonymous with Baryonyx, and there has even been serious discussion about changing the name of the genus to Suchosaurus given that it has taxonomic priority by over a century, despite it only being based on teeth. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:12, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Problem with both is that spinosaur teeth are not diagnostic to genus level, so these synonymisations will probably never be accepted, and have been rejected at least in the case of Suchosaurus. Likewise, Suchomimus will probably never be sunk into Cristatusaurus, which is likewise udiagnostic. FunkMonk (talk) 01:13, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
I think for most formations though (aside from the Kem Kem beds) there isn't a reason to believe that there is more than one spinosaurid taxon within the formation, given the limited possibility of niche partitioning in such an already specialized role. If teeth found on the new taxon were identical in morphology to the isolated teeth, and a morphometric study of spinosaurid teeth found across the formation with a large enough sample size to indicate that there was only one spinosaurid taxon in the formation, then the teeth could be reasonably referred to the taxon, and the dubious genus merged into the new article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:29, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
If that was a reason alone for synonymisation, Triceratops would be Agathaumas, though (there are plenty of other examples). In practice, this argument doesn't seem to be used when the senior synonym is undiagnostic. FunkMonk (talk) 14:32, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
What i was trying to say is if the senior synonym is undiagnostic but can reliably be inferred to belong to another diagnostic taxon based on significant evidence from morphology, number of taxa in the formation etc. Then the senior synonym can be merged into the diagnostic taxon. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:39, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
But do you know of cases where this has been done and become generally accepted? The very nature of undiagnostic specimens means they cannot be assigned to diagnostic taxa. And you can never know how many similar animals once existed in a given place, and even if you think you can (Jack Horner), others will most likely disagree. Therefore, we cannot take any sides here and merge undiagnostic taxa into younger, diagnostic taxa. This simply isn't done in the literature, which is what we have to reflect. FunkMonk (talk) 14:44, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
We might be veering off in the wrong direction here, we cannot assume synonymy at all unless there are published sources to follow. Publications nowadays probably will not synonymize these taxa unless they can be found to be diagnostic (with enamel studies or whatnot I don't know), so (if?) until that happens we can't do anything here about merging articles. I think a Species of Megalosaurus article would be very useful and could remove some of the clutter from the Megalosaurus page, while also getting rid of some unecessary pages (Unless we want to rename the list to "List of unnamed dinosaurs" and include all the species there). IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 15:10, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
Note also that the massive "formerly assigned species" section in Elasmosaurus was accepted at FAC as part of the genus article. So I don't think covering them at the genus article would be a problem. FunkMonk (talk) 15:18, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
This happened with Tyrannosaurus with Manospondylus gigas, as they relocated the M. gigas type locality and found additional bones making it diagnostic to T.rex, technically making it a senior synonym, I don't think that the ICZN has ruled on it though. Undoubtedly they would give Tyrannosaurus protected status, definitely agree with IJreid on the species of Megalosaurus should be created, noting the only valid species to be M. bucklandii. It would be quite difficult to track down all the taxa dubiously named Megalosaurus though, given that most publications from that era are not easily accessible. Also Funkmonk there weremany more taxa dubiously assigned to Megalosaurus than elasmosaurus, and to give them the same treatment as the elasmosaurus article would easily make up over half the articles length, I personally think this is better it is given a broad-strokes treatment in the main genus article, and then a "Taxonomy of megalosaurus" article which goes really in depth into all the material dubiously assigned to the genus. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:24, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
If someone is going to write such a massive Megalosaurus species article, by all means do it, but if it will just be a duplicate of what's already in Megalosaurus, I see little point. As for Manospondylus, I think there is the added issue of it being a nomen oblitum[2], a "forgotten" name, so even if it was diagnostic, it doesn't threaten Tyrannosaurus anyway. But even if it did, it represents an extremely rare case where more material has been found from an undiagnostic specimen. FunkMonk (talk) 15:40, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
Well, of course it would be significantly longer than the current section, that's the whole point. It'd be able to cover every single individual dubious species. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 16:26, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes, but there is often a very long distance between intentions and results here. Someone has to do the work. FunkMonk (talk) 16:46, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
I definitely have too much going on currently to be able to spend the time writing such an article. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 16:54, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

So what's the consensus on what to do with "Sinopliosaurus" fusuiensis? I have returned to working on my Siamosaurus draft and would like to know how to proceed with this, it seems reasonable to me that "Sinopliosaurus" should be merged with Siamosaurus. Given that it is an Asian spinosaurid, a tooth taxon, it was deemed closely related to if not identical with Siamosaurus, and has not been properly named (to my knowledge); so it should be discussed in a similar fashion to the other Siamosaurus-like spinosaurid teeth I include in this draft. But so far the issue seems a bit muddy, due to article guideline concerns and all, so I pretty much have no clue what to do next. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 03:21, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Has it been suggested in the literature? If so, has this met with acceptance? If it's merely a nomen dubium from the same place we have no grounds to merge the two subjects. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 04:10, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
There is still the issue of whether it should even have an article or not. The long standing convention is to cover dubious species at genus or higher level taxon articles. This is how most such species are treated, and there is little good reason to have a couple of exceptions that are hardly more notable than any other such species. The question is just where to merge it, Spinosauridae would be an obvious contender. FunkMonk (talk) 05:05, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Although "Sinopliosaurus" could be used in the Spinosauridae article as an example of the many uncertain tooth taxa as well as the tendency of spinosaurid teeth to get misidentified as those of aquatic reptiles, most of the information from the description paper is IMO more relevant in the Siamosaurus article. Given how it will go into detail on the various Asian spinosaurid teeth deemed similar to Siamosaurus, as well as their classification issues and geographic relevance. I say we redirect & merge it there once the draft is finished perhaps? ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 06:58, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Most dubious species don't get articles since no species usually get their own articles. But there's no genus to put this in, so it makes perfect sense to me that this should have its own article. On the topic, since the synonymy of Angaturama with Irritator has been questioned, that should also by precedent have an article. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 11:09, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Yes, there is no genus, therefore it should be put in the family article, the closest higher level container it can be associated with. As for Angaturama/Irritator, it does seem to have become iffy, but we don't actually have any guidelines for how to treat splits and synonymies based on a single paper. It is impossible to interpret if there is a scientific consensus based on that alone. FunkMonk (talk) 16:05, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
I think we should be conservative and keep them together for now, if a different researcher also disputes the synonomy in a new paper then a new article should be created Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:40, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
In that case we have to bring back a seperate Ajancingenia article since it's only been proposed by one study. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 00:29, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
I'd support that, especially since it seems the synonymy was just to get rid of a name no one likes... Similar with what happened to Megapnosaurus. FunkMonk (talk) 13:02, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Spinophorosaurus, Chebsaurus and Archaeodontosaurus lack automatic taxobox

I'm sure that almost all dinosaur articles at this point have been updated to use the automatic taxobox system, however I have found three of them who somehow have managed to elude updating. Can someone go and update these articles. Thanks Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:30, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Don't know how to do it, so hopefully someone else will, but after you linked it, I realised the user who uploaded the photos of Archaeodontosaurus is the person the species was named after, haha... FunkMonk (talk) 12:40, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
His username on commons is also User:Archaeodontosaurus Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:53, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
I've fixed all three as well as Barapasaurus. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 14:37, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for that, much appreciated. Cheers, Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:42, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
On second glance the problem seems to be much more widespread than this, many of the basal sauropod taxa on the sauropod template and some of the higher sauropod taxa still lack automatic taxobox. Compiling a list:

Chinshakiangosaurus, Gongxianosaurus, Isanosaurus, Protognathosaurus, Sanpasaurus, Ohmdenosaurus, Zizhongosaurus, Algoasaurus, Amygdalodon, Ferganasaurus, Qinlingosaurus, Cardiodon, Losillasaurus, Neosodon, Rayososaurus, Zapalasaurus, Limaysaurus, Abrosaurus, Dinodocus, Campylodoniscus, Iuticosaurus, Mongolosaurus, Bruhathkayosaurus, Macrurosaurus, Erketu, Qiaowanlong, Tangvayosaurus. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:26, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

There are 143 articles with a WikiProject Dinosaurs banner and a manual taxobox. You can see them all here. I went through them all a couple months ago, and converted maybe a couple dozen to automatic taxoboxes. I don't know much about dinosaur taxonomy, and the ones I didn't change all had some issue that made me think it was better for somebody more knowledgable to check the taxonomic hierarchy presented in the taxobox. Most frequently, the issue was that a genus wasn't placed to family (or was uncertainly placed). That may represent our best state of knowledge about the taxon in question, but I don't know that for sure. Second most common issue was taxa formerly, but not currently considered to be dinosaurs; I have no idea where to find good current classifications for diverse paleontological taxa. Plantdrew (talk) 19:59, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Sometimes I use fossilworks/Paleodb, which is sometimes inaccurate or do a search for the most recent article mentioning the taxon in google scholar, usually contains the most up to date interpretation of the taxon in question. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:02, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
Some surprising names in there, I would have thought Aquilops and Fukuiraptor would've been upgraded by now. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:07, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
Usually I just go wherever its placed in the templates and higher-level clade articles. Sometimes they're have a taxonomy sub-template but just not the taxobox that uses it, which avoids the issue altogether unless it's incorrect itself. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 20:34, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Archiving problems

I was looking for archive 27, because some discussions weren't present in archive 26, and it seems it is listed under a different system than the rest of the archives. The others are at pages like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive 26, but 27 is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archives/ 27, and therefore not listed on the talk page here. Anyone know what to do so it will be synced up? FunkMonk (talk) 20:16, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

There’s also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archives/ 26 which is completely different Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive 26   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  20:29, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
Ouch, what a mess... Maybe there are more parallel archives like that. Anyone who has a hang on these things? Maybe IJReid? FunkMonk (talk) 20:34, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
Ugh theres no indication of exactly whats wrong, following the documentation this should work fine. I'll manually fix the other archives. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 16:03, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Thanks! Let's hope it doesn't derail again... FunkMonk (talk) 16:38, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Tiouraren Formation Thyreophoran

I randomly happened to come across this SVP abstract from 2010 entitled A basal Thyreophoran (Dinosauria, Ornithischia) from the Tiouraren Formation of Niger (page 150A-151A), by Paul Sereno et al. Has anything been written about this taxon since? Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:39, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

There's this document from 2017 that says the remains "have not yet been described in detail," so probably not   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  01:37, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Shuangbaisaurus is a probable junior synonym of Sinosaurus

According the Andrea Cau of the Theropoda Blog, Shuangbaisaurus is a probable junior synonym of Sinosaurus and the autapomorphies cited in the paper are likely due to taphonomic distortion of the skull, given that this is not in a peer reviewed published paper, should this be added to the article? Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:59, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, once he formally publishes that, we can act on it. Blogs are not valid sources for original research ideas. FunkMonk (talk) 15:17, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
I'm pretty that will have to go to the ICZN, and we shouldn't change the articles until they respond Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:50, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
I think the ICZN is only in charge of the validity of names themselves, but synonymy is decided by scientific consensus. But yeah, one paper without responses does not make a consensus, so we should deifnitely not do any mass mergings, likewise, Stygimoloch and Dracorex are not going away any time soon. FunkMonk (talk) 18:54, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
What I was more thinking is that the ICZN might give Othnielosaurus conserved name status, but given that it's not an iconic taxon who knows at this point Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:18, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
You mean because its type specimen is better preserved? I think someone would have to make a petition for that first. FunkMonk (talk) 19:20, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
Nanosaurus doesn't have as bad a holotype as most people assume. A dentary, ilium, femur, tibia and fibula is better than valid taxa like Callovosaurus and Burianosaurus. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 21:22, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
Burianosaurus was a weird one, I remember reading the paper and it came off to me as they were trying as hard as possible to make out that it was not a rhabdodont (which is the obvious candidate given the time and place) so that it was more notable, despite them noting how similar the femur was to that of Zalmoxes and to me it looks like the specimens more basal position on their cladogram was more likely to due to the incomplete nature of the specimen Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:21, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
Yeah for now there's no reason at all to merge, the authors have been lumping Uteodon and Cumnoria into species of Camptosaurus for a few years now and we've still got articles for all three (none of which reflect this...). Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 01:29, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
In any case, it should be mentioned in said articles, though we shouldn't go on a merging spree. It seems Carpenter and co. have been pointing out some kind of chimaera issue with Uteodon, which should be mentioned. At least the synonymies have been proposed in actual scientific articles, we should never rely on blogs for stuff like that. FunkMonk (talk) 01:45, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
Surprised they've tried to merge Cumnoria, given that it's from another continent entirely Hemiauchenia (talk) 09:43, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Collaboration banner

I noticed that the banner states:

"The current WikiProject Dinosaurs collaboration article is Brachiosaurus.
The last article for collaboration was: Apatosaurus.
Feel free to cast your vote for next month's article."

However, it does not seem that we are really using "months" as a time limit, and instead we just do it until it's done. Should the collaboration template be changed from "next months's" to "the next?" I'll make this change if it is approved. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 15:36, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I think the wording you've suggested works for our purposes. Might want a third opinion. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 15:58, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 17:16, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, best to reflect current realities... FunkMonk (talk) 17:21, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
I have changed it. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 17:41, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Reference issue

I was just adding some of the final touches on the Discovery and naming section on my Siamosaurus draft[4] when a warning showed up telling me I'm citing a "predatory open access journal", which appears to be this one[5], so I switched to another website for the source (researchgate in this case[6] and it continues to display the same message on the edit history[7]. Can anyone tell me what this means? I almost ignored it but if this article's going to be GA and especially FA then I need to know the sources I'm using are trustworthy, thanks.

It is the journal itself that's supposedly the problem (see Predatory open-access publishing). I think it's a bit ridiculous, but look at the fight I had over it at the Smilodon article here and the section below:[8] No one brought it up during FAC, but you might want to find another citation to back up the material... FunkMonk (talk) 01:07, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
Found another reference for the statigraphy of the Khok Kruat Group[9] which was cited in the previous journal, looks like I can avoid the problem this way. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 03:26, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
Nice, then you'll be sure to avoid problems down the line. FunkMonk (talk) 04:11, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Theropod size estimates, etc.

This book[10], which contains information on theropods as well as a massive table of size estimates, appears to have been brought up here before. I've taken a look at it (I know a good amount of Spanish) and the authors seem to know their stuff, from the looks of it a ton of research went into putting this together. Unfortunately, they didn't cite nor have they been cited by any sources, and they look to have little in the way of strong academic profiles. Altogether it probably doesn't match the criteria for a reliable source, but I just thought I'd put it out here if anyone else wants to take a look. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 01:38, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Should we be worrying about changing "T-Rex" to "T. rex"?

Should we be consistently changing "T-Rex" to "T. rex" whenever we encounter it in article text (e.g. here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_coloration#Tyrannosaurus )?

Or at this point should we just throw up our hands and declare that "T-Rex" has become a "folk taxon"?

(Just as we don't have to change "a herd of mustangs" to "a herd of Equus ferus caballus", or "three rhinos" to "three Ceratotherium simum".)

- 189.122.52.73 (talk) 20:06, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

In scientific dinosaur articles (such as the one linked), we should certainly spell it the correct way. But I don't think we have to worry much about articles outside our project scope. FunkMonk (talk) 20:38, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Arden et al. have published a paper about the Spinosauridae

I think you should all take a look at it; it "rewrites" the clade pretty much. I will edit the Spinosauridae article. Aquatic adaptation in the skull of carnivorous dinosaurs (Theropoda: Spinosauridae) and the evolution of aquatic habits in spinosaurus is the title. Richard.sutt (talk) 21:45, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

It doesn't really rewrite the clade, it merely established that the North African spinosaurines form a monophyletic clade (with a pretty awful tree held together by geographic characters, but deleting those and a few taxa retains the tribe). So we'll need to update cladograms, add Spinosaurini to the Spinosauridae taxobox and taxonomy templates for the two genera within it, and add some things to palaeobiology sections.
It further solidifies the morph A/morph B dichotomy from Kem Kem, though, and I'm at a bit of a loss of what to do here. The referral Spinosaurus and Sigilmassasaurus respectively is only tentative (morphotype A was even coded seperately from the holotype for the phylogenetic analysis), so I'm not sure how good an idea it is to throw them into the articles for those genera. Should they get their own section in the Kem Kem Formation and/or Spinosauridae article(s)? Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 21:55, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
As long as we clarify it is tentative, it should be fine to mention in the genus articles. But we don't have to make major changes before these ideas solidify. FunkMonk (talk) 21:57, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Well, they should definitely be put somewhere. At this point they're arguably better understood and useful taxa than Spinosaurus itself. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 22:04, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
The problem is though is that with every paper on taxonomy that is published, it is always felt necessary to change the taxobox to the most current paper, the issue with that most taxonomies are highly unstable, and change with the addition/removal of taxa, characters etc. The subtaxonomy of Spinosauridae is highly unstable, and differers considerably from paper to paper. I think it should just be a straight list of the taxa, like you edited the taxobox of Dinosauria to, until the taxonomy is more stable Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:22, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
I feel the placement of two taxa within or outside of a tribe is a minor enough thing to just stick with the most recent stuff. The taxonomy of Dinosauria itself is far more important and impactful, and there's a lot more back and forth disagreement. Spinosaurus itself is in Spinosaurini no matter what now that the tribe is coined, even it turns out monotypic in the future, so putting that in its taxobox isn't taking any sides. To my knowledge this is the first time Sigilmassasaurus has been included in an actual phylogenetic analysis, for its part, which would lend credit to it being reasonable to list it as a spinosaurin - no alternative suggestion exists. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 22:41, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Could someone site the article for me? Richard.sutt (talk) 00:04, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
I'll get the citation done, but also Sigilmassasaurus was included in the phylogeny of Evers et al 2015 I believe, where Spinosauridae was one polytomy. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 00:48, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
  • This study recovered Ichthyovenator as a spinosaurine. Should I update my scale diagram to look more Irritator-ish than Baryonyx-ish? --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 11:18, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
Again, I don't think there are good reasons to wholesale change everything on the basis of a single paper that will likely be contradicted by the next spinosaurid paper. Better to just keep images of fragmentary spinosaurs as generic as possible for now. FunkMonk (talk) 15:09, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Could someone add a cladogram for Arden et al., 2018 to the Spinosauridae page. My edit history doesn't indicate I have skill in that area. Richard.sutt (talk) 05:07, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

I'll get on it, for future reference a requests page exists: WP:TREEREQ. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 15:17, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Anyone who can send me the Arden paper for use in Baryonyx? The Scihub upload doesn't work anymore... FunkMonk (talk) 05:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

National Museum of Brazil fire

Oh my god that's horrible news... Fortunately there were no casualties, but still over 20 million historical and natural artifacts are stored in that museum. It is a sad day for Brazilians and for science. Hopefully there are items left to salvage when the blaze gets put out... or it will be like Stromer's Spinosaurus holotype all over again. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 03:52, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
From what I've heard the Angaturama and Thalassdromeus holotypes actually weren't there and are safe. The list I've heard so far is: Oxalaia, Irritator's undescribed postcrania postcrania, Santanaraptor (which had soft tissues), Maxakalisaurus, Caupedactylus, Brasileodactylus, Anhanguera, Tupuxuara, Tapejara, Cearadactylus, Gondwanatitan, the giant Tropeognathus specimen that inspired the WWD episode, and Aymberedactylus. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 04:13, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Yikes, with Santanaraptor, it could be like the loss of Attenborosaurus (a substantial skeleton with skin impressions). And as for Irritator's postcranium, we may very well never know what it looked like... it sure was lucky that Angaturama and Thalassodromeus were away. Some of these pterosaurs I hadn't even heard of before, and now the first thing that I learn about them is that they are destroyed. How often does this sort of thing happen? --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 11:02, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
I don't think stuff like this has happened since WW2, really... No one seems to know what exactly has been destroyed yet, but it has been stated on the DML that there will be information in the coming days. There is supposedly also another building housing specimens which is safe, so there's a chance... Strange if Oxalaia has been destroyed mere days after it was shown on the front page here. FunkMonk (talk) 15:21, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
I think you're mistaken as I was also when initially reading the updates, from what I gather the vertebrate specimens, which I'm pretty sure means extant vertebrates were housed in a different section, all of the paleontological including vertebrate specimens were apparently housed in the main museum destroyed by fire. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:26, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes, most we know so far is this from a DML comment, so not enough to say anything yet on specific dinosaur pages: "All palaeontological collections were in the main building, some at the exhibition and most of them at the collections. So far, we do not know how many specimens are lost or if we could recover some of them from the collections where specimens were a bit more "safe", but things are looking extremely bad. The fire lasted more than 10 hours and the fireman came too late. We will inform in the following days." FunkMonk (talk) 15:46, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
According to Mark Witton, some pterosaur specimens from other museums were temporarily on loan, so the damage could be even greater. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:52, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Reading the background section at National Museum of Brazil fire is extremely sad. I guess the Brazilian government wasted all its money on the olympics... But no one will care about that in a hundred years, unlike these collections. FunkMonk (talk) 16:02, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
There are other collections at risk around the world too, I know that in the UK due to austerity the Isle of Wight council is in talks to sell of the Dinosaur Isle Museum to a commercial company make it a dinosaur theme park, despite it being the home of the globally important fossils from the Wessex formation, including Neovenator, Eotyrannus etc. and then it would lose its museum accreditation, making the collections inaccessible to researchers like the Barnes High Sauropod is. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:11, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
The list of specimens that were there is too long for me to list off here, so I copied the one I've seen into a pastebin: [11]. As mentioned about a bunch of specimens were on loan from MTC for research, so Thalassodromeus was indeed there along with several others not reported as being in danger last night. It's possible the fire dind't get underground to the collections but I won't get my hopes up. Irritator's postcrania and the Oxalaia holotype had their originals on display so there's no hope for them at all .Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 18:05, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
The list is missing most of the dinosaurs. FunkMonk (talk) 18:10, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
@FunkMonk: Any further updates from the DML?. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:04, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
No, there is some discussion in the Facebook Tetrapod Zoology group, but seems no one knows what has survived or not. But the fact that the Bendegó meteorite is intact gives me a bit of hope... Maybe some fossils (being rock) can withstand the fire? FunkMonk (talk) 21:07, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Apparently some of the paleo cabinets may be intact, but are inaccessible due to rubble, this says nothing of the condition of what's inside the cabinets though Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:53, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Fingers crossed! Here is some footage of the surviving Bendegó meteorite (edit: apparently of something else):[12] FunkMonk (talk) 16:59, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Sad, and I guess this happens more frequently than one would assume, although not in this dimension. I remember the arson fire which affected many of the Europasaurus fossils in Germany in 2003. Most survived the fire, but one beautiful specimen ("Hanna"), maybe the best specimen there was (as it was partly articulated), got destroyed by the water of the fire fighters, which caused it to cool down too rapidly. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:26, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Ach, never heard of that. Maybe could be add to the Europasaurus article if there are sources for it... I also just noticed we have a List of lost, damaged, or destroyed dinosaur specimens, which sorely needs updates... FunkMonk (talk) 17:48, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Just added the info to the Europasaurus article. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:24, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Could you also add it to the list linked above? I added some info from Holtz's PDF, it seems that Podokesaurus was also destroyed in a museum fire. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 20:33, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Could the specimen not be glued back together? Were the fragments too fine? I know in the case of Dubreuillosaurus, a bulldozer went over the specimen before it was collected, meaning the authors had to painstakingly glue back several thousand of 1-10 cm sized fragments. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:34, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Latest update for those not subscribed to the DML: "The state of the palaeontological collections is still uncertain because we do not know what condition it’s all in the boxes. Orlando Grillo, one of the curators of the vertebrate palaeontology collections, said what he knows from the few people who have been able to go inside the department to assess the situation is that our compactor boxes are standing, with a lot of rubble on top (from the upper two floors that collapsed), but they are partially distorted by weight, partially burned out and some are tilted. The part that houses the holotypes is apparently also standing, but there is a part of the compactor boxes on the part of reptiles destroyed. Some other metal boxes housing examples of mesosaurs, turtles, and pterosaurs are also apparently entire. But that's all you can say for now. Let me insist: we do not know how the parts are inside boxes. It may be all sprayed and we will only know when we actually have access to the boxes. Keep in mind that the rubble that fell over the top contains collections of upper floors that need to be carefully removed before accessing the vertebrate palaeontology collections. In addition, some of the catalogue books are lost, but the curators have a digital collection database with information from the entire collection, including its location in the boxes. We are cheering for the best, but we have to wait… keep calm and carry on." FunkMonk (talk) 21:08, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
That's very good news, especially for a fire that severe. I heard the libraries in the linguistics section for example were not so lucky, since they were more exposed and of course more flammable. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 22:25, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Shortest dinosaur article?

Proa valdearinnoensis is at 2 sentences, I think the shortest dinosaur article on wikipedia. Any new dinosaur taxon that comes out today has at least 4x the number of words that this article has, does anyone want to expand it? Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:30, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

The original description is freely available, so should be easy for anyone interested to expand it. I wonder which other article will become the shortest once Proa is expanded, hehe... FunkMonk (talk) 18:43, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
I went ahead and did a little bit of expansion. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 19:21, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
Is there a reason the species name is in the title if there’s only one species?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  19:49, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
It's because Proa is a type of sailboat, which is clearly the more notable use for the average wikipedia user, usually using the binomial is typical for scenarios like this. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:51, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
Why not just use "Proa (dinosaur)"? Like for Yi (dinosaur)? ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 20:12, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
It was originally that, but IJReid moved it December last year, citing guidelines, so maybe Yi should be moved to Yi qi? EDIT: it turns out Yi Qi is also a disambig page, so it can't be changed to that. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:18, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes, if the generic name is pre-occupied by another article, and the genus is monotypic, the full binomial is to be used, not Genus (dinosaur). Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 00:21, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
Which is for example why we have Gastonia (dinosaur), the genus contains two species. In the unlikely event that Proa gets an assigned species, it should be moved to Proa (dinosaur). FunkMonk (talk) 03:52, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

High quality content subsection

I just added a new section (with this[13] edit) under "Article alerts and statistics" listing our Featured articles, lists, and pictures; and our Good articles. I thought it'd be a nice addition, similar "showcases" are also seen in other WikiProjects. My formatting might not be the best so anyone's welcome to tweak it if so. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 01:01, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

I wonder if we can somehow make a transcluded version for both there and the achievements[14] page. Otherwise we'll have to manually update both every time there is a change. FunkMonk (talk) 01:12, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
Generally a good idea (maybe we can make the list more compact?), though visitors will be much more likely to visit Portal:Dinosaurs, which has yet another showcase for our good and featured content (and which urgently needs an update again). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 04:57, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
I fixed the italics in the GA section, in addition to removing Hatzegopteryx, which is a pterosaur and not part of WP:DINO. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 22:28, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Question about the DML

I'll be nominating Cristatusaurus for GA sometime in the next few days, since I almost got everything relevant to the animal broadly covered. I just came upon the only information I've been able to find on the claw fossils referred to it (one of which there is an image of in the article), however, it's from the Dinosaur Mailing List.[15] Now, I looked through the talk page archives to see what has been said about using it as a source and I'm still a bit confused. Are the DML archives considered reliable? And if so, what kind of information should they be used to cite? ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 02:46, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

It seems the DML has been accepted as a source in the past. But I think it should be only used for uncontroversial info (such as your example), and not for unpublished hypotheses, for example. FunkMonk (talk) 03:00, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
I think the important part in the latter case would be that it's made clear that it's a credible palaeonologist expressed their thoughts informally online. In cases where it's relevant to other stuff in section, it could still be justifiable including it. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 03:19, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Very well, added it with this edit[16], among other things. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ 06:27, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Strangely, it seems our photos of the fossils are the only ones online. I took two of them (ten years ago!), nice to see them finally put to proper use and to know the story behind them. FunkMonk (talk) 08:57, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
It's hard for me to resist reviewing Cristatusaurus, but I think it's good with diverse reviewers of articles in a topic (I also GA reviewed Oxalaia). But if no one else steps in, I'll take it. Note that Hendrickx and co. also discussed Cristatusaurus briefly in this free article, which you haven't cited:[17] FunkMonk (talk) 08:32, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
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