Talk:Podokesaurus

Status of Podokesaurus

It is very unlikely that Podokesaurus is a species of Coelophysis, given the fact that it lived later than Coelophysis and its range is far from the normal range of Coelophysis. There is a hypothesis that Podokesaurus was a surviving descendant of Coelophysis that reached the eastern coast of North America, in what is now Massachusetts. Because the holotype of Podokesaurus was lost, there will be a scientific paper to designate a yet-to-be-discovered coelophysoid specimen that porbably made the footprints named Grallator as the neotype of P. holyokensis. (unsigned)

Agreed, according to Colbert and Baird (1958), Podokesaurus can be distinguished from Coelophysis, and other dinosaurs based on the fact that neural spines on its dorsal vertebrae are anteroposteriorly shorter than those in Coelophysis bauri.Evangelos Giakoumatos (talk) 18:18, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

There will probably not be a neotype, no. FunkMonk (talk) 12:59, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Copy edit queries

• What is "a natural cast specimen"?

I can explain that further in the article, there is an entire journal article about how this particular fossil was formed (so I'm not sure it can be briefly explained)... FunkMonk (talk) 11:06, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Now explained. FunkMonk (talk) 11:25, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

I think that you need to make this stronger/clearer. And you define "natural bone casts, which it is not immediately clear is the same thing as "natural casts"> After all, there are several mentions to "casts", which are a different thing. Maybe 'naural casts are formed when the bones were dissolved by acidic water, leaving molds of the bones'? Perhaps also briefly explain what a "cast" is at first mention?

Ok, now I have tried to distinguish between the two types of casts by saying "cast replicas" about man-made casts, and "natural casts" about those made by natural processes. Does it look better? FunkMonk (talk) 15:15, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

• "but is currently believed to date to the Hettangian-Sinemurian stages of the Early Jurassic." It would be nice to attach an age to that, mya. However approximate and/or caveated.

This is under paleoenvironment, so can be added to the intro: "between 201 and 190 million years ago". FunkMonk (talk) 11:06, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Now added. FunkMonk (talk) 11:25, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

• "old professors grumbled that females were unfit for working with fossils". Grumbled in 2014 or 1911? (Or both?)

It was actually when Bakker was at Yale, so I can specify that when the copy edit is done (or is it ok now?). FunkMonk (talk) 11:06, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Added "during his time at university", to make it clearer it couldn't have been 1911 or recently. FunkMonk (talk) 11:25, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

That looks good to me.

• "until abundant material of Coelophysis was discovered". This seems clumsy to me, but I am not sure if it is normal phraseology within paleontology.

Which part of it? The source says "... Podokesaurus was to receive little attention other than mere mention in taxonomic and faunistic studies. However, with the discovery of important new, well preserved, and abundant material of the small theropod Coelophysis in Upper Triassic rocks at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico (Colbert 1961, 1989), the anatomy of small theropods came into much better focus." FunkMonk (talk) 11:06, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

....OK. Thanks. Copy edited. See what you think.

• "among the first adequate dinosaur skeletal material". "adequate"?

In contrast to mere scraps, the source says "The first adequate skeletal material of East Coast dinosaurs is known from the Early Jurassic – a theropod (Podokesaurus) and two prosauropods (Anchisaurus, Ammosaurus)." FunkMonk (talk) 11:06, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Ah. Tweaked. As usual, up for discussion or reversion if you don't like it.

Gog the Mild (talk) 18:27, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, it was by the way my mistake to put the length twice in the intro, it should indeed have been weight second time around, 1 kg. And I see I made the same mistake under description by "Paul estimated it to have weighed 1 m (39 in)"... FunkMonk (talk) 11:06, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

I fixed the weight myself. Fixed most of the above issues too, but left two that might need some clarification. FunkMonk (talk) 11:25, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

OK. Come back on anything you aren't happy with. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:59, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Looks good to me as usual. I'll try to solve the cast issue soon, and I have also added and tweaked a bit of text following the ongoing GAN. The article uses sources in three languages (including one I'm not good at), so it is a lot to keep track of... Very difficult subject! FunkMonk (talk) 15:05, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

No worries. Resolving GAN issues comes first, obviously.

Ha. I recall trying to puzzle out the Lapp dialect of Finnish to source Female Red Guards of the Finnish Civil War. I thought that my brain would melt. I am still not sure that Lapp even has different words for sexual harrasment, sexual assault, rape and gang rape! I would love to take it further, but it is a sourcing hurdle I don't think that I will overcome. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:22, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Ouch, and I'm pretty sure Lapp (or Sami) is even its own language, not a dialect, which should make it harder... Never met one, though I live in Scandinavia. I've tried to resolve the cast issue, does it make sense? FunkMonk (talk) 15:40, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

FunkMonk, spot on. Just what was needed.

I am now worrying away at "Red Guards". Probably the only frontline all-female military units to ever see combat - they deserve a decent article. I am not going to sleep tonight. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:00, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Good luck! Might Women's Protection Units also fit the bill? FunkMonk (talk) 16:10, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

FunkMonk: I know about them; I should have remembered them. They would. (I was going to insert "prior to WWII" but for the life of me couldn't think of anything that met the conditions I had set up. I didn't think to roll forward into post-war.) Any hoo, back to the article at hand. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:15, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Would also be a prickly subject to take up being so recent and controversial. I'll probably take this here article to FAC soon, once I've finished drawing the animal... See ya! FunkMonk (talk) 16:18, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

• "an even more apressed middle-foot". Perhaps a bracketed explanation of "appressed"?

There is a more detailed description of this earlier under description, "The three metatarsals of the lower leg were closely appressed together forming a compact structure, similar to what was seen in Ornithomimus, but not fused into a tarsometatarsus, as seen in birds." Is more needed? Fixed the spelling (missing p), by the way... FunkMonk (talk) 18:03, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

• "Newark Supergroup". Your Wikilink is piped as "Newark Group", but five subsequent mentions are to "Newark Supergroup". I found this confusing. Is there a reason for the apparent inconsistency?

This is tricky, same with the inconsistency between Portland Formation and Portland Group. These geological units have been in a state of flux for years, and the Wikipedia articles do not necessarily reflect the newest findings. And perhaps they shouldn't, because it is not exactly a settled issue. But in this case, the group was elevated to supergroup, but by the time the study at whose mention it is linked was published, this had not yet been done. I have started a discussion relating to some of these issues here[1], but I don't think they're likely to be resolved soon. FunkMonk (talk) 18:03, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Done. A high quality job even by your standards. Ping me when it hits FAC please. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:37, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, this was the closest I could get to a women's history related dinosaur article, and as a bonus, could use my native language to interpret sources, so I felt if I didn't do it, no one else could. By the time this is at FAC, you'll probably be coordinator! FunkMonk (talk) 18:03, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

FunkMonk: I may be, but I don't see why that should prevent me from giving you a hard time. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:58, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Damn, seems my support was in vain (joking)! FunkMonk (talk) 12:19, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

But our work on this article certainly wasn't in vain, I don't know if you noticed, Gog the Mild, but shortly after this article became an FA, it was nominated for state dinosaur of Massachusetts, and it just won (notice the illustration and some of the exact wording from this article used in the video):[2] I like to believe the fact that this article was so well-developed gave it an edge over its rival, Anchisaurus, with its messier article, hehe... FunkMonk (talk) 03:17, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

FunkMonk, woo hoo! That's a rare accolade. Wonderful. Very impressive. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:48, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Certainly a strange coincidence, there was also quite a deal of media coverage of the nominations[3][4][5][6], again using the image and sometimes wording. FunkMonk (talk) 12:09, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Weight estimate

Estimated to have been about 1 m (3 ft) in length and 1–40 kg (2–90 lb) in weight...

Seriously? That's a pretty rough guestimate... (Not to mention that at roughly cat size, 40kg seems a bit excessive) Is it a leftover error from the "1m -- 40inch" correction earlier? --Syzygy (talk) 09:00, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

This is elaborated on in the description section. There are basically two published weight estimates. A workaround could be to say "and either 1 or 40 kg". FunkMonk (talk) 09:19, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

But look at the description: Von Huene estimated the animal to have been 1,100 mm (3.6 ft) long, with the tail accounting for about 70 cm (2.3 ft), more than 1.5 times the rest of the skeleton together.[7] Colbert estimated the animal's length at about 1 m (3.3 ft).[17] In 1995, the writer Jan Peczkis estimated Podokesaurus to have weighed 10–40 kg (22–88 lb), through pelvic height determination (based on von Huene's measurements).[22] The paleontologist Gregory S. Paul estimated it to have weighed 1 kg (2 lb) in 2016 (based on a 1 m length estimate).

So, Paul estimated 1kg based on Colbert's 1m length, and Peczkis arrived at up to 40kg based on von Huenes' 1.1m length -- which is, a difference of 10% in length adds up to a weight difference by a factor of up to 40! Is there a problem here with body length vs overall length, or juvenile specimen vs adult? I still can't reconcile the numbers. -- Syzygy (talk) 11:55, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

I think the problem is that Peczkis isn't a paleontologist, or even a biologist, but appears to be a science teacher. But since the estimate was published in a credible paleontology journal, it can't be ignored, due to the comprehensiveness criterion. FunkMonk (talk) 12:59, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Could we reflect this in the article -- "There are widely diverging assumptions on the P.'s actual weight", or such? Right now it reads more like a typo. --Syzygy (talk) 06:31, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

But we don't have any third-party sources describing them as "widely diverging assumptions". All we have are the numbers, and we can't really WP:editorialize about them, just list them. FunkMonk (talk) 07:47, 17 June 2021 (UTC)