Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Dire wolf/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 18:26, 29 May 2017 [1].

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Dire wolf

Nominator(s): William Harris • (talk) • 21:12, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

This article is about the Dire wolf (Canis dirus), an extinct species of the genus Canis and one of the most famous prehistoric carnivores in North America. The article has been nominated for Featured Article level because very recently it has achieved GA status, has been reviewed by the Guild of Copy Editors, and has undergone Peer Review. The article receives on average almost 2,000 visitors each day, which is around half of the number received by the modern "Gray wolf" and "Coyote" articles, indicating Dire wolf's popularity. William Harris • (talk) • 21:12, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Support Comments from RL0919

I'll be reviewing from the "I'm not an expert, but prehistoric animals are cool" perspective, which I suspect represents a high percentage of the readers for this type of article.

The article gets around 2,000 visitors each day on average. I assume most of these visitors will fall into this class. Later in the year with the final episode of "Game of Thrones", I expect that number will reach a new peak.

• Page numbers given with the footnote numbers are sometimes prefaced with a 'p'; sometimes they are not. No preference on my part, but it should be consistent.

All references are populated using WP:CITE templates. A closer examination will show that journal articles show simply numbers, however books will show pp when referring to a range of pages or just a single p when referring to a single page. These are the correct citations as referred to in research articles.

Sorry I wasn't clear. I'm referring to the page numbers that appear next to some footnote numbers in the body, through the use of the {{rp}} template. The 'p' is added there manually in some cases. If you are varying this to match how the cite templates format p age references in the corresponding full citation, I would say that is unnecessary and distracting. --RL0919 (talk) 14:59, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

The distracting "p" is unnecessary and now removed.

• The phrase "its extinct competitor Smilodon fatalis" would be better as "its extinct competitor, the sabre-toothed cat Smilodon fatalis" or something similar. I know readers can follow the link, but a brief aside to give the common name (on first mention, not necessarily every time) would be friendlier to the many readers who don't know species names. The article does this sometimes, but not consistently. For example, Canis armbrusteri gets a parenthetical with the common name on first mention in the body, but not in the lead.

Both Actioned.

• From the infobox, I'm guessing that Canis mississippiensis was determined to be synonymous with C. dirus. But while the other variants have this explained explicitly, this one is mentioned as a discovery with no further explanation or follow-up.

The article is nearly 90kb in size, and there is a vast amount of information for a reviewer to store in memory in the first sitting. It should be covered under "and in 1912 Merriam formally recognized all of the previously found specimens under the name of C. dirus." I have just added the words "previously found" after your prompting to help highlight that Merriam had recognized all of the earlier specimens under this name.

• The Evolution section is a bit of a slog due to the varying theories that often involve lots of recitation of taxonomic names. No specific recommendation or request about that from me, just pointing it out; maybe someone with more experience in this type of article will have suggestions.

I concur that the Taxonomy/Evolution section is the most complex part of the article. To some readers, it will also be the most interesting. (The taxonomic history and lineage of wolves is what I do here on Wikipedia and in wolf articles I usually limit myself to just that, however in the case of the Dire wolf I thought the material provided to visitors in the rest of the article needed a serious review.)

I have made edits to the second paragraph of the Taxonomy section to help restructure, simplify and clarify it.

About halfway through so far, so posting these notes and will circle back with comments on the remainder. --RL0919 (talk) 04:08, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the early start. William Harris • (talk) • 10:29, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Back at last for round two. The edits from your responses to me above and Cas Liber below all look good, so I only have a few additional comments:

• Per the discussion with Cas below, I see a few instances of 'extant' were replaced with 'modern', including the first instance that had the link to Extant taxon. But several more instances are still in the article. I would think that either they should all be replaced, or the first remaining instance should have the link.

I have replaced extant entirely with either "modern" or "living" to make the reading a bit easier for our visitors.

• I agree with Cas that the sentence about teeth fracture rates is a bit awkward.

Now addressed under Cas.

• I also agree with questioning nine citations for a half sentence. Seems like citation overkill.

Now addressed under Cas.

• There seems to be some inconsistency in the Extinction section. At the end of the first paragraph, it is "assumed" that dire wolf extinction was caused by megaherbivore extinction, but in the next paragraph, the cause of dire wolf extinction is controversial.

Now addressed under Cas.

• Having a single sentence paragraph at the end is a little awkward. Perhaps this information could be combined with one of the other paragraphs in this section?

Now joined to the end of the preceding paragraph.

I made a couple of small edits; other than the few points above, I think the article is looking good. --RL0919 (talk) 18:48, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your time and comments. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 22:19, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

All my concerns have been addressed, so happy to support. --RL0919 (talk) 23:40, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks. I was not completely happy with the Extinction section in the past but I think it really flows well now. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 00:06, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Image review

• Suggest scaling up the map

Hello, the map has now been scaled up to 300px; please let me know if you believe it needs more.

• File:Dogs,_jackals,_wolves,_and_foxes_(Plate_V).jpg is missing a description and date

Referred to the editor who uploaded it - I will follow up.

Seems the info has been added now. FunkMonk (talk) 23:24, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

• File:Canis_dirus_reconstruction.jpg: what is this based on?

Referred to the editor who uploaded it - I will follow up. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 22:02, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't think that artist is active here anymore, but per this discussion[2], you can just provide a source for something that makes it verifiable that the appearance matches known skeletal proportions and theories, even if you don't know exactly what he based it on. FunkMonk (talk) 23:24, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, but I believe the ex-editor in the link is not the uploader, and he is addressing these issues now. I will forward your comment. I expect that he will either clarify the images or replace them. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 00:03, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Ah, right, I thought it was this image[3]. Yeah, it seems a link has been provided to the skeleton photo the first one was drawn after. FunkMonk (talk) 00:10, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

In the same way that Wang and Tedford ("Dogs:Their Fossil Relatives") had the benefit of Mauricio Antón's illustrations based on skeletal remains, the Ice Age wolf-related articles have the benefit of editor Mario Massone's illustrations. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 03:24, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Nikkimaria (talk) 15:32, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Comment from Funkmonk

Support - I had my say at the peer review[4], so have little more to add. Just to say something new, I'm always a sucker for showing type specimens, so if an old lithograph could be found, it might be a nice addition to the taxonomy section. FunkMonk (talk) 00:50, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks. Chance would be a fine thing. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 10:36, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

• One other thing I just thought of is that maybe we could have a size comparison image showing the size of the two dire wolf subspecies in relation to a human? Like the one in the description section of Smilodon? That may also help dispel the GOT myth that these wolves were somehow the size of lions... FunkMonk (talk) 03:08, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

That type of graphic is well beyond my skills and software, unfortunately. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 09:50, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

If you're interested, I can take a stab, we can discuss it on our talk pages if you want. FunkMonk (talk) 10:18, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Let us do that. I think the exercise worthwhile, and because C. d. dirus has the same dimensions as the Yukon wolf - apart from weighing a third more! - the Yukon wolf would be the model and therefore the graphic could be applied to other wolf-related articles. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 10:46, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Support Comments from Cas liber

Taking a look now - free time is patchy so might be coming and going. Will jot queries below: Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:45, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

We look forward to them. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 08:32, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

• I would not link extant in lead. Just say "living" in plain English.
• In para 3 of the Taxonomy you can drop one mention of "two subspecies" - either remove There are two subspecies of C. dirus. or somehow trim the second mention.
• A South American origin for C. dirus has been proposed. - redundant as repeated about three sentences later.
• Attempts to extract DNA from tarpit specimens have been unsuccessful. - redundant as repeated soon after.

Agreed and addressed. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 11:44, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

• These higher fracture rates were across all teeth but not more often the canines when compared to the modern carnivores. - reads awkwardly.

Simplified to: "These higher fracture rates were across all teeth, however the fracture rates for the canine teeth were the same as modern carnivores."

• The extinction of the large carnivores and scavengers is thought to have been caused by the extinction of the megaherbivore prey upon which they depended - err, any reason why this sentence needs so many references?

Reduced to 2 secondary sources, and 2 primary sources by recognized "heavyweights" in this field.

• ...but the cause remains controversial - are there other hypotheses? If not, why not just say "unclear"?

There are a few alternatives hypotheses given at the start of that sentence that I did not elaborate on as they were getting outside of the scope of the article and are general extinction subjects in themselves - links have now been added to these subjects. However, I have amended an earlier sentence to read: "One model proposed to explain the extinction of the large carnivores and scavengers is the extinction of the megaherbivore prey upon which they depended, and it is proposed that this also explains the extinction of the dire wolf in both North and South America." This now provides an introduction for the other models proposed in the following paragraph. I trust this covers it. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 22:13, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Overall, I now support on comprehensiveness and prose. It possibly has more context than I would put in but not much, and it's no dealbreaker. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:17, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks. We have removed some unnecessary sentences and simplified the verbiage used in other sentences. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 09:21, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Source review from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

• Forgive the non-specialist query, but what makes a high quality reliable source?

The "About" tab at the website gives its background. Fossilworks is the portal housed at Macquarie University (Australia) into the Paleobiology database housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA). The database is supported by the US National Science Foundation and UW-Madison Dept. Geoscience. (https://github.com/paleobiodb). It is a consolidation of a number of other databases, including the Smithsonian Institution's Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems database and the University of Chicago's Paleogeographic Atlas Project. However, it could be removed as the only real value it provides to the article is the Range distribution, which I could get from Dundas 1999 (and I assume that is where the database took it from).

That's probably fine - like I said, not a specialist. Better to get it laid out for others... Ealdgyth - Talk 13:12, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Fossilworks references removed - they were a tertiary source and we have primary sources for the same info.

• Current ref 36 - refers to the summary of the file page for the artwork - but that page gives no sources. So the artwork is unsourced?

This one could be solved in the way I indicated earlier, with sources on the file page that indicate what the image can be cross-checked against. In addition, the artist/uploader, Sergio de la Rosa, seems to have his works exhibited in Mexican museums.[5][6] FunkMonk (talk) 14:47, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Ref removed from the article. From what I am seeing on Commons the artist is the source, your advice please? (I am not too fussed about this one; it could be simply removed from the article, but it does help highlight that we do not know what dirus looked like and we are not completely clear on its origin.)

I would think we'd want a source besides just the artist, unless he's a specialist in this sort of reconstruction of fossil animals? Ealdgyth - Talk 13:12, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

That I do not know - artwork now removed.

• Something's borked in ref 59 (Fox-Dobbs). I'm not seeing the link - just link syntax

The University of California - Santa Cruz appears to have just moved its website, leading to this. Now addressed with accessdate= added.

• Same link syntax problem with ref 65 (Leonard)

As above.

• Same link syntax problem with ref 89 (Brannick)

Sadly, that entire volume has been moved off-line. Link removed.

• Earwig's tool shows no sign of copyright violation.

Otherwise everything looks good. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:19, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the review of the references. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 22:26, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Comments by Ian

I went to the article with a view to perhaps tweaking the odd word before promoting but found I wanted to perform a slightly more extensive copyedit than I usually do before closing a nom, plus I have a couple of queries, so I think best I recuse coord duties on this one...

• I haven't read every word by any means but rather have spotchecked the prose and copyedited accordingly -- pls let me know if I've altered meaning inadvertently or if you disagree with my changes.

Thanks for the amendments; you know we South Australians speak our own language down here......

• The second sentence begins "It is perhaps one of the most famous prehistoric carnivores in North America..." -- "It is perhaps the most famous..." or "It is one of the most famous..." are both pretty common expressions but "perhaps one of" sounds a bit weak...

I borrowed the phrase from the article Smilodon. Both articles now amended!

• That said, I didn't spot where "most famous" was mentioned/cited in the main body, only "most common", which is not quite the same thing (or did I miss something?)

Good find, from Wang 2008, now amended.

• Following up on the previous point, under Behavior, we have "C. d. guildayi and Smilodon are the two most common carnivorans from La Brea, with C. d. guildayi the most common" -- I can't help thinking this could be expressed better, avoiding the "the most common" repetition among other things, although I admit nothing comes to me right now...

Much rationalized now.

• The following paragraph you say "Smilodon and C. d. guildayi are the two most common carnivorans found at La Brea", which repeats what's already been said, per the point above.

Restated, no repeating.

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 16:06, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments; issues now all addressed. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 10:25, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Sorry I've taken a while to return... Tks for those changes, I just tweaked a couple of bits. I still haven't been able to go through the entire article so wouldn't feel comfortable giving outright support, but no objections to promotion from a prose perspective.

That said, and putting my coord hat back on for a second, I think we'd probably want to see a spotcheck of sources for accurate use and avoidance of close paraphrasing if, as I'm assuming, this is your first FAC nom. I'd have a go myself but I'm not sure how useful I'd be wading through some of these scientific journals... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:04, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Hello Ian, there is no rush on this undertaking. Based on the useful contributions given above by the participants, the longer it sits here the greater the opportunity for additional comments. Regarding paraphrasing, editor Ealdgyth (above) has run "Earwig" over it (another tool that I never knew existed and now added to my collection) and appears to be happy with it. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 21:55, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Ah yes, that helps, tks -- I'm happy to leave to Sarastro1, as coord, to decide if that suffices. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:06, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Coordinator comment: I'd still like to see a spot check for accurate use of sources, which Earwig does not really do. I think we are clear on close paraphrasing though. I also noted that not all of the references are in numerical order; I'd just like to clarify that this is deliberate as I know some people prefer to put the references in the order that they appear in the sentence. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:39, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't follow your meaning: "not all of the references are in numerical order...I know some people prefer to put the references in the order that they appear in the sentence". Could you provide me with one of these sentences to help illustate this, please? Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 22:49, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Butting in, here's one -- there may be others: "the dire wolf m1 was much larger and had more shearing ability.^[23][48][11]". Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:03, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Anyonge (2006) on page 313 says "the lower carnassial (M1).......the M1 of Ca. dirus had a greater shearing ability as it was much larger than that of Ca. lupus, especially the trigonid (Merriam, 1912; Kurte´n & Anderson 1980)" [Note that Anyonge uses the term "lower M1" - generally in dentition articles on wolves the lower carnassial is referred to as the m1, with the upper jaw M1 being just another upper molar.] Kurten (1980) figures appear in the table of the article titled "Canis lupus and Canis dirus compared by mean mandible tooth measurements (millimeters)", refer rows "m1 length" and "m1 trigonid length" showing dirus larger than lupus. Merriam (1912) page 223 "Upper and lower carnassials relatively large and massive", and page 230 "In M1, the trigonid portion of the tooth is generally relatively long and massive, or the heel region is relatively short compared with the large Recent wolves of North America." [Merriam also uses the term lower "M1" for the lower carnassial.] In the table, we have a link to the trigonid - it is used for shearing. In summary, all 3 writers have stated that the dirus m1 (lower carnassial) is larger than lupus and especially the trigonid (which is used for shearing flesh, flesh shearing is mentioned in the 3rd sentence under "Dentition and biteforce".

There would be some benefit in adding to the sentence "...and the dire wolf m1 was much larger and had more shearing ability due to its longer trigonid." We might even elaborate on that to aid readers understanding with "...its longer, blade-like trigonid". Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 10:24, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Unless I'm being slightly dense in understanding your answer, I think you've misunderstood slightly. The issue in Ian's example is not about content, it is that the references are not in numerical order: 23, 48 and 11 rather than the more customary 11, 23 then 48. Most articles follow the practice of placing refs in ascending numerical order throughout. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:05, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps we are all talking at crossed purposes. I thought that Ian wanted to know which citations relates to the m1 being larger, and which relate to shearing ability - in this case all three citations relate to both items.

If the numerical sequence of the citations is an issue, then in scientific articles I always believed that the first researcher to say something should be cited first, followed by the second etc. However, I have had my work changed many times by others using automated editing processes who believe the latest work should come first to indicate currency. Therefore, most of my "multiple citations" follow this concept instead of my preference. Perhaps you could advise me if there is a WP:MOS on this. NB: The section Ian pointed out is not in sequence under either regime. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 21:22, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Eight edits now made. I assume at FA standard the article will be well-defended. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 22:52, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Spot check by Cas Liber

Will take a look now. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:30, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

• FN 33 - source says, "As an added caution, we extracted DNA from the internal marrow of six asphalt-imbedded fossil bones from dire wolf, Canis dirus; in no case were sequences recovered that were recognizable as Smilodon" - which (when taken with the preceding sentences), suggests it means they were looking for the Smilodon DNA in the dire wolf fossils and stating they'd found none, rather than a lack of retrieving the dire wolf DNA. Unless there is another source that says something on this...?

• FN 34 - true to source

• FN 41 - true to source

• FN 70 (used 6 times) - true to source

Looks alright but one clarification needed. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:59, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Morning Doc. Nice spot checking but we cannot expect you to read every minute detail of each article. Please refer to page 9770, the paragraph just before the section titled "Results", which may prove to be a bit heavy going for the average reader if included in the article:

"For the dire wolf material, PCR amplification with primer 12S-3 (positions 1253-1279; 5'-CTATATACCGCCATCTTCAGCAAACC-3') was attempted unsuccessfully with 12S-2. Sequences of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I primers are 5'-AATTGGATCCGACACGCAGTTCGTGCGGTT-3' and 5'-AATTGAATTCGTCTCGCTCTGGTTGTAGT-3'."

The study compares sequences that are 358-base pairs in length of the mitochondrial encoding 12s RNA gene, which is generally used by researchers for species identification, and further detail of this usage can be found at: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep04089 (You're in my world now...) The researchers could not extract it from dire wolf, which is why it does not appear in Table 1 of the study with the other species that they were successful with.

I cannot find any other published reference relating to dire wolf DNA extraction. If there were enough useful segments available (i.e. lengths of data), we could ascertain its relationship with lupus. (Was the dire wolf really a gray wolf derivative?. We will need to wait until later this year for J. Meachen's analysis of her "Dire wolf/Beringian wolf hybrids" recently discovered in Idaho.) Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 21:52, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Ok that's fine. I missed that but it is a dense article...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:05, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Plus it is not an easy article to wade through and some aspects are skimmed lightly, such as this one. Thanks for the "check-up". Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 00:55, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Closing comment: I'm not an expert on alt text, and I think most of the images would be fine with simply the caption. However, I think it is worth looking at this for a couple of the images. Alt text is not an explicit requirement but it is good for FAs to follow best practice in all areas. I don't want to hold this up over this issue, so I will promote but if the nominator needs help with adding alt text, RexxS is the best person to ask, either on the article talk page or by asking him directly. Sarastro1 (talk) 18:25, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Sarastro1 (talk) 18:26, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.