Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology

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This WikiProject, WikiProject Palaeontology, aims to organise an effort to expand and improve Wikipedia's coverage of palaeontology-related articles. New participants are always welcome! Feel free to leave us a message on our talk page, and take a look at our goals and open tasks.

Hot articles

31 edits	Ammonoidea
22 edits	Paleobiota of the Green River Formation
18 edits	List of dinosaur genera
17 edits	Quetzalcoatlus
15 edits	Gondwana
13 edits	Atlanticopristis
12 edits	Eucholoeops
12 edits	Dinocrocuta
10 edits	Arimasia
10 edits	Massospondylus

These are the articles that have been edited the most within the last three days. Last updated 13 January 2025 by HotArticlesBot.

Article alerts and statistics

Did you know

• 04 Jan 2025 – Agapornis longipes (talk · edit · hist) was nominated for DYK by Di (they-them) (t · c); see discussion
• 01 Jan 2025 – Eoscorpius (talk · edit · hist) was nominated for DYK by An anonymous username, not my real name (t · c); see discussion
• 01 Jan 2025 – Fossils of Finland (talk · edit · hist) was nominated for DYK by DogWorldLive64 (t · c); see discussion

Articles for deletion

• 31 Dec 2024 – Muhammad Sadiq Malkani (talk · edit · hist) AfDed by Hemiauchenia (t · c) was closed as delete by DMacks (t · c) on 07 Jan 2025; see discussion (7 participants)

Proposed deletions

• 08 Jan 2025 – Fossils of Finland (talk · edit · hist) PRODed by Launchballer (t · c) was deproded by DogWorldLive64 (t · c) (author) on 09 Jan 2025

Redirects for discussion

• 10 Jan 2025 – Vicissicaudata (talk · edit · hist) →Artiopoda was RfDed by IC1101-Capinatator (t · c); see discussion
• undated – Coronoidea (talk · edit · hist) →Blastoid was RfDed

Good article nominees

• 11 Jan 2025 – Homo erectus (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by Dunkleosteus77 (t · c); see discussion
• 08 Sep 2024 – Robiatherium (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by PrimalMustelid (t · c); start discussion
• 05 Jan 2025 – Eoscorpius (talk · edit · hist) GA nominated by An anonymous username, not my real name (t · c) was promoted by Chiswick Chap (t · c), see discussion

Peer reviews

• 27 Oct 2024 – Monster of Aramberri (talk · edit · hist) has been put up for PR by Amirani1746 (t · c); see discussion

Requested moves

• 12 Jan 2025 – Fossils of Finland (talk · edit · hist) is requested to be moved to Paleontology in Finland by Hemiauchenia (t · c); see discussion

Articles to be merged

• 23 Dec 2024 – Leptocleidia (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Plesiosauroidea by A Cynical Idealist (t · c); see discussion
• 23 Dec 2024 – Cryptoclidia (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Plesiosauroidea by A Cynical Idealist (t · c); see discussion

Articles to be split

• 21 Aug 2023 – Kota Formation (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Fritzmann2002 (t · c); see discussion

Articles for creation

• 04 Nov 2024 – Draft:Akavassky Formation (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by GlamorousGeologist (t · c)

Participating

If you wish to participate in this project, please list your name to Participants. Feel free to include your area and degree of expertise, and what you feel you may bring to this project.

You are also welcome to help out with any of the tasks listed below that take your fancy!

Tasks

Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Tasks for the ongoing tasks of the project.

Cladogram requests

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Cladogram requests - Cladogram requests can be dealt with my requesting here.

Articles needing attention

These articles have been flagged by users as needing general attention or attention from experts. Please try and resolve the issue(s) quickly and remove the tag when done so.

• Palaeontology articles needing attention
• Palaeontology articles needing expert attention

Articles needed or needing improvements

Articles in urgent need of improvement are listed here. Please remove entries after making improvements.

• General articles needed:
• Notable palaeontologists needed: Walter P. Coombs, Eva Koppelhus, David M. Martill, Anthony S. Cheke, David Unwin
• Notable paleoartists needed: Alfons and Adrie Kennis, Jason Brougham, Scott Hartman
• Lists with many red links: List of therapsids, List of prehistoric mammals, List of extinct cetaceans, List of fossil primates, List of fossil birds, List of prehistoric bony fish, List of prehistoric cartilaginous fish, List of prehistoric jawless fish, List of placoderms, List of acanthodians, List of Ediacaran genera, and a horde of invertebrate lists can be found here: [1] Recent lists of years in paleontology also have many red links.
• Pages with many red links: Sparassodonta, Condylarthra, Rhinocerotidae, Brontotheriidae, Antilocapridae, Anthracotheriidae, Hyaenidae, Amynodontidae, Oxyaenidae, Hyaenodontidae, Glyptodontidae, Pampatheriidae, Proterotheriidae, Macraucheniidae, Toxodontidae, Isotemnidae, Notohippidae, Leptictida, Cimolesta, Hyracoidea, Pteridospermatophyta, Ituzaingó Formation, South American land mammal age
• Individual articles for improvement: Paraptenodytes, Caseidae: Knoxosaurus and Oromycter, Ocepechelon, Hyracotherium, Solza (started), Aral Formation (started), Huehuecuetzpalli, Praepusa. List of paleontologists is in need of expansion.
• Expand with translation: The following articles may be substantially expanded with appropriately-sourced translation from foreign language Wiki articles. Please see Wikipedia:Translation for guidance.
• Rework navbox - {{Proboscidea Genera}}, Navbox too wide

Topics requiring improvement

• The Cambrian explosion - efforts are being organised by a task force
• Sarcopterygians... they need a lot of work. So I put up a task force to deal with it. --Sneaky Oviraptor18^{talk edits tribute} 15:36, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
• Paleontologists - biographical information about notable paleontologists needs to be expanded. I'd like to revive the paleontologists task force. Hza a 9 Hza a 9 (talk) 17:02, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
• Extinct squamates - there's a task force for that now! Borophagus (talk) 17:35, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

List maintenance

This includes adding newly described taxa, and creation of articles for genera (and redirects for synonyms).

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Lists for all the taxonomic lists

Which articles should be created

Editors sometimes wonder whether it is necessary to create a separate article for every species in a genus. In the case of monospecific genera, the general WP:TOL guideline is to create a single article at the genus level. For example, an article exists at Saadanius and a redirect at Saadanius hijazensis. Exceptions exist when the genus name needs WP:disambiguation.

It has been agreed that species should generally be redirected to a genus page, similar to WP:DINO guidelines, as there is usually much less info available for prehistoric than extant species to create substantial articles. If there eventually is enough text about each species, they may have a separate section in the genus article; see Cimoliopterus for an example. If a single species is well-known enough and eventually generates enough content to make the genus article too WP:too long, a separate species article can be created; other species in said genus should only be split from the main article when their texts grows too long as well (as is for example the case with many mammoth species).

In the case of genera that contain multiple species, a degree of common sense is necessary. Wikipedia:MERGE lists three reasons that it may be appropriate to combine the species into a single page:

• There may be a substantial overlap in the content of the articles (for instance, if the species are found in the same locality and are morphologically and biologically very similar);
• There may be very little text that can be written about individual species (if a species is very similar to others in its genus and only differs in minor featutres, an article may simply read "Orthoconus grandi is a species of Orthoconus whose shell is greater than 2 mm in height").
• It may be necessary to have context from a broader article in order for readers to understand the species' context. For instance, the phylogenetic context of Halkieria requires lengthy explanation, so in this instance it is appropriate to have multiple genera in a single article.

Dubious genera warrant separate articles and should not be redirected. Dubious species and species that have been incorrectly placed in a specific genus should be redirected to the closest higher level taxon it can be assigned to. Articles should not be created for any specimens or taxa that have not been assigned a valid scientific name.

Palaeontology biographies

Wikipedia welcomes articles on notable paleontologists. However, please review Wikipedia's notability requirements for scholars before creating articles on palaeontologists or other scientists. In short, the subject must have made major contributions to their field, as recognized by other reliable sources, and/or have received significant coverage. Simply publishing articles or naming species may not be sufficient to establish notability, and there may not be enough material to write a satisfying, complete biographical article. The fact that a scientist's name has been linked on Wikipedia, or mentioned briefly in a book, may not be sufficient to establish notability. Writing about any living person requires special sensitivity, see: Biographies of living persons. You can find more tips and guidelines at WikiProject Biography

Also see the paleontologists taskforce for efforts to improve Wikipedia's coverage of paleontologists.

Conflict of Interest

For any academic editor(s) who wish to reference their own work in articles or their own biography, we have set-up a system that allows other wiki-editors to make the edits for you, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/COI. This is to ensure there are no conflicts of interest, either real or in appearance.

Recognized content

Featured topics

• Ferugliotheriidae - 23 August 2011
• Raphinae - 8 August 2014
• Pterygotioidea - 25 September 2018
• Adelophthalmidae - 7 August 2019

Quality content

Palaeontology articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FA	3	19	27	74			123
FL			1				1
FM					13		13
GA	4	26	39	188			257
B	17	72	104	467		18	678
C	9	69	268	1,436		21	1,803
Start	1	68	399	4,930		23	5,421
Stub		13	172	14,305		31	14,521
List	3	17	43	732		12	807
Category					5,736		5,736
Disambig					22		22
File					53		53
Portal					693		693
Project					61		61
Redirect	1	3	27	719	961		1,711
Template					567		567
Other					8		8
Assessed	38	287	1,080	22,851	8,114	105	32,475
Total	38	287	1,080	22,851	8,114	105	32,475
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 123,989			Ω = 5.44

Categories

• List of all subpages of this page