Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Primates/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Primates. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

monkey

Someone please revert User:Influency on monkey. - UtherSRG (talk) 20:25, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Red colobus - procolobus

On all of the Red colobus species pages it lists it as having the genus piliocolobus, however most other places, including IUCN (eg here) list it as being procolobus. A search on google brings 33000 for procolobus and only 9000 for piliocolobus. Where has this come from? C hris_huh^talk 00:15, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Moved by Groves 2001 - Primate Taxonomy. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Langurs

Can someone help with information on the splitting of the genus Common langurs (Semnopithecus spp.) into

Nepal Gray Langur (Semnopithecus schistaceus)
Kashmir Gray Langur (Semnopithecus ajax)
Tarai Gray Langur (Semnopithecus hector)
Northern Plains Gray Langur (Semnopithecus entellus) (Dufresne, 1797)
Black-footed Gray Langur (Semnopithecus hypoleucos)
Southern Plains Gray Langur (Semnopithecus dussumieri)
Tufted Gray Langur (Semnopithecus priam)

and the distribution ranges of these newly designated species. thanks. Shyamal 04:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

User Box?

Is there a Userbox specific to this project? I see some for the Tree of Life but not for the Primate Project. Anyone have one?LiPollis 11:14, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:TOL template

I'm working on a proposal to subsume all the WP:TOL project banners into a single one. Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Template union proposal and its talk page. Circeus 19:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Featured Image

You may be interested to hear that the image to the right was promoted to featured image status. Chris Buttigieg ^talk 21:32, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Wrong pictures

All the pictures in Black Crested Gibbon except for the Stamp are wrong and should be put in White-cheeked Crested Gibbon, which is considered a different species nowadays. (In fact, 2 species, N. leucogenys and N. siki.) Regards --80.108.59.151 13:42, 26 July 2007 (UTC) (de:Benutzer:Bradypus)

Done! (You could have done this yourself, Bradypus... I know you know how. *grins* ) - UtherSRG (talk) 15:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Capitalisation debate at main WP:MOS

There is currently a debate underway at the main wikipedia manual of style regarding whether common names of animals should carry an initial capital letter (horse or Horse) when used in the body of the text. It is looking strongly like the rules are going to be changed in favour of no-caps (except for birds), and since this may impact you guys, please visit Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Common names of animals. Sabine's Sunbird talk 22:27, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Animals project proposal

I think it's both a pity and somewhat illogical that we have no animal WikiProject despite the fact that there are over 20 projects that are basically its daughters. There are also other projects that could emerge from it in the future, such as one on animal behavior. The project would provide a central place for people from all animal projects to talk, a central set of guidelines for articles on animals and zoology, and an assessment system for articles related to animals. If you are interested in creating such a project please visit Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of life#Animals project to discuss. Richard001 08:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

The following projects would come under the parentage of this project:

Golden langur image

I have a shot of the golden langur that is under CC http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Golden_Langur ... If someone is interested in using it. it'll be cool. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pankaj/320367981/ 203.83.248.32 spo0nman 203.83.248.32

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.83.248.32 (talk) 11:33, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed merger to WikiProject Mammals

I was thinking that this project might be willing to try to utilize the banner of the Mammals project for assessment. To do this, some sort of "merger" of the projects would be required. For the purposes of centralized discussion, please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mammals#Proposed merger with WikiProject Monotremes and Marsupials. Thank you. John Carter 17:03, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Fossil Primates

Dear Proteuontologists (this funny word would be the purist Greek word for our discipline if we wanted to avoid the Latin-Greek hybrid "primatologists"), I suggest we try to create an article with the tittle "Fossil Primates", where the classification of the direct ancestors of all current Primate families appear. It is impossible to be up to date with new findings, published in too many revues. We could use this discussion page to keep each other informed about the advances of Primatology/Proteuontology. We have been able to do so with living species. It might be time to do the same with extinct ones. Thank you for your help in advance. Vasconicus (talk) 10:31, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposed change to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)

There is a current proposal to change an animal-related naming convention, which directly effects the the Manual of Style guideline, and the naming conventions policy. If you are interested, your input would be appreciated. Justin ^chat 06:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Ardipithecus Page Needs References

Call for help. No references on a very important page. Can someone please see to this? --1000Faces (talk) 18:41, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I stumbled on this page and made a major restructure, supplying a few basic references as unformatted URLs. Better now, but still needs much work. Adopted the convention of designating Ardipithecus as Ar. rather than A. because as a lay person, I found A. darn confusing with respect to those Australothingies. All the articles I was able to locate now use the Ar. convention (many of them did already). - MaxEnt (talk) 16:23, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Hrm... I may revert the A. -> Ar. changes you made. that convention is used when A. itself would be ambiguous. On a page that only has Ardipithecus info, I would think the context would be enough. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:49, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I would agree, Uther. --Aranae (talk) 18:57, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Lophocebus ugandae

This specie, announced by C.P. Groves, has never been described officially! It's not an accepted taxon and its validity is discussed see: http://primatology.net/2007/02/20/a-new-species-of-gray-cheeked-mangabey-anounced/ --Esculapio (talk) 16:20, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

To clarify, the taxon has been formally described. Whether it is a junior synonym or a distinct species is the topic of discussion. --Aranae (talk) 17:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Could you kindly indicate references of formal description? --Esculapio (talk) 17:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

That's a blog. I'm not impressed. The taxon is valid, as it was described in 1912 by Matchie. Groves doesn't need to re-describe it. He only needs to elevate its status, which he has done. I've updated the article to point to the published paper in Primate Conservation. - UtherSRG (talk) 18:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi! Not a member of the Primate Wikiproject, but I noticed this article today. The images on the Grey-cheeked Mangabey article page were taken in Kibale National Park, Uganda, which would mean they are of the new species, if that taxa is accepted. I'll leave it up to you guys to decide where those images should go. Sabine's Sunbird talk 19:21, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Assessments

Is this project going to get an assessment system working, or do we have to use the mammals template for that? Richard001 (talk) 10:44, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to sort out easy-to-use pages for a few aspects of this WikiProject, at the moment I'm stealing a lot of stuff from the bird people who seemed to have things nice and organised. I'll carry on working on it tomorrow, I'm far from finished, because my internet is being slow tonight. Has anyone got any other ideas how to get things moving round here? I'm kinda feeling we need some focus on getting articles to featured status as there is a lot of stubs at the moment. I would recommend getting Chimpanzee featured as the bulk is already there. Jack (talk) 02:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay I think I've sorted most things out to work normally, now we just need people to start reviewing our current articles within the Primate WikiProject. You can see pages that need to be created on the Article requests page. Any feedback? Cheers, Jack (talk) 16:19, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Still missing about 66 species articles

Kaldari (talk) 20:41, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

If we can get all of these to stub level like Silver Monkey that'd be great. For reference a more comprehensive list of primate articles requested is at the article requests page. Jack (talk) 18:18, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Ardipithecus Page Needs References

Call for help. No references on a very important page. Can someone please see to this? --1000Faces (talk) 18:41, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I stumbled on this page and made a major restructure, supplying a few basic references as unformatted URLs. Better now, but still needs much work. Adopted the convention of designating Ardipithecus as Ar. rather than A. because as a lay person, I found A. darn confusing with respect to those Australothingies. All the articles I was able to locate now use the Ar. convention (many of them did already). - MaxEnt (talk) 16:23, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Hrm... I may revert the A. -> Ar. changes you made. that convention is used when A. itself would be ambiguous. On a page that only has Ardipithecus info, I would think the context would be enough. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:49, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I would agree, Uther. --Aranae (talk) 18:57, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Lophocebus ugandae

This specie, announced by C.P. Groves, has never been described officially! It's not an accepted taxon and its validity is discussed see: http://primatology.net/2007/02/20/a-new-species-of-gray-cheeked-mangabey-anounced/ --Esculapio (talk) 16:20, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

To clarify, the taxon has been formally described. Whether it is a junior synonym or a distinct species is the topic of discussion. --Aranae (talk) 17:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Could you kindly indicate references of formal description? --Esculapio (talk) 17:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

That's a blog. I'm not impressed. The taxon is valid, as it was described in 1912 by Matchie. Groves doesn't need to re-describe it. He only needs to elevate its status, which he has done. I've updated the article to point to the published paper in Primate Conservation. - UtherSRG (talk) 18:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi! Not a member of the Primate Wikiproject, but I noticed this article today. The images on the Grey-cheeked Mangabey article page were taken in Kibale National Park, Uganda, which would mean they are of the new species, if that taxa is accepted. I'll leave it up to you guys to decide where those images should go. Sabine's Sunbird talk 19:21, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm fixing this up now. In reading Groves' write up, he didn't just elevate the ugandae population, but elevated three others as well. I'm working the changes needed.... - UtherSRG (talk) 04:01, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I known this is an old discussion, but I though this was a good place for adding a brief note on taxonomy per Groves. Let's start by saying that I'm not questioning the validity of ugandae, as I do think he presents good evidence for recognizing it as a distinct taxon (and it makes perfect sense from a zoogeographic point of view). However, here's a quote summing up the argument in the paper where ugandae was elevated to species status: "We here have four [albigena, osmani, johnstoni and ugandae] diagnostically distinct taxa, i.e. species". Erh, what??? Following the biological species concept, that has never been an argument for species status, but rather the minimum requirement for subspecies! Should his comment be correct, you have to use another species concept, e.g. the phylogenetic. Structural differences might sound impressive, but alone they can be worth nothing (e.g. separating the human races - if recognized as such - from the skull usually is pretty straight forward). There are quite a lot of other genera in Groves where we're looking at an equally problematic taxomy per BSC, e.g. Callicebus (they can't swim [although this actually is contradicted by some authorities], so if they're separated by rivers they must have been separated for long enough for species status [even though some of the proposed species actually aren't separated by rivers]), Callithrix (hybridization resulting in fully fertile offspring has been documented between some of the "species", and in well-surveyed regions [e.g. eastern Brazil] massive zones inhabited by hybrid populations are known), Saimiri, Trachypithecus, Cercopithecus, Eulemur, etc. Let's just say that the percentage of monotypic para- and allospecies are exceptionally high in some of the genera per Groves taxonomy, and assuming that all these, from an evolutionary point of view, are as non-mobile as tapaculos is a bit difficult to swallow. Of course I am well aware that some of the multiple-split genera are based on the works of others, but I think there can be no doubts that Groves has read and is fully familiar with the work he used as a background for the list. Many moons ago, a very sensible teacher told me that if I ever noticed a biologist virtually only followed/argued for splits (or vice versa), I should take extra care. I'm certainly not arguing for the WikiProject Primates (or WikiProject Mammals, for that matter) suddenly switching to another authority than MSW3 (which overall is excellent), but I am saying that people perhaps should consider checking if the species-limits presented in it as facts actually hold according to whatever species concept this group follows (and I guess that remains the BSC, considering that it [still] is the most widely used); especially in the cases where that taxonomy appears to differ significantly from that of most other material published within the last few years. 212.10.79.182 (talk) 23:53, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Assessments

Is this project going to get an assessment system working, or do we have to use the mammals template for that? Richard001 (talk) 10:44, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to sort out easy-to-use pages for a few aspects of this WikiProject, at the moment I'm stealing a lot of stuff from the bird people who seemed to have things nice and organised. I'll carry on working on it tomorrow, I'm far from finished, because my internet is being slow tonight. Has anyone got any other ideas how to get things moving round here? I'm kinda feeling we need some focus on getting articles to featured status as there is a lot of stubs at the moment. I would recommend getting Chimpanzee featured as the bulk is already there. Jack (talk) 02:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay I think I've sorted most things out to work normally, now we just need people to start reviewing our current articles within the Primate WikiProject. You can see pages that need to be created on the Article requests page. Any feedback? Cheers, Jack (talk) 16:19, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

So, [do you want me to/are you going to] add assessment capability to the primates project template? It seems best for projects to have assessment capabilities in their own template so as to avoid adding additional ones. Richard001 (talk) 05:48, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I've added it already, but as there is not a great deal of activity within this WikiProject I was thinking maybe the assessment side should be merge with WikiProject Mammals? There's not much assessment activity there either to be fair though. I reckon once we've got all the species articles to at least stub class then we should work to get some articles to good article/featured article status, some candidates for this are the Mountain Gorilla, Common Chimpanzee or the Aye-Aye. Jack (talk) 12:11, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, so you have. Allow me to add an audio requests function to the template as well. Richard001 (talk) 06:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow, you've done that too. Nice work. Richard001 (talk) 06:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry! I'm sure we'll never run out of things to be done here though ;) Jack (talk) 11:51, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the audio, we now have Category:Wikipedia requested audio of animals. As that grows we can look at making subcats for more specific projects. But if you want to have an audio request for each primate without any audio (which would be most, and I presume they all have some sort of vocalization!) you could get a bot to do it and create a primates subcat straight away for it. Richard001 (talk) 22:59, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Importance

I'm starting to look at assessing articles for importance, or at least how to determine which articles are of which importance.

Top: Any of the very general articles (primate, ape, monkey, lemur, chimpanzee, gorilla), and the most recognizable species (Ring-tailed Lemur, Golden Lion Tamarin, White-headed Capuchin).
High: Any species commonly found in zoos that isn't top-importance, and any family article containing a top-importance species (Hominidae, Lemuridae, Cebidae).
Mid: Any species mentioned in the news (GoldenPalace.com Monkey), any family containing a high-importance species
Low: All others.

Thoughts? - UtherSRG (talk) 06:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

That looks great, I didn't want to have to write up any criteria myself! I think a few high importance articles (Chimpanzee, Ape, Orangutan) will need to be moved up. Jack (talk) 17:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

However you do it, try to ensure there are always more articles as you go down in importance (more high than top; more low than mid...) Richard001 (talk) 22:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Certainly! - UtherSRG (talk) 00:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me, although I suspect there may be more species common to zoos than get much mention in the news. But I could be wrong on that.Rlendog (talk) 01:10, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

A couple more thoughts - several species have are subject to considerable research, and so may be often encountered in literature, but are not necessarily recognizable or common in zoos. I would think those ought to be considered high. An example that comes immediately to mind is the mantled howler. Also, in some cases the family article may be more important that the specific species article. For example, squirrel monkeys are very common in zoos, but how many people would know which specific species is on display? In most cases the zoo wouldn't identify it. In a case like that I think the family should have higher importance than the species.Rlendog (talk) 01:29, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

All true. Consider my listing then a recommended place to start, with everything subject to fudging. :) (And "squirrel monkey" would be a genus-level article, not family. ;) ) - UtherSRG (talk) 03:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

How about giving critically endangered species a higher ranking as well? This list shows the critically endangered primates. I think they should be high importance, maybe even top importance? Jack (talk) 10:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

You're right.... conservation status should factor in as well. - UtherSRG (talk) 03:04, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I hope you don't want to also factor in abundance, as that would sort of cancel out the conservation status thing (assuming the more common species were given higher importance, of course). Richard001 (talk) 11:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Importance of prehistoric species

So by this scale, all extinct genera and species would be low importance? I've been doing some assessments of quality in the Prehistoric apes category. If we confirm that these should all be low impoprtance, I'll go back and add that. But, I'm not sure it's accurate. Shouldn't some of the prehistoric species be ranked higher importance? Aleta ^Sing 20:07, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

No missing species articles

0 monkeys, 0 prosimians to go...

If we can get all of these to stub level like Silver Monkey that'd be great. For reference a more comprehensive list of primate articles requested is at the article requests page. Jack (talk) 18:18, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
~~Excellent work folks! - UtherSRG (talk) 02:23, 12 May 2008 (UTC)~~
Excellent work yourself! I'd love to be helping out but exams are taking all my time at the moment. Cheers, Jack (talk) 08:09, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Prosimians are now complete (at least until a new species is identified)!!!Rlendog (talk) 23:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I guess 4 were added, but they have all been addressed, so we are back to completion on the prosimians.Rlendog (talk) 22:20, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Missing species articles are below 10!Rlendog (talk) 02:17, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Now it's only six. I made "Nepal Gray Langur", but for some reason, sub family and super family taxation aren't showing up. I don't know how to fix it. If somebody could handle that, it would be appreciated. Yojimbo501 (talk) 18:10, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
We are now complete, at least until some new species is described or elevated. Rlendog (talk) 03:56, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Congratulations everyone! Especially UtherSRG and Rlendog, great work guys! Now what's next? Jack (talk) 13:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
~~Missing subfamily articles~~
According to WP:PRIMATE#Task list and progress, we need to "create an article for each Subfamily", then "create articles for all Species and for needed Genera". − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 15:39, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
I created an article for the missing subfamily, Cheirogaleinae, although there did not seem to be any extant species included in Cheirogaleinae that are not included in the family Cheirogaleidae. I'm not sure if that would apply to extinct species though. Rlendog (talk) 20:24, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
What do you mean? If B is a subgroup of A (e.g. subfamily Cheirogaleinae is a subgroup of family Cheirogaleidae), then there will never be species under B that is not also under A. Scientific classification doesn't work that way. Perhaps you meant there are no species under the family Cheirogaleidae that is not also under subfamily Cheirogaleinae; meaning there is a one-to-one correspondence. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 23:05, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Yeah Rlendog means that maybe Cheirogaleidae should redirect to Cheirogaleinae as the latter is the only subfamily within the former. Unless there are extinct subfamilies within Cheirogaleidae which would mean both pages should exist. I hope I make sense... Cheers, Jack (talk) 01:01, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I see. I didn't realize there were separate articles for -dae and -nae. Cheirogaleinae had me confused because the family and superfamily are bold in the infobox, rather than linked. It should probably be merged into -dae, and ultimately moved to Cheirogaleoidea over the redirect. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 01:08, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
Yeah that'd be right. Cheers, Jack (talk) 01:29, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd just like to say I'd help with this more, but I've retired from wikipedia, and I feel like a waste to this project since all I did was create the Nepal Gray Langur article. Yojimbo501 (talk) 18:44, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
~~Could somebody put my name on the list?~~
~~I don't know how to and I would like to be part of this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yojimbo501 (talk • contribs) 16:39, 26 April 2008 (UTC)~~
Hi Yojimbo501, great to hear you want to help out. It was me who made it so difficult to add your name to this project before, so sorry about that. I've made it easier now, just click the link under the Participants heading on the main page and add your name. Or even easier just click here and add your name. Cheers, Jack (talk) 13:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
~~Evolution of color vision in primates~~
An expert is needed for a look over this article: Evolution of color vision in primates. No time to do it myself, although it is an interesting subject which was covered nicely in The Ancestor's Tale. Cheers, Jack (talk) 12:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
~~Primate is the new collaboration of the month~~
Just a heads up to say that Primate is the new mammal collaboration of the month over at WikiProject Mammals. Hopefully we should be able to get this very important article up to FA status. I've got a pretty good book on primate social systems and primate evolution which should be helpful, once my exams are over I'll be a bit more help. Cheers, Jack (talk) 19:06, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
~~Uzungwa Red Colobus~~
Shouldn't this species be called Udzungwa Red Colobus? I know that MSW3 writes Uzungwa, but it is named after the Udzungwa Mountains. Or is there a reason for omitting the "d"? Regards --80.108.59.151 (talk) 22:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC) (de:Benutzer:Bradypus)
I think both names are used and according to this paper there is a reason for it in a book by Moyer & Lovett (in press) though I can't seem to access the book to find out why. Udzungwa is the proper usage, not sure why MSW3 gets it wrong? Cheers, Jack (talk) 21:35, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
~~Redirects on "G. species" disambiguation pages~~
Please see this discussion so that we can come to a conclusion about redirects used on "G. species" disambiguation pages.
Thank you, Neelix (talk) 00:47, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
~~Next task: Structure standardization~~
I propose that the next task, after all articles under the order "Primate" are created, be to standardize our articles, so that for each taxonomic rank the articles share the same structure. For example, every article at the genus level should share the same section headings in the same order, with the exception of sections unique to each article. Right now there is much variability in structure, so I offer this illustration of why we need standardization:
Chimpanzee uses "Measurements" as its first section;

Gorilla uses "Physical characteristics" as its third section;

Orangutan uses "Ecology and appearance" (a mix of two sections) as its second section.
There is certainly more variation for other primate articles. This would apply for family, species, and so on (and super- and sub- classifications). The standard decided on for one taxonomic rank would not necessarily apply to other ranks.
Let's discuss the preferred section headings and order. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 07:29, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Good idea, another thing to work on is the rating and importance templates on primate talk pages. When everything is tagged then we can start work on improving the top importance articles. I would suggest headings per primate : Anatomy and morphology. Physiology. Habitat and distribution. etc. Although I do like the section "Physical characteristics". Jack (talk) 11:11, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Okay since my reply Primate now has the headings: Anatomy, physiology and morphology; Behaviour; etc. The former is a bit of a mouthful and I'm not sure it is suitable for the entire WikiProject, so what is the consensus across the rest of the featured mammal articles? Well, some use 'Physical characteristics' for species articles, and some use 'Physical description', or 'Description' (see Pygmy Hippopotamus, featured today (2008-08-14)). There aren't many featured family or genus mammal articles to compare against. In the Wikipedia:WikiProject Primates/Article format it says, ""Physical appearance" and "Morphology" are discouraged as alternative headings, since these terms only apply to the outward appearance of the animal, not the internal structures." I would argue 'Physical characteristics' can be applied to internal structures (see Sea otter#Physical characteristics). I think that 'Anatomy and physiology', although accurate should be changed to 'Physical characteristics' due to its prevalence in other featured articles. Cheers, Jack (talk) 01:04, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
I proposed an article standardization a while ago (Wikipedia:WikiProject Primates/Article format) that has yet to receive any input. What I suggested there is "Anatomy and physiology". Anatomy refers to the structure of things, while physiology refers to their function. I also mention "Physical description" and "Physical characteristics" as acceptable alternatives. "Physical appearance" and "Morphology" are discourage because they imply the outward appearance, not to internal structures nor to function. (I distinguish "appearance" from "description": the former applies explicitly to the appearance, while the latter can mean "description of appearance and function").

If you are interested, please have a look at my suggested article format, and make any comments on this talk page (#Standardized article format, below) — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 03:18, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, didn't notice we were meant to discuss it below. My comments were directed at the article format page, I even linked to it. I will copy and paste my comments into that section. Cheers, Jack (talk) 01:35, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
~~Cercopithecus a. albogularis in Angola?~~
A few days ago, I did a fair deal of editing to Sykes' Monkey and associated pages, among others removing Zanzibar Sykes' Monkey as an alternative name for the nominate subspecies, as I, without checking other sources, relied upon MSW3 where it is claimed that the type locality is Angola [1]. However, I've now come to doubt this, and suspect the type of Cercopithecus a. albogularis really is from Zanzibar (in which case Zanzibar Sykes' Monkey should be re-added both to the Sykes' Monkey page and the Guenon page). Indeed, I suspect Sykes' Monkey isn't found in Angola at all, and the NW Angolan population actually is Cercopithecus m. mitis ([2]). Could someone check if MSW3 messed these up? I only have access to limited literature here, and won't be able to check more thoroughly until monday. 212.10.81.215 (talk) 19:53, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
I'll send Colin Groves an email and see what he says. - UtherSRG (talk) 02:59, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Well, I did solve one of them (a mistake of mine, really). The type locality for Cercopithecus m. mitis is indeed Angola, and this is also what MSW3 says (not sure how I missed that... evidently just checked the wiki article where it, until a few sec's ago, said Malawi). That still doesn't solve the main issue of the type locality for Cercopithecus a. albogularis. 212.10.81.215 (talk) 03:35, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
Groves' reply: MSW3 did stuff up, but not about mitis, whose type locality is correctly stated to be Angola. The stuff up is in the type locality of albogularis, whose type locality is also stated to be Angola -- it is of course, Zanzibar. The error occurred because, for the first time, albogularis was treated as a separate species from mitis, and the alteration of the two entries was insufficiently checked! - UtherSRG (talk) 07:18, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. The range was also incorrect (the NW Angolan population is nominate mitis), presumably caused by the confusion over type locality. That said, I've been unable to confirme if it does extend slightly into extreme E. Angola (ssp. monoides is pretty close, and no obvious ecological barriers), but I presume that's of limited importance unless someone starts adding very specific distribution info to the article. 212.10.86.85 (talk) 07:08, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
~~Red howler~~
Yesterday I created the disambg. page Red howler to account for the three taxa previously considered conspecific. However, doing a fast search today, I stumpled upon the page Red howler monkey. Not entirely sure which of the red howlers it is supposed to cover, but I presume it is a "combi-page" for all three red howlers, or at least the Venezuelan and Guyanan. Regardless, whatever it's supposed to cover (if all three, it should be merged into the disambg. page I created), it would at least require a good clean-up (taxonomy, "primarily found in South America" [not "primarily"... entirely], "face covered with... hyoid bones" [??? I presume the person who wrote that doesn't actually know what the hyoid bone is!], "Red Howlers are unique monkeys" [Any more unique than other species of howler monkeys?], "Breeding is an important part of a red howler's life" [disregarding species with asexual reproduction, breeding is pretty important for all species that want to remain extant!], etc). I'll leave it to this group to decide what to do about it. • Rabo³ • 09:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I've merged the sourced content from Red howler monkey to Venezuelan Red Howler. The article referred to Alouatta seniculus in its sources. I've removed any contentious information and cleaned it up a bit. Red howler monkey now redirects to Red howler. Jack (talk) 12:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. The only minor problem, which I perhaps should have noted more clearly in my prev. comment, is that Alouatta macconnelli of the Guianan Shield was considered a ssp. of the now west Amazonian A. seniculus until 2001 (as was A. sara until 1985), where proposed split. Thus, any source older than that, you'd have to track down exactly what population they're referring to. Let's take the primary source for the article now merged: animaldiversity, and go down to its sources. The newest is from 1991, i.e. some ten years before anyone had even proposed splitting A. seniculus and A. macconnelli, and without going into detail we thus have no way of knowing which of the post-split species it refers to. All but two of the sources are also from 1985 or older, i.e. unlikely to even have made the distinction between A. sara and A. seniculus. Another sources, bbc, is newer, and may be more up-to-date, but considering that they quote the distribution as extending to "southern Bolivia" (as far as I know, A. seniculus sensu stricto only barely extends into far northern Bolivia in Pando and adjacent parts of the adjacent departments - careful; MSW3 got ranges of it and A. sara a bit mixed up). The last online source is dead, but accessible by the way-back machine (slow loading page). The range they quote, including both French Guiana and Suriname, is again that for A. seniculus sensu lato. I presume the behavior, etc, of the three species are pretty similar, but on the other hand that's a bit of an assumption to make. • Rabo³ • 18:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Ah okay, didn't notice that. Maybe some note should be made of it in the article. Cheers, Jack (talk) 11:23, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
~~Standardized article format~~
I have created a template for articles on Primate taxa. I would like everyone interested to discuss it. Please review it and offer your comments here. Thank you. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 00:04, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
My primary concern is whether "Taxonomic classification" should be a subsection of "Evolutionary history". We classify animals based on their evolutionary relationships, but often our understanding of the animal's evolution is wrong—we once held that chimpanzees were more closely related to gorillas than they are to us. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 00:09, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Primate (probably the best article under WikiProject Primates) has the heading; Anatomy, physiology and morphology. It's a bit of a mouthful and I'm not sure it is suitable for the entire WikiProject, the consensus across the rest of the featured mammal articles is varied. Some use 'Physical characteristics' for species articles, and some use 'Physical description', or 'Description' (see Pygmy Hippopotamus, featured today (2008-08-14)). There aren't many featured family or genus mammal articles to compare against. In the Wikipedia:WikiProject Primates/Article format it says, ""Physical appearance" and "Morphology" are discouraged as alternative headings, since these terms only apply to the outward appearance of the animal, not the internal structures." I would argue 'Physical characteristics' can be applied to internal structures (see Sea otter#Physical characteristics). I think that 'Anatomy and physiology', although accurate should be changed to 'Physical characteristics' as a default heading due to its prevalence in other featured articles. Cheers, Jack (talk) 01:04, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
Editors are free to choose which term they would like to use in each article. The default heading on the "standard article" page isn't supposed to be the authoritative usage. (Also, I agree that "Physical characteristics" can be applied to the internal structures, which is why I included it as one of the good alternatives.) — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 00:29, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
In the article Ring-tailed Lemur, I created a section called Natural History, which included both Ecology and Behavior (and their subheadings). This is a popular heading in many books, and given that Ecology and Behavior are the most closely linked of all the headings, I favor this approach. Granted, it creates more nesting than the relatively flat article template. Anyway, this approach was discussed on the Ring-tailed Lemur talk page. Thoughts? Visionholder (talk) 23:29, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I think we should keep them separate. Natural history is (according to our article) "the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards the observational than experimental methods of study", and is targeted more toward popular magazines than academic journals. I am concerned about how ambiguous this dated term is; "history" suggests a study of the animal's past, rather than their current behavior/ecology. Back when natural science (and before that, all science) was called "natural history", the term may have made some more sense, since it was such a broad field, and it included studying geography, paleontology, evolution, and other "history"-related sciences. Now the term is slightly more specific (biology, not all natural sciences), and it has split into many, many specialized fields. Aside from ecology and ethology, evolutionary biology is another major sub-field of what the naturalists studied, but the "Evolution" section shouldn't be grouped with ecology or behavior. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 00:29, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
~~Articles flagged for cleanup~~
Currently, 716 articles are assigned to this project, of which 118, or 16.5%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. More than 150 projects and work groups have already subscribed, and adding a subscription for yours is easy - just place the following template on your project page:
~~{{User:WolterBot/Cleanup listing subscription|banner=PrimateTalk}}~~
~~If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page; I'm not watching this page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:00, 5 August 2008 (UTC)~~
~~Why not? This couldn't harm us. Anyone else agree? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 15:42, 6 August 2008 (UTC)~~
~~Agreed, I've added the template to the project page. Cheers, Jack (talk) 12:14, 10 August 2008 (UTC)~~
~~The page is now live at Wikipedia:WikiProject Primates/Cleanup listing. Jack (talk) 01:40, 17 August 2008 (UTC)~~
~~Unidentified monkeys~~
~~Scarlet-faced and parauacú monkeys~~
~~Can someone identify these two species? I can't find entries even close to the names given in the caption. Richard001 (talk) 03:43, 23 August 2008 (UTC)~~
The "scarlet faced monkey" (top two specimens) is another name for the Bald Uakari / Cacajao calvus (from source A), which is corroborated based on descriptions at source B (but here classified in another genus, Brachyurus calvus), source C, and source D. The illustrations of the Uakari fail to capture the sheer terror of these devil-monkeys!

The "Parauacú monkey" (bottom specimen) is a species of Saki monkey, possibly the Monk Saki / Pithecia monachus, and perhaps even more specifically Geoffroy's Monk Saki / Pithecia monachus monachus (from source A, and spelled slightly different—Paraguaçu / Paraucu), and called Pithecia hirsuta in source B. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 08:52, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
~~Thanks, have added the information. Richard001 (talk) 05:23, 26 August 2008 (UTC)~~
~~Assessment of Mountain Gorilla Article~~
Mountain Gorilla has been rated as a good article. But in the WP Primates template, we have it rated as a B-class article. Is there a reason we are rating this article differently for WP Primates purposes than for more general purposes? If so, what needs to be changed for it to be considered a GA for WP Primates? Or, given that this article passed GA review, should we use the GA status for WP Primates purposes as well, unless it gets delisted? Rlendog (talk) 02:41, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Moved misplaced section. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 04:27, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I think if the article has been assessed as "Good" for the whole of Wikipedia, then it is supposed to be rated that way for all projects. It is the importance rating that varies by WikiProject: an article may be under the scope of both Wikipedia:WikiProject Human Genetic History and Wikipedia:WikiProject Primates, but be top-importance to the former and low-importance to the latter. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 04:36, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
It certainly wouldn't pass GA now, there are large sections of unreferenced text. I would correspond the rating given by review with the WP Primates rating, so it should be rated as GA in the template (as it is). We might look to get it reassessed though, or just improve it ourselves. Jack (talk) 09:53, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
~~Humanzee~~
People may want to express an opinion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Humanzee.
Kww (talk) 15:27, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
Warning notice: Editors and members of this project should be aware that Humanzee has been nominated for deletion. You may go to Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Humanzee if you wish to make your views known. Thor Malmjursson (talk) 15:56, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
~~Result was keep. Jack (talk) 01:46, 26 August 2008 (UTC)~~
~~Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Primate~~
Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.
We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.
A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.
We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection before December 2008, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 16:15, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
~~Primate at FAC~~
Primate is currently at FAC, after a great amount of work was done to push for GA status it'd be great to get our "flagship" article featured! The review is here. Cheers, Jack (talk) 15:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Good luck with the push! My specialty is lemurs, so if you need any input from me or need me to look at something, just ask on my talk page. In the meantime, I am in the process of pushing Ring-tailed Lemur and the newly re-written Ruffed lemur to FAC. They should be there within a few weeks. It's good to see this project taking large steps forward! - Visionholder (talk) 06:06, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
~~Village pump proposal related to this project~~
I wanted to give everyone in the project a heads-up on a proposal of mine that relates to our work here. It's posted at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Charitable fundraiser involving Wiki editing. At this point, I'm just looking for feedback on the idea, and I'm still waiting for an official response from Wikimedia. I would greatly value everyone's feedback, either at the Village pump page, here, or on my talk page. - Visionholder (talk) 23:50, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
~~Grivet/Vervet/Guenon~~
~~These articles show a lot of overlap/duplication. Has merging been considered? ciao Rotational (talk) 16:26, 23 November 2008 (UTC)~~
I certainly would argue against merging Guenon, an article dealing with the genus Cercopithecus, with articles for two species that (arguably) belong in another genus. Considering that Vervet and Grivet (arguably) also are about two different species, I don't see a compelling reason for merging them either (then you could just as well merge Chlorocebus and the remaining members of the genus in to the combined article... or for that matter merge all the articles dealing with various species of Gazella into the genus article Gazella, the various elephant species articles into Elephant, etc). It would also go against the task list for this group, where it specifically is mentioned that a goal is to have "articles for all species" (comparably, there is a missing mammal species on wiki proj. mammals). • Rabo³ • 18:54, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
identification of Chiropotes
Anyone feel confident identifying this ? Photos of the members of this genus are relatively rare, and the copyright of this photo is compatible with wiki. In any case there are some interesting photos there (req. here), but their IDs are easier. • Rabo³ • 17:58, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
I would venture it is the Black Bearded Saki, but I am no expert. Either way, it would make a nice addition to the Bearded saki article. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 12:02, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. That was my guess, too. Nevertheless, unless getting a more definitive answer, I think I'll suggest it is left as "Chiropotes sp". • Rabo³ • 08:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
~~Primate at FAC question~~
~~I've come across an issue at the FAC: should we use the newer genetic studies, if so which one, or by the fossil evidence when talking about primate divergences? This is the point at the FAC:~~
2) In evolution subsection I read The suborder Strepsirrhini, ... is generally thought to have split off from the primitive primate line about 63 mya (million years ago),. However in the next paragraph I read According to genetic studies, the lemurs of Madagascar diverged from the lorisiforms approximately 75 my. There is a contradiction here. Could lemurs and lorisiforms diverge from each other 75 mya ago, taking into account that Strepsirrhini diverged from primitive primates only 63 mya ago?
Because of differences in genetic and fossil studies, there is no real consensus as to divergence points. The paper indicating that lorisiforms split 75 Mya (with a 95% credibility interval of 66.9–84.4 Mya) makes no mention of the strep/hap split. I recommend we follow the recent genetic study by Horvarth for lemurs, it has a much wider range than previous lemur studies (over 200 lemur species) though that leaves the question of where the strep/hap split was. I've seen the last common ancestor of the primates being: 77 Mya (Steiper, 2006), 64–80 Mya (Pace, 2007), 63–90 Mya (Martin, 1993), 81.5 Mya (Tavaré, 2002 - also thinks no more than 7% of primate species are represented by fossils), euprimates at 80–90 Mya (Martin, 2007) then I've seen the strep/hap divergence at: 50 Mya (Porter, 1997), 61 Mya (Yoder, 1997) and 80 (Martin, 2003) & (Tavaré, 2002). Though I do agree this needs to be clarified, I'll attempt to clear it up. Jack (talk) 11:23, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
I hope you will clarify this. Ruslik (talk) 06:28, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
It seems as though the study by Horvarth is most reliable for lemurs, though it would push estimates of primates further back than expected. Or is this a case of making everyone's views/research available? Cheers, Jack (talk) 11:53, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
~~Hello~~
Hello, I just recently join this project, wonderful idea really. We need accurate and good information on our close primate brothers and I think the overall goal of maintaining quality of primate related articles is a grand one. I would like to know, how active is this Project? Sincerely and truly yours, C6541 (T↔C) at 03:34, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
Not sure how to answer the question "how active", but the project is active, and has room to become more active if you want to get involved. Over the last few months we achieved our goal of having at least a stub article for every extant primate species, but there are many subspecies and extinct species without articles. We have also had a number of DYKs and articles promoted to GA and FA (including the flagship article), but there are plenty more left to promote. Rlendog (talk) 17:17, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi C6541, welcome to WikiProject Primates! This was a question I was going to ask: what direction should we be heading in? What should our next goal be? Rlendog has done some great work expanding stubs and creating articles for subspecies, I was thinking we should, like WP:BIRD, be looking for images for every species. Creative Commons work on Flickr is a great place to start, especially if we can persuade users to release photos under a usable license. What does everyone else want to be done? Cheers, Jack (talk) 19:34, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
I don't think there are any major gaps in the subjects we have articles on. But we have over 600 start and stub class articles. That includes 41 top or high importance articles. My goal would be to get many of these upgraded, with a few more good and featured articles added in as well. Rlendog (talk) 23:01, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
Good idea, assessment is there for a reason! Maybe we can push it after Christmas, add specific articles to things to do etc. Cheers, Jack (talk) 23:17, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

monkey

Red colobus - procolobus

Langurs

User Box?

WP:TOL template

Featured Image

Wrong pictures

Capitalisation debate at main WP:MOS

Animals project proposal

Golden langur image

Proposed merger to WikiProject Mammals

Fossil Primates

Proposed change to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)

Ardipithecus Page Needs References

Lophocebus ugandae

Assessments

Still missing about 66 species articles

Ardipithecus Page Needs References

Lophocebus ugandae

Assessments

Importance

Importance of prehistoric species

No missing species articles

Missing subfamily articles

Could somebody put my name on the list?

Evolution of color vision in primates

Primate is the new collaboration of the month

Uzungwa Red Colobus

Redirects on "G. species" disambiguation pages

Next task: Structure standardization

Cercopithecus a. albogularis in Angola?

Red howler

Standardized article format

Articles flagged for cleanup

Unidentified monkeys

Assessment of Mountain Gorilla Article

Humanzee

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Primate

Primate at FAC

Village pump proposal related to this project

Grivet/Vervet/Guenon

identification of Chiropotes

Primate at FAC question

Hello