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Archive 1Archive 2

Getting Started : Sources

I could get started by collecting sources, especially those that will be helpful for multiple articles, (incl listing what I have in hard copy (if not available online)). Would this be helpful, and if so, where should I put it? This page, on the project page, a sub page of that page...? --6th Happiness (talk) 02:29, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

That's a great idea 6th! Go ahead and create Wikipedia:WikiProject Rodents/References, try to include as much info as you would need for a proper {{cite x}} template and a description of what kind of info it is. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 23:02, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Goals

so i think it would be great if we agreed our first goal for this project. I personally would like to get all the main rodent articles up to GA, here is a list of candidates:

--ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 00:28, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd also like to suggest Gerbil (currently B-class). Like mouse and Fancy mouse (both also B-class) there are areas lacking references, or where references could be improved, and sections that currently read as a "how to".--6th Happiness (talk) 08:48, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Wow, somebody gave Gerbil a B? That page is a disaster. That's pretty much true for all the pet rodent articles except for guinea pig and only thanks to a lot of work by some good editors who got it in that condition and have been tough with reverting changes. There needs to be a page for he Gerbillinae as a whole - something covering the diversity of gerbils (there are over 100 spp.). It seems like that should be at gerbil and all the pet gerbil material should be at a page for M. unguiculatus or even an article called pet gerbil. There just doesn't seem to be a way to keep every 9 year-old's pet fluffy out of these articles. I think something like beaver is going to have a much easier time getting to GA status. Pet rodents are going to be a struggle. --Aranae (talk) 12:46, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
i'm always torn between the article that desperately needs more work, and the one that just needs a little nudge to reach it's next step. the wikiProject council pages suggest that we try to an easily attainable goal first, in order to have a strong morale base and such... hmm... Gerbil or Beaver? Gerbil might take a month or more, but i think we could have Beaver nominated for a GA by the end of a week or two. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 15:29, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
yeah, I wouldn't have given it a B either, but being fairly new to wiki editing, I wasn't sure if I was being tough or not in that assessment. I agree, Beaver will probably be easier to tackle first. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 6th Happiness (talk • contribs) 15:53, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
the fun part about improving articles is learning new information on a subject :) --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 17:18, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Black Rat

I just noticed that our article on the Black Rat is quite unacceptably stubby for the about third most common rodent of the world. Could we get some WikiProject collaboration to improve it? Ucucha 19:16, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Brazilian False Rice Rat

Brazilian False Rice Rat has been nominated as a good article. In my opinion, the article is in great shape. Perhaps it could use a distribution map and the lede may be a bit technical at present, but I see no reason why it won't get there with minimal work. It will be nice to get another GA for this project. Contribute or comment if you are interested. --Aranae (talk) 12:42, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Common names, and some oryzomyines

If there are any people here who don't follow WP:MAMMAL, the thread I started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mammals#Common names may be interesting.

Also, Lund's Amphibious Rat is now at peer review; any comments would be greatly appreciated. Ucucha 17:26, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks good! I noticed that article references reference Hershkovitz's 1955 review of the genus Holochilus, and you mention Hershkovitz in the article, but I didn't see Hershkovitz's review itself. (If I missed it, apologies, I glanced quickly as I'm very busy atm). His 1955 review is digitalised here: http://www.archive.org/details/southamericanmar3724hers - search for magnus for relevant sections. Probably doesn't have much if any new info in it, but it makes the ref's more complete. --6th Happiness (talk) 00:33, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment. Yes, I know, I have it and looked into it when preparing this article. It doesn't include any information mentioned elsewhere, is badly out of date and stained by Hershkovitz's somewhat eccentric theories, and I didn't need it to source anything in the article. I'll probably need to use it when I get to the articles on Holochilus, though. Ucucha 00:35, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Ah, okay :-) --6th Happiness (talk) 00:41, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
It has now progressed to another title, Lundomys, and to FAC (see here). Input from other RODENT participants would be much appreciated. Ucucha 21:26, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
Lundomys is now an FA, and Pseudoryzomys has replaced it at FAC. Again, comments are welcome. Ucucha 21:44, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Assessment scales

I just created the project talk page banner ({{Rodent}}) and added an importance scale on the project page. It can undoubtedly be improved, so please do edit it. Ucucha 16:08, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for creating this! --6th Happiness (talk) 00:09, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Pseudomys laborifex for deletion

Pseudomys lorifex now recognised as a synonym for Pseudomys johnsoni.[1] T.carnifex (talk) 12:49, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

hamsters

The current information on hamster classification verges on the nonsensical. The confusion seems to be due to the popularity of pet hamsters. Hamster fanciers really are no good at sticking a name to a single species and the names "Russian White," Dzhungarian," and Campbell's" seem to be applicable to every member of Phodopus. Can someone sort out the classification? I suspect there are a number of redundant hamster pages. It is far too confusing to me to handle, at least alone, and I'll likely need an admin to make changes to article names. Maybe Latin names will be necessary. If this can get sorted out it would be good to make a navigation template like that for the Gliridae. innotata (Talk | Contribs) 20:10, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Rodents that are held as pets always seem to attract a lot of attention, but little that actually improves the articles.
If the common names are more confusing than enlightening, it may be a good idea to place the articles at the scientific names. Alternatively, we could switch to the MSW 3 common names, but I'm not sure whether these are in common enough use. To get a detailed grasp of the issues, you might want to create an overview of common names for each species like the one I made for a different group at User:Ucucha/Oryzomyini#Common names.
The {{Hamster}} template is in dire need of an upgrade to a more standard format. I'll see what I can do about that. Ucucha 03:06, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Done; it's a standard navigation template now. Ucucha 03:27, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

There's been only one study of any notable size on cricetine evolution since Mammal Species of the World Volume 3. It's Neumann et al. (2006 - cited at Hamster). Although they indicated that Cricetulus is polyphyletic, C. migratorius at least will need to be placed in a separate genus, they took no formal action regarding taxonomy. Thus, as far as I can tell, MSW3 should probably be adopted here, with potential changes suggested by Xie and Smith (2008). The classification section currently in Hamster is essentially in agreement with MSW3 with two exceptions. MSW3 treat Cricetulus griseus and Cricetus hehringi as synonyms of Cricetulus barabensis and Cricetus cricetus respectively. As for common names, I think these animals have the opposite problem of many of the rodents we have recently discussed. They have an overabundance of common names. I think using the scientific names will become a tougher sell. I think MSW3 and IUCN are the best places to start, but I wouldn't be opposed to adopting a common name applied by the pet folks. I have no idea where one would look for that. Here are the species and their common names at those sources:

  • Allocricetulus curtatus Mongolian Hamster (MSW3 & IUCN)
  • Allocricetulus eversmanni Eversmann's Hamster (MSW3 & IUCN)
  • Cansumys canus Gansu Hamster (MSW3 & IUCN)
  • Cricetulus alticola Ladak Dwarf Hamster (MSW3 & IUCN [IUCN also lists Tibetan Dwarf Hamster])
  • Cricetulus barabensis Striped Dwarf Hamster (MSW3 & IUCN) (includes C. griseus)
  • Cricetulus kamensis Tibetan Dwarf Hamster (MSW3), Kam Dwarf Hamster (IUCN)
  • Cricetulus longicaudatus Long-tailed Dwarf Hamster (MSW3 & IUCN)
  • Cricetulus migratorius Gray Dwarf Hamster (MSW3 & IUCN [IUCN also lists Gray Hamster])
  • Cricetulus sokolovi Sokolov's Dwarf Hamster (MSW3 & IUCN)
  • Cricetus cricetus Common Hamster (MSW3 & IUCN [IUCN also lists Black-bellied Hamster]) (includes C. nehringi)
  • Mesocricetus auratus Golden Hamster (MSW3 & IUCN)
  • Mesocricetus brandti Brandt's Hamster (MSW3 & IUCN)
  • Mesocricetus newtoni Romanian Hamster (MSW3 & IUCN)
  • Mesocricetus raddei Ciscaucasian Hamster (MSW3 & IUCN)
  • Phodopus campbelli Campbell's Desert Hamster (MSW3), Campbell's Hamster (IUCN)
  • Phodopus roborovskii Roborovski's Desert Hamster (MSW3), Desert Hamster (IUCN), Roborowski's Hamster (IUCN)
  • Phodopus sungorus Striped Desert Hamster (MSW3), Dzhungarian Hamster (IUCN)
  • Tserskia triton Greater Long-tailed Hamster (MSW3 & IUCN)

Note that IUCN lists Cricetulus lama, the Lama Dwarf Hamster, and Cricetulus tibetanus, the Tibetan Dwarf Hamster, as distinct species citing the Mammals of China (Smith and Xie, 2008). --Aranae (talk) 23:35, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Considering this list, I'd say that we'd best use these names in general, as IUCN and MSW are mostly in agreement. We'll have problems with Cricetulus alticola, C. kamensis, and the Phodopus species, though, for which various common names exist. I think we'd best avoid "Tibetan Dwarf Hamster", which has been used for both C. alticola and C. kamensis. C. alticola would then best be "Ladakh Hamster" on the basis of Google hits, and C. kamensis can be "Kam Dwarf Hamster" as the IUCN has it. For Phodopus, the MSW and IUCN names are all different and there are presumably various pet names, so we have several possibilities there. Google seems to favor the IUCN over the MSW names. Ucucha 23:53, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Some notes: Ladak is a horribly incorrect spelling of a place name–use Ladakh. Kam is an awful description of distribution–Tibetan is better, as far as geography goes. (Kam is a jungle area near Tibet, to cut things short). I think we should also check for names used for multiple species, like Dzhungarian. For now, let's only set names if they unequivocally refer to one species. innotata (Talk | Contribs) 16:50, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
"I wouldn't be opposed to adopting a common name applied by the pet folks". These common names are the problem here. innotata (Talk | Contribs) 17:00, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
If there is a clear consensus for a certain common name for a pet, I don't see why we shouldn't prefer that name to the IUCN or MSW3 name, but it seems more likely that the pet names are only confusing, in which case we'd better use MSW or IUCN names. I'd rather say "Ladak" is a different (and uncommon) transcription, but I agree that "Ladakh Hamster" is the name we should use for C. alticola. I don't quite understand the latter part of your comment, as you seem to be arguing that we shouldn't use names that can refer to multiple species, even though you also say that we should use "Tibetan Dwarf Hamster", which has been used for different species in different sources. Ucucha 17:26, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Sorry about the confusion over Tibetan species. The pet names I don't like are the ones like Russian Winter White and the like. To cut this short, I really give up on these hamsters! I'll sort out another, more manageable mess, but this is beyond me. innotata (Talk | Contribs) 18:26, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Template:Rodent

I've just added a documentation page here; please do improve it. Note that the Template:Squirrels has been redirected to Template:Rodent, which may result in some duplication. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 00:09, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I added a little. Ucucha 14:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

LA flying squirrels

where do flying squirrels live in louisiana —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.33.110.108 (talk) 00:38, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The southern flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans) has a distribution that generally spans all of Louisiana. You are most likely to find it in hardwood-pine forests, as the Mammalian Species account indicates. Ucucha 14:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
I think it is probably found in the whole state, including urban areas. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 17:25, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Automated banner adding

I recently read about this newly approved bot. Would it be a good idea to ask Coffee to add the {{Rodent}} banner to all articles in Category:Rodent stubs and its subcategories? Ucucha 14:27, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Why not? —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 16:21, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
No reason really, just wanted other people's opinion before going ahead to ask for it. Ucucha 16:30, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Capitalisation

Me, Ucucha, and Aranae have been discussing the capitalisation of the names of rodents at User talk:Ucucha#Degu; Spermophilus, and have decided that it would be good to adopt some sort of standard for this WikiProject, for the sake of consistency. The main conclusion we have come to is that both are and will be used, with the major difference being context. I summed up my opinion in this matter:

I think that since the only opinions here are ours (here meaning mine, Ucucha's, and Aranae's)—don't care, really should be consistent—or else strong, strong support of lowercase, as at Talk:Indian giant squirrel, we should use sentence case for rodent articles. However, there are a few problems, as title case is used most frequently for certain groups of rodents: Australian ones and obscure ones, as Ucucha pointed out. So I think we should make a few exceptions.

Is this a good idea, adopting a standard of capitalisation? —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 01:42, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree, there should indeed be a level of consistency, so I'm on-board in that respect. I just did a quick review of the literature at my disposal (all regarding Australian rodents, or other mammals) and found little convention. The two books, Dictionary of Australian and New Guinean Mammals and A Field Guide to the Mammals of Australia, both used title case for all common names. However, the journal articles I reviewed (three rodent papers published in Volume 27 of Wildlife Research) all used sentence case for common names when used in text (common names obviously weren't used in sub-headings). I would probably lean towards using title case, but I guess my preference might be influenced by what I'm familiar with (Australian rodents, which you pointed out already tend to use title case). At the end of the day, I guess I don't care a great deal either and will follow the consensus. T.carnifex (talk) 04:50, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
As I wrote at my talk page, I don't care much but have a slight preference for sentence case because that seems to be more widely used (cf. Talk:Indian giant squirrel and some other places where people assembled sources). In particular, title case is very rarely used in actual flowing prose, which is what we at Wikipedia primarily should be concerned about. I noted already that title case may be a bit more common in Australia, but it looks like journal articles do mostly use sentence case in prose, and Breed and Ford's book on Native mice and rats does use sentence case.
Therefore, I mildly favor using sentence case throughout Rodentia for article titles and in the text for well-established common names. On the other hand, I would prefer to continue using title case when mentioning common names like "Lund's Amphibious Rat" in Lundomys, as they have never been used in sentence case in the literature. Ucucha 07:25, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Ucucha makes a god point in distinguishing between use in a checklist and use in the prose of text. MSW3 is often held up as the primary example of a text that applies capitalization, but the actual usage in a sentence is not consistently capitalized. There are very few examples of common names used in text, but for rodents, see page 1593: "The common name coypu is preferred to nutria, since nutria in Spanish means otter" (Woods and Kilpatrick, 2005). Even among the more frequently capitalized primates there is this quote from page 121 "it is not known whether these represent the living aye-aye or a separate, extinct species" (Groves, 2005). Neither of these are perfect examples (coypu vs. nutria is arguing about the words more than the species; aye-aye could be interpreted as a reference to a roup larger than a single species). The same does hold true for many field guides - the entry is capitalized, but usage in sentence is lowercase. That, however, is not true in all cases (see Kays and Wilson, 2002 Mammals of North America for an example). --Aranae (talk) 16:47, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
Menkhorst and Knight 2001 on Australian mammals also use title case, even for "Horse" (p. 210). So do The Kingdon Pocket Guide to African Mammals, Gurung and Singh's Mammals of the Indian Subcontinent, Payne et al.'s Mammals of Borneo, and Jameson and Peeters's Mammals of California, but not Emmons and Feer (Neotropical Rainforest Mammals) and Smithers' Mammals of Southern Africa. However, I think field guides like these are already on the periphery of real prose. Ucucha 16:55, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
There is a simple rule for this in science that can serve as a guideline. Animal names are generally considered common nouns as long as they are not standardized. For birds for example, there is a single standardized list of names, and hence, bird names are capitalized as proper nouns. For mammals, I am not aware of such a single standardize list, and lower case would be proscribed for that.
Personally, I think names of species should be capitalized and seen as proper nouns, as they are similar to names of places etc. However, that is a totally different discussion that I rather do not go into. I guess that it is just a matter of time till standardized lists will be made for more groups, so it will get there eventually. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:48, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't entirely agree with this. It is a little more complicated. In fish, there are some semblances of official lists, and all of them use sentence case. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 16:05, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
We are not using any such standardized list; rather, we use different sources for the common name, including MSW 3, the IUCN Red List, and Duff and Lawson's 2004 checklist of the mammals of the world, and usage in other sources to determine which common name to use (at least, that's my understanding, and I think it's a good situation). Ucucha 17:56, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
And hence you use lower caps. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:17, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Really, I think you indicated it right, the semblance of official listS should be a clear indication that there is no single official list, so it makes sense. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:17, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
A good point here is that almost nobody uses title case for fish (and some other animals, too). The semblance I referred to is the database FishBase, which doesn't include a common name for every species—hence the "semblance". Looking at rodents, the idea of an official list for mammals seems absurd, as for the majority of mammal species would have to start from nothing. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 15:51, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
Yup, if you really look, there is just one official list animals, and that is for birds. That makes an easy answer with regard to rodents. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 11:29, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Alright, so it looks like there is strong support for consistency, and for sentence case. The only matter now is whether we need exceptions for Australian rodents, and obscure ones like the Marsh Rice Rat. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 17:44, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

So, as discussed I'll start moving rodent pages to sentence case. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 20:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
I don't think the marsh rice rat (!) merits an exception: see [2]. I am not entirely sure about the Australian ones, but don't think they merit an exception either, because the journal literature from what I've seen also mainly uses sentence cases, and a recent influential work (Breed and Ford's Native mice and rats, cited fully on Pebble-mound mouse) also uses sentence case.
I think we should add a text to the project page about article titles along the lines of:

Article titles should follow usage in reliable sources. Articles should only be located at a vernacular name when that vernacular name is used in a significant proportion of sources and has thus entered common usage; otherwise, the scientific name should be the article title. If the vernacular name is used, the article title should normally be in sentence case, as sentence case is more often used in the relevant literature. When in doubt, open a discussion on the article talk page.

Feel free to tweak the text. It should reflect our recent consensus about use of scientific names (WT:MAMMAL#Common names, RMs listed at User:Ucucha/Titles) and sentence case (this discussion). Ucucha 20:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Alright. Seems fine to me, though I think that in some cases we should use a common name even if it is not frequently used, as long as it is unambiguous—essentially, we should use common sense. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 20:25, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
The species this is intended to cover (such as Lundomys molitor, or Oligoryzomys griseolus) have often been referred to under any vernacular name only a few times, and still they often have several different ones, deriving from the Red List, MSW 3, and Duff and Lawson. I deliberately left the text a bit vague to offer some discretion here. I am not sure appealing to common sense is all that useful here, but I think it is very reasonable to require a vernacular name to have been used in a significant proportion of sources before using it in an article title. ("Significant", in my view, could mean as little as 20% or less, but exact rules are best discussed in specific cases.) Ucucha 20:42, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
I really can't explain this better. If I remember what exactly my concern was I'll post it here. Can you move those Spermophilus pages I can't move now? I've started this, but it seems half need an admin. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 20:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
OK. I'll happily move some over redirects (the nice thing about that is that moving them back won't require an admin, and then moving them back again won't require an admin either), but don't have more time now. Ucucha 20:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
I now added the paragraph I proposed to the main project page. Ucucha 04:50, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Since our articles are not targeted to specialists, I think we should use sentence case as much as possible (it looks really silly to capitalize "Horse"), and in any case, we shouldn't be using vernacular names at all if we want precision, but binomials. kwami (talk) 23:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Rather odd time to say it. Both capitalisations are used, and it is to me a hard choice but this project has opted for all sentence case. As it is we agree that the great majority of rodents should be at their binomial names (suggested further reading: User:Ucucha/Titles). —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 23:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
I have a few comments to make about the subject of capitalizing species common names in general. In formal English prose, there are rules for capitalization; proper nouns get capitalized, common nouns don't. Whether a noun is a proper noun depends on how many examples of it exist; for proper nouns, that number has to be one. The number of names that exist for an entity has no bearing on whether it is a proper noun. Thus, "Punxsutawney Phil" is a proper noun (based on the myth that there is only one of him), while groundhog is not. Neither is mammal, even though there is only one official term for it. All upper case common names for taxa represent informal prose that is technically wrong, even in the case of birds.
From my perspective, there is a valid argument for capitalizing birds' common names, but it is not a compelling one and doesn't actually apply to Wikipedia. The reason is that many birds' common names are descriptive-sounding, and in some contexts could be confused with a description. This situation would tend to arise in a narrative in which Latin binomens were not in use. If an author was describing what birds he saw on a hike through a rainforest, a reader who wasn't familiar with bird species wouldn't know if a "blue-and-yellow macaw" represented possibly any macaw with those colors or a specific species. This situation would be less likely to arise with rodents because fewer of them have descriptive-sounding names, and because they are much more cryptic and thus are less likely to appear in narratives. Many primates do have descriptive-sounding names, but the number of primate species is much lower than that of birds, making confusion less likely. However, Wikipedia doesn't contain narratives, does use binomens, and in addition will normally have species common names linked to the appropriate species article; thus, the type of ambiguity that the practice of capitalizing species common names is intended to avoid should never arise in Wikipedia in the first place. This is one reason most general-purpose encyclopedias, such as Britannica, use lower-case names for species of birds as well as for species of other classes.
So, I think that in any taxon for which there is not a strong tradition of capitalizing, the choice should be automatic: use sentence case common names. If there is such a tradition, the gain from being consistent with it needs to be balanced against the loss: the endless confusion that will arise from using different rules in different taxa. WolfmanSF (talk) 08:08, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
This is rather late to say it, as we have decided on sentence case, while considering that title case is also used. Ucucha has stated he is not, and I are not convinced by many arguments more abstract than how often is one system used (and I could type up some more paragraphs on title case being technically correct and your argument being based on old prescriptivist attitudes toward language—that annoys me a bit), and this is the rodent project talk page, not the bird project talk page. And lastly remember that most rodent articles on Wikipedia should be at the scientific name (see User:Ucucha/Titles for details). —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 20:05, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
That reminds me: why is the article on Marmota monax called "groundhog", rather than "woodchuck"? —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 23:04, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
I have no idea what reminds you of that, but based on a quick Google Scholar search, I agree that "woodchuck" is probably preferable. I suggest an RM. I fully agree with your previous comment, by the way, with the addendum that the main issue is how often reliable sources use one system or the other. Ucucha 23:17, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Innotata, if they are not posted elsewhere, I would be interested in seeing your argument(s) as to why title case is correct. Thanks, WolfmanSF (talk) 23:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
What I mean, more or less, is that most usage is correct. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 19:37, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
An examination of usage patterns would suggest that even if "most usage is correct", what is correct varies with context. That is, using title case is more correct in informal prose, and using sentence case is more correct in formal prose. I suspect that much of the disagreement about this issue arises from differing reading habits of different editors. Those who read mainly works such as field guides and "popular" magazines and books would likely tend to favor title case, while those who read more formal books, magazines, encyclopedias, journals etc. might tend to favor sentence case. Then the question becomes: which type of prose is a more appropriate for Wikipedia? If other general-purpose encyclopedias (such as Britannica) are used as style guides, use of sentence case would be indicated.
I think it's also worth pointing out that some of those who advocated title case common names in the past were under the mistaken impression that species common names were proper nouns. WolfmanSF (talk) 08:33, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Apologies for joining in a little late, but I think there's a point which hasn't been made yet: there's a difference between a "brown rat" (i.e. any rat which happens to be brown) and a "Brown Rat" (i.e.a member of the species Rattus norvegicus) - the same as there's a difference between a "black bird" and a "blackbird". Surely the best way to avoid any ambiguity is to use title case? ~dom Kaos~ (talk) 17:04, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I think that's the best substantive argument for using title case. However, editors of scientific journals and books have to deal with the same issue, and it appears that they mostly use sentence case. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, a compilation of the information other sources provide, it should (I think) follow the judgment of those sources, rather than the judgment of Wikipedia editors, in matters like the capitalization of vernacular names.
Furthermore, the ambiguity you mention is probably fairly rare on Wikipedia, because when "brown rat" means Rattus norvegicus, it will usually be bluelinked and/or accompanied by the scientific name, and in many other cases it will be clear from the context what sense of "brown rat" is meant. Ucucha 18:19, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
As I pointed out previously, there is little reason for descriptive terms to be used to identify animals in Wikipedia (as they might be in a narrative), so the argument that there is likely to be a lot of ambiguity between common names and descriptive terms in Wikipedia doesn't ring true. WolfmanSF (talk) 08:11, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
hey i just wanted to clarify.... you guys were mainly talking about how the articles are titled right? b/c WP already has it pretty figured out when it comes to prose:
  • Sentence case for titles unless there is a proper name to be capitalized - e.g. Big brown rat, Grand Canyon vole
  • Sentence case with the same proper name exception when referring to the species as a multitude - "All big brown rats live in..."
  • Title case when referring to the species proper (essentially if you use the before it) - "The Edible Dormouse is native to..."
this is how i've always been taught to write neways... again, wishing i had visited this page a little more often ;) ciao! --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 16:42, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Stubs

Starzynka (talk · contribs) has been creating very inadequate stubs (Apodemus epimelas for an example). I asked the user to stop and create more complete pages instead. Ucucha 18:27, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I've been doing some cleanup and expansion, and adding expand tags, since this is not just a matter of very short stubs, these are almost useless articles. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 15:22, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the articles have no content that would not be the same as for any other mammal species. Polbot did much better than that. On a technicality, though, I don't think {{expand}} templates are terribly useful, as the stub templates already contain the same information. Ucucha 15:34, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
The expand templates indicate a serious deficency, and are less specific than the stub tags, though most of these just use the mammal-stub. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 17:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

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Important WikiProject Notice

Syrian Hamsters

I've noticed that all the articles for hamsters kept as pets attract a lot of edits with how to look after them, such as a section on how to handle Syrian Hamsters that I recently removed [3]. I'd like to create a new article for each of these hamsters, beginning with Syrians (as I have pets of this species) which would have details of the pets only, including their history, diet, behaviour, etc. which often differs greatly from the wild animals. I will start drafing these articles in my user namespace but I'd like to know what the rest of the project thinks before I carry on.

I have already talked to Ucucha, who seemed to like the idea but suggested putting the content in it's own section but I think that if there was a section on this it would still attract edits to the rest of the article about pets.

Thanks, --Tb240904 (talk) 10:53, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the single separate section idea is good. First, unlike domestic geese or guinea pigs, domestic golden hamsters are not well differentiated from their wild relatives, only being brought into captivity in the 30s (see here for a sort of account), so I don't think people speak of "domestic golden hamsters". I also think that the amount of information on the subject we should have would be a section. By the way, I think the article should be at "golden hamster"—we use lowercase now, and "golden" is most common on Google, and is used by Mammal Species of the World, 3rd ed. (MSW3) and the IUCN Red List, our usual sources form names. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 20:18, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Actually, domestic hamsters behave do have a lot of behavioural differences. Also, they may have only been captive for 80 years but this is plenty of time for them to have adapted: their gestation period is 16 days and the babies can be weaned about 28 days later, at which point they're also ready to mate, so in 80 years there have been possibly 663 generations, which is plenty of time to change genetically, and behaviourally with each new generation picking up new domestic behaviour from the last. Also, "Syrian" is the correct term. While I believe we should have "Syrian hamster" and a redirect from golden, the proper name should remain. --Tb240904 (talk) 12:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Hmm, I don't think I can explain the thing about them being in captivity. The differences you pointed out are completely environmental, but I can't say anything more. I've explained why the name should be used at Talk:Syrian Hamster#Requested move Feb 2010. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 18:15, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Squirrel

Should the two articles on squirrels be merged? Please discuss at Talk:Sciuridae. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 00:13, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Xerus to confirm id

Can anybody here confirm the identification of this ground squirrel: File:Xerus and Passer.jpg? Xerus squirrels all look the same to me. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 23:09, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

File:Xérus ou rat palmiste DSC 6258 Avril 08.JPG This Xerus also needs ID. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 23:10, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
Same for me, but fortunately all Xerus are allopatric. The first one is from South Africa and should be Xerus inauris; the second is from Senegal and should be Xerus erythropus. Ucucha 23:20, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
More specific: All Xerus species have Mammalian Species accounts. Apparently, the only species that is easy to tell apart is X. rutilus, which lacks the white lateral stripe. Both of our Xerus do have one. X. inauris is distinguished from X. princeps in having a less bushy tail, which seems to match with our SA Xerus (considering the photos in the MS accounts). X. erythropus and X. inauris are apparently impossible to tell apart, unless you are able to count either mammae or chromosomes in those pictures. However, both are safely within their geographical ranges, so their ID shouldn't be problematic. Ucucha 23:27, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 20:39, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
File:Nibble 2362237368.jpg What's this, then? Dysmorodrepanis couldn't identify it. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 20:16, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Paraxerus cepapi. Ucucha 21:22, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Automated tagging and assessing

I have put up a request here to have a bot automatically tag pages for our project. Ucucha 18:26, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

It has also been requested at the bot automatically assess where possible (the bot looks for a {{stub}} template on the article, or inherits the rating from other project banners). If there are any objections to this, please make them known- else the task will commence in 72 hours. Cheers, –xenotalk 20:05, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
Thanks Xeno. Ucucha 20:06, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

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Standardized nomenclature question

I'm wondering what should be the standard we should use for the first sentence of an article, specifically, what formatting the common and scientific names should take. I looked at some of the "Good Articles" and "Featured Articles" in this WikiProject, but even they do not reflect a standardization! Yoiks!

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about (these examples are supposed to be the first sentence of a Wiki article that has the title Central American Dwarf Squirrel):

So, my question is, what should be the standard for giving the scientific name for this species' article's first sentence? Thanks for any help. --Saukkomies talk 00:12, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, the article should have the title Microsciurus alfari, to start with: "Central American Dwarf Squirrel" does not really appear to be in common use.
We have one FA (guinea pig) and one GA (muskrat) with common name article titles; both use the second format you listed. I am doing the same on marsh rice rat. I think placing the scientific name within parentheses is standard scientific usage, and I see no compelling reason to bold it, since it's already clear what the scientific name is. Ucucha 00:24, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
I totally agree with you Ucucha, about the title: it ought to be the scientific name. However, I'm just editing pre-existing articles that have already been named by someone else, not creating new ones, so I'm mostly concerned with the situation where the common name is the title.
At any rate, thanks for the answer. I will make sure that all the articles I'm editing will conform with the standard of the scientific name in parentheses and not bold. Thanks for your timely response. --Saukkomies talk 05:02, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
hmmm... kinda makes me wish i was here more often, but since no one else seemed to bring up these issues, i might as well.
naming conventions call for the common name to be used if one exists that can be agreed upon. sometimes (often with rodents) there are multiple common names with no clear preference so we stick to the scientific name for sanity's sake. in this specific case, the common name should be used since there's only one, and we have reliable sources to verify it's actually called this (IUCN is pretty reliable).
i agree parantheses are ALWAYS to be used around a scientific name when following a species's common name.
bolding is actually due to wikipedia's MOS, specifically, WP:LEAD. the scientific name is a legit alternative name, and thus is bolded like all other alternative names in all other wikipedia articles. note that outside the first appearance in the leade, it is inapproriate to bold either the title or alternate names. These are not my preferences but merely standard convention. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 04:28, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Parasites?

I just wrote a stub on Eimeria kinsellai, which infects the marsh rice rat, and I wondered whether I should tag it for this project. What do others think? Ucucha 21:15, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I tag bird parasites for the bird project, and some others do occasionally. —innotata 21:21, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
OK, I'll do the same. Ucucha 21:33, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
interestingly enough, i also tend to include diseases where rodents are noteworthy vectors :) --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 04:08, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Eastern chipmunk

I've posted the above to Peer Review and want to send it to FA. Susanne2009NYC (talk) 13:31, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

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Forest dormouse

I have just expanded the stub Forest Dormouse, Dryomys nitedula. I notice that there is another article, Forest dormouse which is about the genus Dryomys.

Would it not be better if the latter were renamed Dryomis to prevent confusion? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:16, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know quite how names go around here, but probably: of the two other species in the genus, one appears to be a restricted-range version of D. nitedula, and the other isn't called "forest dormouse".

happy fun monotony

so i decided to do my annual cleaning of the to-do list... hmm - seems i should prolly take a whack at some of that low hanging fruit. i also found out that there's still 1100+ articles out there without our tag on them - i've asked a bot for help, so hopfully we'll be able to pull out some of the workload from WP:MAMMAL. there's lots of easy articles to tweak so we can scratch them off the to-do list, and then of course there's plenty of meaty articles to play with. cheers! --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 17:19, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Taxonomy help

I came across Long-tailed ground squirrel which is classified as Urocitellus undulatus here on wikipedia. It would seem that Urocitellus is a genus applied to several rodents which were also put into Spermophilus often by the same researcher at the same time. i normally don't notice or pay attention, but i've been cross-referencing with iucn and they don't recognize Urocitellus. I'll admit, i'm not familiar with this, and my first impressions may be wrong, but wouldn't it be better to place this species, and others under Spermophilus in taxoboxes and such? --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 01:26, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Spermophilus explains this: the genus is seriously paraphyletic. —innotata 01:53, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
i'm thinking an article on Urocitellus would have been helpful :) --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 16:46, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Assessment

I know some people can view this as a waste of time... but I put together a more complete guideline for assessment than what's on the main project page. I would really like some feedback on the related talk page, or even for you guys to be bold and make some changes that you think are appropriate (please use strikethrough and italics for subtractions and additions). Please leave comments regarding your changes on the talk page :) dhan'yavāda! --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 15:56, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I put together an alternative guideline years ago at WP:RODENT#Assessment scales. I don't think the matter is especially important, though. Note that your proposed guidelines would lead us to mark Oligoryzomys as high-importance and Erethizontidae and Myodes as top-importance. Ucucha 23:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
the matter's not horribly important, but it's useful for identifying articles on topics which are most likely to have information about them. I don't see what's bad about giving a high importance to a genus that's a known zoonotic vector for hantavirus throughout an entire continent, and I actually do think that New world porcupines and voles deserve a pretty high importance rating, while Myodes does have some rather small isolated species, there are a number of ecologically important species within the group, just like Rattus or Mus (which, granted, have a more significant anthropological importance too). But this is why i wanted feedback :) i look forward to reading your ideas, and will comment on ur proposal page. abientot --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 23:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict)wow, that's what i get for not reading things closely (3rd shift, 2 jos, and no sleep will do that). I'm aware of those guidelines, but they aren't very helpful for trying to decide what to do about taxa important in other places outside the u.s. and europe. they also do little to suggest guidance for non-animal topics (Beaver dam) or fictional subjects (which i'm not sure anyone in this group right now, including myself, is terribly concerned about including in our scope), that's why i'm proposing a more thought out approach like other projects with large scopes tend to have.
i guess i'd just like to know if you see a problem with marking Myodes or New World porcupines as at least high-importance (which would require some tweaking), and how we might go about adjusting the criteria to better reflect something that we can all agree on. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 00:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
I don't care one straw about fictional rodents. High importance may be reasonable for the red-backed voles and American porcupines; I don't think top importance (which is what the proposal suggests—both taxa occur in >50% of two continents) makes much sense. As a matter of fact, I'd also be happy scrapping "importance" entirely; it's not used much and more subjective even than the quality assessment. Ucucha 00:59, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Well, Oligoryzomys is not a known hantavirus vector in an entire continent—only in a small area. I agree that the matter is of little importance—very little, in fact. However, I think you should at least make clear what the difference is between "limited distribution and ecological or human interaction" and "some known ecological or human interaction". Would Oryzomys gorgasi be mid-importance because it has ecological interactions with the worms that parasitize it and the crabs, flies, and grasses it eats? Ucucha 00:07, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
terms like limited and significant are in high usage throughout wikipedia's guidelines and policies - while they occasionally create some heated discussion, i'm not really treading new waters with these terms which allow for some wiggle room. but maybe that's not what you were meaning. i thought it would be obvious that limited referred to things like land area and human population (a couple tribes with numbers in the few hundred who make a specific low-dist species their staple diet). by some known i was referring to common knowledge outside of highly specialized groups. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 00:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Vagueness in other places is no excuse to also be vague here. I am more concerned about the "ecological interactions" (I doubt there are any rodents that are the staple diet just of a single tribe)—I still don't know how O. gorgasi would be marked under your proposal. Ucucha 00:59, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
i actually made a point to say "couple tribes" b/c i agree a single tribe is unlikely :) and i'm not using it as an excuse, but merely as a point that wikipedia seems to think we should always allow some wiggle room. so maybe talking out this example will get me better language.
O. gorgasi would still qualify as Low b/c
  • It has limited distribution (i tried to cut this off at around >50% of a continent, although there may be better ways to define this)
  • It has limited ecological interaction based solely on it's limited distribution (while these two would often go together, there is hypothetical potential for some species to have impacts outside of their distribution area)
    • In defining ecological interaction i was talking about the species' ecolgical imapact as a potential food source (for any species), predator, zoonotic vector, and landscaper (like beavers for the easiest example).
  • It also has limited human interaction because there have been no significant conservation efforts, no zoonotic risk for humans, and no significant active domestication or predation by humans.
    • It's a controversial subject, but compare the Panda bear which arguably has also has low dist. and arguably little ecological effect where it does exist as it's neither predator nor prey, but we have undergone massive conservation efforts for it. If i was in the bear wikiproject and no one had ever given a rat's ass about pandas, i would suggest it be listed as low or mid importance for the sake of it's importance in chinese herbal medicine at best (pun intended, and i listed an obscure rodent species as mid for that very reason).
so how do i get that meaning into something succinct? --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 01:41, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
hmmm... a species with a low population that no one really cares about... how's that grab you? lol --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 01:43, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
I like species with no population at all left even better, in general. Why would the giant panda not be ecologically important as a major predator of bamboo? Ucucha 01:58, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
oh b/c it's limited population and dist. would make it have a negligible effect on all natural bamboo populations... like i said, that's actually a controversial subject, but the best one i could come up with on the spot. a lone panda bear certainly eats a lot of bamboo, but it's not like if all of them went extinct, bamboo forests would suddenly get out of control - we already exist as a secondary "predator" and forest plants are kinda limited by nutritional availability. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 02:20, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
if you have no suggestions for how to improve the wording, i guess i'll take another whack it a little later, but thanks for the insights. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 02:20, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
here we go... a rodent equivalent to the giant panda, Western Gray Squirrel. i would classify it as low importance b/c while perhaps mid or high importance in the western coast, it's nationally inconsequential. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 06:15, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Simplicidentata

i'm going to come back to this article and try to fill something in, but if any of you have access to stuff non-web on this order(?) i'd appreciate it, cause right now it's little more than a poorly worded dictionary definition. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 22:20, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

McKenna and Bell's 1997 Classification of Mammals uses this taxon. I'll see what other things I have about it. Ucucha 23:00, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
thanks ucucha! --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 23:54, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

merging

so i'm trying to go through our monstrous list of unassessed articles, and while there certainly have been several that merited close review of their notability, as u are well aware, most species and genera and some families are so rare and obscure that there is slim chance we will even have significant basic biological data on them any time soon. while i tend to be anti-mergist b/c that usu involves rming info from articles to make them fit, i'm also pragmatic in that it's a huge undertaking to try and monitor/manage 2900+ articles. ALL the information from each of these stubs could be merged into a parent article and it would likely make for more robust genera and family articles anyways. I don't really perceive any lost benefit to the readers (of course i'm very interested in what others think), but i can see LOTS of benefit for purposes of maintenance. At such time that a species section could stand as Start-class on it's own we could then break it off into it's own article. i've propsed a related merger at Talk:Striped ground squirrel as a test case. Really just need consensus to make a significant change like this. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 23:39, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

As I've written on the talk page (which is now at Talk:Lariscus, because I found that the common name used is ambiguous), I agree with the proposed merger. I think we shouldn't be afraid to merge any articles that haven't developed beyond what Polbot put there (i.e., rudimentary information about common name, authority, status, distribution, and habitat). We're probably helping readers more by giving them all the information we have about a genus in one place than by forcing readers to go through scores of tiny species articles. Ucucha 00:12, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
so i finally went ahead and merged Lariscus, then to try something slightly more complex i merged most species under Callosciurus. The resulting article is a VAST improvement, and while i did a little tidying, i'm aware there are issues within the merged text itself. any feedback? --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 00:53, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
Improvement for Lariscus, but I'm not convinced about Callosciurus. The latter has also become a mess in the edit history. Since it is a merge of 7 (?) articles, including several with a reasonable number of edits, it would be a serious pain for any admin to fix the cut-and-paste moves. Additionally, Callosciurus includes several quite well known species where there easily is enough info available to make full articles for each: C. finlaysonii, C. erythraeus, C. notatus and C. prevostii are among the best known squirrels in Asia (indeed they're among the best known rodents in Asia). When someone decides to add more to one of these well known species and splits the article (...again...) I can only imagine how confusing the edit history will be. So, I do understand Lariscus where there really isn't much available info (i.e., the species sections are likely to remain quite small) and the edit history of the individual species articles was limited, but Callosciurus? I might suggest continuing the page merges for genera that match the pattern of Lariscus (example: Exilisciurus), but not for genera that match the pattern of Callosciurus (example: Ratufa).
A potential "intermediate" solution in genera like Callosciurus is to merge the poorly known species where there is little edit history completely into the genus article. For the better known species with a larger edit history; leaving their own species articles and only making a summary style species section in the genus article with a {{main|name of individual species article}} hatnote at the top. Leaving the species article when also making near-complete copies to the genus article (cf. Callosciurus#Plantain squirrel versus Plantain Squirrel) is borderline content forking. 62.107.217.53 (talk) 05:22, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
wow... um... three months later... lol... ok gimme a sec to look over you comments and the articles again. real life often takes precedence over my time on wikipedia. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 13:40, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
i apparently forgot to redirect two of the larger stubs so that issue is resolved, there's no content forking going on now. additionally i added {{copied}} templates to the talk page, following guidlines at WP:MERGE so that should address your issues with attribution and histories. with proper linking it is no unneccessary for admins to perform full history merges on pages which are not otherwise deleted (deletion is the only reason admins should be merging histories anyways). I agree that the species u mentioned are notable and could be fleshed out... the sad thing is that they haven't been, and i think they're more likely to get lost in the sea of 2000+ stubs leaving them where they are. this will increase visibility to them and hopefully encourage more constructive edits. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 01:54, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

RFC at Talk:Copulation#Should_the_Copulation_article_exist.3F

You may want to participate in the RFC at Talk:Copulation#Should_the_Copulation_article_exist.3F --Philcha (talk) 13:52, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Automatic taxoboxes

Hi All. I'm the enthusiast who converted a lot of taxoboxes within the family Caviidae to automatic taxoboxes (for taxa aboove species) and speciesboxes (for species). I should explain. When I read about automatic taxoboxes, I thought "what a great idea!", and did a few dozen. Then, I discovered (to my dismay) that there was not a general consensus that the conversion should be done. So, I thought it would be polite to apologise for my impetuousness, retrospectively ask if it's OK if I do what I've done, and perhaps describe the concept, so that other editors can discover what a mervelous thing that they are. And even ... continue the conversion? They are described in http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Template:Automatic_taxobox/doc/Step-by-step. The really cool thing about them is that if (for example), someone changed the classification of the Caviidae so that they moved to a different sub-order, then currently, the editors would have to modify the manual taxoboxes of all of the genera and species below them to the new classification. On the other hand, if the Caviidae have automatic taxoboxes and speciesboxes, then a single edit can reclassify all of them at once. Cool, nicht wahr? Ben morphett (talk) 13:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not too happy with them here either, for some of the same reasons I gave at Talk:Monotreme. Besides, we shouldn't be showing the suborder on the taxoboxes of caviid species anyway, so I don't think there is a pressing need to cater for that. Ucucha (talk) 12:47, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
i'm not completely sure, but there should be a way to customize what groups r shown on each relevant page? but ucucha is right, rodent taxa have some weird controversies that spring up randomly, so while this may be useful for some lines, others it would be quite inappropriate, and the headache is unlikely to be worth the time "saved". i'd focus this concept on younger taxa with more stable lines. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 13:38, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Mouse in Kenya for ID

Can anyone identify the rodent in some images from Kenya, starting here? I know it's central or southern Kenya, since the sparrows are Kenya Sparrows; I've asked what the yellow bird in the first mouse image is. —innotata 20:52, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Capitalization of common names of animal species

Dimensions

The dimensions of the various mouse types look like they were made by someone who is unfamiliar with the metric system. For example, the brush mouse is described as being 105 centimeters long! That is over three feet long, people! I noticed that in another mouse article but can't find it now. Anyway, if someone knows how big these rodents are, please scrub the various articles for units.

Seanross (talk) 21:41, 18 October 2011 (UTC)Sean Ross

Yes, must be mistakes; I've made them in bird articles, when I'm putting down a series of values with some in centimetres and some in millimetres. I've corrected brush mouse—the values were those given in the source in mm. There are a lot of mouse articles, shall we say, so could you correct them yourself or point out specific articles to other users? —innotata 22:00, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
I found a similar issue in the article Southern big-eared mouse. Listing "237 to 242 centimetres (93 to 95 in) in total length, including the tail, and weigh between 45 and 105 grams (1.6 and 3.7 oz)". I suspect 'cm' should be 'mm', but I don't have access to the source to verify this change. CuriousEric 19:23, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Olympic marmot assess

Could someone from the project assess the importance of Olympic marmot. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 18:11, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Callosciurus

Is there a reason this article contains all of the species articles, instead of them being in their own articles? I can see that the texts were copied from the various species article into the one genus article. Shouldn't the genus article talk about the genus and give comparative descriptions of the various species, with each species being in its own article? - UtherSRG (talk) 12:28, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:HighBeam

Wikipedia:HighBeam describes a limited opportunity for Wikipedia editors to have access to HighBeam Research.
—Wavelength (talk) 18:57, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Missing rodent articles

Hi, there's a list of 'missing' rodent articles in the pocket pets project. Would someone like to either delete this list or move it over here? thanks Halon8 (talk) 23:47, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Cuniculus hernandezi?

Looking at Paca, someone added the new species Cuniculus hernandezi. I haven't asked the user, since he/she hasn't been active since 2010. I can find a few popular articles mentioning the species, all repeating the same claims (i.e., copies of a single source article), but am strugling to find a valid scientific description. The nearest I have been able to locate is a talk at X CONGRESO NACIONAL Y I CONGRESO LATINOAMERICANO DE MASTOZOOLOGÍA (a congress for Latin American mammalogy). That's fine and it may well be a new species, but can someone point me in the direction of its scientific description? A talk isn't a valid description, cf. ICZN Code. If none is available the inclusion of Cuniculus hernandezi on wikipedia seems questionable, per WP:V. 62.107.192.144 (talk) 03:15, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I haven't been able to find a formal description either, though for all we know it may have been published in some obscure Colombian journal. I agree that we shouldn't list it until it has been formally described. Ucucha (talk) 06:16, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
There is a report in a local publication of Universidad Nacional de Colombia here //here. Burmeister (talk) 15:13, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
Cuniculus hernandezi - Castro, López & Becerra. (2010). Una nueva especie de Cuniculus (Rodentia:Cuniculidae) de la Cordillera Central de Colombia. Rev. Asoc. Col. Cienc.(Col.), 22: 122-131. link for download pdf document. Burmeister (talk) 20:30, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

school report

what is the lifecycle of a hamster?--174.25.20.121 (talk) 23:08, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Project's connection to philtrum?

I noticed that a bot added Philtrum to this WikiProject in February 2011, which appears to be an error to me. Removing it seems a bit presumptuous, though, so I'm leaving a note here, in case there is some rationale I'm unaware of. Calathea (talk) 02:26, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

i'm guessing the bot added it because Philtrum is in Category:Rodent anatomy. Seeing as how most rodents rely on exceptional smell vs. sight, I can see why this is a useful thing to categorize. More rodent articles could link to this article and it would reflect the importance this biological structure plays. --ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 23:08, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

prairie dogs

what is a special structure of a prarie dog and what is it's special habits/characteristics--173.184.241.74 (talk) 14:26, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Northern Flying Squirrels

Would it be possible that you add a section for how to deal with these rodents when they enter your home? The subject is growing as thousands of acres of wetlands and forests are now being torn down to make way for developments of homes, and in my own personal experience, if even ONe of these little guys gets into your basement, they are NOT leaving! My parents own a home in Massachusetts, and it is in the woods. These flying squirrels will come right into the finished part of the basement, not even sure how they are getting in, and despite repeated exterminator visits, (he used a trap and release cage) they have returned again and again, and are quite comfortable perched on the top of the cellar stairs , on the railing, to scare the heck out of anyone who opens the door. They are also very noisy, and will eat almost anything. You cannot use glue traps, as they are too big, and could bit you if you even tried to remove it! (the roof repair guy found several , dead, under the tiles of the roof when he was repairing it! Now why would they go under the roof tiles, and then die??) So a topic on extermination or at the very least how to deal with them living in your area would be wonderful! I was surprised there was not one already! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.231.166 (talk) 13:59, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Vampire Bats

I was over at the talk page for Venomous mammals and the question came up as to whether or not Vampire Bats are considered venomous. The relevant passage is:

Vampire bats secrete a powerful anticoagulant in their saliva.[7]

Intuitively it seems like anti-coagulants are not the same as venom. Also, I'm not sure if it's considered venom if it isn't injected (though that's a weaker claim I'd say). I was wondering if someone with a background in zoology or rodentia could comment as to whether they are considered venomous, and maybe provide a citation to that effect. Thanks. 

   0x0077BE (talk) 15:10, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Classification of beavers

Some assistance would be appreciated at Talk:Beaver, where a user has suggested the article does not reflect the current understanding of Castor 's relationship to other rodent genera. I do not have the expertise to properly evaluate the sources provided. Rivertorch (talk) 15:56, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Belding's ground squirrels in Ohio

There have been several sightings of this sub-species in Northeastern Ohio (at our home in Girard, OH and at local golf courses). Photographic evidence can be supplied. 2602:306:BC31:1E00:D69A:20FF:FE62:CE07 (talk) 16:13, 12 September 2013 (UTC)Lisa Fleck

Gobi jerboa

How could Joel Asaph Allen name this creature in 1925, when he died 4 years earlier in 1921? DenesFeri (talk) 11:43, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

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