Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive 33

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life. 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.

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Brock's Yellow-eared Bat

I know that Brock's Yellow-eared Bat was discovered by Stan Brock (philanthropist) while he worked on the Dadanawa Ranch in British Guyana, but I don't know just how to show that the Binomial name Vampyressa brocki was derived from Stanley Brock. Check talk:Stan Brock (philanthropist) for a source.--DThomsen8 (talk) 01:04, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

brocki is a normal Latin masculine genitive form, derived from "Brock". The genus name, Vampyressa, has a completely different etymology. Ucucha (talk) 02:14, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

This dictionary, the Eponym Dictionary of Mammals, is excellent for mammal names like this. It states explicitly that V. brocki is named after Stanley E. Brock. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:40, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Fourth domain of life?

According to a recent study [1][2] giant viruses may represent a fourth grouping of life, along side archaea, bacteria, and eukarya. Would this go only in domain (biology) or would it also be in scope of kingdom (biology) ? -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 13:29, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Nasir, A.; Kim, K. M.; Caetano-Anolles, G. (2012). "Giant viruses coexisted with the cellular ancestors and represent a distinct supergroup along with superkingdoms Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 12 (1): 156. Bibcode:2012BMCEE..12..156N. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-12-156. PMC 3570343. PMID 22920653. -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 13:55, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

One million new species of sea life

The discovery of one million new species of sea life has been reported.

Tara Research Vessel Discovers One Million New Species Of Microscopic Sea Life (PICTURES)

—Wavelength (talk) 19:33, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Wow. It's gonna take a while to make stubs for all of those :) Sasata (talk) 19:49, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Genus navbox templates

Hi, all. I've opened a discussion on a whole bunch of relatively new genus navbox templates here: Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 September 9#Genus navboxes (2). Your comments would be welcomed on the merits of these as a navigation tool for our genus and species articles. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 16:59, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

The outcome of the discussion was no consensus for mass nomination, but the closing admin suggested individual templates could be brought up for discussion. The editors responsible for genus navboxes continue creating them, so you may see them show up on your watchlists soon. I just saw another, {{Hieracium}}, that would make absolutely no sense as a navbox template given the number of species in the genus, the number of articles we have on species now that would be included in the navbox, and the uncertainty in taxonomy. I really do think there are more arguments against creating and maintaining these simple navboxes when they recreate the purpose of categories or lists. Unfortunately I don't have much time at the moment to sift through the worst ones and nominate them for deletion. Anyone willing to create a test case for a single navbox, perhaps {{Hieracium}} or {{Baccharis}}? Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 00:35, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Eocyte hypothesis

I started an article on the eocyte hypothesis and welcome contributions. Previously, this topic garnered only two sentences that mention it under Crenarchaeota. Fredlyfish4 (talk) 01:51, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Infraspecific

Hey all. Please participate in the discussion in Infraspecific name (botany)#Cultivar, etc. regarding how to proceed with the proposed creation of a page on the term "Infraspecific".-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 22:55, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Neuter names

I am slightly baffled that kingdom Animalia was chosen to be neuter as in Latin animalis is masculine (or feminine if actually female). Fungi is masculine, Plantae is feminine and Bacteria is neuter, while for traditional reasons (formerly plants) its higher taxa are treated as feminine (-aceae, -idae and -ales). I understand that the grammatical gender of the latter three clades is borne out of it-just-is–ness, so why did Linnaeus decide to neuter animals? (Sorry for the bad pun) My best explanation is flawed by the fact feminism is less than a century old, so it can't be due to that. --139.80.3.29 (talk) 21:45, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I think it's just because the singular Latin word, animal, is neuter. See [3]. Ucucha (talk) 17:45, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Monospecific genera

For an article about a monospecific genus should it be at the genus or the species? --BarbBarbBarb (talk) 16:55, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Normal practice is to put it at the genus name, unless the genus name is ambiguous. Ucucha (talk) 17:40, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

That seems to be the sensible way to do it. Thanks for the reply. --BarbBarbBarb (talk) 17:44, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Cladoendesis

This article seems to have been written by the author of the two references. Furthermore the term doesn't seem to be used in the standard way, according to my Google searches. Could someone more expert in the area have a look at the article and consider whether it should be proposed for deletion? Peter coxhead (talk) 22:54, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I always hate to call WP:COI on scientists, so I'll call WP:NOTABLE. A quick Google search doesn't show any results that clearly don't derive from Kluge. But I've lost my chops in that area, so I don't know whether the idea is being discussed, or is just a one-person show.--Curtis Clark (talk) 23:53, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Note also that this isn't Arnold G. Kluge.--Curtis Clark (talk) 00:33, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Must each species always have a separate article?

I came across Neusticomys recently, and noticed five of the six links are to very short species stubs, which do not say much more than the genus article and do not convey why zoologists consider them distinct from other fish-eating rat species. In cases like these, might it make more sense to merge all the stubs into one genus article? It would still be quite short, and readers would benefit from having all the information in one place, rather than having to click six links to six stubs. It seems to me that having separate articles for species like this is much like having an article for each member of a notable rock band or each executive at a notable company, even if their only notability is inherited from the whole. In those cases, a list in the main article suffices. Shouldn't animals be held to the same standard? Not trying to ruffle any feathers, just putting it out there. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:20, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I believe in this case each species should get its own article (per WP:WIP), however there should still be an overview on the genus page (which it currently doesn't have). Extant mammal species always their own article, however extinct species often are grouped on the genus page when little is known about each individual species (and little more can be added). Cheers, Jack (talk) 11:06, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Merging them is fine with me in a case like this, where there is little we are saying about the individual species, or perhaps even that we could say in the case of little-studied species. However, I would agree with Jack that the more common practice is to create stubs for extant species, even if there is a tendency to create a lot of small stubs this way. Kingdon (talk) 22:32, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedian in Residence: Natural History Museum, London

Hi all,

The Natural History Museum in London - a major centre in taxonomy - is advertising for a Wikipedian in Residence, working jointly there and at the Science Museum next door; it's a paid post for four months, and applications are open until 10th February. I've worked with Ed Baker at the NHM to define the scope of the program, and it looks really promising - there's some real opportunities for interesting projects here. Details are available on the National Museums site, and there's some details about other upcoming UK residency programs here.

Please pass this on to anyone who might be interested, and feel free to get in touch with me if you've any questions. Thanks, Andrew Gray (talk) 11:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Mammoth article cladogram

Hi, despite previous attempts, I can never get my cladograms right. Could anyone help me adapt this[4] cladogram (from this paper[5]) to Wiki code? Thanks.

I managed to make one myself anyway. FunkMonk (talk) 14:33, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

New animal phylum: Picozoa

I just started Picozoa. Help would be appreciated. -- Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 20:25, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

The procrustean plant-animal dichotomy has been abandoned, and no protists are now considered animals (but see Myxozoa). Picozoa are not animals. Their position is unclear but they are bikonts rather than unikonts (that is phylogenetically closer to plants than to animals). Lavateraguy (talk) 21:33, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

There are arguments for merging Picozoa, Biliphyta and Picobiliphyte. Lavateraguy (talk) 14:13, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Inter-kingdom homonyms

I don't see anything at WP:FAUNA, WP:FLORA or Wikipedia:WikiProject Microbiology addressing article titles and scientific names which are homonyms across different nomenclatural codes. I'd like to see something added to the relevant guidelines. Most inter-kingdom homonyms involve names for genera, but binomials may occasionally be involved. See Category: Genus disambiguation pages for existing examples.

I suggest that the base name should be used for a disambiguation article, not an article on the organisms governed by one code. Moving an article on one organism to a disambiguating title like "xxxx (plant)" should usually be uncontroversial. Most articles with a parenthetical disambiguation term use "(plant", "(alga)" or "(fungus)" for names governed by the ICNafp, the common name of a phylum/order for ICZN names (e.g. "(mollusc)", "(fish)", "(insect)"), or "(bacteria)" for ICNB names. Insect articles sometimes use the common name for an order ("(moth)", "(fly)"), and "(orchid)" is used as a disambiguation term for some plants; should insect order and orchid disambiguation terms be encouraged or deprecated?

WP:FAUNA and WP:FLORA call for using the genus name as a title when the genus contains a single species. I'd suggest that in the case where a monotypic genus has a homonym under another code, the article on the taxon should be titled by the binomial (but the genus name should still be a disambiguation which links a redirect containing the monotypic genus name).

WP:2DABS discourages disambiguations between only 2 subjects, and red link disambiguation terms are also discouraged. It seems to me in the case of homonymous genera, a disambiguation page with two links, one of them red, would still be useful.

There are likely many potential inter-kingdom homonyms where a name in one kingdom is usually not treated as accepted/valid. It's probably not worthwhile disambiguating inter-kingdom homonyms when one name is usually treated as a synonym under its code.

Any points of consideration I haven't mentioned? Comments? Proposed wordings?Plantdrew (talk) 20:50, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Just want to mention that hatnotes can be used for some of these cases, and that they can work well as an alternative to a two-item disambiguation page.

For inter-kingdom homonyms one or both of which is usually treated as a synonym, I would like to see (in the distant future) a hatnote on the page for one accepted name that points to the accepted name of the other, or as close as possible given what pages exist, family, or whatever higher taxon is possible e.g., on Gladiolus "For the brachiopod genus Anomalesia, see Terebratulida. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 00:00, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Hatnotes are a great option when the name is one kingdom is not considered correct/valid (and is not widely used in any literature), or possibly as an interim solution when the article in one kingdom hasn't been created yet. The current situation with Anomalesia redirecting to Gladiolus is less than ideal; although there seems to be more interest in the plant than the brachiopod, there's really no way of knowing which taxon is intended when somebody searchs for (or creates an internal link to) Anomalesia. I could easily turn Anomalesia into a genus disambiguation, but I'd like to see discussion here to develop some guidelines. Should Anomalesia just be about the animal, since the plant genus is currently treated as a synonym (although the plant genus remains in widespread use in horticultural literature and is a potential search term). If an article is created for the animal, what should it be called? Anomalesia (animal), Anomalesia (brachiopod) or something else?Plantdrew (talk) 20:38, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Anomalesia was just one of what I believe are many examples among genera that are not yet adequately covered here, particularly, it seems, with algae and brachiopods colliding to create homonyms. (List_of_brachiopod_genera shows that Anomalesia (brachiopod) would follow an existing pattern of such page names.) Even if both homonyms are synonyms in their respective kingdoms, I'd like to see them disambiguated, for example, many garden plants are generally known by synonyms, and whenever anyone picks up older literature they are likely to want to search using an older name, so I think we should include them all. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:56, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Wikispecies disambiguates with parenthetical family names (which would be easily identifiable to specialists as being plants or animals, but not helpful to the lay reader). Some "hemihomonyms" are listed here Species:Category:Hemihomonyms and here Species:List of valid homonyms, although many more are merely categorized as disambiguations (Species:Category:Disambiguation pages). An attempt to build a comprehensive database of hemihomonyms is found here:[6], and there is a paper by the compiler of the database on the hemihomonym problem ([7]). Plantdrew (talk) 20:59, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

What is wrong with the most commonly used genus name not being disambiguated by a parenthesized term? A considerable number of links to a disambiguation page have very recently been created by moving "Cooksonia" to Cooksonia (plant). This article co-existed perfectly well with Cooksonia (butterfly) before the move. If the proposal is that genus names used in more than one code should always have parenthesized disambiguation terms in article titles and then have a disambiguation page at the plain genus name, then I'm strongly opposed. See "primary topic" at WP:AT. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:59, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not proposing that articles on taxa should always be at disambiguated titles, but I do think that they should usually be at disambiguated titles, with exceptions to be discussed on a case by case basis (just as WP:FLORA calls for usually, but not always using scientific names for titles). I believe that, in the majority of cases, there is not a clear primary topic. Birds, mammals, cultivated and cosmopolitan weedy plants (or evolutionarily significan taxa like Cooksonia) might be primary topics if the relevant homonym is an algae or beetle genus, but for a homonym pair like Callilepis & Callilepis (plant), there doesn't seem to be a primary topic.Plantdrew (talk) 20:23, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Ok, we probably don't disagree that much then. I wouldn't want to say "usually be at disambiguated titles", because I simply don't know what the outcome of case-by-case decisions would be. My impression is that in many if not most cases one genus is much better known and hence linked to than the other. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:46, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Template of systematics and taxonomy

Hello, I need a help from people with knowledge in systematics and taxonomy to discuss the Template:SysTax. This template was removed from many pages for discussion and improvement. Thanks. Zorahia (talk) 11:40, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor is coming

The WP:VisualEditor is designed to let people edit without needing to learn wikitext syntax. The articles will look (nearly) the same in the new edit "window" as when you read them (aka WYSIWYG), and changes will show up as you type them, very much like writing a document in a modern word processor. The devs currently expect to deploy the VisualEditor as the new site-wide default editing system in early July 2013.

About 2,000 editors have tried out this early test version so far, and feedback overall has been positive. Right now, the VisualEditor is available only to registered users who opt-in, and it's a bit slow and limited in features. You can do all the basic things like writing or changing sentences, creating or changing section headings, and editing simple bulleted lists. It currently can't either add or remove templates (like fact tags), ref tags, images, categories, or tables (and it will not be turned on for new users until common reference styles and citation templates are supported). These more complex features are being worked on, and the code will be updated as things are worked out. Also, right now you can only use it for articles and user pages. When it's deployed in July, the old editor will still be available and, in fact, the old edit window will be the only option for talk pages (I believe that WP:Notifications (aka Echo) is ultimately supposed to deal with talk pages).

The developers are asking editors like you to join the alpha testing for the VisualEditor. Please go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing and tick the box at the end of the page, where it says "Enable VisualEditor (only in the main namespace and the User namespace)". Save the preferences, and then try fixing a few typos or copyediting a few articles by using the new "Edit" tab instead of the section [Edit] buttons or the old editing window (which will still be present and still work for you, but which will be renamed "Edit source"). Fix a typo or make some changes, and then click the 'save and review' button (at the top of the page). See what works and what doesn't. We really need people who will try this out on 10 or 15 pages and then leave a note Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback about their experiences, especially if something mission-critical isn't working and doesn't seem to be on anyone's radar.

Also, if any of you are involved in template maintenance or documentation about how to edit pages, the VisualEditor will require some extra attention. The devs want to incorporate things like citation templates directly into the editor, which means that they need to know what information goes in which fields. Obviously, the screenshots and instructions for basic editing will need to be completely updated. The old edit window is not going away, so help pages will likely need to cover both the old and the new.

If you have questions and can't find a better place to ask them, then please feel free to leave a message on my user talk page, and perhaps together we'll be able to figure it out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:09, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Correction: Talk pages are being replaced by mw:Flow, not by Notifications/Echo. This may happen even sooner than the VisualEditor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:44, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

monotypic genus....or maybe not

Just posting this to gain consensus - a cicada species, the floury baker (Aleeta curvicosta) was moved to its own monotypic genus in 2003, but there is apparently an undescribed species (see here - the author has written papers on cicadas so is a reliable source). Question is, do we have the genus as a separate page as it looks like there are two taxa...my feeling is probably yes but running it by folks just in case anyone feels strongly otherwise. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:29, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

IMO, If the species has not yet been officially described, the genus is monotypic, and our article should be set up like that. Of course, the undescribed species should be mentioned, and if/when it does get described it's easy enough to create a new page and shift the info around. Sasata (talk) 22:23, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Sasata; make the article focus on the genus. Most of the information will be about the described species, but it will be sensible to mention the presence of other, undescribed species. I would probably even include it in Category:Monotypic arthropod genera, once the page is moved to the genus title (and make sure that the species-specific categories are on the binomial redirect). --Stemonitis (talk) 06:56, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

There is a more general issue here. In many biology articles, we necessarily use journal articles for the most up-to-date, authoritative information. (Some editors complain that this is in contravention of WP:PSTS, although I think that this complaint is based on a narrow and misleading interpretation.) However, for the acceptance of a species, we ought to rely on secondary or tertiary sources. Individual specialists may propose new species, but the test for full inclusion in Wikipedia should surely be acceptance by other biologists. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:22, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

In principle, Peter, you're right, of course. Similarly, where there is any controversy about the acceptance of a taxon, we should report the controversy. I would think, though, that in almost all cases, there isn't going to be any controversy. The vast majority of described species (perhaps especially recently described species?) are going to be accepted. I don't think we need to wait for a second article to mention a species before deciding it's accepted and including it here. (I realise that's not exactly what you were suggesting.) It must make sense for us to treat all taxa as accepted – and acceptable – unless we have reason to doubt it. I'm sure we all know of groups where the next revision could be decades away; the original description is often the best source (indeed, often the only source), and is therefore exactly what we should use. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:29, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not in favour of rigid rules; editors must be able to use their own judgement. So I'm not exactly disagreeing with you, but perhaps wanting a difference of emphasis.

Throughout Wikipedia there are lists of species (e.g. in genus articles) which are poorly sourced or not sourced at all, and which frequently accrue multiple synonyms as editors not familiar with biological sources randomly add names they find in books, in the press, on the web, etc. You or Cas Liber aren't going to do this, of course, but we have to have guidelines which apply generally. It seems to me very dangerous to say that the default is to treat all taxa (i.e. names) as accepted, without some more careful delineation of what sources are considered reliable for this purpose. I can only speak with confidence about plants: there are national journals with low impact ratings in which botanists can freely publish new names for plants found in that country, names which are often regarded later as synonyms by international specialists reviewing a genus, section or series. (Not to point fingers, but Russian botanists created many names in the days of the USSR which aren't accepted now.) Peter coxhead (talk) 12:04, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Oldest genome sequence

This ITN nomination might be of interest to folk here, as it's the genome sequence of a horse and pushes back the theoretical divergence of the horse 2million years accordng to the nature article. EdwardLane (talk) 08:32, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

The Strange Case of the Glen of Imaal Terrier

Heads up all about this thread opened at the Wikipedia Biology Project but should do so here as well: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Biology#The_Strange_Case_of_the_Glenn_of_Imaal_Terrier Chrisrus (talk) 05:03, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Problematic disambiguation template

There is a species list generating template that is very problematic. Please comment on it at Template talk:Species abbreviation#No good for disambiguation. Thanks, Ego White Tray (talk) 02:47, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Problematic disambiguation template

There is a species list generating template that is very problematic. Please comment on it at Template talk:Species abbreviation#No good for disambiguation. Thanks, Ego White Tray (talk) 02:47, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Recent change in the taxonomy of the Red Wolf.

Please look at TALK:Red wolf re: the recent change from Canis lupus rufus to Canis rufus rufus.

On the rest of Wikipedia, ex. Subspecies of Canis lupus, we still follow MSW3 with regards to the taxon.

Given the taxon change at the article Red wolf, should Subspecies of Canis lupus and the rest of Wikipedia follow suit? Chrisrus (talk) 13:50, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Extinction lists

A new and enthusiastic editor is considering creating something like these:

Odd? Yes. Viable? Possibly. Thoughts? Please, do tell.

New navbox: Template:Extinction

I just started it. The group names (Phenomena, Models, Processes, Theories and concepts) are a bit bizarre, but I didn't know how else to arrange it. Please feel free to bend it into the right shape.

I've posted this at a few other projects, so if there's anything to discuss, I'd suggest Template talk:Extinction.

Many thanks, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:33, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Extinction lists

A new and enthusiastic editor is considering creating something like these:

Odd? Yes. Viable? Possibly. Thoughts? Please, do tell.

New navbox: Template:Extinction

I just started it. The group names (Phenomena, Models, Processes, Theories and concepts) are a bit bizarre, but I didn't know how else to arrange it. Please feel free to bend it into the right shape.

I've posted this at a few other projects, so if there's anything to discuss, I'd suggest Template talk:Extinction.

Many thanks, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:33, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

New Guinea Singing Dog Infobox switch-out

I removed the taxobox at the article New Guinea Singing Dog and replaced it with a special dogbox, a "dingobox" if you will, because doesn't say Canis lupus familiaris, but Canis lupus dingo. The taxobox has to go because because "hallstromi" is an no longer a valid taxon; because its conservation status has not been assessed by IUCN; because Mayer 1783 was simply the first to use dingo as a canid taxon and he had nothing to do with the NGSD per se; and because Canis lupus dingo var. isn't a trinomial name. So the taxobox is all wrong. When removing the taxobox, I replaced it with a dogbox that says C.l.dingo instead of C.l.familiaris. Please feel to improve the information in the taxobox. Chrisrus (talk) 05:26, 3 September 2013 (UTC)== Recent change in the taxonomy of the Red Wolf. ==

Please look at TALK:Red wolf re: the recent change from Canis lupus rufus to Canis rufus rufus.

On the rest of Wikipedia, ex. Subspecies of Canis lupus, we still follow MSW3 with regards to the taxon.

Given the taxon change at the article Red wolf, should Subspecies of Canis lupus and the rest of Wikipedia follow suit? Chrisrus (talk) 13:50, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

New Guinea Singing Dog Infobox switch-out

I removed the taxobox at the article New Guinea Singing Dog and replaced it with a special dogbox, a "dingobox" if you will, because doesn't say Canis lupus familiaris, but Canis lupus dingo. The taxobox has to go because because "hallstromi" is an no longer a valid taxon; because its conservation status has not been assessed by IUCN; because Mayer 1783 was simply the first to use dingo as a canid taxon and he had nothing to do with the NGSD per se; and because Canis lupus dingo var. isn't a trinomial name. So the taxobox is all wrong. When removing the taxobox, I replaced it with a dogbox that says C.l.dingo instead of C.l.familiaris. Please feel to improve the information in the taxobox. Chrisrus (talk) 05:26, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

New template "taxaut" ?

Hi,

I've been thinking about the problem of inconsistencies between taxon authors in taxoboxes vs other occurrences (in lists, in pagetext). Like missing parentheses, wrong dates/spellings (diacritics loss etc), incomplete multiauthor lists... This might be very easy to solve by a template:

We have one certain location where to store and reference taxon/author data - the taxobox. And there, these data are stored after "[rank]_author =", e.g "species_authority =" . So it could simply be read from there and inserted automatically in the list/page text, no?

Format would be something like:

[taxon] {{taxaut|#|pgname}}. The parameters # and pgname are both optional.

Works as follows:

1. Take as many of the preceding words as specified by "#". I.e., for species # = 2, for sspp # = 3 (animals) or 4 (plants) etc. If no "#" is given, use 1. Dismiss any wikicode found.

2. Use the remaining words as Wikipedia page title. Go to that page, following any redirects you find.

(2a. if a "pgname" is given, use that as page title.)

3. Read from the taxobox there all data found between "[rank]_author =" and (presumably) the next | not between [[ ]]. Remove any reftags, anchored links, or similar fancy stuff and internal links. Replace "check", "cn" and similar tags with "(?)" or such. [The author/date info is often heavily linked, annotated etc. in taxoboxes. Preserving any links to author pages and maybe dates would be nice. A simple reminder if the info is disputed would be nice too. But most other things would break if we simply copied them to another page.]

4. Display the remaining data here (in small script or whatever formatting we like).

(Troublehooting:

A. If 2./2a. leads to no page at all, display "Please add" or similar annotation. [For very incomplete/basic lists, the template should not be used anyway. Such a notification might be useful though for partially-done lists.]

B. If 2./2a. leads to a page without taxobox, display "No taxobox found" annotation. [All valid taxon pages should have at least a basic taxobox.]

C. If 2./2a. leads to a page without taxobox, display "No taxobox found" annotation. [Many taxon pages do not have this information; just leaving it blank gives unobtrusive note that it's missing.] )

That would probably not be too hard to write if you code templates at least occasionally, but I don't do that. Someone here might. Do you think it's feasible? It would serve us a huge load of neverending (because the data keep being changed, deleted, restored etc) maintenance work.

[I'll re-post this at the Birds Talk page, this might be more active. Discussion would be here.]

Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 22:30, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

If the above suggestion leads nowhere, it is possible to check all the taxoboxes with a script, or at least on the articles where the taxonomy is uncontroversial. I might do this one Winter and check bird species taxoboxes against zoonomen.net. I have already done a similar task for about 2000 bird genus authors with help from erudite Wikepedians. Snowman (talk) 09:21, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Check out {{automatic taxobox}} - UtherSRG (talk) 00:21, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

The automatic taxobox template is for a quite different purpose; it doesn't check authorities.

Note that it would be necessary to have at least two quite independent systems: one for the zoological code, where abbreviations are not generally used and dates are required, and one for the botanical code, where abbreviations are always used in the English Wikipedia, and dates are not used. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:42, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

The problem is zoonomen etc (the unverified tertiary sources) introduce most errors. Like German & Romance authors without umlauts and accents etc. Biodiversity Heritage Library is basically the first stop for most taxa; birds are based on IUCN which is usually correct. In any case, we will eventually have the original citation in any taxon article, and the taxoboxes will be completed according to this.

The reason I am coming up with this is I was using Wikipedia for taxonomy 5 years ago, and it was fragmentary and usually reliable. Now it covers much more taxa, but quality has degraded, because the authorship is given on too many pages without proofreading. Some errors are downright creepy, like when you clearly see data lost/garbled in translation (ie French<->English<->Russian sources). Wikipedia is geting swamped by low-quality nomenclatorial data.

So, as the taxobox "[rank]_authority" parameter is the place where the authorship data is proofread, we might just as well script something to read it from there. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 22:36, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe that we should use the original citation – possibly as an additional reference, but never as the only reference. It does not show that X is the accepted author of the taxon, and without a secondary source is against WP guidelines on the use of primary sources. If I find only original citations in plant articles, I replace them by secondary or tertiary ones. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:27, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Weigh in needed at WP:Anatomy -RfC: Use of "Human" in Anatomy article titles.

Hi, throwing this out there for anyone concerned. There is a discussion at WP:MED & WP:Anatomy concerning the way articles should be made up. So as not to exclude you I am posting here. CFCF (talk) 21:28, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

New template "taxaut" ?

Hi,

I've been thinking about the problem of inconsistencies between taxon authors in taxoboxes vs other occurrences (in lists, in pagetext). Like missing parentheses, wrong dates/spellings (diacritics loss etc), incomplete multiauthor lists... This might be very easy to solve by a template:

We have one certain location where to store and reference taxon/author data - the taxobox. And there, these data are stored after "[rank]_author =", e.g "species_authority =" . So it could simply be read from there and inserted automatically in the list/page text, no?

Format would be something like:

[taxon] {{taxaut|#|pgname}}. The parameters # and pgname are both optional.

Works as follows:

1. Take as many of the preceding words as specified by "#". I.e., for species # = 2, for sspp # = 3 (animals) or 4 (plants) etc. If no "#" is given, use 1. Dismiss any wikicode found.

2. Use the remaining words as Wikipedia page title. Go to that page, following any redirects you find.

(2a. if a "pgname" is given, use that as page title.)

3. Read from the taxobox there all data found between "[rank]_author =" and (presumably) the next | not between [[ ]]. Remove any reftags, anchored links, or similar fancy stuff and internal links. Replace "check", "cn" and similar tags with "(?)" or such. [The author/date info is often heavily linked, annotated etc. in taxoboxes. Preserving any links to author pages and maybe dates would be nice. A simple reminder if the info is disputed would be nice too. But most other things would break if we simply copied them to another page.]

4. Display the remaining data here (in small script or whatever formatting we like).

(Troublehooting:

A. If 2./2a. leads to no page at all, display "Please add" or similar annotation. [For very incomplete/basic lists, the template should not be used anyway. Such a notification might be useful though for partially-done lists.]

B. If 2./2a. leads to a page without taxobox, display "No taxobox found" annotation. [All valid taxon pages should have at least a basic taxobox.]

C. If 2./2a. leads to a page without taxobox, display "No taxobox found" annotation. [Many taxon pages do not have this information; just leaving it blank gives unobtrusive note that it's missing.] )

That would probably not be too hard to write if you code templates at least occasionally, but I don't do that. Someone here might. Do you think it's feasible? It would serve us a huge load of neverending (because the data keep being changed, deleted, restored etc) maintenance work.

[I'll re-post this at the Birds Talk page, this might be more active. Discussion would be here.]

Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 22:30, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

If the above suggestion leads nowhere, it is possible to check all the taxoboxes with a script, or at least on the articles where the taxonomy is uncontroversial. I might do this one Winter and check bird species taxoboxes against zoonomen.net. I have already done a similar task for about 2000 bird genus authors with help from erudite Wikepedians. Snowman (talk) 09:21, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Check out {{automatic taxobox}} - UtherSRG (talk) 00:21, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

The automatic taxobox template is for a quite different purpose; it doesn't check authorities.

Note that it would be necessary to have at least two quite independent systems: one for the zoological code, where abbreviations are not generally used and dates are required, and one for the botanical code, where abbreviations are always used in the English Wikipedia, and dates are not used. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:42, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

The problem is zoonomen etc (the unverified tertiary sources) introduce most errors. Like German & Romance authors without umlauts and accents etc. Biodiversity Heritage Library is basically the first stop for most taxa; birds are based on IUCN which is usually correct. In any case, we will eventually have the original citation in any taxon article, and the taxoboxes will be completed according to this.

The reason I am coming up with this is I was using Wikipedia for taxonomy 5 years ago, and it was fragmentary and usually reliable. Now it covers much more taxa, but quality has degraded, because the authorship is given on too many pages without proofreading. Some errors are downright creepy, like when you clearly see data lost/garbled in translation (ie French<->English<->Russian sources). Wikipedia is geting swamped by low-quality nomenclatorial data.

So, as the taxobox "[rank]_authority" parameter is the place where the authorship data is proofread, we might just as well script something to read it from there. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 22:36, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe that we should use the original citation – possibly as an additional reference, but never as the only reference. It does not show that X is the accepted author of the taxon, and without a secondary source is against WP guidelines on the use of primary sources. If I find only original citations in plant articles, I replace them by secondary or tertiary ones. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:27, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

New biodiversity images

Hey all, just a head's-up that a new collection of biodiversity-related images is in the process of being added to Commons here, if anyone is interested. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:47, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

electron microscope images

Hi All

I'm the Wikipedian in Residence at the Natural History Museum in London. I've been offered a small amount of time for someone to take electron microscope images of entomology specimens in the collection. What would be the most wanted images? Given the size of our collection we will probably have a specimen of most species you' d like. If you reply on my talk page in the few days that would be really good. Feel free to request images that have already been suggested, it will help me get an idea of the most wanted ones.

Thanks

--Mrjohncummings (talk) 16:14, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Taxon identification keys

Is it possible to put together some sort of infobox, possibly collapsible, as identification key to provide differentiation of next lower subtaxa. In other words, "Key to genera of x family", species, etc. I could construct them in article space, but I am interested in appearance, without a lot of type, preview, type, ...

If such already exists, could someone point it out? I checked out birds, and insect pages, since those most frequently have identification keys.

I think this would be useful to all of us. Neferkheperre (talk) 23:20, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

The problem with keys is that either they are WP:OR, if you make them up yourself, or they run the risk of violating copyright, if you reproduce an existing key. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:49, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

There are at least two CC-licensed open-access journals that may circumvent or obviate copyright issues: ZooKeys and PhytoKeys. However, it's worth pointing out that 1) keys may be rendered outdated as taxonomy changes, and 2) many taxonomic keys are geography specific, i.e. a key to the blister beetles of California is easier to construct than a key to the blister beetles of North America, but would have limited use outside of California, and thus would have limited use to the global audience of Wikipedia. I can see potential problems of obsolete keys arising from the public domain licensing, where anything older than 70 years becomes freely available, and potentially being uploaded by well-meaning editors unfamiliar with a group's current taxonomy. If identification keys are to be incorporated into Wikipedia then maybe there should be consensus first on the scope and limits of inclusion. One standard might be that only purely taxonomic keys should be used, not those limited by geography or other qualifiers. Using real (and one hypothetical) examples, "An illustrated key to powder post beetles (Coleoptera, Bostrichidae) associated with rubberwood in Thailand" which presumably omits non-rubberwood inhabiting and/or non-Thai Bostrichids, may not be worth including, while something like, hypothetically, "A revision of the Bostrichidae, with a global key to genera", would be more useful globally, albeit less convenient for those trying to identify rubberwood beetles in Thailand. Somewhere in the middle is "A revision of the North American species of beetles belonging to the family Bostrichidae" which is not global yet has a reasonably broad applicability, and might also be worthy of inclusion. An alternate consensus might be that any available keys should be included, albeit with clearly-stated, unambiguous qualifications of the scope (and age) of the key. --Animalparty-- (talk) 00:10, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Request for input on Taxonomy & Nomenclature template

Hi all! I've been working on a template (User:Animalparty/Taxonomy and nomenclature) to help integrate topics and terminology concerning the naming and describing of taxa (e.g. holotype, lectotype, synonym, trinomen, International Nomenclature codes, etc.). I envision this template judiciously placed in the articles or sections dealing with taxonomy and nomenclature in depth. It's still in a rough stage (better now than it was a few days ago) and I'm looking for input on how to best sort the topics, what, if anything else, should be included, and general comments. This doesn't necessarily need to cover every relevant article, but hopefully it will help curious readers and scientists alike get a better handle on these often obscure or nuanced terms. Since I've posted this request on 3 different project talks I'd appreciate specific comments on the template talk page. Thanks! --Animalparty-- (talk) 00:31, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Regarding Article Titles

I would like to address the practice of covering sole species in monotypic genera under titles consisting of only the genus name. I feel that this practice impedes the flexibility and expandability which is so important to the Wikipedia project. This is because many monotypic genera do not remain monotypic, but due to research new species are discovered whether through splitting of the existing species or discovery of previously unknown species. By covering the sole species under the genus article title, especially in cases where subsequent edits have removed the possibility for most contributors to move a page, this practice makes it necessary to either perform a cut-and-paste move of the species information to the species article to allow creation of a proper genus article thus breaking the continuity of the article history page, or having to wait for a considerable period of time for an administrator to perform a requested move.

I propose that the policy of covering sole taxa at the lowest level where there is only one taxon also be extended to include covering monotypic genera at the species level with the genus article redirecting to the species article rather than vice-versa. This will allow the easy creation of a proper genus article when necessary without having to move any articles as well as going in the opposite direction should a genus be stripped of all but one species due to revisions in classification, no article would have to be moved, just change the genus article to redirect to the now sole species article. For example (using the example regarding Amphionides used in the "Article Titles" section), the article should be moved to the species level as "Amphionides reynaudii" with redirects from Amphionidacea, Amphionididae, and Amphionides. In this way, should a new species of Amphionides be decribed, it will be a simple matter to change the genus article from a redirect to a proper article with links to both A. reynaudii and "A. novospeces".Divingpetrel (talk) 14:39, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

There are quite a few administrators around in the different subprojects of this project, so I've never had to wait for any length of time. It's just a matter of asking the right person or leaving a message at an active project (like WP:PLANTS).

The rationale for the current practice seems sound to me. Your proposal would potentially require changes to a large number of pages, for what seems to me not a very good reason, i.e. slight inconvenience to non-admin editors. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:08, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

As a regular RM admin, I'd say that if there are formerly monotypic genera that get classified otherwise, make a technical request to remove the existing article to its new species name. These moves usually happen fairly quickly, and this will allow a new article to be created at the genus title. Do include a link in the request that verifies genera is no longer monotypic, especially if this isn't already expressed in the article. --BDD (talk) 21:25, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

You are right. Chrisrus (talk) 04:40, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Subspecies

Hi! Should I make sections in an article for each subspecies of a species? Can I simply mention them but not write about them? Thanks, --Bananasoldier (talk) 04:14, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Sure, but if the article doesn't have at least the subspecies listed then you should at least list them. If there's nothing to fill a section or subsection with in terms of text or pictures, just list them. If you prefer, use the "advanced" menu and the last icon is called "table", it can help with listing. All species articles should mention all subspecies. Chrisrus (talk) 05:12, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. I'm writing Draft:Doryrhamphus excisus, but the taxonomy is perplexing and sources often contradict one another. Could you help me by cleaning up the taxonomy section? Thank you, --Bananasoldier (talk) 05:27, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Archived a few threads

I've archived some inactive threads to subsections which were notifications about discussions that have since been closed. — Cirt (talk) 19:14, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

phylogenies anyone?

The evolutionary informatics world is nearly to the point where it will be possible for resources such as wikipedia to autogenerate phylogenies for web pages by leveraging available supertrees (which collectively represent the "tree of life"). The "phylotastic" way to do this was described in a paper that came out last year ( http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/14/158). For wikipedia, this kind of approach could be implemented by a module that

is activated by change in content of some biology-relevant page that the module is watching
scrapes the species names from the page
optionally cleans up the names using a taxonomic name server
uses the list of names to extract a topology from an available supertree
formats this for inclusion into the web page (jpeg, HTML5, whatever)

For instance, if I take the URL for the "ants" page (https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Ant) and run it through a name-recognition engine (http://gnrd.globalnames.org/), I get about 67 binomials and trinomials, plus many more names for genera and higher taxa.

I can send this list in a web-services query [1] to a "phylotastic" server (which has a copy of the ToLWeb tree and will prune out a tree given a list of names) and get the resulting tree:

((Protomognathus_americanus,(((Atta_mexicana,Atta_laevigata),Mycocepurus_smithii),Wasmannia_auropunctata),Daceton_armigerum,Allomerus_decemarticulatus),((Linepithema_humile,Forelius_pusillus)),Aneuretus_simoni,((Harpegnathos_saltator,Dinoponera_gigantea)),(Myrmecocystus_mexicanus,Oecophylla_smaragdina),Paraponera_clavata,Adetomyrma_venatrix,Eciton_burchellii),Myrmarachne_plataleoides);

Admittedly that's only 17 out of 67, and it lacks branch lengths, but it's an improvement over the status quo. If this could be rendered in HTML5 (e.g., via JSTree), we could embed live links to wikipedia species pages in the tree, which would be cool.

The technology is not robust or flexible yet, but there is this really fascinating potential to put bits and pieces of the Tree of Life all over wikipedia (or EoL, or elsewhere), in the form of sub-trees on taxon pages or other bio pages, and this could be done in an automated, updateable way.

If you are interested in this idea, let me know. The NSF-sponsored "Open Tree of Life" is soon going to have a draft of the whole tree and open up an API for public access. I have connections with OToL, EoL, Phylotastic and other relevant projects and we might be able to make this happen. Dabs (talk) 18:55, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

[1] http://phylotastic-wg.nescent.org/script/phylotastic.cgi?species=Acacia+cornigera%2C+Acromyrmex+versicolor%2C+Acta+ethologica%2C+Adetomyrma+venatrix%2C+Allomerus+decemarticulatus%2C+Aneuretus+simoni%2C+Aphaenogaster+cockerelli%2C+Aspalathus+linearis%2C+Atta+colombica%2C+Atta+laevigata%2C+Atta+mexicana%2C+Camponotus+anderseni%2C+Camponotus+cylindricus%2C+Cataglyphis+bicolor%2C+Cataglyphis+fortis%2C+Cataulacus+muticus%2C+Cephalotes+atratus%2C+Cerapachys+biroi%2C+Corydalis+cava%2C+Crematogaster+brevispinosa+rochai%2C+Daceton+armigerum%2C+Dinoponera+gigantea%2C+Duroia+hirsuta%2C+Dysmicoccus+neobrevipes%2C+Eciton+burchellii%2C+Forelius+pusillus%2C+Formica+japonica%2C+Formica+montana%2C+Formica+polyctena%2C+Harpegnathos+saltator%2C+Hirtella+physophora%2C+Hyeronima+alchorneoides%2C+Linephithema+humile%2C+Linepithema+humile%2C+Mischocyttarus+drewseni%2C+Monomorium+pharaonis%2C+Mycocepurus+smithii%2C+Myrmarachne+plataleoides%2C+Myrmecia+nigriceps%2C+Myrmecia+pilosula%2C+Myrmecocystus+mexicanus%2C+Myrmeconema+neotropicum%2C+Myrmelachista+schumanni%2C+Myrmica+rubra%2C+Nasutitermes+corniger%2C+Odontomachus+bauri%2C+Oecophylla+smaragdina%2C+Pachycondyla+verenae%2C+Paraponera+clavata%2C+Pheidole+megacephala%2C+Pheidologeton+diversus%2C+Pogonomyrmex+badius%2C+Protomognathus+americanus%2C+Pseudomyrmex+ferruginea%2C+Santander+hormigas+culonas%2C+Solenopsis+invicta%2C+Strumigenys+perplexa%2C+Strumigenys+xenos%2C+Temnothorax+albipennis%2C+Tetramorium+caespitum%2C+Titanomyrma+giganteum%2C+Ursus+arctos%2C+Vestigipoda+myrmolarvoidea%2C+Vicia+faba%2C+Wasmannia+auropunctata&tree=tolweb&format=newick

Popular pages tool update

As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).

Web tools, to replace the ones at tools:~alexz/pop, will become available over the next few weeks at toollabs:popularpages. All of the historical data (back to July 2009 for some projects) has been copied over. The tool to view historical data is currently partially available (assessment data and a few projects may not be available at the moment). The tool to add new projects to the bot's list is also available now (editing the configuration of current projects coming soon). Unlike the previous tool, all changes will be effective immediately. OAuth is used to authenticate users, allowing only regular users to make changes to prevent abuse. A visible history of configuration additions and changes is coming soon. Once tools become fully available, their toolserver versions will redirect to Labs.

If you have any questions, want to report any bugs, or there are any features you would like to see that aren't currently available on the Toolserver tools, see the updated FAQ or contact me on my talk page. Mr.Z-bot (talk) (for Mr.Z-man) 05:29, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Proposed merge: Species description and Species naming

I think these two articles should be merged. please see Talk:Species naming for discussion. Thanks. --Animalparty-- (talk) 05:31, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Alpha taxonomy

Knowledgeable persons are invited to comment at talk:Alpha taxonomy#Drastic trimming proposal. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:35, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

TaxoBox Synonyms - Nomen Nudum

Should nomina nuda be listed as synonyms in the TaxoBox, or covered in the article content?

There is previous discussion regarding this here [Synonym field in taxobox]

This discussion is from a few years ago, and did not appear to be conclusive, so I am wondering what the current stance is. Is it better to list correct synonyms in the TaxoBox and to mention the nomina nuda in the article content, or to include both within the TaxoBox? Would it not get confusing to list these alongside correct names with no differentiation? Innocenceisdeath (talk) 11:42, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Nomina nuda are not taxa and shouldn't be used in the taxobox. worst case scenario, this could mislead people into thinking the names are unavailable for future use. Dinoguy2 (talk) 11:47, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Nomina nuda i see you point because nomina nuda are available names in many cases, at least in zoology, I believe Botanical code better differentiates this. However, many nomina nuda are as such because they are junior synonyms of valid names. In which case is it not correct to list them in the synonym list. Maybe some explanation of the synonymy is required at least for some species where the synonymy may be complicated. I do think we should be following a published synonymy rather than making it up. Hence its likely to have nomina nuda in it. Faendalimas ^talk 12:42, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

In botany, nomina nuda, so called, are not validly published, aren't names (weird, given the "nomina" bit in the Latin). Over at WP:PLANTS, it is suggested that it would be good to discuss the important ones in the text on the page. Yes, published synonymies are important, and it's not good to mix pieces from different sources because they can be inconsistent, e.g., A. bus 1935, considered by author1 to be synonym of A. cus 1930; author2 places A. cus 1930 as a synonym of B. eus 1940, but didn't revise genus A., and would not have included A. bus in genus B. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:49, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Categorizing taxa vs. common names

There are many examples of taxa that are synonymous with one or more common names. Often an article will be at the latter, especially in the case of fauna. In these cases, how should we handle taxa categories? For example, Eel was a member of Category:Fish orders until I removed it and added the category to Anguilliformes a redirect from the order name. I was reverted, and then I reverted that with an explanation. I don't know if my explanation will satisfy the other user, but I thought it would good to seek some guidance on this. It seems self-evident to me that "Eel" is not an order, and that a category of orders should include actual order names.

I can see three basic approaches to this issue:

Include only taxa themselves in taxonomic categories (i.e., what I did with Eel and Anguilliformes)
Avoid categorizing redirects, and apply taxonomic categories wherever the actual article is (i.e., the status quo ante with Eel and Anguilliformes)
Include both common and scientific names in taxonomic categories (usually one article and one redirect)

Are either of these approaches established already? If not, which should be followed? --BDD (talk) 21:18, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I think what you did with eel/Anguilliformes is the right approach in the case of the category "fish orders". Eel is not an order, Anguilliformes is. In plants, I've been putting taxonomic categories on redirects. Some other plant editors have been doing likewise, and I believe plants are now pretty consistent at having the taxonomic categories (that include a rank in the category name) associated with scientific name redirects rather than articles titled by common name (of course, we have fewer articles titled by common name in the first place). We do have categories for year of formal description on common name titled articles rather than scientific name redirects (some discussion about it occurred here:User_talk:Stemonitis/Archive43#Categorization_of_Onion).

However, for taxonomic categories that DON'T include a rank in the category name, I'd be more inclined to go for double listing common name articles and redirects as best practice. E.g., for Category:Muraenidae, there is an article at Redface moray, and that eel is a member of Muraenidae. The category isn't Category:Muraenidae species by scientific name (where a common name title would be clearly innappropriate), but I'd also be inclined to add the redirects Monopenchelys and Monopenchelys acuta to the Muraenidae cat. Note also the Category:Monotypic fish genera on the Redface moray article; which includes a rank in the category title, and would probably be better on the genus name redirect (monotypic plant taxon categories are now pretty consistently used on any redirects of the appropriate rank). Plantdrew (talk) 23:11, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I think I'm with you on all points. Having both in a category like Category:Muraenidae seems helpful for navigational purposes. So perhaps I should clarify that when I say "taxonomic categories," I mean something closer to "categories of taxa," like Category:Fish orders. --BDD (talk) 23:22, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the two essentially separate systems of categorization – by position in the taxonomic hierarchy and by taxonomic rank – do require different treatment. So, yes, I agree that an article at the common name and its redirect at the scientific name should be placed in the same taxonomic category – what Plantdrew above called "double listing". On the other hand, categories by taxonomic rank, like Category:Fish orders or Category:Asparagaceae genera, seem better suited to the scientific name, i.e. the name of the rank included in the category title, so there I would be inclined not to "double list" but to only categorize the scientific name, regardless of whether it is the article title or a redirect. So I think that it's correct that Category:Asparagaceae genera contains only the redirect Convallaria. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:49, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

You are right. Here is my collection, which you will also find on my user page. Please feel free to edit or take:

The following words refer to existant referents which have no scientific synomym; that is say, English words that do not correspond to any taxon; any Greek or Latin-based Taxonomic word: no catagory such as order, family, genus, or species.

Dog Split into two taxa, C.l. dingo and C.l. familiaris
Mole If you are a talpid and a mole, you're a True Mole. There are two "moles" that fit the English word, but are as unrelated as mammals can be.
Quail Any small roundish ground bird that reminds English-speakers of the British quail.
Whale Unless you say a porpoise is a whale, which is true, but English doesn't care.
Bullfrog Any bullish frog.
Civet Any such basal carnivore.
Vulture Evolved twice, but they're really not all that alike.
Fish Did you know that there is no taxon that equates to the English word "fish"? Not anymore!
Fox New and old world foxes evolved separately.
Squirrel English word's referent is rarely inclusive of woodchucks and such. "Squirrel" washes smoothly into "chipmonk" based on the tail.
Shrew-mole Neither here nor there.
Monkey Defined as what it isn't.
Mongoose Many recently moved taxa.
Mole-rat Evolved more than once.
Mole-shrew Any shrew that has taken to a mole-shrew lifestyle and so evolved.
Porcupine Any rodent so evolved. Has happened twice.
Anteater Properly refers to the South American anteaters, but applies to any animal that has so evolved, which has happened repeatedly.
Ant bear Any large lumbering anteater.
Wolf Canis lupis = Wolf + (Dog = Dingo + Dog). Also included rufus up until, practically, yesterday. And probably others that are part Canis latrans. Also see tweed wolf, or Canis soupus.
Coyote Google "Canis soupus", you'll be glad you did: general Google search Google Scholar search, so WP:RS. Useful articles on this concept are hybrid species and emergent species.
Worm Any wormy thing, and some not so wormy things. As simple no-brainer for natural selection, it has evolved again and again and again. There will be worms on other planets, too. Given the number of Goldilocks zone planets, reason dictates it will evolve again.
Bacteria What I said about "worm" applies here. As unrelated to each other as any taxa can be. One scientist called what he found in a Martian meteor "bacteria".
Pig A central referent orbited by progressivly vaguer orbits. Suina is pretty much all pigs, too, now that the hippos have been removed. Some of these basal animals might not be pigs. Evolved twice, unless the common ancestor of the Suids and Tayassuids was also a pig.
Jackal Any Canis species or subspecies that doesn't seem big or lupine enough for the word "Wolf"
Human, that article defines it as fully modern homo sapeins, but some experts use it for any Homo species, while others insist that the term be restricted to the subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens. At the moment both Homo sapiens Homo sapiens sapiens.
Tube Worm Collection of taxa dealt with not only with a disambiguation page but also an article called Tube worm (body plan)
Skunk This article is not about skunks but rather the wider skunk family of animals, including their closest but still quite distant relatives, the Stink badgers, who, despite being more closely related to skunks, aren't called badgers for no reason. In fact, it took recent DNA research to convince many experts that they weren't badgers and have only been since then been declared a member of the wider skunk family, although they never said they actually were "skunks."
Shrew-rat The taxon that covers them all includes both shrews and "Shrew-rats".

Chrisrus (talk) 05:03, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Interesting list. From the fungus kingdom I would add yeast, lichen, and mold (the first two are used in category names). Sasata (talk) 05:21, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with restricting taxa categories to just the scientific names associated with those taxa. Readers aren't liklely to go searching among redirects to find related articles they may be looking for. And the categories are not lists of genera (in which case the list should be indexed by just the scientific name - although the associated common name should probably be shown as well), but organization tools for articles. And so the article discussing a particular genus (regardless of what the name of the article happens to be) is appropriately catergorized within the associated genus category. And that is the case whether the article is listed under the scientific name, a common name, or a scientific name different than the taxon for the category (e.g., when a monotypic genus is covered by an article under the species name). That way a reader can access the appropriate category for the article he or she is reading without searching through redirects.Rlendog (talk) 22:15, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I think I'll convert this to an RfC and notify the subordinate WikiProjects to solicit more feedback. --BDD (talk) 23:31, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I hadn't seen this guideline when I commented previously, but it is quite relevant to the discussion: Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects#Redirects whose target title is incompatible with the category. It seems to support having the monotypic genus category on the genus title when the genus is a redirect. Plantdrew (talk) 01:13, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Oh, good find. I didn't realize that was written down anywhere. Rlendog, what do you think? --BDD (talk) 16:12, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

On the one hand, that says "The alternative name(s) becomes a redirect and gets categorized the same way as its target," which implies both names could be in the category but for another situation it says "...consideration needs to be given to which title should be reflected in an individual category," which implies only one name would be in the category. The title of the section "target title is incompatible with the category" could be in play if we take the view that non-Latin titles "look out of place on a category page" for genera, which is an understandable position to take if one is looking at it from a strictly scientific lens, although within an English language general purpose encyclopedia, the science community lens is not the only one, and one could validly claim that "chimpanzee" is an appropriate term for the genus encompassing the common chimpanzee and the bonobo (the latter two would I think be even more so appropriate for a category called "mammal species," but that's a different, though related issue). The 2nd example seems to be closest to the issue at hand - 24 Heurs would not be in the category. But the situation is not quite the same, since in that case 24 Hours is an article within which 24 Heurs is addressed as part of the article. But in my example, "Chimpanzee" is the actual article for the genus "Pan (genus)" so the analogy is not quite the same. Also, the topic of the guideline in question is "Categorizing redirects" and the subtitle is "Redirects whose target title is incompatible with the category" (emphasis added), so this subject would be more to the issue if we had an article called "Pan (genus)" and "Chimpanzee" redirected there. In that case I would probably agree that the "Chimpanzee" redirect should not be categorized under "Mammal genera." But in this case we are talking about whether the articles themselves, which are under common names but whose subject is the particular taxon, should be categorized within the taxon. Rlendog (talk) 20:26, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I for one feel that if the article is on a specific taxon, but placed at the vernacular name, it should be placed into the appropriate taxonomic category. As an example, and what lead me here, Snakefly is the article which covers the order Raphidioptera. As such it should be placed into category:Insect orders, be removing it, the entire order is removed from category specifically for that taxonomic group ranking. The policy linked above is specifically addressing redirects only as I read it, not the article that is being redirected too, and this doesn't really apply.--Kev min § 23:23, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

b[y] removing it, the entire order is removed from category specifically for that taxonomic group ranking – I don't understand this. There are three choices for what should be placed into Category:Insect orders:

All three choices ensure that the article about this insect order is placed in the category for insect orders; they differ only in the visual appearance of the list on the category page. (1) and (3) have the advantage that the article appears under the expected name for an insect order. I see no argument for (2). Peter coxhead (talk) 09:38, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Notice of CfD: Moths by European country

Fauna and flora categories have been up for discussion recently. See the current one at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 March 16#Category:Moths of Andorra. As this has been a topic of conversation quite regularly in the past few weeks at CfD, your participation would be appreciated. Rkitko ^(talk) 12:31, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Content dispute at copper shark

There's a dispute over whether recent new additions at copper shark should be retained. I would appreciate input from other editors on this issue. Thanks. -- Yzx (talk) 20:32, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Monotypy and extinct taxa

Can a taxon with multiple members but only one member be referred to as monotypic? Our language at Monotypic taxon suggests that extinction should not affect this, but Wallabia, for example, is classified as monotypic. The corresponding article, Swamp wallaby, says that that species is the only living member of Wallabia, with "only living member" linking to Monotypic taxon. And in this case, it doesn't say what the extinct species were anyway. If this is correct, then by definition there could be no monotypic dinosaur genera, for example. That doesn't sound right. --BDD (talk) 21:26, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

It gets kind of messy. I think many (most?) "monotypic" taxa will turn out not to be if extinct species are considered. As far as I'm concerned, ginkgo is monotypic, and "only living member" can link to monotypic taxon. I'm not quite following what you mean with dinosaur. Not monotypic because they don't have ANY living members? I'd be very wary of calling dinosaur taxa with a single described species monotypic anyway. I'm pretty sure most dinosaur genera only have one described species, but it is pretty likely that there were other species we have yet to find fossil evidence of. Plantdrew (talk) 22:05, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I was getting at referring to dinosaurs. Perhaps to simplify discussion, let's stipulate the following types of taxa (genera, for example):

Those with more than one extant species
Those with one extant species, but one or more extinct species
Those with multiple extinct species, but no extant species
Those with one extinct species, and no extant species

Of these, #1 and #3 seem obviously not monotypic (what's the antonym, pluratypic?). #4 seems obviously monotypic. #2 is what I'm unsure of, but the more I think about it, the more I doubt they can really be called monotypic. What formal definitions are there out there? --BDD (talk) 22:51, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

You guys are right. The way we do things is not precise. For example, the article Hyena says "Hyenas ...are the animals of the family Hyaenidae. That's the definition. But actually, a hyena is a carnivoran of a particular morphology, and a Hyaenid is a member of the wider Hyena family of carnivorans. There are many fossils hyaenid specimins, and it's not clear that all of them were hyenas in a morphological sense, because some of them filled the the niche occupied by cheetahs today, other that of jackals, bears, and so on. A hyaenid is just a carnivore that has is more closely related to hyenas than they are to the other feliforms. Plus it's pretty tautological and meaningless to say, to take a fictional example, "a tauntaun is a member of the Tauntaunidae. What does it mean? The other way around would be more meaningful, for example "a tauntaunid is an animal that has the following characteristics...(say what these are)." There are some articles in this category that do this, but not many. Chrisrus (talk) 01:23, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this a bit more, and I think we should keep it simple: if more than one species is known, it's not a monotypic genus (adjust accordingly for different taxa). Plantdrew, if Ginkgo is monotypic, isn't Homo as well? Reasonable people can disagree, but I think it behooves us to decide on a definition to avoid edit warring, and I think the simplest definition is best. That means some taxa we consider monotypic today might not be tomorrow—and I think that's fine. --BDD (talk) 23:06, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

The term wether we like it or not comes from phylogenetic analysis. Monotypic taxa are problematic because they cannot be defined by synapomorphy (shared derived characterr) with only one member it cannot share derived characters, hence they are defined by autapomorphy (unique derived character). So it is a term from this field. By definition it is a taxon with only one member, eg a genus with only one species. Living or extinct does not actually come into it. Technically it is referring to described and named taxa only. All genera in all likelyhood have multiple members, but we are referring to the ones known. Hence it supposed to only refer to genera that have a single species (living or extinct) and hence can only be defined by autapomorphy. Cheers Faendalimas ^talk 01:13, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

BDD, yes, Homo would be monotypic by the living species definition of monotypy (vs. known species). Googling ginkgo+monotypic gets a fair number of results that are using the living species definition. That definition doesn't seem to be used much for Homo; I guess human ancestors are more prominent than fossil Ginkgo species. I agree it's easier to keep it simple and try to use the known species definition on Wikipedia, but other sources do sometimes use the living species definition. Plantdrew (talk) 20:51, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Royal Society journals - subscription offer for one year

I'm delighted to say that the Royal Society, the UK’s National Academy for science, is offering 24 Wikipedians free access for one year to its prestigious range of scientific journals. Please note that much of the content of these journals is already freely available online, the details varying slightly between the journals – see the Royal Society Publishing webpages. For the purposes of this offer the Royal Society's journals are divided into 3 groups: Biological sciences, Physical sciences and history of science. For full details and signing-up, please see the applications page. Initial applications will close on 25 May 2014, but later applications will go on the waiting list. Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 03:01, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Bird article name (capitalisation)

Bird common name capitalization is under discussion yet again. Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Bird common name capitalisation. Plantdrew (talk) 21:51, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Common name of species are not capitalised

Following discussions on Talk:Crowned crane#Requested move, on Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2014 March#Black crowned crane and especially on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Bird common name decapitalisation, it is now clear that the consensus is not to capitalise the common (vernacular) name of all species.

The guidelines are detailed on Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Animals, plants, and other organisms.

Coreyemotela (talk) 11:11, 3 May 2014 (UTC).

If someone belatedly wants to make a renewed case for butterflies/moths, dragon flies and some plants, now would be the time to do it, so we can get it over with. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 12:41, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

The issue which I regard as still open is how to indicate the deliberate use of capitalized names in the original in a sourced list of English names in a Wikipedia article. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:13, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

If we're quoting, we could use sic. If we're not quoting, we paraphrase. Or paracase. Whatever you'd call it. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:47, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I doubt anybody sic-ed lower-case names when capitalization was standard (though I suppose it could have happened), and I don't see any reason to sic capitalized names in quotations now. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 02:24, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, probably not. Best to just leave things verbatim. People should assume quoted text is, without the help. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:39, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like a block quotation to me, but what's the use case, unless it's an article on capitalization of names? — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:08, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

@InedibleHulk: quoted text in the English Wikipedia should not be "verbatim" in respect of capitalization – read MOS:QUOTE: "Formatting and other purely typographical elements of quoted text should be adapted to English Wikipedia's conventions without comment" and note that it says "should be" not "may be" and "without comment" so no sic.

@SMcCandlish: do you mean "use of case"? If so, my answer is simply respecting sources. Do a Google search for "good king henry" (the plant). Virtually every single reference to the plant as far down the list as I looked, including the Encyclopedia Britanica and Merriam-Webster, capitalizes. The more reliable use "Good-King-Henry", the BSBI name. So up to now, I would simply reproduce the source with a reference. Now I have to instead try to work out how to apply Wikipedia's style. Should it be "good King Henry"? If so, what reference should be used to support this? Should it be "good-King-Henry"? Same question. If I keep all the capitals, this now implies that the name refers to a particular individual, so can I find a source for that? In practice, most cases are simpler than this, but in such tricky cases I refuse to make decisions as to how to re-style, which I think are quite improper, but will reproduce the source and leave it to others to "correct" my edit. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:46, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant the use case on Wikipedia of a list of English common names of species in an article here, in which you'd want to preserve the deliberate use of capitals [are we expecting accidental ones?] from the source being relied upon for the list. Unless you're literally block-quoting an entire list or chunk thereof, I'm hard-pressed to see how it arises. Even then, I'd wonder why we were quoting a list like that, unless it were to specifically show how the list was formatted/styled in the original publication, for some reason, like in an article about the history of the capitalization of common names of species.

I would expect the plant you mention to be capitalized (at least as "good King Henry"[14]), because its name obviously refers to a specific person even if most people don't remember whom it was. Jack[-| ]in[-| ]the[-| ]pulpit seems like a more useful example, but Google ngrams doesn't like it because it maxes at 5 "words" and counts hyphens as words. Anyway, I'm still wondering why we'd ever be quoting an entire capitalized list. Regardless, if it's a quote it's a quote, and I don't think we'd down-case the quoted material. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 12:08, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Ah, we've been at cross-purposes. I'm not talking about a complete capitalized list, but a list assembled from different sources, with all names referenced. I want to be able to include e.g. "Good-King-Henry" in such a list with a reference to any of the very reliable sources which attest this name. As far as I can see, I can't do this, even in quotes, because of MOS:QUOTE, as noted in my response to InedibleHulk above. That we should not use capitalized English species names in our own text is one thing; that there's no MOS-compliant way of reporting the use of such names in reliable sources is another. Quite simply it's censorship: we don't use capitalized names so you can't include any, regardless of the source. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:26, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead:But says who? No one's actually making that argument against quoting caps at all. (For my part, I've been saying for over two years that when a specific spec calls for upper case that we should quote it using upper case, and make a note of it, as I did at domestic short-haired cat, etc., and in the sandboxed taxobox tweaks I illustrated at WT:MOS a week or so ago, citing the IOC name as such, capitalized and with a reference) The downcasing of the Franklin "Bald Eagle" quote, as was being discussed before, is a pointy exercise at worst, and an overcorrection error at best (should be reverted either way); we don't normally do that even with Chaucerian or Elizabethan much less such Georgian to Victorian, Early Modern English, any more than we'd change the title of The Compleat Gamester or quotes from Burns or Mallory to modern spelling and style. If it's important in the context to note that source so-and-so gave it as "Good-King-Henry" or "Good King Henry" or "good-King-Henry" or whatever, vs. other spellings, there is no MOS principle that "requires" the original capitalization in the quotation to be modified, if we're quoting it. The cases MOS:QUOTE wants normalized are things like font choices, and other purely stylistic/formatting matters; capitalization is more than just formatting, which is why people get into proper names arguments and the like when upper-casing is involved. If it's not a quotation, and we don't need to make a point of preserving the capitalization in the original for some reason that's important to readers, by making it a quotation, then don't bother. Kind of a WP:BEANS matter: Don't generate a controversy or problem when none actually exists there already. :-) If someone tells you, "Hey! You can't even quote that capitalized!", I'll be the first to tell them they're wrong. But I'd object if a bunch of stuff was being put in quotation marks just to evade MOS:LIFE's downcasing. I don't see anyone being that excessive on either side. I'm surprised by the number of people coming out of the woodwork to downcase stuff, who did not even comment on the RfC, or the RM or other debates leading up to it. It's clear that a lot more people were watching and waiting than we thought. I'm also surprised by the lack of histrionics about it; people are being more calm about this than some of us expected. Seems like a good sign on both sides. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:24, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

About what should be done, we agree. About what is likely to happen, I can only say that I hope you are right. In the past there has been real acrimony over applying Wikipedia styles as per the MOS to quotations. However, a number of the editors who were fierce about this have gone (I won't drag up old mud here), so perhaps my concerns, although based in the reality of the past, don't apply now. I would still like to clarify the bit at MOS:QUOTE, though, but it can be discussed over there. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:53, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Like. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:24, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

v t e Systematics and taxonomy: studying biological diversity
Schools	Cladistics (phylogenetic systematics) Evolutionary taxonomy Phenetics Numerical taxonomy
Naming and describing new species	Alpha taxonomy Species description
Evolutionary studies	Evolutionary biology Phylogenetics
Making classifications	Biological classification
See also	Binomial nomenclature Biodiversity Biological nomenclature Folk taxonomy Linnaean taxonomy Natural history Phylogenetic nomenclature