Talk:Agathaeromys/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Sasata (talk) 22:54, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I've signed up for this review. Comments by the end of the week. Sasata (talk) 22:54, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Great, thanks. Ucucha 03:02, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Comments: Nice to see some pictures! Not much for me to complain about, just a few niggles:

• lead: link genus, morphology
  • Done
• I think the lead should state explicitly if the genus is extinct (or presumed extinct)
  • Added.
• could you expand the lead a little bit, maybe by summarizing the difference between the teeth morphology of the two species, without using a lot of jargon :)
  • I've added a sentence. Ucucha 23:52, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
• "The larger A. donovani, the type species, is known from hundreds of teeth found in four localities that are probably 900,000 to 540,000 years old." the localities or the teeth are that old?
  • Both. I strategically inserted a comma to remove the ambiguity.
• "…Buisonjé listed Thomasomys sp. from additional fossil sites" for Wikipedia, I'd suggest spelling species in full
  • In this context, "sp." is always abbreviated. I added an explanation.
• "Another cladistic analysis focused on Oryzomyini" analysis by the same authors?
  • Yes, we did that too.
• redlink Stephen Donovan?
  • Sure.
• "…it occupies a position near the base of one of the major subgroups of Oryzomyini" does this mean it's basal to the Oryzomyini?
  • No, and not even basal to clade D. Clade D contains two coherent subgroups (centered on Holochilus and Nectomys) and a number of other genera that occupy more basal positions, including Agathaeromys; I think that is what the sentence says.
• "so that the indentation separated them is closed" fix something
  • Done.
• might be worthwhile to label the major features in the right first upper molar pic, it would make it easier to visualize while reading the description
  • Sometime... Ucucha 23:52, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
• "A single dentary from Porto Spanjo" I'm not sure what a dentary is
  • Sorry, it's another word for the lower jaw. Switched out.
• left mandible pic could be bigger
  • Done.
• "… known from four fossil sites—Fontein, Porto Spanjo, Barcadera-Karpata, and "80 m above sea level"" is the last "site" from Dirk's description? Did he not specify a location?
  • It's not in any of the early publications, but the specimens are labeled as coming from that locality. We don't know exactly where it is.
• general questions about these fossil teeth: why are usually only the teeth and sometimes jaw fragments found? Does the enamel preserve the teeth better? I'm wondering why in the site where 259 molars were found they didn't find any other bones. Were the fossil teeth spread out over a large area or clustered together? Was the fossil site a cave or a more exposed area?
  • The teeth are the most durable part of the animal, which is why so much of the mammalian fossil record is based on teeth. Jaws are also fairly robust bones, so they get preserved relatively well. The braincase and scapula in small rodents are so thin that they are often translucent, so you can imagine that not much will be left if they fossilize. There are, however, in fact some other bones from the Agathaeromys sites, but we chose not to describe them in this paper. Ucucha 17:41, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the article meets all the GA criteria, am passing now. Sasata (talk) 01:36, 5 December 2010 (UTC)