Talk:Camarasaurus/Archive 1

Archive 1

Question

I have a question. In the behavior section, it mentions adults and children traveling together. It then states that they likely did NOT care for their young. Did this mean to state that they DID? I don't know the fact, which is why I'm checking if this is accurate or a misstatement. It seems incongruous to think a herd species with adults and children together did not invariably end up aiding the children, at least by virtue of the herd working together. 72.192.237.134 18:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)Ismail

I don't know off hand. I suspect it might be confusion over the word "young". In otherwords, adults and subadults of various sizes lived in herds, but not babies, which had to fend for themselves until large enough to join a herd. That whole section is badly in need of a rewrite and sources, though.Dinoguy2 18:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for such a prompt reply. Since I'm not familiar with this particular type of dinosaur, I'll have to leave this to someone who is to confirm. At least I've called attention to the possible issue. 72.192.237.134 16:30, 3 June 2006 (UTC) Ismail

I've 'had a go' at a rewrite - does this do it or is more required? Good thing this thing came up! - Ballista 17:15, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't know the dinosaur... assuming the rewrite is accurate, then I don't see the problematic statement any more. Do you know the dinosaur in question? Since I don't, someone else will have to vouch for this :P. Thanks, though! 72.192.237.134 20:46, 3 June 2006 (UTC)Ismail

Cite, please (hundred-year life span)

"It is suggested by some paleontologists that Camarasaurus may have lived for up to a hundred years." - WP:WEASEL. Cite for this? -- Writtenonsand 00:13, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Average in size?

Assuming 28-31 tons is accurate, it sounds pretty bug to me, even for a sauropod. It's twice the size of Diplodocus, and bigger than heaps of diplodocids, dicraeosaurs, shunosaurs, euhelopods and others . While it would be below the median, surely it's more than the mode and the mean. Anyone think we should re-word? John.Conway 11:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Woah, woah. No way 28-31 tons is accurate. More like 18. Just did a quick Google search, also not coming up with anything but 18 tons or equiv. Anything larger is gonna need a cite to stay.Dinoguy2 17:09, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

So only humans can be obese? Dinosaurs can't? Humans can be obese by as much as three times an average weight of 80 kilos. So why cant a dinosaur weigh a little less than twice the average?

Obesity caused by twinkies? Makes sense. Obesity caused by overindulgence in conifer needles? Not as likely. Abyssal (talk) 01:28, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

gastroliths

This article states that Camarasaurus probably used gastroliths to help break down their food, but the gastroliths article states that they are almost never associated with sauropods and that it is not feasible for them to have used them to grind their food. So... which is it? Mloren 04:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I can't even find any other sites that mention Camarasaurus swallowing gastroliths, that aren't just copies of this page. 97.104.210.67 (talk) 18:16, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I've reworked this. Although Wings and Sanders (2006) believe the polished pebbles found in the skeletons of sauropod dinosaurs are gastroliths, Camarasaurus, with its more robust teeth, might not have needed rocks to digest food. They also reject the "gastric mill" theory. Firsfron of Ronchester 18:54, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Split apart?

Split off Camarasauridae? See e.g. Aragosaurus. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 22:10, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, Dysmorodrepanis. I think it's a good suggestion: unlike many families, the name is actually still in use (by Upchurch et al., 2004, for Camarasaurus and Haplocanthosaurus). Another option would be to spin part of this article off to Camarasauramorpha or move it to Macronaria. Firsfron of Ronchester 22:30, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Danny Taylor's research

Ok, I know it's not exactly encyclopedic, but I'm very tempted to use this as a reference somewhere... he even got it peer reviewed! [1] Dinoguy2 (talk) 19:14, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Classic! It would be foolish for Wikipedia not to include research from a prominent author such as Danny Taylor. His work isn’t exactly ”ridiculously unknown to our planet,” Steveoc 86 (talk) 20:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

C. supremus

I know it is sourced (though unless you have that book you can't check it) but 23m and 47 tonnes sounds too much for me, I'm searching on information on AMNH 5761, which in a post by Mike Taylor is described as a "large adult of C. supremus", this same individual is estimated by Greg Paul to weight 23 tonnes and in The Princeton field guide to dinosaurs, he describes C. supremus as 18m and 23 tonnes, so I'm guessing he's basing it on AMNH 5761. Now, if we scale it up to 23m it ends up weighting 48 tonnes, spot on right? but then why is AMNH 5761 considered a large adult if there's considerably bigger individuals up to twice the weight? it doesn't make sense. Of course Mike Taylor could be wrong in his description, but I'm inclined to believe that's not the case as in Thunder-Lizards: The Sauropodomorph Dinosaurs from Ken Carpenter and Virginia Tidwell it is described as not only an adult but a very old individual, asserting that it indeed is an old, large adult of C. supremus making the claim of 23m and 47 tonnes individuals very dubious in my opinion. Any thoughts on this? Mike.BRZ (talk) 16:41, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I've just read "Distribution and Biochronology of Camarasaurus (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from the Jurassic Morrison Formation of the Rocky Mountain region" by Takehito Ikejir and I found this:

"Body size among species of Camarasaurus is variable (Ikejiri, 2002, 2004b; McIntosh, 1990a). Based on one of the largest known skeletons in each species, Camarasaurus lewisi (BYU 9047: ontogenetically, very old individual) is the smallest taxon, about 26 % smaller than C. supremus (AMNH 5761). Relative to C. supremus, C. lentus is 20 % smaller based on the length of axial centra. The body mass of C. supremus is estimated to reach up to 47000 kg, which is up to 50 % larger than an average Camarasaurus(Foster, 2003, p. 38)"

So.. it looks like the 47 tonnes and 23m that Foster claims is for the same individual (AMNH 5761) that Greg Paul estimates at 18m long and 23 tonnes, the 50% larger than average statement is flawed too, it implies that the average Camarasaurus was ~23 tonnes when recently, one of the largest C. lentus specimens (CMNH 11393) was estimated at 12.3 tonnes by Donald Henderson and 14.2 tonnes by Greg Paul. I don't think is accurate to keep that figure, sounds like the 80 ton Brachiosaurus. Mike.BRZ (talk) 19:38, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I think it shall be 23-47 tonnes and 18-23 meters long. Dinosaur Fan (talk) 03:37, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Normally, source citations should NOT be deployed in the lede section: If a statement is debatable...

.. or presents new facts, then proceed to the body of the article, NOT the lede. A controversial statement---actually or potentially---should originate and be developed in the body of the article, and the source should be cited there---and then the statement, without the citation, may be summarized in the lede if desired. IF> a statement covers only conventional knowledge that is not likely to be debated, then a source citation is NOT NEEDED, anywhere (ie, in neither lede nor body); and---for a better Wikipedia, is best NOT DONE. Thank you. Jbeans (talk) 18:11, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

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C. agilis

Isn't this another species of Camarasaurus? Also, it seems like the validity of Cathetosaurus is disputed [2]. --Slate Weasel (talk) 11:38, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure if Cathetosaurus has been directly disputed since it was "resurrected" (the paleodb is very inconsistent in how up to date it is), but at least one paper has referred to the referred specimen SMA 0002 as Camarasaurus sp. since then. No idea about C. agilis, though, perhaps look at Google Scholar. FunkMonk (talk) 11:41, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Some papers mention something called Morosaurus agilis, which, in theory, would become Camarasaurus agilis. Also, here is another source that lists C. agilis: [3]. --Slate Weasel (talk) 11:47, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Hmmm, seems like no scientific papers since 2013 mention it, so it seems dubious... Note that Haplocanthosaurus lists M. agilis as a possible synonym, so that's probably where it ended up. FunkMonk (talk) 12:09, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Camarasaurus supremus skeletal reconstruction by randomdinos dcuthy2-fullview.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 23:52, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Merger

I've proposed to merge Camarasaurus lewisi into this article, seen as I don't think the article holds enough value as a species of Camarasaurus to warrant a seperate article. I think any and all information on the animal should be lumped into this article if treated as a species of Camarasaurus. I would like to ask of all of the people here to not turn the discussion into a titanic work as seen with the last major change to the Camarasaurus lewisi article. Cheers, --TimTheDragonRider (talk) 17:44, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

My understanding is that the main reason for the guideline to avoid species-level articles for fossil taxa is to avoid the creation and maintenance of unnecessary stub articles that have little to say that's particular to the species. Since we already have an article of decent length—which I think could even be further expanded—I see no particular reason to merge it. Furthermore, if published studies do end up making a compelling argument for the validity of Cathetosaurus someday (I wouldn't hold my breath for it, but it's certainly possible), it would be straightforward enough to change the title of Camarasaurus lewisi back to Cathetosaurus. Perhaps it's the case that all four valid species of the genus should be treated equivalently, though, and unless a good case could be made to give each of the four a standalone article, none of them should. I personally wouldn't be opposed to making separate articles for the other three in theory, though it depends on how much there actually ends up being to say about each species in particular. Ornithopsis (talk) 20:35, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I believe there is sufficient unique information on each species of Camarasaurus to justify a separate article for each. Accordingly, I have created articles for Camarasaurus supremus and Camarasaurus lentus, and have plans to work on one for C. grandis. Ornithopsis (talk) 19:09, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Merging would be contrary to WP:Summary Style. A serious treatment of Camarasaurus would already result in an article of considerable length.--MWAK (talk) 08:26, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

What exact part of WP:Summary Style would it be contrary to? --TimTheDragonRider (talk) 10:58, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Well, the main relevant rules are: A fuller treatment of any major subtopic should go in a separate article of its own and generally 40 kilobytes of readable prose is the starting point at which articles may be considered too long. From this it is obvious that adding a major subtopic, having its own article, to an article that is already over fifty kilobytes is contrary to policy. A biological species is a perfect example of a topic in principle warranting its own separate article.--MWAK (talk) 09:46, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support - have to support here, the Camarasaurus article isn't particularly long yet. I feel we're going down a slippery slope if we start splitting dinosaur species articles off left and right for ad hoc reasons as in this case. We have the guideline to cover species at the genus level first until that article grows long that has worked fine so far. FunkMonk (talk) 18:26, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

But in this case the article is already separate. Let's implement a second guideline: whenever a species has not been synonymised with the type species but does have its own genus name, it should be a separate article under that genus name. That would prefigure the inevitable separation of nomenclature and phylogeny.--MWAK (talk) 07:54, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

While I'm as-yet undecided about redirecting lewisi into Camarasaurus, I do have to stress that creating new pages for the other species while a discussion about merging species articles into the genus page is very much ongoing, is absolutely not what we should be doing. C. lewisi has the benefit of being suggested as an independent genus, supremus, lentus and grandis do not. I would support merging all species into the Camarasaurus article, with the possible exception of lewisi, which I think I weakly oppose merging for now. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 22:58, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

I felt it was acceptable to be bold and try creating the articles, rather than simply discuss at length whether it was possible. It's an organizational dispute, not a factual one, and my changes could be undone in seconds if need be, so I feel there's very little harm in doing so. Regarding what you said in your edit summary (creating supremus, lentus and grandis stubs while the discussion is ongoing is very much not the right thing to do), I would disagree with your characterization of them as "stubs". They're at least start-class and arguably C-class, if I dare rate my own work. I feel I have adequately demonstrated that an article of decent quality is possible for each species individually, and I fail to see any reason why the encyclopedia would be better-served by the absence of separate pages. I think all four species should be treated as separate articles, but I think that all four should be treated the same, so I am opposed to keeping C. lewisi while merging the others. Ornithopsis (talk) 00:10, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

The current content of the individual species overlaps significantly with the genus article. The only unique content on the pages currently is the descriptive work distinguishing the taxa, which can easily be added in to expand the genus articles description, even as subsections for each species since the history section clarifies at least most of the information prior to the description as I've reordered it, giving a more chronological flow and context for discussion of species differences if they are agreed to be merged here. And per WP:BOLD, if there is contention "the safest course is to be cautious and find consensus before making changes ... and be sure to read the talk page"; I would assume a current merge discussion is a good case for controversiality. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 04:07, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

If my changes significantly affected what already existed, or involved a factual dispute, I would have been more cautious about seeking consensus first. However, the existence of separate pages for each of the species has minimal impact on the genus page, so I felt it would not be too disruptive to go ahead and try it out. As it stands, I think it's useful to have both a general overview of the history of the genus as a whole and separate overviews of the history for each species; the neatest way to do that, imo, is to have separate pages. The only unique content on the pages currently is the descriptive work distinguishing the taxa is simply incorrect. There's also distinct information on the paleoecology of the species, with significant room for improvevement on this front. This is particularly true for C. lentus, for which we can discuss the fauna and environment represented at DNM, and C. supremus, which lived later in the Morrison Formation depositional period, with a seemingly somewhat different fauna and potential environmental differences. The fact of the matter is, better articles can be written for each individual species of Camarasaurus than for most dinosaur genera. What's to be gained by merging them? The genus page is free to summarize them either way. On another note, I think it makes more sense to have the description section of the article before the history section—it seems to me that "what did the animal look like" is a question an average reader would want answered before they read several paragraphs explaining the history of research of the species in detail. Ornithopsis (talk) 06:38, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose - the whole reason we don't give articles to individual species is due to the lack of information on individual species in the majority of cases. But I frankly think the rule has escaped its purpose; instead of being a guideline to prevent the accumulation of low quality pointless content forks, it has become upheld universally merely for the reason that the it exists. But, of course, this isn't the place to go on about wider policy. The article for C. lewisi is fine enough article that has enough unique content to support itself and room for expansion yet if anyone wanted to work on it. There is no pressing issue with the current arrangement beyond the violation of a guideline it's certainly not some sort of low quality stub wasting space. In regards to the newly created articles on other species, I think it's harmless to explore whether they could be made into quality articles, but that's something that should be explored in draft space until they reach such a status where that has been demonstrated, not live. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 06:18, 24 February 2022 (UTC)