Talk:Paleontology in Montana

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Paleontology in Montana article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

A fact from Paleontology in Montana appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 7 February 2013 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that within the United States, dinosaur fossils (example pictured) have been found in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Wyoming, but not in Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, or Wisconsin?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2013/February. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Paleontology in the United States.

Wikipedia

Palaeontology Low‑importance

	Paleontology portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Palaeontology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of palaeontology-related topics and create a standardized, informative, comprehensive and easy-to-use resource on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PalaeontologyWikipedia:WikiProject PalaeontologyTemplate:WikiProject PalaeontologyPalaeontology articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Montana Low‑importance

	Montana portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Montana, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of Montana on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MontanaWikipedia:WikiProject MontanaTemplate:WikiProject MontanaMontana articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Dogs

The article refers to dogs:

During the early Cenozoic the sea began to withdraw from the state. Plants, insects, dogs, and titanotheres are preserved from this time.
During the early Cenozoic era ... Montana was home to creatures like dogs and titanotheres.

The Cenozoic covers the period from 66 million years ago to the present. The dog evolved from a wolf starting about 15,000 years ago, long after the "early" Cenozoic. Gray wolf says, "C. lupus' most recent probable ancestor is Canis lepophagus, a small, narrow skulled North American canid of the Miocene era...." Canis lepophagus says "Canis lepophagus, the hare-eating wolf or Johnston's coyote is an extinct species of canid which was endemic to much of North America and lived from the Miocene epoch through Early Pleistocene, 10.3—1.8 Mya." So even the ancestor to the gray wolf appears only within the last 10.3 million years, long after the "early" Cenozoic. If the second usage is intended to convey that Montana was home to dog-like creatures and titanotheres, it should say exactly that: "Montana was home to dog-like creatures and titanotheres." But "creatures like dogs" will imply to some readers "creatures including dogs", which is wrong. —Anomalocaris (talk) 17:15, 22 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]