Talk:Teratornis

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2021 and 25 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): TheInfoAttorney, Lucia.goldberg, Gdewitt23.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:52, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wing area

There must be some mistake: a wingspan of 3.5-3.8 m is indicated, and a wing area of 17.5 sq m. This would mean that the wings are much wider than they are long. Could it be that the 17.5 sq m figure should be 17.5 sqft, and should be converted to sq m?

14-ft?

11 or 12 ft? I've read that this bird had a wingspan up to 14ft?

In 1997 at Woodburn, Oregon the 12.5-inch humerus of a possible new species of Teratorn was discovered. This incomplete specimen dubbed "Teratornis Woodburnensis" has been examined by Alison Stenger and paleontologists in LA who have estimated the predator bird's wingspan at about 14-feet. The scant remains of the bird were found in the Pleistocene Ice-age level of around 12,000 years before present. --70.59.155.91 06:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

No relevant hits on Google and Google Scholar. Google finds Alison Stenger at the "Institute for Archaeological Studies" in Portland, might be worth trying to contact her.

2 facts seem suspicious:

• "Woodburnensis" - scientists know better than to capitalize dedication names of species as was done 100 years ago
• "dubbed" - this is a Very Bad Thing in taxonomy, see nomen nudum. Taxa are not "dubbed", but scientifically described. The fact that the taxon yields no hits suggests that it may never have existed save in the author's imagination... and the original source is lost it seems. Dysmorodrepanis 01:00, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It is a matter of fact that bone fragments of this Teratorn were discovered at the Woodburn site. The size of the wingspan is of course an estimation, but 14 feet (over 4 meters) is a figure which has been mentioned in articles and on Public Television broadcasts, namely, Oregon Field guide: http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,,812982,00.html --75.175.51.175 (talk) 07:09, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Thunderbird?

--It seems presumptuous to claim that this bird was the source of the Amerindian thunderbird myth. Though this bird may have been impressive, thunderbird stories from across the continent seem to be more closely related to actual weather phenomena than any type of animal. While it would be tempting to connect this bird with those stories, is there any real evidence that ties them together?

Re:

Is there any evidence to associate the Native American Thunderbird with Teratorn? That's a good question. It seems that Thunderbird is more associated with Thunder and Nature. Yet indipendant legends of physical giant birds exist in native american folk context, regardless of wheather or not these are considered "Thunderbird" or other giant birds like the Condor. Some good info can be found here: http://sped2work.tripod.com/evidence.html

The dry fact remains that these were the only birds of their size which are definitely kown to have been encountered by humans. So if the Thunderbird references back to any real bird, this is it. Perhaps also the California Condor, but less so than Merriam's Teratorn, as it was less impressive. Which should give an idea of how impressive this here tweety was.... Dysmorodrepanis 00:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Biggest flying bird encountered by man?

"T. merriami is the largest species of flying bird that was encountered alive by man."

... yet it's mass is said to be 15kg. There are a few birds that get that get bigger than that: swans and bustards come to mind. Albatrosses have it outclassed in the wingspan stakes too. I think the sentence should be removed, or change to "predatory bird" (maybe). — John.Conway (talk) 18:54, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Any content about T. merriami is also about Teratornis, so it isn't misleading. We have to pick one title or the other; the wikiproject referenced by FonkMonk suggests leaving this article here. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:53, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

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Teratornis → Teratornis merriami – Content is entirely about T. merriami, Teratornis merriami article is redirecting here, it is misleading and redundant. Tallard (talk) 21:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Oppose Monotypic genera only have the genus name as the title, per paleontology project guidelines.[1] FunkMonk (talk) 21:39, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Monotypic genus?

Teratornithidae lists a second Teratornis species. postdlf (talk) 21:10, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Seems right: http://scholar.google.dk/scholar?hl=da&q=Teratornis+woodburnensis&btnG= FunkMonk (talk) 21:19, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

So let's revisit the move discussion from above... Should we move this existing article to Teratornis merriami and then create a new article at Teratornis to cover the genus, or refactor this one to cover the genus while still weighted towards T. merriami? postdlf (talk) 21:22, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

I think both should be included here, as is the case for most prehistoric genera with multiple species. There isn't much to say about the species included that isn't identical. FunkMonk (talk) 21:35, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Is this something you can handle, or should we post a note to the paleontology project? It's not my usual subject matter. postdlf (talk) 13:28, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

I'll see if I can fix it up later today. FunkMonk (talk) 13:30, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Great, thanks. postdlf (talk) 13:36, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Thunderbirds (again)

I added this passage to the article: "It has been suggested by anthropologist Paulette Steeves that the oral tradition of the thunderbird in certain North American indigenous peoples' history and culture describes memories of Teratornis," only to have my edit reverted on the grounds that Steeves is a "fringe author", a label I dispute. --Abstractgrant (talk) 13:29, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Paulette Steeves thinks that people were in the Americas 130,000 years ago, which is far outside the mainstream. At any rate, Wikipedia is based on secondary sources, so we'd need to see what some unrelated author thinks about this to include it in the article. - MrOllie (talk) 13:33, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

My argument is as follows: 1) Wikipedia articles for extinct genera cite plenty of primary sources. Just look at Deinonychus for example. 2) Dr. Steeves' opinion about the length of time people were in the Americas may be unorthodox, but no more so than, for example, Gregory Paul's opinion that dromaeosaurs were secondarily flightless. She's a Canada Research Chair with a book published by University of Nebraska Press, not some self-published kook saying that Neanderthals built Atlantis or something. 3) Even if Dr. Steeves is wrong about the length of time people were in the Americas, it's not a fringe position to say that humans coexisted with Teratornis. The page already cites Campbell & Stenger (2002) which states that T. woodburnensis came from a stratum that also had evidence of human occupancy. --Abstractgrant (talk) 22:26, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

1) This is not an issue of it being primary, per se. It is about it being one person's inherently unorthodox personal opinion only appearing in a primary source. This is much less a concern for an uncontroversial description of a fossil. 2) The first part of this argument is an WP:OTHERSTUFF argument. There may well be other unorthodox scholarly opinions given in other articles, but if they are equally lacking in secondary sourcing, the solution is to remove them, not use them as rationalization to include similar here. As to qualifications, they really don't matter. There are Nobel laureates whose fringe ideas don't get mentioned on the relevant articles. 3) This is not just claiming coexistence, but further claiming a 130,000-year cultural memory. Even if you correct this down to 15,000 years, it would still seemingly be well out at the end of what most anthropologists consider reasonable. This takes it a step further by claiming to pinpoint a specific genus as the origin of a complex cultural phenomenon over that timeframe. In summary, it is quite common for even respected scientists to publish fringy pet theories, but it is giving them WP:UNDUE weight to include such unless/until other scholars give it serious consideration if only to argue against it, making it a noteworthy unorthodox opinion, before we mention it. Agricolae (talk) 16:36, 29 September 2021 (UTC)