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Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Synapsids

I have recently proposed to create a new WikiProject (WikiProject:Synapsids) that would be part of this WikiProject family tree. I would like anyone to make comments and discuss it on the Proposal (link to discussion is in section title). Lavalizard101 (talk) 19:53, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

But... Why? More Wiki Projects does not create more activity. I don't think there is any need at all to split the palaeo project further up, it will only make centralised discussion harder when there are so few editors here anyway. FunkMonk (talk) 19:57, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
To give more of a focus on Synapsids for those who would like to specialise in Synapsids in this WikiProject and give them a separate area to work. Lavalizard101 (talk) 20:07, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
Is that a singular those or a plural those? Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:13, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
Plural. Lavalizard101 (talk) 20:19, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
I feel like this would just be a more paleontologically correct WikiProject Mammal   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  20:34, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
I think it has become misunderstood what Wiki projects are for. They are for coordinating work among editors, not to categorise pages or bring focus to them. With this few active palaeo editors who overlap almost entirely in the articles they edit, the fewer projects the better. If we had five or more editors who specialised in synapsid articles, maybe, but as is, there are barely any. FunkMonk (talk) 20:37, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
I think we have far too few members to split up the wikiprojects. WP:DINO has about 5 active editors now, with a few more who only contribute images or small edits etc. WP:PALEO probably has three times that number, but that's including editors who are in subprojects as well. We don't have the time or resources (people) to divide the wikiproject into something thats already covered by WP:PALEO and WP:MAMMALS. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 22:50, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
We used to have Wikiproject:Pterosaurs and Sea Monsters, but they fell and got merged into WP:PALEO, just to let you know. --Slate Weasel (talk | contribs) 23:29, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   07:25, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Potential article we need International Federation for Animal Health (IFAH)

Don't really know much about it yet. We have a lot of animal welfare group articles and this sounds like either a major one, or cooperative federation of major ones (though it could be a "nobody" group with a grandiose name).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:58, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

they don’t seem to even have their own website   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:28, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment on recommending usage of automatic taxoboxes

There is an RfC regarding recommending usage of automatic taxoboxes at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comments: Should the automatic taxobox system be the current recommended practice?. Inviting anybody who watches this page to contribute their thoughts to that thread.

WikiProject Animals is currently using automatic taxoboxes in 36.7% of project taggedarticles that have any form of taxobox. Plantdrew (talk) 01:20, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Ambiguous Classification of Plectus parvus

Hello. I recently created an article on the nematode worm Plectus parvus. Different sources list its taxonomy differently: Some sources (e.g. WoRMS [1]) place it in order Plectida while others (e.g. ITIS [2]) place it in the order Araeolaimida. Which of these should I follow for the taxobox? --HighFlyingFish (talk) 20:22, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

WoRMS is generally more up to date than ITIS. WoRMS shows the date of any modifications to a record; Plectus parvus was last updated 2016-02-26. ITIS doesn't explicitly show date of modifications, but it can inferred from the dates of the sources. The ITIS record hasn't had any updates since 1996. Go with WoRMS. Plantdrew (talk) 20:33, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
Thanks! --HighFlyingFish (talk) 21:47, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

"List of common household pests" needs major editing

Hi. The article List of common household pests needs a rewrite and assessing. It looks like most of the entries are based on people's opinions, there are virtually no references. In addition, many entries are not even household pests at all. Thanks! Thinker78 (talk) 01:46, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Issue in Platyhelminthes

There are some rank issues in groups within Platyhelminthes. Ranks have been based on the classification in WoRMS, but this is a mess right now. Look at WoRMS's taxonomic hierarchy for Lepocreadioidea, for example. Trematoda cannot be a class, nor Digenea a subclass, because these ranks already occur much higher up. The article Rhabditophora treats Trematoda as an order, but the article Trematoda says it's a class. Sigh...

The inconsistent ranks were causing errors in automated taxoboxes and their taxonomy templates. To prevent these errors, I replaced some problematic ranks by "cladus", but this needs properly sorting. It's not an area in which I have any expertise, so I hope someone here does. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:54, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Animals 'described in' decadal categories submitted to CfD

@ Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 October 3#Category:Animals described in the 1750s, per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comment: categorizing by year of formal description.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:05, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

'Vertebrates described in YYYY' categories submitted to CfD

@ Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 October 5#Category:Vertebrates described in 1771, per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comment: categorizing by year of formal description.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  11:57, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Question concerning extinction dagger placement

Please see Template talk:Speciesbox#Extinct dagger in binomial box for a discussion concerning the placement of † when {{Speciesbox}} is used for an extinct species. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:31, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

The IUCN website

The IUCN website has been revamped and this means that links to it from copious articles no longer work. In this article for example, I have had to replace the IUCN template that used to work with a "cite url" type template as can be seen in the article's history. I have used the IUCN template in hundreds of articles, and this problem is likely to affect tens of thousands of articles. Any ideas on how the problem can be resolved? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:24, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Actually, I see the problem and its possible solution is being discussed on the WikiProject Tree of Life page. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:31, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Category:<Animal>s described in <year> with very confined scope and small size submitted to CfD

This includes the following animal cats: Anemones, Ants, Aphids, Bees, Caddisflies, Centipedes, Cicadas, Damselflies, Dragonflies, Fleas, Flies, Lacewings, Mantises, Mites, Scale insects, Sea cucumbers, Stink bugs, Termites, Ticks, Urchins, & Wasps, @ Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 November 4#Category:<Animal>s described in <year> with very confined scope and small size.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  22:19, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Move discussion notice - Talk:Dracunculus_medinensis#Requested_move_15_December_2018

Hey there! I'm Flooded with them hundreds. There is a move discussion at Talk:Dracunculus_medinensis#Requested_move_15_December_2018 requiring more participation, please consider commenting/voting in it along with the other discussions in the backlog (Wikipedia:Requested moves#Elapsed listings). Flooded with them hundreds 07:59, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

Request to move over "L."

At Talk:L. Inc.#Requested move 5 January 2019 there is a proposal that the redirect L. ( → Carl Linnaeus ) be replaced with the article at L. Inc.. Members of this project may be interested. 92.249.211.146 (talk) 04:26, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Possible serial subtle vandalism

An IP keeps making small changes to high level taxon articles that I suspect are subtle vandalism. (See here.) A number of the edits change the fossil range, and for the ones I have checked, the changes are contradicted by the cited sources. Other changes are to classification, and I am having difficulty sorting out which changes are OK, given the often variable classifications in the cited sources. I don't feel competent to judge which changes to classifications are within norms. - Donald Albury 16:26, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

I am delighted to see that you have brought this matter up as I was about to do so myself. It seems to me that there are several IPs, or one using several computers. Medusozoa for example has been "attacked" several times, and the IP never justifies their edit by using an edit summary. User: 118.144.129.2 for example has made thirty or so of these changes in the past two weeks and I don't know whether the changes are vandalism or genuine attempts to improve Wikipedia. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 20:55, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Impossible to tell. I think we should revert all the changes and explain rather clearly that explanations and sources are needed for pretty much everything. Of course warnings are available. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:56, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
I've been reverting some of the fossil range changes, but I did not feel comfortable dealing with the classification changes. - Donald Albury 01:30, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
I think this is likely the same IP user discussed here and using IP addresses 36.102.208.77, 42.101.65.132, 42.101.65.133, and 42.101.65.134. At first, I was reverting all their edits as unsourced and possible subtle vandalism, but after looking into the changes of one article in detail (Opisthokont), I believe the info is actually valid. Loopy30 (talk) 03:54, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Wild vs. captive animals in lead images

I thought I saw one time a stated preference for wild rather than captive animals, all other things being equal, when selecting an image for the lead of an animal article. I cannot find it now -- did I imagine it? I know that there is such a preference in, for example, Commons FPCs, but that is not, of course, applicable to enwiki. The impetus for my asking was that a couple years ago I changed the infobox image of California sea lion from a picture of an animal in a zoo to one in the wild (and an image that seemed better anyway). It was changed back, at some point, to include separate images of a male and female in zoos with, again, neither of necessarily higher quality than images we have of wild animals. I've gone ahead and replaced it with two different images, but I want to see if there's a guideline on my side somewhere, or if there's no guidance anywhere and it's just down to standard article-level discussion?

TL;DR - does this WikiProject have a preference to use images of wild animals in the lead of animal articles, when the quality is comparable? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 03:41, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Should it have? I guess there's some slight advantage in having "genuine" wild images, but these are never going to be easy to obtain, and captive images, or for that matter those of laboratory and museum specimens, will be both more plentiful and often of better quality. It's obviously undesirable to have zoo paraphernalia (concrete, wire netting, etc) in images, but that aside, I don't see any special reason (beyond romantic notions) to avoid captive images. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:25, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
It should probably be taken on a case by case basis. There have also been cases of the best photos of some birds having human hands in the frame, and subsequently objections to using them in the taxobox. Could certainly warrant some discussion. Other issues with some captive animals could be that they are variations that do not exist in the wild, as is the case with some birds. FunkMonk (talk) 09:14, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
I don't disagree that images of captive animals will typically be easier to obtain, and that the quality may be higher because it's typically easier to photograph. My main point is that, all things being equal, a wild animal should be preferred. As mentioned above, there may be differences in the animal, but also the context/background/setting for the photo is [vary degrees of] artificial. I wouldn't advocate for avoiding them altogether -- we should illustrate our articles the best we can; just when we do have two images of comparable quality, it seems to me there should be a preference for the natural setting. Lots of edge cases (sparrows, pigeons, housecats?) and lots of gray area (what is "comparable"), to be sure. Ultimately it sounds like what I thought existed in terms of a guideline along these lines doesn't actually exist, but that there's going to be some consensus that, at minimum, it's not irrelevant... — Rhododendrites talk \\ 23:35, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Wildscreen Arkive

I see on the Wildscreen Arkive website that the site is being discontinued from February 15th 2019. This is sad because it is an interesting site which I and others have used as a source. It would be a good thing if we were to archive the references used in Wikipedia, but I don't know how to do this. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 20:59, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

I think the wayback machine automatically screenshots links that Wikipedia uses (but if you’re unsure, you can search for each link manually on the wayback machine, and it’ll ask you if you’d like to take a screenshot of it because it’s still available on the web)   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  05:25, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Rfc on new classification scheme

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comment: new classification scheme for eukaryotes, which asks for comments on how we should deal with a proposed new classification system that has widespread ramifications across the tree of life. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:46, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Vernacular names: use actual spelling in sources or follow prescriptive rules?

I had a minor edit war with @Pvmoutside: should a species with vernacular name referring to Wilhelm Peters be spelled Peters' leaf-toed gecko or Peters's leaf-toed gecko? My position was to follow the actual spelling used in the source (Peters'), whereas Pvmoutside argued that "all animals (and other names)use apostrophe after "s" followed by the other s. Not proper grammar I know, but that is convention". Afterwards they posted a list of WP pages that follow that convention to my talk page. However, to me, there appears not to be a convention. Possessive forms of Peters (and alike) are variously spelled “Peters'”, “Peters's”, or “Peter's”, the last being "wrong" in sense that it misinterprets the origin. My hunch is that the first form actually is the most common one, and it is the one followed by Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles as well as Eponym Dictionary of Amphibians. Nevertheless, it is my understanding that we should follow the spelling that is actually being used in reliable sources. If this is correct, I would appreciate if somebody could revert Peters's leaf-toed gecko to Peters' leaf-toed gecko as I have reached my revert limit. There are also examples of similar page names that may not reflect the most common usage (e.g., Peters's wrinkle-lipped bat). Cheers, Micromesistius (talk) 02:33, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

"Most common" can be wrong -- if it contains a mistake, like "Peter's". Since the man's name was "Peters", the genitive is plainly "Peters'" (if we pronounce it like "Peterz") or in desperation "Peters's" (if we pronounce it "Peterziz"): this native Brit uses "Peterz", and of course other folks may well use "Peterziz". Both, in other words, may well be "right".
Since in addition the vernacular names are not controlled by the naming committee like the Latin specific names, we should do what is right not what is most common. When two things are "right", it might be easiest to tell readers there are valid alternatives. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:01, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Fixing inconsistent ranks in taxonomy templates

Input sought At Wikipedia talk:Automated taxobox system/Archive 1#Fixing inconsistent ranks in taxonomy templates I've suggested some alternative ways of fixing inconsistent ranks in taxonomy templates. They could make it easier to deal with the problem of inconsistent classification systems, e.g. the ones used for birds and dinosaurs, or the ones used for mammals and dinosaurs. Be warned that it's a long post, but it very much needs input, particularly from "old hands" at using the automated taxobox system. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:44, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Echiura

Having seen the previous post, I have no desire to wade into the discussion. But I would like to change the automatic taxobox in Echiura so that it is a subclass of Polychaeta, which seems to be the accepted view. There are only a dozen members of the category "Echiurans" and some already have Echiura as a subclass. I would make the change to the automatic taxobox myself if I knew how. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:35, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi Cwmhiraeth, the change is done as requested. To change the rank in a taxobox, complete the following steps:
  1. Click on the red pencil in the taxobox. This opens up the taxobox template for editing (template link).
  2. Change the rank value from |rank=classis to |rank =subclassis. Note that taxa ranks are all latinized and lower case. A complete list of taxa rank values can be accessed from a link on any taxonomy template editing page (here).
  3. Change the |parent = value to the new parent name.
  4. Add edit summary and save.
Hope this helps, Loopy30 (talk) 12:22, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
Thank you. I'll do it myself next time. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:24, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Inconsistent taxonomy

The fluke genus Paragonimus is in the family Paragonomidae according to the taxobox, but the species Paragonimus kellicotti is in the family Troglotrematidae according to the taxobox. Both could usefully be converted to automated taxoboxes, but the family needs to be sorted first. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:42, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Paragonomidae is correct (EoL). I shall make the changes shortly. Loopy30 (talk) 15:34, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Another one: Craniiformea is the title of an article, and the taxobox targets this taxon as a subphylum, but the article begins "Craniata (formerly Craniforma) is a class ..." and (class) Craniata is given in the taxobox as a synonym for (subphylum) Craniiformea. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:05, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Following a search of the taxa names and a brief review of the literature, it appears that since the subphylum Craniiformea is monotypic, the present article should be moved to its only constituent class, Craniata. The text already reflects most of this and the taxobox could be adjusted to match.
However, the article title Craniata is already in use, currently being a redirect to Craniate (the clade of chordate animals with skulls). A reasonable solution then would be to move Craniiformea to Craniata (class), where it could be re-worded and fixed. Loopy30 (talk) 13:33, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
@Loopy30: ok, thanks. I moved the article to Craniata (brachiopod), since this is completely unambiguous as to the group of organisms intended. I changed the taxonomy templates and copy-edited the article a bit. It needs someone else to look it over, and also some more references. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:48, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll have a look to make it coherent. Possibly the best reference is the one that I could not get a copy of. It is Part H (Brachiopoda (Revised)) of the Treatise on Paleontology published by the Paleontological Institute at the University of Kansas. Particularly, I would like to review Volume 2 & 3 (pages unknown) as it contains the systematic description of Craniiformea and Volume 6:Supplement (pages xxxix - Outline of Suprafamilial Classification and Authorship; and pages 2590-2595 - Systematic Description Update for Craniata). 'Cheers, Loopy30 (talk) 14:28, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

How about adding Animal lifespans in infobox(Speciesbox) ?

I’d like to suggest that the average lifespan of living creatures be included in their infobox(Speciesbox) or Taxobox on Wikipedia, where possible.... Eatcha (talk) 06:14, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Taxoboxes are for taxonomy, primarily. There's already too much information in some taxoboxes, lifespans can be discussed in the article, where there is reliable information. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:55, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
I second that. There's enough in there as is. Sabine's Sunbird talk 17:07, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
I agree with Peter and Sabine's Sunbird....Pvmoutside (talk) 19:34, 10 March 2019 (UTC)
Indeed, not to mention that it's pretty poorly known for the vast majority of species, and it's not a definitive characteristic, either. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:41, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Request for opinions on proposed list

Hi all, I haven't worked much in the animals area before, but I was inspired by the relatively recent Featured Lists List of parrots and List of fruit bats to build up a similar list, and was also inspired by the difficulties I noticed at those lists' FLCs in updating the whole list evenly to write a short program to generate the main tables instead of manually writing them. The result has been User:PresN/cats, covering all of Felidae, where you can see the input data and the resulting list. As I haven't worked in this area before, I have a few questions I hope some people here may be able to answer:

  1. I included only members of the family Felidae, because that seemed a natural cutoff (cats), and at 41 species it was more manageable for a proof of concept than suborder Feliformia (~120 species) or order Carnivora (already at List of species in order Carnivora) (~300 species). The parrots list is an order, though, and fruit bats a suborder; Is Felidae a good cutoff? Is there any guidelines around that?
  2. If Felidae is a good cutoff, what should the name be? List of felines? List of Felidae species?
  3. Is the structure/content of the tables good? This is the one I'm most nervous about, since I'd like to be able to use this as a template going forward, but I also just based it off the parrots/bats lists, so I don't know if it's really best practices- are the scientific names that important? Are the original genus/species describer's names? Are they so important that I should be listing them for subspecies as well?

Thanks in advance for any comments! --PresN 05:23, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

This list was created at List of felids, and is now nominated at FLC here. --PresN 03:50, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello,
Please note that Organ (anatomy), which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 18 March 2019 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Numerous incorrect redirects

I mentioned this problem on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Algae, but it is broader than just algae.

The user User:Galactikapedia has been creating countless redirects from species to the corresponding genus, such as Porphyra guangdongensis and Diploderma varcoae (which redirect to the original pages, Porphyra and Diploderma respectively). He's done the same thing on many other plant and animal pages as far back as 2017 (see Ephemera annandalei). In my opinion these redirects should be deleted and this contributor should be prevented from doing more damage. --Polinizador (talk) 13:23, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's a very wrong behaviour. It may require admin action if there's a clear refusal to stop; the sooner the better, really. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:30, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

List of deadliest animals to humans

This would seem to be of interest to our readers, and easily sources. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 22:01, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Changes at Monkey

Please see Talk:Monkey/Archive 1#Changed without discussion re this reversion I made. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:31, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Request for comment at Felidae

Requesting a wider discussion at Talk:Felidae#Classification table; recently List of felids was created (by me), and in response a large classification table was added to Felidae. Would like a wider discussion about whether the table is a good fit for that article. --PresN 16:49, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

IUCN status broken

{{IUCN status}} appears to be broken, as IUCN has removed the redirects it was relying on as a part of the website update. For example, in the documentation it gives an example of {{IUCN status}} (Ginkgo biloba), which links to iucnredlist.org/details/32353/0; this is just redirecting to the iucnredlist home page, instead of to the actual species page of iucnredlist.org/species/32353/9700472. Does anyone know anything about how to adjust to this change? It doesn't seem to be as simple a fix as swapping out "details" with "species", as [3] just gives a 404 page. The old pages are reachable at e.g. oldredlist.iucnredlist.org/details/32353/0, but that's not tenable in the long run as they will presumably remove that at some point. The template isn't used that widely, so the pages can probably be adjusted manually, but ideally we can update the template itself instead. --PresN 18:27, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

There are currently 109 pages affected (list here). This is a lot better than the roughly 3,000 pages disrupted by the IUCN status ref links in Oct 2018. Perhaps Tom.Reding knows a faster way than addressing this manually? Loopy30 (talk) 19:24, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
This seems to be affecting {{IUCN}} now as well, similar to Oct 2018... http://oldredlist.iucnredlist.org/details/32353/0 ironically is the most stable and still works.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  13:57, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Category:Corals described in YEAR

Discussion @ WT:MARINELIFE#Category:Corals described in YEAR.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:00, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

A possible Science/STEM User Group

There's a discussion about a possible User Group for STEM over at Meta:Talk:STEM_Wiki_User_Group. The idea would be to help coordinate, collaborate and network cross-subject, cross-wiki and cross-language to share experience and resources that may be valuable to the relevant wikiprojects. Current discussion includes preferred scope and structure. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 03:04, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

A proposal for WikiJournals to become a new sister project

Over the last few years, the WikiJournal User Group has been building and testing a set of peer reviewed academic journals on a mediawiki platform. The main types of articles are:

  • Existing Wikipedia articles submitted for external review and feedback (example)
  • From-scratch articles that, after review, are imported to Wikipedia (example)
  • Original research articles that are not imported to Wikipedia (example)

Proposal: WikiJournals as a new sister project

From a Wikipedian point of view, this is a complementary system to Featured article review, but bridging the gap with external experts, implementing established scholarly practices, and generating citable, doi-linked publications.

Please take a look and support/oppose/comment! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 11:09, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Apororhynchus - An experiment

I'm not sure if anyone else is interested, but I was conducting a little experiment to see if I could research and expand the article for the first animal listed alphabetically using the taxonomy system. This lead me to Apororhynchus (Animalia, Acanthocephala, Archiacanthocephala, Apororhynchida, Apororhynchidae, Apororhynchus). I've now done my very best and appear to have gathered all the information I could from google scholar articles (there is not much out there on these tiny parasitic worms). I'm wondering if anyone else would like to collaborate and copy-edit the article to maybe get it promoted to good article? I realize this is a very niche request. Thanks anyway! Mattximus (talk) 21:38, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Well why not. But I'm much less sure it's a good idea to try to list all species in a family article, as at Quadrigyridae. In general there can be far too many for comfort, and such a list would in any case also duplicate the genus articles, the taxoboxes, and the category system, and perhaps some list articles also. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:59, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
Agreed, I believe I have only done this when there are no genus pages to hold the data. If the genera pages are ever made for the family, then the list can just be copied over to the respective genera pages. I think it's better to have the list than not at all, even if it's not in the most ideal place for the moment, as I've already found some orphaned articles this way. Mattximus (talk) 14:04, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Level 4 vital articles

Anybody interested in these "vital article" levels might want to chime in (yay or nay) on a bird-related suggestion here. MeegsC (talk) 20:40, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello,
Please note that Organ (anatomy), which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 5 August 2019 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Edit warring of etymologies

A discussion has been started at WP:Tree of Life regarding recent edit warring behavior of taxonomic etymologies. Comments are requested.--Kevmin § 03:06, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Questions about species articles

Hi all

I have a couple of basic questions about species I'm hoping someone can answer, I'm planning a project and want to confirm a few things (links to policy would be extremely helpful.

  1. Are all species notable? I.e if someone writes an article about a species it won't be nominated for deletion as non notable.
  2. Would 1 reference be an acceptable minimum standard for new species articles? It would be from IUCN, if not what would be the minimum requirement?
  3. Has there been any discussion of using Wikidata fed infoboxes on species articles?

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 10:33, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Hello John, yes all species are considered notable enough to have their own article (see WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES). It could have only a single reference to an authoritative source to support it. Often the various WikiProjects (WP:BIRDS, WP:INSECTS, etc) have reference resources listed on their pages to help you. You should consider if the information available is sufficient for more than just a one-line stub. If not, then perhaps consolidate the info at a higher taxon article (genus or family). The use of Wikidata to support taxoboxes has been discussed previously and found to be not desirable for all situations on Wikipedia (see here and here). What is the area/project you are interested in starting? ' Cheers, Loopy30 (talk) 11:37, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks very much @Loopy30:, this is really helpful. I'm going to ask some people I met from IUCN if they would be willing to release their species descriptions (which they called Amazing Species) and assessments under CC BY-SA 3.0 so they can be used to create new articles and improve existing ones. Do you know of any examples of open license descriptions being used to create Wikipedia articles about species? Thanks again John Cummings (talk) 18:42, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I believe many thousands of stub species articles were created by Polbot circa 2007-2008 by Polbot Function #6 when it automatically scraped the IUCN Red List. Searching the archives of User talk:Quadell for "polbot species" will give you some more examples. Loopy30 (talk) 19:24, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
Casey's June beetle incorporates material from a public domain source (a US government publication). I know I've seen text from other sources with licenses compatible with CC BY-SA, but no examples come to mind. CC BY-SA compatible journals are often used as a source for images of newly described species. Plantdrew (talk) 20:33, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
@Plantdrew: and @Loopy30: thanks very much. John Cummings (talk) 14:39, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello,
Please note that Organ (anatomy), which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 2 September 2019 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Decline in insect populations

I have my doubts about the accuracy of a new article Decline in insect populations, and have expressed my concerns on the talk page. Other views would be welcome. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:33, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree. I wonder whether the whole article should be deleted. --Polinizador (talk) 20:49, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

I believe a number of studies in progress or finishing up are endeavoring to confirm the findings of the earlier PLOS One German study (ie Hallman et al). It seems prudent to let stand until those results are in. [1]Soulrtree (talk) 17:06, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Scientific American Nov 2018

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:23, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

First annual Tree of Life Decemberween contest

After all the fun with the Spooky Species Contest last month, there's a new contest for the (Northern hemisphere's) Winter holidays at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Contest. It's not just Christmas, but anything festive from December-ish. Feel free to add some ideas to the Festive taxa list and enter early and often. --Nessie (talk) 17:35, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Redirect templates using Module: Science redirect: further parameters?

I've started a discussion about the activation of two further parameters for the redirect templates using Module:Science redirect at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Redirect#Templates using Module: Science redirect: consensus for activation of further parameters?. Please comment there to keep discussion together. AddWittyNameHere 02:51, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Name of a Worm

I was made aware of an attempt to have the common name of Eunice aphroditois be changed from "Bobbit" to "sandstriker" for reasons outlined in this Atlas Obscura article. In summary, "Bobbit" is the last name of the abusive husband, and some people feel it should not be used. Since it is only one source and not yet widely adopted, I have not made the change myself. But I mention it here in case others feel it is worth mentioning in the wikipedia article and/or know of other sources that have taken up the new common name. TelosCricket (talk) 17:41, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

I’m glad the article is at the linnean name, so we don’t have an extended RM battle. Unfortunately it is still a common name, in both senses of the term. Looks like some RS should be around for the newer name, to include in the article as well. Sadly taxonomy is riddled with problematic names, often much worse than this. --Nessie (talk) 21:26, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
like many "common" names for obscure organisms, bobbit worm was made up by somebody writing a field guide. But the name appears to have driven interest in this animal, and it is now fairly well attested so we can't just ignore it. I do think it is a very stupid name. When I went to the article after seeing this thread, I was expecting to see that it was named due to losing a copulatory organ during mating (as sometimes happens with other animals; see e.g. hectocotylus). But I guess it is named for vaguely resembling a penis, at a time when Bobbit's penis was featured prominently in media? There are lots of other animals that more closely resemble human penises. Plantdrew (talk) 22:59, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
The Priapulids, among others. Our job as encyclopedists, for such we are, however humbly, is to reflect usage, however we may personally judge it. If the public see fit to insist that a vessel be named Boaty McBoatface, and that is discussed at length in reliable sources, then it's a notable fact. If we never covered anything "stupid", our pages would be slim indeed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:10, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
@Plantdrew:, according to the Atlas Obscura article, "Gosliner says [...] he originally named it as a way to vindicate Gallo, who had been found not guilty at trial. “I think that it’s celebrating that she took matters into her own hands, so to speak, and delivered what some people felt was justice,” he says. “And it’s reflective of the fact that the worm has the ability to deliver this lethal blow.” Gosliner also explains that he chose to spell the worm’s name with just one “t” so it would be less closely linked to the trial, and that the name nods to the worm’s tendency to bob up and down from its burrow. Martini, however, is more concerned with impact than intent.". So, less about it looking vaguely like a penis and more about its viciousness? *shrugs* TelosCricket (talk) 16:49, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Sections within animal articles: is there any defined sequence?

I have noticed that articles about animals have a number of common sections (description, distribution, habitat, threats, etc.), none of which seems to be mandatory. I also notice that the order in which these sections appear is not set. Has any effort been made recently to establish a sequence, or is it up to article creators? The lack of uniformity can make for substantial inconvenience to the reader.--Quisqualis (talk) 21:03, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Quisqualis, I don't think there is a standard or mandatory sequence. I have an order I prefer that I'm trying to make fairly standard across articles related to bats:
  • Taxonomy
  • Description
  • Biology/ecology/behavior
  • Range and habitat
  • Relationship to humans (not always applicable)
  • Conservation/threats
Across many articles, I think it is very common to have "taxonomy" and then "description" for the first two section, but there tends to be more variability in the rest of the article depending on what's been published. Enwebb (talk) 21:09, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. I agree with your approach.--Quisqualis (talk) 21:13, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Quisqualis, many of the daughter projects have some guidelines on section order. I'm not sure how consistently followed those guidelines are for any particular group. Most of the guidelines have a fairly similar order, with some disagreement about whether to put the taxonomy/classification section at the beginning or end of the article (and also where to put range/habitat and behavior/ecology relative to each other).
And you asked about animals, but probably worth mentioning Wikipedia:WikiProject_Plants/Template as well (taxonomy follows description). Plantdrew (talk) 21:50, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Glad there is some measure of "rhyme or reason"!--Quisqualis (talk) 21:53, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
I usually end up with a ‘Names’ § first, between the etymologies, common names, and names in local languages. I usually don’t end up with a taxonomy § as i don't usually find cladograms. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ --Nessie (📥) 05:12, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
I think we can all sympathise with the desire for some kind of standardisation, as it's a helpful place to begin and can often help us to structure our thoughts and searches while editing. However, there's also a case for quite a wide degree of freedom. For instance, some articles such as on pest insects may have an extensive 'Interactions with humans' section, while others may need none. "Description" and "Biology" cannot be rigidly separated (nor can "Anatomy", "Physiology" and "Behaviour", or any other such attempt at standardisation). "Taxonomy" is in some ways not really much of a subject at all, pace Linnaeus and successors; the deeper subject is "Evolution", which may include "Fossil history", "Phylogeny", and "Taxonomy", this last however often readily subsumed into a decent phylogenetic tree or sometimes two or three conflicting cladograms with a discussion of how tricky it is to sort the relationships out (as Lamarck said of Linnaeus's taxonomy, "un espèce de chaos"). "Conservation/threats" is of course also a subsection of the clunkily-titled "Relationship to Humans". In short, I doubt very much whether any standardisation can be described as "correct" other than in the narrowest Perkins sense (he liked to keep his desk tidy, but had few creative thoughts). It will be fine to suggest to new editors a "typical" structure, but not fine at all to insist that it be followed rigidly. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:50, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
Amen to that – Epipelagic (talk) 01:56, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
I think we could have a project page section on acceptable section orders and names, like was done at the dinosaur project:[4] I think we should avoid calling description sections fancy words like "morphology", for example, though that is done in some articles. FunkMonk (talk) 09:06, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Nematodes described in (the year) XXXX

I've been working with the nowiki categorisation of animals by year of description, and in the process investigated sister categories here and elsewhere. I then found the Category:Nematodes by year of formal description, with one daughter and a few granddaughter categories. I noted that most nematode species articles that indeed have a "described in XXXX" category seemed to be categorised in "Animals described in XXXX", which I took as mistakes. I've therefore changed the category description of some 150 nematode species articles from Animals described in XXXX to Nematodes described in XXXX; and in the process extended the number of nematode by year description categories from a mere handful to (up to now) some 90. When applicable, I iwlinked the new categories with their nowiki sisters (by means of wikidata). I did not categorise the many nematode parasite species articles without any "described in XXXX" category; they often seemed to be written by editors focusing more on the illnesses caused by these parasites than on their taxonomy.

However, some of the links on discussions I followed made me suspect that this was controversial. I therefore interrupted my recategorisations, and asked Peter coxhead for advise. As you can see in User talk:Peter coxhead#Have I done something stupid?, he confirmed my suspicion that my recategorisations might be controversal, and suggested this place for asking for a more general opinion.

As far as I understood Peter, his main objection was that there are relatively few nematode species articles classified by year of description, compared to e. g. the total number of articles in the Birds classified in XXXX. This is true. Of course, if I continue the interrupted reclassification project, with the principles I've applied so far, the total number of members in the Nematodes described in categories might go up from the present approximately 160 to perhaps 300; and if I also classified the nematode species articles which now have no "described in XXXX" category, perhaps another few hundreds might be added. I also noted that there are a substantial amount of redlinks to nematode species articles; perhaps these will be written in the future. Still, even so, I guess that the total number of described nematode species probably would not exceed a few thousand; and anyhow would be substantially smaller than the number of described bird species. However, perhaps comparisons with e. g. the number of described bivalve species and the corresponding categories would be more adequate.

From the articles I went through, I get the impression that the interest for nematode taxonomy has increased the last few decades, much because especially the free-living nematodes serve well as 'model organisms'. (There is no coincidense that 15 of the 18 members of Category:Nematodes described in 2014 concern species described in one article concerning the taxonomy of the genus Caenorhabditis, which also contains C. elegans.)

My conclusion is that I find the "Nematodes described..." categories reasonable, and am willing to continue my systematic recategorisation into such categories. In addition, if you find this reasonable, I could categorise the uncategorised nematode species articles. I'll however abide by any consensus opinion from you Project Animal people about this. JoergenB (talk) 19:37, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

A correction: I seemingly underestimated the potential number of nematode species. I checked in the Swedish encyclopædia Nationalencyklopedin, which in 1995 wrote that there were 12000 known species of nematodes, but probably a large number unknown. Our article Nematode reports that in 2013 Zootaxa estimated the number of described species to 25000. Thus, anyhow, the number clearly exceeds the number of described species of birds (and my feeling that the number of described nematode ones per year has grown tangibly in recent time seems to be supported by facts). Still, the number of nematode species articles in the present enwiki probably is much smaller than the corresponding number of bird articles. JoergenB (talk) 10:45, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
I got no reaction at all here. On Peter's talk page (User talk:Peter coxhead#Have I done something stupid?), he does express doubts about creating categories with small content, but no absolute opposition towards the undertaking. I'll therefore continue what I started, converting categorisations of nematode species articles from Animals described in XXXX to Nematodes described in XXXX, for those already categorised. When I'm finished, I'll report this fact here. (Actually, if some of you then finds the result awful, it would not be that hard to undo by a 'bot run. Finding the nematode species articles in the first place seems a bit more complicated, since they IMHO are not quite consistently categorised.) JoergenB (talk) 17:49, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I now have finished the original plan. There now are (I think) 248 different nematode species articles in 116 categories Nematodes described in XXXX. (The species Gongylonema neoplasticum was described in two animal year categories, and now is described in two nematode ones.) To this comes 5 higher levels nematode by year description categories.

I think that the majority of described nematode species are not mentioned in enwiki; the majority of those mentioned do not (yet) have separate articles; and the majority of those with separate articles had and have no "described in XXXX" categorisation. However, for now, I've finished my part. JoergenB (talk) 06:23, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

@JoergenB: It's interesting to note that English Wikipedia only has articles for about 1% of the 30,000 described nematode species (out of what may be more than a million). I did a search for nematodes using manual taxoboxes for nematode species (118 results), of which 60 don't have the year described categories (if my search is correct), e.g. Anguina agrostis. There are also the categories Category:Agricultural pest nematodes and Category:Plant pathogenic nematodes which might help catch more nematode species articles. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:39, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
@Jts1882: I didn't categorise the articles in "Nematodes by..." which weren't already in "Animals by...". One reason was that many of them looked more as medical/veterinary/agricultural discussions of illness and treatments than as species descriptions. I noted that in some cases there already are separate articles for the organism and the illness, and I wonder if not a similar treatment of the subjects might be good also in some other cases — before categorising the organism oriented one further. A good example is Trichuriasis and Trichuris trichiura. However, I'm fairly ignorant about nematode systematics, and rather ignorant about the medical aspects, whence others should be more apt to decide about this. JoergenB (talk) 19:58, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Organization the Acanthocephalan pages

I’m trying to better organize the Acanthocephalan pages, starting alphabetically. I recently got Apororhynchus up to featured article status, and have nominated two more Gigantorhynchus and Moniliformidae for good article, on the way to becoming featured articles.

I’m wondering if you have any advice on how to best structure taxonomic pages for species that have very little research on them, perhaps only a paragraph worth of information. My default is to merge them into the genus page, so that it’s not forever a stub with no views, as I’ve done with Apororhynchus. I’m certain that it’s better to have a single featured article instead of a multitude of stubs of countless species.

However, I’m wondering if there is a compelling reason to not structure the page this way when it comes to Moniliformidae. This family has 3 genera, two of which are monophyletic so would fall into the stub forever category if they were split off into their own genus page. So I decided to put all species into the family page instead of the respective genus pages. What do you think about this? Any advice on how to handle Oligacanthorhynchidae which has the same problem but magnified due to the 12 genera present?

Thanks for your input!

Mattximus (talk) 19:15, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

@Mattximus: well, even if they are extinct, it wouldn't be forever. Someone will study them in depth at some point. Most of those descriptions were before DNA was much studied, so I imagine with metagenomics and full genome sequencing things could change dramatically. --awkwafaba (📥) 22:28, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

strange sentence about Rattlesnake

Rattlesnake#Avoiding_bites says " rattlesnake heads can see ... after being severed from the body." This seems wrong.--Taranet (talk) 09:24, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Does sound remarkable. The source says "there is a real danger in handling the recently severed head of a venomous snake, since it can still see, flick its tongue, and inflict a poisonous bite for up to an hour after having been separated from its body." Chickens certainly can run without their heads, and tortoises can live rather well without their forebrains for many months. The source of the claim (Texas Snakes: Identification, Distribution, and Natural History By John E. Werler, James R. Dixon, University of Texas Press, 2010) is natural history rather than hard science, but it's likely to be based on real events. The claim is repeated in better sources, such as Notes from the Extension Veterinarians, Kansas State University. Cooperative Extension Service - 1969.
The claim about being able to see must the weakest part of the thing: how would one know? It might be that the head senses heat, touch, or scent, after all. Perhaps therefore "see" should be emended to "sense". Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:16, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The sensory cells will still function to some extent and might be able to trigger a reflex action. But this wouldn't be "seeing" in the cognitive sense. I'd delete the "see" from the sentence. The "it can still flick its tongue and inflict a poisonous bite" is based on observation. The rest is speculation. —  Jts1882 | talk  10:24, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I already did. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:35, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

this book says 'creature often can bite reflexively for periods lasting up to an hour after death as can its decapitated head ' on page 5.--Taranet (talk) 10:39, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

I think it needs more edits to separate Superstitions from facts.--Taranet (talk) 10:43, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Veterinarians aren't very superstitious, so it might be better to use the source I've given above. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:45, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Godzillus

Is it appropriate for Godzillus to have a taxobox or the "Fossil taxa described in 2011" category, when it has never been formally described as a taxon? I'm not sure if its name should even be in italics, since "Godzillus" was always just a nickname for the fossil. Monster Iestyn (talk) 16:28, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I'd have thought so. Maybe there shouldn't even be an article per WP:TOOSOON. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:14, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
I dunno if WP:TOOSOON applies here? It's notability was mainly about being a "mystery fossil [that] stumps scientists" or some variation back in 2012, at least originally. Monster Iestyn (talk) 18:56, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Single event? That would be very doubtfully notable. But given that the name is not the actual name of a species, it's definitely not ideal for an article. Best trash the taxobox, I think. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:09, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
True, it does seem doubfully notable. I'm personally only aware of its existence because it pops up in project maintenance listings as an orphan (has been since it was made). Unless there was some "List of notable mystery fossils" or something similar, I'm not sure how you would even de-orphan it at all. Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:22, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Then AfD is the right place. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:37, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Diadematoidea and Echinothurioidea

The sea urchin taxon articles Diadematoidea and Echinothurioidea both need some attention. Apart from anything else, both of them rely on just a single article as reference, and the same one as well. This one reference shared by them, however, actually doesn't even mention them by name but instead as "diadematoids" and "echinothurioids". Unfortunately, I suspect that makes it equally likely it could be talking about the sea urchin orders Diadematoida and Echinothurioida. Can anyone shed some light on whether we should even have the former two articles at all or not? Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:58, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

@Monster Iestyn: I think you are right that they refer to the orders. WoRMS places Diadematoida in Infraclass Acroechinoidea (link) and places Echinothurioida in Subclass Euechinoidea with no Infraclass (link). A phylogenetic analysis (Kroh & Smith, 2010 recovers echinothurioids as sister to acroechinoids (all other echinoids), in which diadematoids are paraphyletic. Wikidata has Diadematoidea as an order and Echinothurioidea as an infraorder (neither with a reference). It seems most likely that the ranks used for the two groups have been unstable and that Diadematoidea and Echinothurioidea are synonyms for the current orders.
As neither are properly sourced and don't add anything useful, I think both of the infraclass articles should be redirect to the order articles. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:13, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Just turned them into redirects now, since nobody else did these last few months. Not sure what to do with the wikidata items though. Monster Iestyn (talk) 15:34, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
I think the Wikidata items are fine. The taxa exist even if redundant or no longer used. I've added the IDs to the {{taxonbar}}s in case they get any resource information added in Wikidata in future. —  Jts1882 | talk  16:01, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

CFD notification

OK. Plantdrew (talk) 19:04, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Hoilungia hongkongensis

I have created the article Hoilungia hongkongensis. Please expand it as you see fit. Axl ¤ [Talk] 14:06, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I added a taxobox, a taxonbar and a secondary source. I'll leave categories for someone who understands them better. —  Jts1882 | talk  14:51, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
I moved it to Hoilungia since it's monotypic   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  16:02, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. Axl ¤ [Talk] 19:22, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Speciesbox support for ranks between species and genus

At present, {{Speciesbox}} allows only one rank, subgenus, to be directly specified (i.e. not via a taxonomy template). All other such ranks need a taxonomy template to work with {{Speciesbox}}. Please see Template talk:Speciesbox#Ranks between species and genus for a request for comment relating to this. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:18, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello,
Please note that Organisms at high altitude, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 12 October 2020 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team

Update to peer review page

Hi all, I've boldly updated your project's peer review page (Wikipedia:WikiProject Animals/Peer reviews) by updating the instructions and archiving old reviews.

The new instructions use Wikipedia's general peer review process (WP:PR) to list peer reviews. Your project's reviews are still able to be listed on your local page too.

The benefits of this change is that review requests will get seen by a wider audience and are likely to be attended to in a more timely way (many WikiProject peer reviews remain unanswered after years). The Wikipedia peer review process is also more maintained than most WikiProjects, and this may help save time for your active members.

I've done this boldly as it seems your peer review page is pretty inactive and I am working through around 90 such similar peer review pages. Please feel free to discuss below - please ping me ({{u|Tom (LT)}}) in your response.

Cheers and hope you are well, Tom (LT) (talk) 00:27, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Myxobolus cerebralis Featured article review

I have nominated Myxobolus cerebralis for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:20, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Range map generation?

Who updates range maps for common species? Is there a wikiproject here or on commons devoted to that? – SJ + 17:52, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any collaborative efforts to create range maps. Cephas has been adding lots of maps for birds recently, and has made maps in response to requests on their commons account (c:User talk:Cephas). And MargaretRDonald makes maps for Australian plants. Plantdrew (talk) 18:20, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
BhagyaMani has made a number of range maps for cats and possibly some other small carnivores. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:02, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
True, I updated most of the maps for the cats. And some of small carnivores; i looked into Genetta maps today : as they were not changed significantly in the IUCN Red Lists, I kept the old ones, although they are not really nice. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 11:06, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

IUCN as range source

I have opened a discussion of this topic in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds because they are my primary interest. Comments from a wider audience appreciated! Craigthebirder (talk) 15:21, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sandbox organiser

Sandbox Organiser

A place to help you organise your work

Hi all

I've been working on a tool for the past few months that you may find useful, especially if you create new articles. Wikipedia:Sandbox organiser is a set of tools to help you better organise your draft articles and other pages in your userspace. It also includes areas to keep your to do lists, bookmarks, list of tools. You can customise your sandbox organiser to add new features and sections. Once created you can access it simply by clicking the sandbox link at the top of the page. You can create and then customise your own sandbox organiser just by clicking the button on the page. All ideas for improvements and other versions would be really appreciated.

Huge thanks to PrimeHunter and NavinoEvans for their work on the technical parts, without them it wouldn't have happened.

Hope its helpful

John Cummings (talk) 11:15, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

FAR for Seabird

I have nominated Seabird for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. (t · c) buidhe 01:28, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

I'll comment. ApproximateLand (talk) 00:07, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

FAR notice

I have nominated Fauna of Puerto Rico for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Hog Farm Talk 03:50, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Octolasion lacteum

Just found Octolasion lacteum. It could use some help. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 02:35, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Terrestrial animal

The Terrestrial animal article gets around 500 views per day (making it the #100 most viewed article of the Wikiproject, per Wikipedia:WikiProject_Animals/Popular_pages), yet it reads like a bad holdover from 2006 (which it indeed is) Dunkleosteus77 has proposed that it be merged into Terrestrial locomotion but it's gotten zero responses. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:11, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Split

A split proposal is in progress for Serengeti to Draft:Great Migration (Serengeti). Please discuss in at Talk:Serengeti#Split with your thoughts. Thank you. TigerScientist Chat 18:24, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

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