Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology/Archive 2

Cat gap is an article I just created. I think it's good enough for DYK, but I'm thinking about trying to get it up to FA status. But to do that, I'd definitely need some help. Raul654 (talk) 13:48, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see your problem - even Palaeos, which I generally use for orientation and refs when entering a new paleo subject area, stops at Ferae (=Creodonta + Carnivora). Carnivora has some refs you might find useful - give me a call if you can't access the full contents of these, I might be luckier. Other stuff I got by a quick Google:

• Cats of Africa pp 40ff looks fairly light but on the money, mentions "cat gap" 23 to 17 million years ago - so it's not just in N America.
• Evolution of Tertiary Mammals of North America pp 80-89 looks good, also mentions "cat gap"
• Deja vu, which you've already cited, may have other useful stuff, e.g. on disadvantages of hypercarnivory.
• Extinction may not be forever puts forward an ecological / climatic hypothesis about repeated occurence of certain forms and ecosystems.
• The Late Miocene Radiation of Modern Felidae: A Genetic Assessment appears to suggest that the fossil record of felids underestimates their abundance, diversity and divergence dates (based on abstract, I have not had time to fead full text). While searching it occured to me that, if the ancestors of felids went through a "size squeeze", that could explain a gap in the fossil record.

BTW if you like I can use Template:Annotated image to make the "family tree" image Image:Feliform-Timeline v01-1.png a lot more useful - see e.g. Eutheria.

It's dinner time (I'm in UK). I'll do a some more searching later. --Philcha (talk) 18:30, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To my mind, these things need to be polished:

• Is the cat gap a period in the fossil record, an extinction event, or both?
• Scope of the gap - The sources imply, but do not explicitely state, that it was worldwide but particularly affected North America.
• Are there any major topics or concepts that have been omitted so far? Raul654 (talk) 20:12, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've done some more searching, and found nothing that looked helpful - except possibly some stuff published via BioOne or in American Museum Novitates, neither of which I can access. If you can access these, try Google Scholar for 'felidae feliformes Miocene BioOne "American Museum Novitates"'.

Re your questions:

• "Is the cat gap a period in the fossil record, an extinction event, or both?" A few of the sources we've both found comment that the crucial period 27 to 18 million years ago is not well known outside the USA. But IIRC none commented on the possibility that the "cat gap" could be an artefact - and I was looking for that as a possible explanation. All that seems to be known is that so far the earliest Old World specimens of Pseudaelurus are 3-4M years older than the oldest known American ones. The full text of The Late Miocene Radiation of Modern Felidae: A Genetic Assessment suggests (discreetly) that it's an artefact: "This analysis indicated that the fossil record underestimates the first age of evolutionary divergences along each evolutionary branch on average by 76% or by 73% for the terminal branches and 79% for the internal branches. These figures are comparable to those derived for bats (Chiroptera) and support the perception that a large portion of felid evolutionary history is not represented in the fossil record". Since this was a molecular phylogeny analysis they were only concerned with ancestors of extant groups, not with any extinct side-branches. However I think that's compatible with there being a specifically N American cat gap, e.g. the horse family arose in N America, then some moved to Asia and the stay-at-homes died out.
• "Scope of the gap - The sources imply, but do not explicitly state, that it was worldwide but particularly affected North America." I'm not so sure they actually imply a worldwide gap, but you've spent longer on this. If I were a professional paleontologist I'd be very cautious about a worldwide gap, seeing how China has about doubled knowledge of the Cambrian explosion and the Late Cretaceous since about 1990, not to mention Latest Jurassic tyrannosauroids (Guanlong).
• "Are there any major topics or concepts that have been omitted so far?" Deja vu describes evolutionary pros and cons of hypercarnivory. There may be enough there to support a suggestion that feliformes were more vulnerable to local extinction because they have no "safety stock" of non-hypercarnivores to fall back on when the hypercarnivores suffered one of their periodic extinctions; OTOH caniformes had a "safety stock" of mesocarnivorous and omnivorous forms to see them through hard times. I can't remember whether it was "Deja vu" or Major Patterns in the History of Carnivorous Mammals or both that commented on the tendency of hypercarnivores (both feliformes and caniformes) to run out of road by becoming increasingly large and specialised.

I think the bottom line is that you can probably squeeze a little more out of the sources we've both found but that's it. The fundamental problem is the poor non-North American mammal fossil record for the Early Miocene. --Philcha (talk) 21:55, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have access to BioOne if it helps. (Many BioOne articles are also available at GeoScienceWorld, which I think you can access, Philcha. Worth checking). Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 23:00, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A bot has been set up, which looks through the new Wikipedia articles and picks up those that are likely related to paleontology. The search results are available at User:AlexNewArtBot/PaleontologySearchResult and are normally updated on a daily basis. Colchicum (talk) 01:15, 29 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Where can I put in a request for a picture of Daeodon. It really needs a good picture because one, the one there now is not very good, and two, I think it violates copyrights for Poser. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Metalraptor (talk • contribs) 02:24, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Why would it violate copyright? A drawing made in Photoshop doesn't violate copyright either. FunkMonk (talk) 22:14, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know if you're still around, but you can now request paleoart here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Palaeontology/Paleoart_review FunkMonk (talk) 10:22, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of editors have been trying to bring

Template:Equidae now is a redirect to

Hi all - thought I'd give you the heads-up that there is a new subtype of Category:Paleontology stubs for palaeontological sites - the template is {{Paleo-site-stub}}. Any help this project can give in populating it would be appreciated, though the stub-sorters will be working on it as well, of course. The new template is designed to replace {{paleo-stub}} and {{geology-stub}} on articles for specific fossil beds, formations, and the like and will categorise stubs into a subcategory of Category:Paleontology stubs. Please note that the template should be used with the appropriate geo-stub where known (so that, for instance, a fossil site in Texas would get both {{Paleo-site-stub}} and either {{Texas-geo-stub}} or one of its subtypes - but don't bother with a geo-stub if only the continent is listed in the article). Cheers, Grutness...wha? 23:33, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PS - feel free to find a better icon image than the one I've used (regard that as a "space-filler") Grutness...wha? 23:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again. Apologies in advance, because this is going to sound like a major criticism, which it's not intended to - the person I'm going to mention has done some excellent work in creating a lot of new articles... but... if you're looking for some work to do, then the huge series of articles on palaeontological sites created in December by User:Abyssal is in dire need.

The articles seem to have been created from a form article, and unfortunately there were a couple of glitches in that form - {{

As I say, this isn't intended as a criticism for the work one editor has done, more a heads-up on what could be a fruitful area of work for your project. Grutness...wha? 04:45, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The dinosaur fossil bearing formation articles are a long term project of mine. I haven't forgotten them, but after filling in the tables for every geologic formation bearing dinosaur remains identifiable to the genus level whose strata date earlier than the cretaceous apart from a couple in Asia, I've burnt out a bit. Don't worry, I'll get around to them. Help of course, though is always appreciated. Also, thanks Grutness for giving them a stub type and for fixing the expand template problems. Abyssal (talk) 15:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I guessed burnout may have been involved :) All the ones that were marked with paleo-stub now have the new stub type (about 230 of them). I'll try to go through a few and add locations (if Google can turn up where they are). Grutness...wha? 01:02, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

<3 Abyssal (talk) 01:17, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please provide input at

Back to Tarpan. It was was moved without any discussion to Equus ferus ferus, unilaterally by Una. I have requested the move to be discussed and undone if no consensus for the original move exists. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have nominated

I just created an article for Pachyostosis, which is was a redlink in Dugong, Dinocephalia, Haasiophis 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) 18:09, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just finished expanding the Haasiophis article from a one line stub. Would anyone be able to look over the article and proofread/teak it where needed? Also I haven't quite figured out how to asses the 5x expansion part of the DYK process, if someone familiar with it could see if it qualifies would they be willing to submit it for a DYK? Thanks again --Kevmin (talk) 19:40, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I decided to go for the DYK, Does anyone else have input on the article? Thanks --Kevmin (talk) 01:06, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the taxonomic and phylogenic classification systems shown in Tree of Life, Amphibians and Reptiles, and Palaeontology projects are confusing to folks who are not familiar with classification systems (who are, after all, a primary customer) because the two systems seem a little contradictory. A short, standardized lead-in paragraph describing the criteria of each system anywhere they are introduced would help immeasurably. To keep everyone on the same page, I’ve made this suggestion to all three projects.

74.242.254.68 (talk) 16:49, 9 February 2009 (UTC)Mike Sarles[reply]

Plesiosaur fans -- Libonectes and Elasmosaurus could both use some copyediting. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 03:15, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just put up the article, Australodelphis, I have been working up for the last couple of days. Would several people review the article before I put it up for DYK. Thanks --Kevmin (talk) 21:38, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In a similar vein to the above, the article for the crocodilian Deinosuchus is at FAC. J. Spencer (talk) 02:52, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could use some external links if anyone knows of any. Abyssal (talk) 03:12, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There was some talk at the dinosaur project about images of actual fossils or mounted skeletons having priority over images of artistic reconstructions (illustrations, models) for inclusion in the taxobox, because these are based on a minimum of "original research" in comparison, so that has pretty much become the norm in dinosaur articles, where appropriate images could be found. So (also in light of the big discussion about the validity of reconstructions a while back), shouldn't this apply to all articles about prehistoric extinct animals? FunkMonk (talk) 17:53, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, especially on taxa known from only spotty material. The reconstructions are great but they do have the element of (acceptable per WP) Original research.--Kevmin (talk) 18:25, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I think it is appropriate. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 07:22, 9 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Deinosuchus had a successful tilt at FAC, and now it's time for Edmontosaurus to take a stand. J. Spencer (talk) 19:26, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One or more generic lists of (non-mammalian) synapsids would be really useful, but I'm not sure what pages to actually create. I've considered options:

a.)

1. List of synapsids

b.)

1. List of pelycosaurs
2. List of therapsids

c.)

1. A separate list for each of the
   suborders

d.)

1. A generic list on each page of the respective
   suborders

To me, C and D seem to be a bit redundant when taking categories into consideration, so I was thinking that B would probably be the best option. I'm interested in hearing other points of view, though. And does anyone know of any good resources for starting something like this besides Mikko's site? Abyssal (talk) 16:57, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This new article could use expansion, referencing and illustrating using existing images, if anyone is keen. With a little work, it would be a good candidate for nomination to

How to categorize fossil/extinct/prehistoric gastropods? There are two similar categories Category:Prehistoric molluscs and Category:Extinct gastropods

• Category:Extinct invertebrates / Category:Prehistoric invertebrates / Category:Prehistoric molluscs / Category:Prehistoric cephalopods
• Category:Extinct invertebrates / Category:Extinct gastropods /

For example Tessarolax can be categorized into both of them, into Category:Prehistoric molluscs (or possibly into new Category:Prehistoric gastropods), and into Category:Extinct gastropods.

I think that all prehistoric gastropods are extinct but not all extinct gastropods are prehistoric. So we can have categories like this:

• Category:Extinct gastropods / Category:Prehistoric gastropods

but not like this:

• Category:Prehistoric gastropods / Category:Extinct gastropods

Is there an universal classification scheme? How to improve it and how to use it? Is there necessary to distinguish Extinct gastropods and Prehistoric gastropods in categories? There are many possibilities, for example like this this:

• Category:Extinct molluscs / Category:Extinct gastropods / Category:Recently extinct gastropods

or I think that this is enough like this:

• Category:Extinct molluscs / Category:Extinct gastropods

Maybe there is no need to change categories but just to add short explanation what should be categorized in certain categories. --Snek01 (talk) 08:30, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe there prehistoric gastropods should be in Category:Prehistoric gastropods only and gastropods extinct after year 1500 in Category:Extinct gastropods only according to the explanation text in Category:Extinct animals. --Snek01 (talk) 08:48, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]