Talk:Amphicoelias

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Good articleAmphicoelias has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
February 6, 2007Good article nomineeListed
June 15, 2008Good article nomineeListed
December 2, 2018Good article reassessmentKept
Current status: Good article

Pronunciation[edit]

According to the pronunciation guide, the "coe" in Amphicoelias is to be pronounced "koi". Is there any rational reason for this? Is it etymologically different from the "coe" in "coelacanth", which is pronounced "see"? SpectrumDT 22:23, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You pronounce coelacanth with a "see"? :o0 Just kidding. There are no pronunciation rules. "Koi" is as in Greek. In Latin they said something like the French "eu". Both options are less confusing than making it sound as if it were Amphicelias--MWAK 08:41, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Dinosauria online [1] lists the pronunciation as AM-fi-SEEL-ee-as, so I'm gonig to switch to that. I can't think of any dinosaurs where "see" is not used for coe; coelurosauria, Coelophysis, etc. Even if this is a situation like Centrosaurus (correctly pronounced KEN-tro-saur-us), or Caeser (correctly pronounced Kaiser), I think common usage should be preserved.Dinoguy2 22:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Centrosaurus with a K would be very unfortunate, since there is also a Kentrosaurus... SpectrumDT (talk) 15:46, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The way I heard it, Kentrosaurus was actually named almost as a pun on the fact that everyone mispronounces Centrosaurus. For all intents and purposes they're the same name.Dinoguy2 (talk) 16:42, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It should be a sound like a "k". In latin the c has the sound of a greek kappa, therefore it should be a "k" not a "C". The pronounciation of the common name is one thing, the scientific name must be pronounced in the best way possible, not differently in every country.

I concur. —Nightstallion (?) 10:21, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Title and content[edit]

Following the guidelines of Wikiproject Dinosaurs, I believe this article should be expanded to include more discussion of A. altus, not just A. fragillimus, and be merged into the article Amphicoelias. I'm going to put in a request for moerge, but i'd appreciate it if anyone with access to papers on A. altus could provide at least a little info in that department. If nobody has anything, I'll start adding info from secondary sources.Dinoguy2 22:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, this article should be moved back to Amphicoelias fragillimus. It is a good example of an article where there should be a genus-level article (Amphicoelias) which provides some basic information (a stub) on the legitimate species and a brief summary of this article. This article is a discussion of a fragmentary, legendary, possibly fictional species, and is large enough to stand alone. Combining it with a stun on A. altus and tossing them into a single article means the legitimate species would be overwhelmed with more... legendary elements. 68.84.34.154 13:51, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You should take this up on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs and see what the folks there think.Dinoguy2 14:20, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Length of Amphicoelias[edit]

Even if the Amphicoelias vertebra is very high, it would mean that Amphicoelias 180-200 feet long, almost the length of a B-52 Stratofortress. Amphicoelias might have had high vertebrae 8 feet above the back, suggesting that diplodicoids had sails, similar to those of spinosaurids.

Diplodocids did have tall processes on their verts, but they were much more robust than the "sails" of spinosaurs. They most likely formed muscular ridges. Either way, this is taken into account by size estimates, I think.Dinoguy2 22:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As a discovery of that Lamarkian Cope I suggest we delete the entire article! Such a find from such an individual is highly suspect and should be treated as false until further evidence presents itself! I refuse to acknowledge Amphicoelias at all.

Marsh, is that you...? MMartyniuk (talk) 05:46, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete the entire article? No way. Don't forget that there still IS Amphicoelias altus. A. altus is a real species of dinosaur without a doubt.

Why does this page have so many outdated images? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.108.138.162 (talk) 16:32, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are three, right? I doubt there is any particular reason, other than those three are pretty good. I think if you have some more "updated" images you could add/replace. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:31, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The animal is dubious and poorly known, so it is largely forgotten. But we do have one recent image on Commons[2], not sure if it is correct enough for inclusion, though. FunkMonk (talk) 21:15, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Catalog number for Amphicoelias fragillimus holotype[edit]

According to Carpenter (2006), the holotype of Amphicoelias fragillimus is AMNH 5777. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.194.116.63 (talk) 18:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC).[reply]

GA Passed[edit]

I passed this article because I found it to be well written and comprehensive with citations of reliable sources and with appropriate treatment of the controversial aspects (the missing bones) of the subject. Beyond that I enjoyed the balance between the current science (the paleobiology section) and the historical material (Cope and Marsh). I have one very minor quible. The following sentence Carpenter (2006) also noted that, due to the extraordinary size and mysterious disappearance of the fossil, Cope's description of A. fragillimus has been met with skepticism, especially since there were several typographical errors in his measurements. Implies that there were typo's in Cope's description. My reading of the source cited (thanks for the convienent link to the paper) indicates that others have ASSUMED that there were typographical errors, which is not quite the same thing. However that is not a serious enough issue to negate what I consider to be a very good article.Rusty Cashman 02:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I may have misread that bit about the errors. I'll look into this and fix it accordingly. Thanks for your comments! Dinoguy2 16:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Height[edit]

If Amphicoelias was supposedly this long, wouldn't it be able to raise it's head above Saurposeidon's maixumum height of about 60 feet? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.44.86.223 (talk) 17:44, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You ever tried to raise a 10-20 meter long neck? Not that it's impossible, but we'd need to have some of the neck to have a good idea about its capabilities. J. Spencer 18:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC) Perhaps it was just as tall a sauroposeiden[reply]
Perhaps, but only having one bone that was lost a hundred years ago, there's no way to know. Dinoguy2 06:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)well just edit the page and think of the tallest hight the animal could reaach with that neck.[reply]
That would be original speculation. Big no-no in an encyclopedia. We have to base things on evidence and published facts, not just eyeballing it based on totally hypothetical outlines ;) Dinoguy2 05:02, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

well if u were to raise the animals neck by a 30 degree angle, then I by comparing amphicoelias with the green diplodocus with the 30 degree angle there for standed 25-30 feet tall, the 50 foot tall supersaurus, and the 60 foot tall sauroposeidon, then i speculate that amphicoelias is 90-95 feet tall, there is the answer, now lets get up there and stick that info to the page —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aslan10000 (talkcontribs) 19:52, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"then i speculate that amphicoelias is 90-95 feet tall". I'm sorry, but that's original research, and is not to be included. Now, if you write this up and get it published, then we'll have somewhere to go. J. Spencer 20:29, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

GA Sweeps[edit]

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. The article history has been updated to reflect this review. Regards, Corvus coronoides talk 22:18, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dialga[edit]

Pokemon #483, Dialga, is most likely based off of this creature. Does anyone agree? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gelatart (talkcontribs) 02:55, 13 March 2009 (UTC) Why do you think that? to me it resembles Brachiosaurs More than Things like Diplodocus.Spinodontosaurus (talk) 18:03, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Weights[edit]

The use of tons feels quite ambiguous in this article, especially where the same paragraph compares weights in metric tons on one dinosaur with imperial tons (short or long?) on another. It could be made clearer by either using tonnes (this spelling is always metric) throughout (like the sauropod article), or by explicitly saying metric tonnes and short tons in the appropriate places. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.171.230.47 (talk) 03:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relation to Diplodocus[edit]

So since, according to the article, it has been suggested that it might be a senior synonym of Diplodocus has any review produced a comparison between these two genera? What are the differences? If they are seperate genera is Amphicoelias a diplodocinae's member? are they sister taxons? --Draco ignoramus sophomoricus (talk) 02:22, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think a comprehensive comparison has been done, not in the last 100 years anyway. Could be wrong though, but I certainly can't find anything. But yes, it is in diplodocinae according so some sources (like this one:[3] MMartyniuk (talk) 03:24, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are we even sure it's a Sauropod?[edit]

All we have is one fossil that isn't an immediatelly recognizable skeleton so how do we know for sure it's actually a Sauropod?207.216.31.171 (talk) 01:12, 3 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sauropod vertebrae are very unique and unlike those of any other known animal. There's even a whole blog dedicated (mostly) to them...[4] MMartyniuk (talk) 11:27, 3 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned references in Amphicoelias[edit]

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Amphicoelias's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "TMB2015":

  • From Brontosaurus: Tschopp, E.; Mateus, O. V.; Benson, R. B. J. (2015). "A specimen-level phylogenetic analysis and taxonomic revision of Diplodocidae (Dinosauria, Sauropoda)". PeerJ. 3: e857. doi:10.7717/peerj.857. PMC 4393826. PMID 25870766.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)Open access icon
  • From Diplodocid: Tschopp, E.; Mateus, O. V.; Benson, R. B. J. (2015). "A specimen-level phylogenetic analysis and taxonomic revision of Diplodocidae (Dinosauria, Sauropoda)". PeerJ. 3: e857. doi:10.7717/peerj.857. PMC 4393826. PMID 25870766.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT 22:06, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Size Section[edit]

Noticed that the size of A. fragillimus has its own top-level section in this article, as opposed to being part of the description like in... prettymuch every other notable dinosaur article. That said, since it's such a vital and important topic for this animal in particular, maybe there's some justification for keeping it seperate. Is anyone opposed to me putting history before description and putting size within description?

Classification and species being together, along with a lot of history, is also weird, but reading it I do think it makes sense in this case. The third and fourth paragraph need to be swapped though, IMO. Lusotitan 23:16, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Given that there is little else to describe about this dinosaur than its size, I think it makes sense to keep that discussion under description. As for history first, it could be argued that is a good order for dinosaurs that have little else going for them than a complex history. Not sure if it's a good idea for anatomically well-known genera, though. FunkMonk (talk) 06:45, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

GA Reassessment[edit]

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Amphicoelias/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

Delisting is not a common process over at WP:DINO, but since the Amphicoelias article was left in a rather unique situation of becoming a GA and then losing something like half its content once Maraapunisaurus was named as a separate genus. Thus, the contents of the article on their own constitute something that was never considered to be on the level of GA. Demotion is, then, appropriate, unless someone feels like taking up the task of expanding the article in the near future.

  1. Is it well written?
    A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:
    Perhaps merely an issue of organization, but the text jumps all over the place and does not make for a well flowing read regarding the different species, what they are, and what the actual animal was in terms of our modern understanding.
    B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:
    Doesn't seem to break the rules of any of these per say, but it worthy of note that half of the description section is made up of historical information, breaking the very concept of separating info into sections.
  2. Is it verifiable with no original research?
    A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:
    B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:
    There is one blog post but being from SV-POW I see no issue with it, as outlined at WP:DINO
    C. It contains no original research:
    There's a statement with no source that it's been considered an apatosaurine.
    D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:
  3. Is it broad in its coverage?
    A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:
    Not even close, this is the main issue. No dedicated history section despite history being the primary topic at hand with this often ignored species, and the description section is absolutely paultry once you remove the historical information.
    B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):
  4. Is it neutral?
    It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:
    The actual information on its classification in the classification section is mostly on the idea it's just Diplodocus, with merely the unsourced statement and a cladogram exploring it as its own taxon.
  5. Is it stable?
    It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:
  6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?
    A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:
    B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
    No images stand out as problematic, but it's relevant to note they're pretty low in number.
  7. Overall:
    Pass or Fail:
    The article passes a reasonable amount of criteria but it's so far from passing in terms of content coverage that it doesn't have any place remaining as a GA in my eyes.
HMMMM Gimme a week :) IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 21:33, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The good thing about the split is that it should now be much easier to write a comprehensive article about the single species. FunkMonk (talk) 22:31, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • What exactly is the status on this article? It's been open nearly 2 months and effectively all activity on both the article and this review has been at a standstill for most of it   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  00:02, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Gotta admit I got busy and totally forgot. I did manage to get the history and description mainly fixed up, so its just classification left. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 06:06, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
A lead would be appreciated as well. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 22:30, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
All major fixes should now be done Lusotitan. I'll clean up references and other minor stuff promptly. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 19:56, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the delay in closing, but yes, this looks all clear. Now who to nominate for demotion next... Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 04:04, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]