Talk:Moschiola

clean-up[edit]

This and associated articles need a clean-up. A newly described species, Moschiola kathygre, has been added to this page and Chevrotain, and also has its own page. However, to recognized this species, you pretty much have to accept the split of Moschiola meminna into two species, too. They were presented in the same paper with roughly equal arguments: Groves, C. and Meijaard, E. 2005. Intraspecific variation in Moschiola, the Indian Chevrotain. The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. Supplement 12: 413-421. PDF available. So, assuming wiki is to follow this taxonomy and recognized the three phylogenetic species (<-- you can expect a lot of splits if this is to be the new standard), there should be articles for three species in this genus:

Moschiola kathygre (currently a stub, but otherwise "ok").
Moschiola meminna (current wiki article would need a clean-up, including another English name, as the post-split M. meminna is restricted to Sri Lanka).
Moschiola indica (currently no wiki article; essentially equals the Indian population previously included in M. meminna; would retain the English name Indian [Spotted] Chevrotain I guess?).

Alternatively, you could stay with a single species, and change Moschiola kathygre to a redirect to the Indian Spotted Chevrotain (for the time being, at least)? Regardless, the two-species approach currently followed on wiki is peculiar. • Rabo³ • 03:12, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, we should follow Groves and Meijaard's three-species classification. It was a legitimate taxonomic revision, so I think we should follow it until a new publication challenges it. Furthermore, according to Google Scholar it seems that most recent publications also follow their classification (though there are not many articles on Moschiola).

For the common names, I'd suggest "yellow-spotted chevrotain" for M. kathygre, "Indian spotted chevrotain" for M. indica, and "Sri Lankan spotted chevrotain" for M. meminna. Ucucha 06:07, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While I appreciate the idea for English names (and indeed brought it up myself), I suspect we'd have to keep away from applying English names; at least for M. meminna and M. kathygre. At best, we'd be bordering WP:Nor with Sri Lankan spotted chevrotain and yellow-spotted chevrotain. Doing a bit a searching, I've seen them listed as Yellow-striped Mouse-deer and White-spotted Mouse-deer, but I can't say I'm thrilled about those, considering the problem of applying the name "mouse-deer" to non-Tragulus. • Rabo³ • 06:34, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you are right, it indeed borders original research. We may use the names you mentioned, but, as you say, they are less than ideal (though Groves and Meijaard do include "mouse-deer" as a keyword in their article). In that case, it might be better to use scientific names for all three species, since M. meminna obviously can't continue as Indian spotted chevrotain.

By the way, I found out that Groves and Meijaard's alleged fourth species, known from a single skull, has apparently been found again. I think this should also be mentioned in the article. Ucucha 06:46, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a version with photos of the possibly undescribed taxon (though of note that this is a bit speculative, considering that the individual on the photos purely was ID'ed as such based on the locality). Might also be worth mentioning that the two currently described Sri Lankan taxa are pretty clear examples of Gloger's Rule. • Rabo³ • 08:00, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the article I found also stated that it was very big (53 cm). According to G & M's graphs, that is quite a bit larger than either Sri Lankan species and within the range of M. indica.

Gloger's Rule indeed seems to apply, but can we say that when there's no published source which says it? Ucucha 08:15, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

kathygre is more heavily pigmented than meminna (Groves & Meijaard, 2005), and kathygre is found in more humid regions than meminna (Groves & Meijaard, 2005) = Gloger's Rule. No original research there. • Rabo³ • 08:29, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very well then. I think we can now start expanding and improving the article. Ucucha 11:46, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified (February 2018)[edit]

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