Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles/Archive 7

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Rfc Patternless whistling frog (Eleutherodactylus diplasius)

Dear members in Project Amphibians and Reptiles, I would like to hear your opinion regarding the status of Eleutherodactylus diplasius. An article was created under Patternless whistling frog (Eleutherodactylus diplasius), and apart from not follwing standards for an article, I think, based on Wikispecies article, that this is not a valid species? Please also see my comments at creators talk page: which may later have an answer from the user:

Dear Benjamin Mitchell, your article Patternless whistling frog (Eleutherodactylus diplasius) seems to lack some of the general standards for a Wikipedia article, but what I want to ask, are you sure this is a valid species? At Wikispecies (please see species:Eleutherodactylus wetmorei it is regarded as synonyme for Eleutherodactylus wetmorei. I think one of your mentnoed sources is IUC (http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/195008/0), but I dont think IUCN are really a good taxonomy source? It seem some of the other sources goes back to 1973, and at least one of the sources you have listed, (http://www.dcnanature.org/lesser-antillean-whistling-frog/) is referred to another species, Lesser Antillean Whistling Frog (Eleutherodactylus johnstonei)? Dan Koehl (talk) 15:40, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Dan Koehl (talk) 15:54, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Note: The species has an item at Wikidata at wikidata:Q4668453. Dan Koehl (talk) 15:59, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

It is a valid species – see the Amphibian Species of the World 6.0, which is the main source of taxonomy for amphibians in Wikipedia. IUCN mostly follows Amphibian Species of the World, albeit with some delay. Micromesistius (talk) 16:24, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks @V:, I guess thats a very good answer, so maybe theres no need for more, unless other opinions arise, . In the meantime, Ill move it to the scientific name Eleutherodactylus diplasius. Dan Koehl (talk) 16:29, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It is recognised as a species at ASW6 and on Amphibiaweb. The notes at ASW6 suggest it is considered part of the Eleutherodactylus wetmorei species group, so the position might be subject to change. But I see I was too slow with this comment.   Jts1882 | talk  16:36, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
... and I see I was too slow to move it... :) Dan Koehl (talk) 16:38, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
I made the Eleutherodactylus wetmorei artice in Wikispecies back in 2008, and I didn't revise it since. In the same year, 2008, E. wetmorei diplasius was elevated to species status (E. diplasius) in the paper: "Hedges, S. B., W. E. Duellman, and M. P. Heinicke. 2008. New World direct-developing frogs (Anura: Terrarana): molecular phylogeny, classification, biogeography, and conservation. Zootaxa 1737: 1–182." (see this PDF). See page 64 in this paper. Therefore, the species Eleutherodactylus (Eleutherodactylus) diplasius is indeed valid. See this Wikispecies page. Mariusm (talk) 08:46, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

3 snake redirects to categorize by year described

Could someone please categorize Typhlops dominicanus, Thamnophis bogerti, & Thamnophis conanti into the correct 'Reptiles described in YEAR' categories? These are the only pages remaining in Category:Snakes described in the 20th century & Category:Snakes described in the 21st century, created & poorly populated by Caftaric.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  16:26, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

 Done @Tom.Reding:, for animal taxa, the date following the authority's name is the date to use for the 'described in YEAR' categories. Plantdrew (talk) 19:34, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Another link to a DAB page

Uropeltidae links to the DAB page worm snake. Can any expert here help solve the puzzle? Narky Blert (talk) 15:11, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Drumming fingers on table... This keeps coming up in an error list I monitor, and something needs to be done about it. Narky Blert (talk) 07:55, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
That behaviour section was added by an IP editor, originally without a reference, then readded with a reference that doesn't make a mention of the behaviour or it being like worm snakes. The reference was later changed by another IP editor to a book which I can't access, so I can't tell if it the poking like a worm snake (which seems very anecdotal) is mentioned or, if it is, what was meant by worm snake.   Jts1882 | talk  12:05, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Elaphe

The sentence in Elaphe about fox snakes may need editing or deletion. E. vulpina is a synonym of Pantherophis vulpinus and E. gloydi of Pantherophis gloydi. Narky Blert (talk) 09:53, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Changing Thayeri kingsnake article

Thayeri kingsnake should be changed to Thayer's kingsnake, as this is the grammatically correct name (it's even mentioned as such in the references).Malcolmlucascollins (talk) 00:00, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Help me find sources which are accessible for Persian Sand Gecko a.k.a. Microgecko persicus

Hi I recently requested at WP:TEAHOUSE to find me some scholarly sources for this genus which is a Microgecko under species of persicus.. Any PDFs would be appreciated to improve that draft to a start or B class article, thanks.. (Draft:Persian Sand Gecko) 182.58.231.146 (talk) 09:16, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Rfc on new classification scheme

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comment: new classification scheme for eukaryotes, which asks for comments on how we should deal with a proposed new classification system that has widespread ramifications across the tree of life. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:48, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Fixing inconsistent ranks in taxonomy templates

Input sought At Wikipedia talk:Automated taxobox system/Archive 1#Fixing inconsistent ranks in taxonomy templates I've suggested some alternative ways of fixing inconsistent ranks in taxonomy templates. They could make it easier to deal with the problem of inconsistent classification systems, e.g. the ones used for birds and dinosaurs, or the ones used for mammals and dinosaurs. Be warned that it's a long post, but it very much needs input, particularly from "old hands" at using the automated taxobox system. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:46, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2019 February 9#Deprecated Taxonomy subtemplates

Hey, there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2019 February 9#Deprecated Taxonomy subtemplates, which needs input from actual editors with experience in this field. Also worth mentioning that both Template:Taxonomy/Lonchognatha and Lonchognatha have been changed recently. --Gonnym (talk) 12:02, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Xenophrys and Megophrys

The article Megophrys explains that these two genera of frogs have a confused taxonomy. However, the way the taxonomy template at Template:Taxonomy/Xenophrys is set up is simply wrong: the link text that will be shown in a taxobox is set to "Megophrys" but the taxon as shown in the name of the template is "Xenophrys". The result is that taxoboxes like the one at Megophrys aceras show the species as "Xenophrys aceras" but the genus as "Megophrys". This needs to be fixed, one way or the other. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:46, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Hylarana vs Chalcorana

Apparently Hylarana are now Chalcorana and there is an interwiki confusion to which I added trying to cleanup some Flickr commons uploads yesterday. A sample would be File:Chalcorana eschatia - Khao Phra - Bang Khram Wildlife Sanctuary (46060407114) by Rushen.jpg (see history there and discrepancy between species and commons category @ Wikidata:Q1998042) and related comment by the photographer @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ARushenb&type=revision&diff=340641666&oldid=340624956 Can somebody help me make some sense. Agathoclea (talk) 14:39, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

According to ASW6 there has been a recent revision of Hylarana, which is now more resticted, with some frogs reassigned to other genera such as Chalcorana (see comment. So ASW6 now list Chalcorana eschatia, but Amphibia web still has Hylarana eschatia. --   Jts1882 | talk  15:26, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Also IUCN follows ASW6, our "official" source, in using Chalcorana, along with other genera recently split off from Hylarana sensu lato (e.g. Papurana), so that is generally the way to go. I have done some of these updates, without yet updating the Hylarana genus page. These changes are on my very long to-do list. Micromesistius (talk) 16:03, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
I have now reverted my changes at commons:Category:Chalcorana but have not touched the rest of the Hylarana. Wikidata:Q1998042 needs sorting somehow, Maybe with a new item for Chalcorana. Agathoclea (talk) 06:53, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Frogs and toads for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Frogs and toads is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Frogs and toads until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 03:32, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Salamanders for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Salamanders is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Frogs and toads (it's part of a bundled nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 03:33, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Microhylids and ASW

Note: I disclose in advance that I have a conflict of interest in this discussion because I personally work on microhylid taxonomy.

Currently, ASW follows a peculiar and non-mainstream taxonomy for the frog family Microhylidae, including lumping several genera that most microhylid researchers do not agree should be lumped (best example is Rhombophryne and Stumpffia, see the relevant piece here). This is because the authors of ASW published a paper on microhylid systematics which proposed numerous taxonomic changes; the authors of the ASW database have a conflict of interest related to this family. AmphibiaWeb does not follow the ASW taxonomy for the family, but instead the more commonly accepted taxonomy, and the one used by researchers working on microhylid frogs in general. The question arises: how do we reconcile this issue? Should we use a single database uncritically, or should be yield to the sway of the literature? I recognise that due to my COI I personally should not have a say in this one way or another. But for a normal wikipedia editor to get to grips with this problem is also probably too much to ask; it requires consultation of a huge amount of primary literature, and formation of an overall conclusion based on that data. Anyone who spends so much time reading the relevant literature winds up working on the frogs themselves, generating a new COI, and thus the cycle continues.

I would be happy to have some suggestions on best practice here. Should we allow deviation from ASW in certain cases? Where should those cases be discussed? How serious do we need to take COIs, if they potentially discourage the most knowledgeable people on a given taxon from democratising their knowledge in the form of wikipedia editing? Food for thought ~--Mark.scherz 11:48, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

I think it inappropriate to exclusively follow ASW, as there are some clear disagreements that don't follow the consensus. Some of these seem to have a quite personal basis. The new taxonomy at Amphibiaweb seems a better framework and more neutral overall.
I think conflicts of interest should be taken seriously, which can be unfair on those who take them seriously, when others taken them less seriously. However, making edits after declaring a conflict of interest seems perfectly appropriate, as you'd still have to provide reliable sources and are probably best placed to find them. It's only if these edits are contentious that the COI becomes relevant and needs further discussion. Incidentally, your description of an editor consulting the primary literature and drawing conclusions is not how it is supposed to be done on wikipedia, where secondary sources are preferred (albeit a difficult division for scientific literature). The ideal solution is a good recent review on microhylids that can be used to justify diverging from ASW.   Jts1882 | talk  13:33, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
A quick look at the Microhylid articles suggests that there is general agreement at subfamily level, on wikipedia, ASW and Amphibiaweb. The disagreement and COI mentioned is described on ASW here. This sort of dispute is unlikely to be resolved by using secondary sources in the near future. Given that ASW is one party to the dispute, it seems to me that the simplest solution would be to follow Amphibiaweb (assuming their editors are not involved).   Jts1882 | talk  14:50, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
For practical reasons, I think it is good to have consensus to follow a single taxonomic database for any given group of organisms as the "default" for Wikipedia taxonomy. The designated database need not be followed in all cases, if there is good evidence that it advocates a taxonomic viewpoint that isn't widely accepted. If the database frequently advocates viewpoints that aren't widely accepted, and there is another database that better represents taxonomic consensus it is worth discussing Wikipedia's choice of a "default" database. I can't speak much to ASW versus AmphibiaWeb specifically, although I do know that ASW always takes Frost's view whenever taxonomy is contentious. The choice of any database shouldn't be fixed for all time. This project page advocates ITIS for reptiles, which probably isn't a great choice in 2019. The default database used for mammals hasn't been updated since 2005, and the one for plants hasn't been updated since 2013; while there are emerging resources for mammals and plants that we may not be quite ready to adopt, it's pretty clear that the current defaults are becoming quite outdated. Discussions to follow ASW for amphibians took place in 2006 and 2008. If AmphibiaWeb is a better resource now that is worth discussing.
Even if ASW is kept as the default, it need not be followed without exception (but exceptions should be discussed). It has it's own COI issues with Frost.
Mark, you seem pretty conscientious about COIs. I trust you are able to avoid unduly promoting taxonomic viewpoints that you have espoused in your publications, but which aren't (yet?) widely accepted by other herpetologists. Obviously there are cases where there really is no consensus among taxonomists. Wikipedia does have to adopt a single viewpoint taxonomic viewpoint for article titles, but multiple viewpoints can be discussed in the article. Plantdrew (talk) 17:58, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
(1) Every database that presents a single classification ends up choosing sides in taxonomic disputes. ASW is at least transparent in this respect and includes references that are behind the choices. It sometimes adopts new and dramatic changes very rapidly, before a wider consensus has emerged, and potentially prematurely. AmphibiaWeb is more conservative, which is sometimes an advantage from our perspective. However, at the species level, it can be very slow to adopt what seem to be uncontroversial changes. It also sticks to some choices that are abandoned by the majority (e.g., Strabomantidae). It is also mostly cryptic about the basis of taxonomic choices. It is also not apparent whose opinions it follows. So all in all, I continue to support ASW as our primary choice of taxonomy, although I would often wait a little bit before following changes that affect many pages. This accords with the choice by IUCN.
(2) If ASW does not reflect the majority view, then it should be possible to deviate from it, provided that this is discussed. For example, if IUCN is not following ASW when assessments are updated, then a case to follow an alternative choice could be made. What I am afraid is the situation we had with Lithobates versus Rana. We should develop a clear consensus before major changes are implemented. Of course, by openly discussing the issue now, and revealing any COI, we are on the right track (in contrast to what happened with Lithobates). Regarding this specific case, I have not yet made the homework needed for an informed opinion. Micromesistius (talk) 17:59, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
I wonder if the issue has now been resolved? ASW now recognizes Stumpfia againa and writes that "Wollenberg, ... (and) Peloso, Frost, ..., suggested that Stumpffia is non-monophyletic, but the subsequest recognition of Anilany and Mini, as well as some reidentificaitons have resolved this issue." This is also documented in the change log, referring to Scherz et al. 2019. I think this is typical ASW – more logical rather than pragmatic, and transparent. Micromesistius (talk) 08:02, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
This particular instance seems to have been resolved, but it doesn't really address the main issues, ASW as primary reference and conflict of interests. I think the latter is not a problem if people declare their potential conflict of interest up front (e.g. here), continue editing, and bring any disputes to the talk pages rather than start edit warring. We want experts contributing and COI guidelines are not designed to stop this.
I think the issue with ASW as source is that it is quick to change when the primary editor is the source of the change, but slower when it is others. The latter conservative approach is what is required for a reliable secondary source. In this particular case, making the changes reflecting synonymising Stumpffia and Rhombophryne would have been premature and created a lot of unnecessary editing. On the other hand, the editors to some pages in Amphibiaweb were also made by people with a stake in the debate. I see no reason to change ASW for the first choice taxonomy source, but maybe the taxonomy sources should be upgraded to state Amphibiaweb as an alternative source, with a comment that editors should be wary of making extensive changes when these two sources disagree (e.g, the current synonmy case). The list of disagreements between the two from 2014 probably needs updating.   Jts1882 | talk  08:50, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I was really surprised but pleased to see that the Stumpffia and Rhombophryne debate has finally settled by our latest paper. I fully agree with Jts1882 that adding AmphibiaWeb as an alternative source would be a nice solution to this for the future. I think COIs are going to be unavoidable in taxonomic issues, but when declared they can be easily seen through and worked around. Maybe guidelines can be introduced for what to do when the databases do disagree? --Mark D. Scherz 16:01, 1 April 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mark.scherz (talk • contribs)

Subscribe to new Tree of Life Newsletter!

"I've never heard so much about crinoids!"

Despite the many Wikipedians who edit content related to organisms/species, there hasn't been a Tree of Life Newsletter...until now! If you would like regular deliveries of said newsletter, please add your name to the subscribers list. Thanks, Enwebb (talk) 00:25, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Garter snake

I think this article needs some love from experienced & knowledgeable editors. There are two topics in Talk:Garter snake which need replies. Thank you! Lexein (talk) 06:41, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Reliable source inquiry

Hello. The Sourcewatch project has identified the journal Amphibian & Reptile Conservation as one to be concerned about, potentially predatory. As of 24 May, there were at least 13 article using this journal as a source. Do you consider this journal to be reliable and suitable for use in Wikipedia? Thanks for your input. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:16, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Turtles deleted.

Portal:Turtles deleted see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Portal:Turtles. Note that Portal:Turtles had 13 page views a day and Portal:Reptiles has a average of 14 per day. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 10:32, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Edit warring of etymologies

A discussion has been started at WP:Tree of Life regarding recent edit warring behavior of taxonomic etymologies. Comments are requested.--Kevmin § 03:18, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Call for portal maintainers

Are there any editors from this WikiProject willing to maintain Portal:Amphibians and Portal:Reptiles ? The Portals guideline requires that portals be maintained, and as a result numerous portals have been recently been deleted via MfD largely becasue of lack of maintenance. Let me know either way, and thanks, UnitedStatesian (talk) 05:09, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Photos of Some species

This page has many great links to specific species. I am sure many know Dick Bartlett but has he been reached out to or has anyone looked to see if he has photos of some of these animals that are still photoless? Barclaybp (talk) 20:28, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Proposed merge from Template:WikiProject Pterosaurs to Template:WikiProject Palaeontology

Please join the discussion on the proposed merge from Template:WikiProject Pterosaurs to Template:WikiProject Palaeontology. --Nessie (talk) 16:47, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Chinese giant salamander articles

Chinese giant salamanders (Andrias davidianus) are now proven to be three separate species: Andrias davidianus, Andrias sligoi, and another undescribed species.[1] We need to edit the current Chinese giant salamander article to reflect these updates. We either need to make the current article an article about the three species of Chinese giant salamanders, or we need to create a separate article for Andrias sligoi (South China giant salamander), considering that its the largest living amphibian now.Rainaroo (talk) 04:46, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia's amphibian taxonomy is based on Amphibian Species of the World, and typically doesn't make new articles for species until they've been added/confirmed by that database. starsandwhales (talk) 23:29, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
That "rule" should be and will be ignored. It only serves to make Wikipedia less usable to readers, a truly horrible idea. Abductive (reasoning) 00:18, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
The project's taxonomy doesn't say whether something is notable, just whether it is an accepted taxon. That's how there's Category:Taxa that may be invalid ( 405 ) and Category:Controversial taxa ( 84 ). I created Category:Unaccepted virus taxa ( 56 ) specifically for virus taxa that are not listed at WPViruses' source, ICTV. BTW, the article South China giant salamander is already up. --Nessie (talk) 16:54, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Turvey, Samuel (September 17, 2019). "Historical museum collections clarify the evolutionary history of cryptic species radiation in the world's largest amphibians". Ecology and Evolution. doi:10.1002/ece3.5257.

Merge Discussion

I have initiated a merge discussion on Talk:Green_sea_turtle#Merge_Discussion to merge the Galápagos green turtle into the Green sea turtle and ask people to please comment on this. Thank you. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 20:28, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Glossary of herpetology?

The redirect snout-vent length is being discussed. It currently targets Anolis cuvieri. There aren't any existing articles that would be a good target for the redirect. It would be good to have a glossary of herpetology where herpetological jargon could be explained. I'm not up for writing it myself, but there are articles in Category:Glossaries of biology that could serve as models. Plantdrew (talk) 15:28, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

This is a superb idea. That redirect is definitely not right. A glossary of herpetology should ideally also identify each of the different scales on reptilian heads, standard measurements, and other factors. I do not have time right now to draft a glossary, and it could easily become extremely long, so this needs to be done with care. -- Dr Mark D. Scherz 10:37, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
I would be willing to help with this if someone took a lead on it. I have written glossaries for turtle biology some of which have been used in various books by others. So can provide these. But I would have difficulty doing it across all herpetology by myself. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 02:17, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I created a draft for the glossary. Right now it has a few definitions and many undefined terms because they may be covered in other articles or may not be in the scope of what this article is trying to achieve. Once there's a good number of definitions that multiple people have looked over we can move it into the mainspace. starsandwhales (talk) 21:57, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

What is the scope? Should some of the higher taxon names be included, especially ones where the glossary helps decipher the meaning?   Jts1882 | talk  11:53, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
I think we should discuss what the glossary needs to cover. If the terms are covered in another article is it necessary to have it in the glossary? Since @Plantdrew: and @Mark.scherz: were the first ones to come up with this, what were your ideas for the glossary? On one hand it should be general to all of herpetology but also contain specific terms that don't have their own pages. starsandwhales (talk) 14:36, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
@Starsandwhales: I added Curved Carapace Length to your glossary, probably should add the short hand for these measurements too ie CCL and SCL and SVL. Obviously we do not want all measurements possible, but the major ones that get used in defining taxa should be in there, scute names in turtles are in the Turtle Shell article, so do not know if you want to include them in a glossary, every scute and scale in a reptile has a name it could get large. I do not think any taxon names should be in there as these are defined in general on relevant pages, you want the glossary to be about descriptive nomenclature and names of other features utilised heavily in any writings about reptiles. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 15:04, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
You can look at the others in Category:Glossaries of biology ( 26 ) for examples. Typically the entries, if they have an article, are linked so readers can get more information. The list is supposed to be a central location for readers to decipher articles, so just because an article exists does not mean the entry should not. --Nessie (talk) 15:48, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
I was thinking a glossary would largely cover jargon that would appear in dichotomous key, or a detailed physical description of a species; so many anatomy/morphology terms. Terms may not have stand-alone articles, but if articles exist, they should be linked (see Category:Reptile anatomy and for existing articles that should potentially be included). Terms need not be exclusively anatomy/morphology related though I'm not sure what else shoud be included (behavior I guess, e.g. amplexus). 16:22, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
I would suggest that we activate the talk page on the a draft for the glossary to list terms quickly that should be added, and then people who find time can add them to the glossary. Sadly I am having to put my wiki editing on hold for now because I have a lot of deadlines in quick succession. For me, I think the most important terms to add would be those that pertain to anatomy, especially specific scales (loreal, frontal, brille, etc.), because these are frequently searched and seldom reliably explained. @Faendalimas: I also agree that certain abbreviations make sense, and where they are not universal, alternatives should be given (SVL vs. SUL for example). I also do not think that higher taxa need necessarily be included, because there are dedicated taxon pages for them, but certain terms like 'non-avian reptile' might warrant inclusion. A question to consider as well: how many things should be links to Wiktionary articles? I guess many terms will be best defined there, no? -- Dr Mark D. Scherz 16:25, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

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

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

First annual Tree of Life Decemberween contest

After all the fun with the Spooky Species Contest last month, there's a new contest for the (Northern hemisphere's) Winter holidays at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Contest. It's not just Christmas, but anything festive from December-ish. Feel free to add some ideas to the Festive taxa list and enter early and often. --Nessie (talk) 18:10, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Template request

Template:NRDB species exists for http://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/, but there is no equivalent template for the AmphibiaWeb and the AMNH databases to make amphibian stub creation easier. Would somebody be interested in making one? Herpetogenesis (talk) 19:15, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@Herpetogenesis: I have being developing a system for citing taxonomic resources in a consistent way. I started it for fish references because Catalog of Fishes didn't provide urls for its searches and have been adding other resources slowly since then. It has options for ASW6, AmphibiaWeb and Reptile Database. It wraps {{cite web}} so you can add addition cite web parameters (citation mode, quote, etc) and they will be passed on.
Is this what you are looking for? If so, is there anything specific you want added.   Jts1882 | talk  07:13, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
@Jts1882: Thank you, that's what I was looking for and is very helpful. Herpetogenesis (talk) 03:41, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

WikiProject Turtles

I'm planning on adding the {{WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles}} template to all the {{WikiProject Turtles}} talk pages. In most cases making the importance and quality the same. Does anyone have any comments or things to consider. Thanks, Sun Creator(talk) 17:08, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

I think that is a good idea. I had added the Amphibians and Reptiles banner to a few turtle articles, but stopped after having some of those edits reverted. Were you maybe the person who reverted me? I don't think anybody else cares about project tagging for turtles as much as you do, and you seem to have changed your mind about including importance ratings on redirects after reverting some of my edits. If you weren't the one reverting my additions of Amphibians and Reptiles then somebody else might have an objection.
You could probably get a bot to do the work (although you would still have to manually edit in cases where you don't want to keep importance/quality the same). AnomieBOT just did some tagging for WikiProject Diptera (a similar case in terms of tagging overlapping Tree of Life parent/child projects). See User_talk:AnomieBOT#tagging_for_WikiProject_Diptera. Plantdrew (talk) 19:50, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I changed my mind about adding importance to redirects after you pointed out that A redirect turned into an article will show up in the assessment table. Sun Creator(talk) 16:11, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
What’s the endgame here? Is the intention to eventually merge WikiProject Turtles with WikiProject Amphibians an Reptiles? Why only the parent project’s talk template? Why not {{WikiProject Animals}} as well? I’m not trying to rain on the parade, just walk me through the logic here. --Nessie (talk) 02:38, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Good question. There is no intention to merge the WikiProjects. Various editors add {{WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles}} to turtle articles. So I felt it best to be consistent across them all. Regarding {{WikiProject Animals}}, yes, that does get added occasionally also. Sun Creator(talk) 16:11, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
I thought the reasoning behind folks adding WP:AAR was that they assumed that WPTurt was not going to last much longer, and were just being preemptive. I think it's redundant, as all turtles are reptiles. If one was doing a PetScan they could easily include both talk templates to get all herptiles. Well. I suppose you'd also need {{WikiProject Pterosaurs}} as well.--Nessie (talk) 01:43, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
I personally do not see the necessity of adding the AAR template to all turtle talk pages if the importance and quality stay the same. I's a bit redundant since turtles are reptiles anyways. I see both sides though. starsandwhales (talk) 00:52, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
How about the removal of any AAR templates if there is a Turtle template on the talk page of a turtle article? Sun Creator(talk) 13:00, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
The taxonomist side of me is nagging me to merge the two projects, but the practical side of my brain says that we can keep these projects separate. After all, herpetology is the practical merging of the studies of two paraphyletic vertebrate classes, and has no taxonomic basis at all. HᴇʀᴘᴇᴛᴏGᴇɴᴇꜱɪꜱ (talk) 14:59, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
Better to have both AAR and Turtle templates, in my opinion. There's nothing wrong with having small WikiProjects; I think it can be encouraging for editors to work in a smaller area where it is more feasible to ensure that every species has an article, or that every article is start class or better. But if there is only a tag for a smaller project, fewer editors are likely to be monitoring Article Alerts (or other WikiProject based tools and reports). I've added tags for larger parent projects to a bunch of smaller WikiProject for organisms; added Mammals to Cats, Dogs, Equines and Cetaceans, added Fishes to most Shark articles. As I mentioned above, I was adding AAR tags to turtles, but stopped after having some of my edits reverted. Segregating cats/dogs/equines from mammals seemed especially misguided as most people interested in those topics are likely interested in the one domesticated species, and are unlikely to do much work on various wild species and fossils. The banners for Carnivorous Plants and Banksia are set up so that article with those banners are included in the assessment table for Plants, but they aren't included in Article Alerts or plant cleanup listings. I think it would've been better to set those up as taskforces (as is done for ants/other hymenoptera with respect to insects). Plantdrew (talk) 17:44, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
Agreed. Do you think it would be better (now that the Turtles Portal has been closed down) to make WP:Turtles into a taskforce within WP:AAR? I suppose this would be a discussion on their talk page, but I think we should start with including both templates on article talk pages. starsandwhales (talk) 01:51, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Bots?

French and Swedish WPs have fairly complete coverage of herp species. Swedish WP used bots, and I think French WP made more use of manual curating. Both lack newly described species and genera because the bots were using older versions of ASW, AmphibiaWeb, and ReptileDB.

Does anyone think that it might be a good idea to take a stab at using bots to complete the rest of the herp stubs, or is manual curation still the way to go? I've noticed that English WP is more hesitant at adopting bots to create stubs for animal species, while some of the other WPs use bots all the time. HᴇʀᴘᴇᴛᴏGᴇɴᴇꜱɪꜱ (talk) 15:04, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

For turtles specifically: ReptileDB is oftentimes more outdated then the equivalent Wiki article, so it would seem unclear how using a bot would be of benefit. Sun Creator(talk) 15:25, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
If you want to see the really bad potential consequences of bots, look at organism articles in the Vietnamese wikipedia, which (at least in areas I work in) is full of separate articles about the same taxon under synonymous titles, because bots have scraped taxonomic databases without checks. Because Wikidata picks up entries from wikipedias, it too has ended up with items that purport to be different taxa, but aren't. So, yes, other wikis use bots, but whether they should is debatable. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:40, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
English Wikipedia has used bots to create species articles, see Category:Taxonomy articles created by Polbot and Category:Articles created by Qbugbot. Polbot did articles for IUCN Redlist species, and Qbugbot is creating articles for arthropods (mostly from North America). Qbugbot articles have an introductory sentence (...a species in the family....) and a sentence on range, with several inline citations. Polbot has introduction, range, habitat, and conservation threats (and no inline citations). Neither bot produces articles that are more informative than the species accounts given at AmphibiaWeb or ReptileDB. I don't think it's worthwhile for Wikipedia to have 2-3 sentence stubs that will end up pushing more informative accounts on other sites lower in search results. Plantdrew (talk) 17:13, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
There is also Ganeshbot for gastropods. Creating larger number of stubs for the sake of it might not be worthwhile, but smaller batches are made with the intent is to add to them then it could be a useful starting point.   Jts1882 | talk  17:31, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
I think manual curation is the way to go because mindlessly creating stubs doesn't serve much of a purpose, especially with more thorough sources out there. Unless people expand upon the article the bot creates it isn't helpful. starsandwhales (talk) 01:51, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Merge for Eastern crested toad and Southern crested toad

Hi all, the species Peltophryne fracta, which redirects to Eastern crested toad is no longer recognised as a valid species on ASW 6.0. Usually, I would just either move the page name, redirect the page, or merge to, the successor species name for the taxon in question - in this case Peltophryne guentheri, which in turn redirects to Southern crested toad. However, in this case I am not sure of the best name for the combined article page. If they were both at their scientific binomial, it would be relatively straight forward. But with the common names available, we have choices that may end up to be misleading or inaccurate. Common names listed on ASW with Google hits in parentheses are: Gunther's Caribbean Toad (171 k), Eastern Crested Toad (2.54 M), and Southern Hispaniola Crestless Toad (178 k). AmphibiaWeb directs searches for both taxa to Peltophryne guentheri with the common name Southern Hispaniola Crestless Toad. Southern crested toad (584 k), a name used on the IUCN Red List, is not listed as a species name on either ASW or AmphibiaWeb. Possible solutions include using any of these vernacular names or reverting back to the scientific binomial. What is the most accurate page name to use as the target for this merge? Loopy30 (talk) 01:01, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I take it you didn't you enclose the phrases in quotation marks in your Google searches? Doing so, I get "Gunther's Caribbean Toad" (172), "Eastern Crested Toad" (403), "Southern Hispaniola Crestless Toad" (1 (ASW)), "Southern crested toad" (554), "Peltophryne guentheri" (708), "Peltophryne fracta" (455).
Calling the same species "crested"/"crestless" doesn't make any sense. Southern/eastern only make sense if 3 Hispaniolan species are recognized that can be differentiated by range (Peltophryne fluviatica has a vernacular name "Hispaniolan crestless toad"). "Peltophryne guentheri" gets more Google hits than any of the vernacular names; it is the name that is "name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources)" (WP:COMMONNAME).
Rare amphibians that don't occur in any English speaking countries are very unlikely to have vernacular names that are more commonly used than scientific names. I can think of only one rare amphibian with no wild populations in English speaking regions with a well known vernacular name; the axolotl (and that name is certainly not English in etymological origin). The red-eyed treefrog (Agalychnis callidryas) is iconic, but there isn't any canonical spacing/hyphenation of the vernacular name. I copy-pasted "red-eyed treefrog" from the lead of the article, and did not realize it was going to be a red-link; the fact that it is a red-link only further illustrates my point. (Plantdrew (talk) 16:42, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Plantdrew, those numbers make a lot more sense but most of the "hits" might actually be referring to the pre-merged taxa and not be relevant to the merged species. Conveniently, they also support what I wanted to do in the first place. Therefore, I propose that the target of the merged article be at the binomial Peltophryne guentheri.
I vote, as usual, for the linnean name over the vernacular. --Nessie (talk) 17:25, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Another vote for the scientific name. Cheers, Micromesistius (talk) 20:31, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
Ignoring the merits of the scientific name over a clear common name, this case has to be scientific name as the common name is far from clear.   Jts1882 | talk  20:37, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
I have requested the page move here and will merge the content of the two at the binomial. Loopy30 (talk) 12:09, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
Page move completed and articles now merged at Peltophryne guentheri. Loopy30 (talk) 14:56, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Common names.... sigh

I want to get rid change a number of Anolis articles to the scientific names. Most of these common names for Caribbean lizards were invented by Father Sánchez from Puerto Rico, who states himself that he prefers they not be used in lieu of the scientific name (see his homepage). His pictures are also the source for all the uncited text in these anole articles, with a hefty dose of OR. All respect for Father Sánchez, he made a really nice website with great pictures, but one would think that a native Spanish speaker from Puerto Rico should not get to invent names for territories like Anguilla or Trinidad or where-ever, where English is spoken and there are likely pre-existing vernacular terms for their own lizards (which would likely be something prosaic such as "green lizard", but still). I just moved Anguilla Bank anole. Did I do that correctly? I see other names which appear totally unattested in the references given and appear to be invented by Wikipedia editors, un-cited pet stores or the like. Similarly, say a species once escaped captivity in Florida and therefore some guy invented a name for it to in order to get some panic on, why should such a name have precedence of the English name as used in Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, etc...? I'm assuming not many people would object to this, but here's a head's up in case I screw up or piss someone off. Leo Breman (talk) 18:44, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Argh! Looks like I did screw up! Leo Breman (talk) 19:36, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
@Leo Breman:, yes, there's an abundance of articles on herps and fishes where a "common name" was arbitrarily selected for the article title, with absolutely no effort made to determine which of several vernacular names is "most commonly used in reliable sources" (per WP:COMMONNAME), or indeed whether any vernacular name is actually more commonly used in reliable sources than the scientific name. Scientific names better fulfill the article title criteria of PRECISION and CONSISTENCY than vernacular names, and are usually more NATURAL as well. Vernacular names may be more RECOGNIZABLE in some cases, but when multiple vernacular names exist, readers who know the species by one vernacular name may not recognize a different vernacular name. Please go ahead and move the anoles to scientific name titles (although you may not be able to execute the moves yourself and will have to make a technical move request). Plantdrew (talk) 22:15, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
@Leo Breman: if you can't move any, just leave a note of from/to at my talk page. I'm always very happy to fix improper uses of English names as titles. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:46, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
Yah, I already bumped into the "may not be able to execute the moves yourself", and apparently messed up the first one. As suggested by the person who corrected me yesterday, I'll build a larger list and get these technical moves done in batches. Many of these names are just silly. No one from Anguilla is going to call their island Anguilla Banks, let alone their native lizards as such. And a person from St. Maarten absolutely isn't either. If you go to that island and ask a local "hey, where can I see a bunch Anguilla Banks anoles" you will have less success at communication than if you had just said "hey, where can I see a bunch of little green lizards?". Or "Malpelo anole", sure, there is an anole that occurs on an island called Malpelo, but it's an uninhabited island belonging to a country where people speak Spanish, who exactly is supposed to use that name in common vernacular? English animal smugglers? Blackbeard the pirate and the occasional Robinson Crusoe? Guys from the Colombian navy brushing up on their zoological English in preparation for a move to the USA? -and anyway none of the 4 references in that article use that name. And why would the spelling of a common name of a creature from Trinidad or Guyana be American, instead of the local spelling convention? And it also freaking annoys me that when the science moves on and a population is split off, or turns out to be closer to foxes or whatnot, some guy comes round saying the vernacular names are wrong -natural language doesn't work like that, a mountain chicken, American robin or fruit bat isn't wrong, people can speak how they like, they are going to anyway -that's why we came up with binomials! If the whole of English-speaking Africa call their jackal a jackal, it's called a jackal, irrespective if some boffins in Oxford do a DNA study and find out its closer to wolves than to other jackals. If you want to lecture people on nomenclature, learn Latin. And if people in Australia call an ibis a "bin chicken", well then that is linguistically the definition of a common, vernacular name; obfuscating it on Wikipedia because one feels one-sided empathy for the bird is just puerile. Diversity in language should be celebrated and studied, not corrected. Woah, getting worked up and ranting, and probably preaching to choir here! Sorry! And thanks, responders. Cheers, Leo Breman (talk) 23:45, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
Hi Leo, just add the names to this thread as you encounter any difficulties with moving. There are several project members who will help move them for you. Loopy30 (talk) 01:50, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
@Loopy30:, @Peter coxhead:, @Plantdrew:, @Polyamorph:: Greetings everyone! Instead of making a list here, I made one on my talk page here, with notes and rationalisations. Also a bit on standardising anole taxonomy on Wikipedia. At least two common names I could live with: "brown anole" and "Saba anole", but see notes. Three common names I propose keeping as article titles, although with one, the "knight anole", there are caveats -see notes. I can still make these at technical requests, of course. I'd like to thank you all for all the help! Leo Breman (talk) 15:53, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Portal:Frogs

The subpages of Portal:Frogs/Frog and toad articles for Portal:Frogs would benefit from the addition of more articles. I added five FA/GA class articles today, but only six articles are presently existent for the portal. Article additions would greatly improve the portal. North America1000 12:18, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

strange sentence about Rattlesnake

Rattlesnake#Avoiding_bites says " rattlesnake heads can see ... after being severed from the body." This seems wrong.--Taranet (talk) 09:17, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Animals#strange_sentence_about_Rattlesnake. Let's keep discussion in one place. —  Jts1882 | talk  10:37, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Taxonomy standards in the genus Ranoidea

Recent changes have been made to the articles Ranoidea australis, Striped burrowing frog, and Ranoidea (genus), replacing the genus name Ranoidea name with the older Cyclorana and referencing the Australian Faunal Directory to supersede that of ASW 6.0. Edit summaries claim that "The taxonomic changes based on the phylogenetic analyses in Duellman et al. 2016 should be treated with caution and are not widely accepted". While exceptions to the current standard taxonomy in use may turn out to be justified, they should at least achieve consensus here first. Loopy30 (talk) 12:28, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

This keeps coming up in various guises. Frost is rather ideosyncratic on Ranoidea and there might be a case for not using ASW6 here. I'm not sure I follow the edit summary about Duellman et al. According to ASW6 here, they objected to Ranoidea.
Whatever the decision I think the changes should be reverted pending further discussion. If the changes to be made, the first needs a page move. —  Jts1882 | talk  15:05, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
I think the edit on Ranoidea about the taxonomic conclusions based on Duellman being treated with caution is problematic. This strikes me as original research (WP:OR). It provides six general references on missing data and compositional bias and then makes a specific criticism of Duellman that isn't in those references. Such a statement needs a source stating the criticism of Duellman. Using the MacDonald reference for saying the changes are not accepted is also misleading as that source doesn't address the proposed change. —  Jts1882 | talk  06:43, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Revamp of WP:AAR

Hello herpetologists of Wikipedia!
Taking after our parent project WP:BIOL, I'm interested in finding out about who's still active in this project, what we should do to clean this project up, how we can promote ourselves to new editors, and what the future of our project is. With ω = 93,820 and Ω = 5.64, we're not exactly the most productive wikiproject out there. However, the work we do, however minute, is still important. So, who's in?
Our existing list of goals has been relatively unchanged since 2007, but I don't think they've really been accomplished. If we have a clear and attainable list of goals, we can really galvanize this project and cross of quite a bit from the existing task list. Here's some of my ideas, and I'd love to hear other thoughts and feedback.

  • make an article for each order and get them to GA
    • this is pretty close to being reality, actually. all of them are good articles or featured articles except Caecilians which is C class, Rhynchocephalia which is start class, Squamata which is B class, and Turtle which is C class.
  • make an article for each family and get them to C or Start class
    • side note: creating a simple wikipedia article for each order and family would also be helpful, especially to english learners and children interested in reptiles and amphibians
  • make a "recognized content" section of the project page, similar to WP:YTP
  • organize our project (similar to WP:Plants perhaps) and improve communication/collaboration between users

I'm pinging people who are active and have shown some interest in the project and articles that are higher taxonomically speaking. It would be really great if we could get more communication between the many people in this wikiproject. @Connorlong90, Caissaca, SkyGazer 512, Ranapipiens, Tylotriton, and ZooPro
Starsandwhales (talk) 03:54, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Starsandwhales moral support for what you're doing! Here is the list of editors that have recently edited within the scope of the project, if you're interested in reaching out/recruiting. My advice is "if you build it, they will come", which has worked out alright for the bats task force. Set some goals--they can always be revised later if the project starts churning again. Also, while I don't often work on scaly critters, I'd be willing to collab with you for GA for some of the more highly viewed articles. Enwebb (talk) 14:50, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
what Enwebb just said!.....Pvmoutside (talk) 14:59, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
Happy to help. I have buffed some snake articles to FA-hood recently. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:45, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
I am not a regular contributor to this area, but I am very much in support and I will do what I can. I support the idea of having some tab navigation similar to WP:Plants, and I like it when WikiProjects have quantified, clear goals. In fact, I'm drafting some right now for WP:BIOL which I'll be looking for similar feedback on in the near future.
Regarding Wikiwork, I recently reassessed a large portion of the articles in WP:BIOL, and I found that our Wikiwork went from around 4.93 to 4.72. I think that such a reassessment (especially of the 3800 articles with unknown importance) will likely have a significant improvement on the Wikiwork for this project. I'd be willing to help with that, and I could provide my own services as well as training in the use of Rater. @NessieVL: is also very experienced with Rater, and might be interested in helping.
Finally, I want to say that it's been almost a month since you suggested this, stars, and you've only gotten support. I think that you have established consensus and you should move forward with those goals and the page organization changes. Good luck and great work! Prometheus720 (talk) 20:19, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
I haven't been hitting the herps too much lately. I'll oput them in on my rounds more. --Nessie (talk) 01:47, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm glad that the header seems to work! It really makes the page more readable. I'd like to suggest a further improvement in that area--setting up heading 2, 3, and 4 as subheadings under a heading called Writing Articles or something like that. Grouping similar content on the page would ease readability. I'd also suggest replacing the sample articles section with the statistics table. See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biology#Statistics for an example, and open the collapsible section for some buttons that could be modified to do basically the same thing that the sample section already does, if the table isn't pretty enough. Prometheus720 (talk) 06:25, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

There could be a page similar to WP:BIRDS instead, where they have a page filled with a showcase of all of their featured content and good articles. starsandwhales (talk) 16:29, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Updating taxonomy & taxoboxes

I would also be happy to help reach these goals. I'm not exactly the most experienced wikieditor, but I've made a few articles and worked a lot on the pages relevant to my actual research.
I would like to add a very important but difficult goal: updating the taxonomy of all existing herp pages to match current taxonomy according to the Reptile Database and AMNH/AmphibiaWeb. That would involve re-jigging a huge number of pages (e.g. all former colubrids that are now lamprophiids and whatnot), for which some kind of bot might be the best approach, I suppose. I don't know the first thing about such broad-scale edits, but would at least be happy to help coordinate them. --Mark D. Scherz 15:49, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
That would be really helpful. I think @NessieVL: would have the most experience with using bots to do this sort of mass reorganization. This project is supposed to follow those resources anywyas. I'd like to hear if you (@Mark.scherz:) have any ideas of where to start and how to go about organizing a group of people to work on this? starsandwhales (talk) 00:44, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
I never have used bots. I know they need very specific tasks, so I'm not sure that would work best for taxonomy. I think the key is to get everything on to automated taxoboxes. Then when a clade merges/splits/renames you only have to update one template and that propagates to all the related articles. This is nearly done for WikiProject Turtles (only 34 left!) but there are still 2123 articles left for AAR. Not impossible, but a hill to climb. --Nessie (talk) 01:47, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
I personally have no idea how to go about changing and rearranging the template. Anyone else know how we can start doing this?starsandwhales (talk) 23:29, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
I agree that the conversion to automatic taxoboxes can aid this task. It's much easier to convert taxoboxes when the parent taxonomy templates already exist, as it becomes a more daunting task when you have to created a sequence of taxonomy templates. I can help with this task. My taxonomy browser is helpful for traversing the tree and seeing if the taxonomy is being followed. We need an agreed taxonomy and following ASW6 strictly can cause problems. For instance, what is Ranoidea/Ranoidea? In snakes, a clear definition of Booidea would be helpful and it would be nice to be able to use the Caenophidian terminology used in Zaher et al 2019, but Reptile Database has been very conservative with the higher order taxonomy.   Jts1882 | talk  07:53, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
Honestly, I do not know any other wikipedia editors at all personally, and have only had a few interactions with other editors on wiki itself, so mobilising a force for this is not easy for me, @Starsandwhales:. Yes, @Jts1882:, I know only too well how difficult things can be when following ASW6 strictly. However, the dominant proportion of everything should follow the standard taxonomies of Reptile Database and AmphibiaWeb/ASW6 (for personal reasons I prefer AmphibiaWeb, but ASW6 is taxonomically more explicit so maybe better suited for use here). So maybe implementing first along the lines of the databases, and then specifically making exceptions would be the preferred course of action? We could perhaps add a page of this Project where deviances are then listed, for clarity? Such deviances very often wind up being down to personal preference, so justifying them while also avoiding injecting personal biases is not straightforward.
So @Jts1882:, what would be the course of action? Will we need to manually go through and replace all taxoboxes with automatic ones? I guess we would have to start by updating all of the Template:Taxonomy pages, right? Would we start at the highest ranks with this and work down? What would the order of events need to be? Maybe if we can set out a roadmap, we can figure out which steps are too laborious to be done by hand and get bot-makers involved? --Dr Mark D. Scherz 21:13, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Moved the discussion to a new section of the talk page to make it easier to find. I think we should start with replacing manual taxoboxes with automatic ones, since that requires the least consensus and discussion. starsandwhales (talk) 22:35, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

I can help convert from manual to automatic taxoboxes if the project members can agree to define the project standard for taxonomy. Loopy30 (talk) 00:51, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
@Loopy30: This project uses ASW and The Reptile Database as the basis for taxonomy (see references and templates tab). Is that a good enough project standard to go on? Also, is there a page where other project members can learn to help convert from manual to automatic taxoboxes so you don't have to take this on by yourself? starsandwhales (talk) 04:22, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Check out Wikipedia:Automated taxobox system/intro. And if you get lost or anything is confusing, post on the talk page and we can make it clearer. There are also folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Taxobox task force who can assist as well. --Nessie (talk) 13:34, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
I've been doing some manually over time as I update taxonomy...the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned. Finding a way to automate the process would be dynamite!...Pvmoutside (talk) 14:52, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

There are several distinct tasks involved, which can be addressed in parallel.

  1. Converting to automatic taxoboxes. All extant reptiles are already using automatic taxoboxes (classification of fossil taxa can be messy). 1900 amphibian taxa are still using manual taxoboxes.
  2. Updating the templates that are used in automatic taxoboxes. For this effort it would be helpful if somebody knowledgable about recent taxonomic changes (@Mark.scherz:) can identify areas where Wikipedia is likely to need updates.
  3. Updating article text in genus/species articles to reflect current higher level taxonomy (above genus). Taxon articles on Wikipedia frequently have a lead sentence reading something like "Fooia baria is a species of barfoo in the family Barfooidae". This sentence may need to be revised to reflect current taxonomic placement. The family may be mentioned other places in the article. Articles often have a category for the family, which may also need updating (this would be a good opportunity to consider creating new categories for genera, and putting species in genus categories rather than family categories).
  4. Updating genus/species articles to reflect current taxonomy at the genus level. Genera and species may be lumped or splitted, or species may be transferred between genera. These updates need to be done carefully. Lumping/splitting may affect the truth of statements made in the article (e.g., a lump/split is likely to have an impact on statements about the range of the organism). Changes in generic placement may necessitate a move when a species article uses the scientific name as as a title. Plantdrew (talk) 17:30, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
re #1, there are 2109 articles in AAR using manual taxoboxes. Some of those are extinct or are pathogens, but scanning this list i see a few extant reptiles there. A few will need automated {{Paraphyletic group}} templates.--Nessie (talk) 18:41, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Okay, so, it seems that getting through Step 1 is just a matter of brute force replacement of taxoboxes across all of the outstanding 2072 articles that still use manual taxoboxes. It seems to me that this will be a key step before we move on to Step 2, fixing the taxonomy templates. The latter step looks like it is going to be more complicated; @Jts1882: maybe we can coordinate on this once we have gotten to the point where it makes sense. I would also strongly prefer to do this with amphibians first, because reconciling taxonomy of reptiles without including birds honestly does not make sense, but petitioning to move birds and all other dinosaurs into Reptilia is a bigger problem for another day. So, if others agree, I would suggest we prioritise amphibians for implementing automatic taxoboxes. --Dr Mark D. Scherz 19:14, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
I had already started going throught the taxonomy amphibian templates to ensure that all family and above templates exist and are properly ordered. But the latter requires some decisions. Here are a few comments and questions:
  1. I think all the family taxonomy templates now exist. I will double check this.  Done Templates for all the ASW6 families now exist, plus a few extras found in AmphibiaWeb such as Strabomantidae. Not all AmphibiaWeb families have taxonomy templates, e.g. Ceuthomantidae (which is treated as Ceuthomantinae in Craugastoridae following ASW6).
  2. We need a source for taxonomy above family levels. Amphibiaweb doesn't include any, although their consensus phylogeny would have been a good place to add something. ASW6 only includes three superfamilies: Dendrobatoidea, Myobatrachoidea and Brachycephaloidea. The first two are treated as families by Amphibiaweb, as they are in Pyron & Wiens (2011) and Feng et al (2017). Brachycephaloidea is the ASW6 name for Terrarana. It must be coincidence that the only three superfamilies used by ASW6 are where there are differences of opinion on rank, nomenclature and/or subdivisions.
  3. Currently the taxonomy templates group the non-Neobatrachians as Archaeobatrachia and Mesobatrachia, both of which are paraphyletic. The obvious solution would be to use Leiopelmatoidea, Discoglossoidea, Pipoidea and Pelobatoidea sensu lato as in Feng et al (2017). These groups are monophyletic in Pyron & Wiens (2011), Feng et al (2017) and in the Amphibiaweb consensus phylogeny and the names traditional in form. So this should be non-controversial, but we need either a secondary source stating the taxonomy or to agree as a project to use say Feng et al (2017).
  4. With Neobatrachia, the taxonomy templates currently have the following suprafamilial groups: Dendrobatoidea (supported by ASW6), Brachycephaloidea (which I created following ASW6), Sooglossoidea, Afrobatrachia (which I created following Pyron & Wiens and Feng et al), Ranoidea, and Hyloidea. The content of the latter two is incomplete. Ranoidea and Hyloidea now include all the appropriate family taxonomy templates (following Feng et al, 2017). These groups are now treated as clades rather superfamiliies to avoid duplicate ranks in the automated taxonomy hierarchy.
  5. We need a decision for the name of the large Ranoid and Hyloid clades. Should we use Ranoides and Hyloides following Frost et al (2006) and ASW4 or Ranoidea and Hyloidea? The latter seems most common now and is consistent with the current version of the Hyloidea and Ranoidea articles, but such broad circumscription of superfamilies is opposed by ASW6 (the project's preferred source).
  6. The neobatrachian groups that seem to be widely accepted are Australobatrachia, Sooglossoidea, Hyloidea and Ranoidea at the highest level. Others within the supergroups include Brachycephaloidea/Terrarana, Afrobatrachia and Natatanura.
  7. Others that may or may not be accepted (as groups or names) include Amazorana, Neoaustrarana, and Commutabirana (Streicher et al 2018).
Overall I think the major archaeobatrachian (#3) and neobatrachian (#6) divisions have been resolved with general agreement. If we could decide on a source for the project then the taxonomy templates could be adjusted.   Jts1882 | talk  08:45, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
@Mark.scherz: regarding Reptiles/birds/dinos/ etc, there was a big discussion about this which resulted in using Skip taxonomy templates. That's pretty advanced, but if you see something that doesn't seem to fit, then bring it up here and we can iron it out. There already is a bit of taxonomy template infrastructure in place, and i'm sure it has some conflicting phylogenies. Part of the process is having the system in place so it can all be sorted as people see it pop up. --Nessie (talk) 14:40, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
@Jts1882: great work so far. Re: Point 1: I think there is simply no way to reconcile these differences in the higher classification, so we are going to just have to stick to the one resource and try to avoid inserting bias.
Re: Points 2 and 3: this is indeed inconvenient. My temptation would be to recommend that we as a project agree to follow Feng et al. 2017 for superfamilial taxonomy, because they were quite reasonable, although they did make it abundantly clear that familial and superfamilial taxa are woefully incomparable. Do we need to make a formal movement for that?
Re: Point 5: -oidea vs. -es, it depends if they are to be treated as superfamilies or not; theoretically superfamilies should have the ending -oidea, whereas if we treat them as unranked clades, they should not have that ending (article 29.2 of the Code). If we agree to deviate from ASW6 at superfamilial ranks, then I propose that we continue to use Ranoidea and Hyloidea as the superfamilies.
I agree. That said, the code says other family group names should not use the -oidea ending and, if Ranoidea is treated as a clade above family group level, you could argue that those rules on endings don't apply. Frost (I forget where) has argued that the scope of Ranoidea and Hyloidea are too broad for superfamilies, which is why he introduced the -es endings. However, he uses Hyloides in a broader sense than Hyloidea is now generally used, as he includes Australobatrachia and Sooglossidae in Hyloides. Hyloidea as used by Feng at al (2017) and others is equivalent to his Nobleobatrachia. Hyloides doesn't seem to have caught on and isn't part of the ASW6 classification so we probably shouldn't use it here. For clarity Ranoidea and Hyloidea as superfamilies seems best and is reasonably consistent with making the archaebatrachian clades superfamilies as in Feng et al (2017).   Jts1882 | talk  14:39, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
Re: Point 6, I have no idea what the best policy should be between Brachycephaloidea and Terrarana, but the other two groups (Afrobatrachia and Natatanura) are indeed widely recognised.
If we use Hyloidea as a superfamily, then we should use Terrarana to avoid having two superfamilies in the same heirarchy. When I was reorganising the taxonomy templates I put Brachycephaloidea within superfamily Hyloidea and this threw up an automated taxobox system error. I changed Hyloidea to clade to remove the error but that might not be the best solution, because of the presumption that Hyloidea should be a superfamily. If we use Hyloidea and Ranoidea as superfamilies then everything below them and above family level should be clades not using the reserved family group endings.
Afrobatrachia and Natatanura were introduced by Frost at al (2006) and have been used in most recent phylogeny studies. If ASW6 is the recommended reference, using Frost et al (2006) as a taxonomic reference seems a consistent approach. On your point 7 below, I agree that the other names are too new. We should wait for appropriate secondary sources.   Jts1882 | talk  14:39, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
Re: Point 7, perhaps we should wait until more sources have adopted Amazorana and co.
So to summarise, I move that the project follows Feng et al. 2017 above family rank. This is a nice and explicit source, and gives a good framework for working.
@NessieVL: Okay, I will bear this in mind and may hit you up when we get to dealing with various reptilian clades.
Finally, just as a general update: we still have 2022 articles using non-automated taxoboxes. A very large fraction of these are extinct animals where I would not even know where to start placing things into a framework. There are also numerous paraphyletic things that we will also eventually need to address (like Cobra and Rattlesnake). But, one thing at a time! -- Dr Mark D. Scherz 10:33, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
I've finished working through the caecilians. All caecilian articles are using automatic taxoboxes, and are following ASW6 (basically tasks 1-3 I described above; I haven't done the fact checking for task 4). We're down to 1575 manual taxoboxes from 2022 a week ago, which is excellent progress. Plantdrew (talk) 22:00, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
Nice! A few things I've noticed are that for articles that aren't about a specific taxonomic group (ex. Rattlesnake) it's unclear how it should be automated. It would be helpful also to go in the templates and make subfamilies and other sort of in-between classifications show up in the automated taxoboxes. That goes hand in hand with step 2 from Plantdrew's plan. starsandwhales (talk) 01:42, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
@Starsandwhales: you would use {{paraphyletic group}} for those, using the automated option. --Nessie (talk) 03:35, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
See Dromasauria for an example of a paraphyletic group. Loopy30 (talk) 14:41, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
You can display more parent taxa in the taxobox using |display_parents= (see Western diamondback rattlesnake for an example). We could also decide that certain higher taxa are important enough to always be displayed (e.g. Caenophidia) and make it show in all taxoboxes without having edit all the articles. I've updated the taxobox for rattlesnakes using {{paraphyletic group}} as suggested.   Jts1882 | talk  06:33, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
I just wanted to note that I don't think switching ALL manual taxoboxes to automatic taxoboxes should be an (short-term) goal. Manual taxoboxes allow more flexible formatting, which can be desirable in cases such as cobble skink (an undescribed speces), edible frog (a klepton), or +Crataegomespilus (a plant that is a graft-chimera). Fossil taxa should be approached with caution; sometimes higher "ranks" shown in manual taxoboxes of paleontological taxa may correspond to controversial or outdated hypotheses about taxonomic relationships. And some less controversial hypotheses may still be mutually incompatible with each other; we shouldn't produce taxoboxes that mix together mutually incompatible hypotheses. If a manual taxobox has some unusual formatting that isn't supported by automatic taxoboxes, leave it be. If you don't have a good understanding of the circumscriptions of fossil taxa shown in a taxobox, and the state of taxonomic consensus for them, it is better to leave a manual taxobox in place than risk producing a taxonomically incoherent automatic taxobox. Plantdrew (talk) 20:30, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
Makes sense. The idea behind converting to automated taxoboxes was so that it would be easier to change the taxonomy side-wide to follow our project's refernces and fix situations in which there is incoherent or misleading taxonomy. I get your point of keeping some of them manual, but there should be some way of keeping track of these and making sure they aren't left behind when we update everything to be more standard. starsandwhales (talk) 21:57, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
I agree about your general point on the utility of the manual taxoboxes, but the cobble skink is no longer one of them. It has been descibed and is now recognised as Oligosoma robinsoni (by Melzer et al 2019 and reptile database). I'm a bit puzzled why the authority is given as Wells & Wellington (1985), although I think there is something about that authority that might be controversial. I've also updated the subfamilies and genera in Scincidae, but the articles on subfamilies (where they exist), genera and species will need substantial work.   Jts1882 | talk  12:06, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
Starsandwhales, we can search for articles that use manual taxoboxes; right now the search results all cluttered with articles that should be using automatic taxoboxes, but aren't yet. When almost all articles are using automatic taxoboxes, the search will be a useful way to keep track of the articles that should use manual taxoboxes (and to be clear, palaeontological taxa should be converted to automatic taxoboxes, but it may take some research to get the taxoboxes for them right; for now, it should be OK to leave fossil taxa with manual taxoboxes if one doesn't want to do the research). For manual taxoboxes that employ unusual formatting, maybe a solution would be to add something like |taxon_formatted= to automatic taxobox code, where the custom formatting could be displayed (this would be a better approach than coding to support a variety of individually rare use cases).
Jts1882, Wells & Wellington are definitely controversial (Google them). Plantdrew (talk) 17:48, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
re Wells and Wellington, reality in the end with these two yes they are controversial, however many of their names are available, this does not mean valid necessarily. For a call on whether any of their names are being used I would recommend Reptile Database as your source. Their publications are accepted as valid, but some of the names are junior synonyms, some failed various articles of the code for other reasons. Unfortunately it requires searching. They proposed over 600 new names for reptile species. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 22:20, 10 October 2019 (UTC)


How has the progress on this been going? Have we updated most of those articles to automated speciesboxes? The link doesn't work anymore so I can't check. starsandwhales (talk) 01:43, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

It appears that we have about 709 amphibians and 234 reptiles left to go. I started with the PetScan list, and then switched to systematically checking each amphibian species by family, completing a few families each week. I am now at Mantellidae (going alphabetically by family), with 2680 species in 25 families remaining. The total varies depending on the depth of subcategories selected (ie. depth of 3 = 917 articles; depth of 5 = 1,088 articles; depth of 8 = 1424 articles). Loopy30 (talk) 14:51, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Looks like increasing the depth on Reptiles picks up the Amphibia as Category:Reptiles has Category:Herpetology as a subcategory, which has Category:Amphibians.   Jts1882 | talk  17:02, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
895 articles have the WikiProject banner and a manual taxobox (which was the search Mark Scherz did on October 1, yielding 2022 articles at that time). Searches with a high category depth pick up some birds and various parasites and diseases affecting herps. Many of the 895 are palaeontological taxa which aren't listed in the Reptile Database/AmphibiaWeb/ASW (original proposal by Mark Scherz was to bring Wikipedia up to date with respect to those databases). Plantdrew (talk) 17:40, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Would updating the pages to match Reptile Database/AmphibiaWeb/ASW mean relocating the palaeontological taxa or removing them? Is this something to work with WP:PAL on? Also, petscan has never worked for me, but if we have all AAR articles except some exceptions on automated taxoboxes can we start updating template taxonomies? starsandwhales (talk) 23:44, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
There is a fork of Petscan at https://petscan-md.toolforge.org/ (example). It seems to work more often. —  Jts1882 | talk  11:42, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Article for the Pristidactylus Volcanensis?

Hello everyone, I am new to Wikipedia, and while not quite sure if I am doing this right, I shall do my best to explain myself. Ever since I did a presentation on the Gruñidor del Volcán (not quite sure about the name in English, since Spanish is my first language) I gained quite a bit of interest on the species (even adding a fakémon based on it in my Chile-esque region, but that's not the point), but since the Spanish article was quite barren if I say so myself, I decided to look it up in the English wiki, and was quite disappointed when I found nothing. Of course, there are other sources that I used, most of them in Spanish, but even about a year after my little investigation, I'm still determined to write (or at least help by finding sources) an article on the Pristidactylus Volcanensis. Is anyone up to help me out with this? And in that case, is there a Discord or anything like that so we can talk about this more in-depth? I am quite unfamiliar with the structure of these talk pages, and I can't get the hang of what's going on easily. Thanks for your attention, I tried to keep this brief and I hope that my request was written right. --XileoRegion (talk) 16:56, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi XileoRegion, thank you for your interest. I would suggest creating a draft page in your sandbox: User:XileoRegion/sandbox. This is an area where you can edit without worry about messing anything up. It is probably best to keep discussion on-wiki, but I'm sure people will accommodate issues with talk page structure. I will also reply to this request on your talkpage, and if you are concerned about talk page structure that may be an easier place to discuss. CMD (talk) 02:56, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Article Assessments section, updated

Greetings, For this WP, I added wikilinks "Quality operations" and "Popular pages". JoeNMLC (talk) 20:12, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Lizard i/d help needed

Can anyone help with a query at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science#Lizard species identification please? Alansplodge (talk) 13:07, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Help me expand this article.

This article, Hyloxalus pulcherrimus, was recently created as a draft by me and has been accepted. I need some help expanding it. Can any of you help me? Regards, Vihaking277 (talk) 07:49, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Virgotyphlops braminus

Indotyphlops braminus has very recently been moved to Virgotyphlops braminus, resulting in a broken taxobox. I could fix this by creating the taxonomy template, but looking at the source used (which is here), there's no evidence that Wallach's new genus name has any other support, so I'm doubtful that the move should have been made. So I'll leave it to others to sort this out. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:48, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

It looks premature for the move, as its not used by reptile database (the obvious place to look). The Wallach reference cites an article in the webzine Pod@rcis for the new genus proposal ([source with link to pdf]), so I don't think it received an academic peer review. It seems to be based solely on its unique "triploid, parthenogenetic nature" rather than any morphology or molecular analysis. The proposal seems to make the Indotyphlops clade in Figueroa paraphyletic, unless I. pammeces is also included. I'd be surprised to see this accepted without further work. I think the move should be reverted. —  Jts1882 | talk  12:08, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
Jts1882, I saw the article at the ircf website which seemed to be a bit more official to me, even peer reviewed. But I don't have any expertise so I'm open to it being moved back. Sam-2727 (talk) 14:10, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
I just moved it back. Let me know if anything else needs to be done (pinging Peter coxhead as well). Sam-2727 (talk) 14:12, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
@Sam-2727: My comment about not being peer-reviewed referred to the description of the new genus in the webzine Pod@rcis, not the article in the IRFC journal. I think the proposal is worth adding to the article, which I have done in the reproduction section, but at the moment it is only a proposal. This needs to be accepted in secondary sources before a name change or article move is appropriate. —  Jts1882 | talk  14:37, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
@Sam-2727: also, it's very unusual these days for a genus change not to be supported by a phylogenetic study, so the absence of one should raise doubts. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:47, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
Peter coxhead and Jts1882, thanks for the feedback. I'll keep that in mind in the future when considering moving articles of species. Sam-2727 (talk) 14:49, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

More fun....checking recent edits

So Pincotti4 (talk · contribs) was a returned sock of banned user VeronicaPR. Below are snake articles to check for material against sources and copyvios. If no-one gets to it I will get to it over the next week or so. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:13, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

#4 looks the most suspicious because there was added a cladogram out of the blue with no sources to back it up. #2 adds a couple sentences that don't have any sources. The rest are sourced. starsandwhales (talk) 14:56, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
I think you mean #5 is suspicious. It adds the cladogram from #4. I've edited Egyptian cobra (#5) to add references for the cladogram and modified the cladogram following a reference already cited in the article.—  Jts1882 | talk  15:52, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Move review of Crotalus concolor and Yellow rattlesnake

There's a move review going on regarding a recent move from Crotalus concolor to Yellow rattlesnake. Some input there would be greatly appreciated! bibliomaniac15 02:31, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Coelurosauravus jaekeli

I undid some changes to Coelurosauravus jaekeli because they broke the taxobox. An editor has now just changed the text of the article to change the binomial, but not moved it nor changed the taxobox. Could someone look at it please? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:14, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Looks legitimate. The added reference proposed the move back to the monotypic genus Weigeltisaurus and I've added a source with a subsequent use of the revised name. I've edited the article to reflect the change and a move request to the genus name over a redirect is pending. —  Jts1882 | talk  11:50, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
@Jts1882: thanks for sorting this. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:26, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Photos

I was scanning the list of pages requiring images on the main project topic page and found one I could potentially help with, only to discover it's already got an image (and one that's rather better than mine!). What is the criterion for inclusion among "pages needing images"? Thanks—GRM (talk) 15:19, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Not all editors know or remember to check the Talk page WikiProject template to remove the `needs-image` or `needs-photo` parameter. The parameter isn't much more complicated than the article really would benefit from an image since it doesn't have one at all. An exception being that I will sometimes add that parameter if there *is* technically an image, but it's of something like a map of the organism's distribution, a bone fragment, or something else that doesn't really depict what the overall organism looks like. Removing the parameter on articles that do have images is a definite help to whittle down the list of actual articles in need! —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 16:52, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. I will bear that in mind for the future—GRM (talk) 16:16, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
If you have pictures you think can add something to an article, then add them. Just provide an edit summary to explain what you think the new image adds. If people disagree it can be discussed on the talk page. —  Jts1882 | talk  19:55, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Morelia and Simalia taxonomy

I noted this already on the talk page, but as it seems to be unnoticed to date, I hope I'm writing here in the right place to get some attention. I've noticed that there is an overlapping and contradicting taxonomy used on the pages Morelia and Simalia with the Amethistine and the Oenpelli Python being placed in both genera, which can't be correct. As I'm lacking knowledge about their taxonomy and I'm awful at working with tables on Wikipedia, I'm staying away from these articles. I hope that someone can fix the issues. In addition I know there were relatively recent revisions on the Amethistine Python (a few years ago). I also have no idea what is now a locality and what got its own species rank since. If someone has the knowledge and reliable sources it would be a good idea to double check that and update the taxonomy there as well. Thanks in advance to whoever looks into it! --Pawel W. (talk) 17:31, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Discussion about article "Gila monster"

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Gila monster#New version with current data and references, which is about an article that is within the scope of this WikiProject. Seagull123 Φ 17:18, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Photo of Bothriechis nubestris

I discovered a Commons photo of an unidentified snake that bears some resemblance with Bothriechis nubestris (imho). I hope someone could take a look and check this. See the B. nubestris talk page for details. Thanks. Arjuno (talk 00:02, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

How to talk about parasites

This is a small question, but where would I talk about parasites? I'm working on Laudakia nupta and it doesn't really fit into any of the existing headers. Description maybe? starsandwhales (talk) 19:12, 16 January 2021 (UTC) Oh, and another question, how do I write about the synonyms for subspecies in the speciesbox? starsandwhales (talk) 19:24, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Parasites could go under "Ecology" if you want a very general header. A "Parasites" header would be OK too. There isn't a firmly established format for presenting synonyms at different ranks. You just need to break them up somehow. See Round Island boa for one example (it's in a monotypic genus, with genus and species level synonyms given, but it's similar to the issue with subspecies synonyms). Plantdrew (talk) 00:11, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposed Eublepharis vs. Leopard Gecko Page Renames

Hello All,

I have noticed that if you search "leopard gecko" on Wikipedia you are taken to the genus page for Eublepharis, even though not all members of the genus are called leopard geckos, and "leopard gecko" as a common name generally refers to E. macularius. Users searching "leopard gecko" are almost certainly searching for information on E. macularius (currently located under "common leopard gecko" a name I have not seen used anywhere but Wikipedia) as this is the species popular as an exotic pet. The page for E. macularius is also substantially more developed than the genus page, presumably because there is more interest and more primary literature available (E. macularius is a commonly used lab species in addition to being a pet).

I propose we rename "leopard gecko" to refer to the common leopard gecko E. macularius, and have the genus page just named Eublepharis. This would direct traffic where it is intended to go, and also is in keeping with the stated wikipedia policy of renaming pages if a new name is in majority use (ie, leopard gecko referring to E. macularius specifically) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Moving_a_page#Reasons_for_moving_a_page . I suspect users looking for information on the genus are probably higher knowledge users who will not be searching using a common name anyway.

Is this reasonable to my fellow editors? I'm not 100% sure how to do that or if we need to go to a different more technical less content driven group to request moves. Any thoughts?

Best,

Connorlong90 (talk) 06:57, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

The Reptile Database page for Eublepharis macularius gives the English common names as Common Leopard Gecko and Spotted fat-tailed gecko, so that is the source for the article title. However, the RD page for Eublepharis hardwickii refers to that as the East Indian Leopard Gecko. The genus article, Eublepharis, also uses the common names West Indian leopard gecko (possibly based on the German common name in RD) and Satpura leopard gecko (RD uses Satpura Eyelid Gecko). So I'm not convinced that leopard gecko applies exclusively to Eublepharis macularius.
So now we come to the numbers game to determine the appropriate redirect. Would the overwhelming number of people searching for leopard gecko expect the article on the common species? The pet websites seem to use it this way and the reference list on the RD page for Eublepharis macularius show a number of scientific articles using leopard gecko for the species.
An additional question to address if there has been a species split from a single leopard gecko species, although Eublepharis hardwickii being the type of the genus argues against this. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:28, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
That's a good point about scientific articles using "leopard gecko" to refer to Eublepharis macularius specifically, I didn't think to mention that in my original post: If you type in "leopard gecko" on pubmed you get 151 results - I did not scroll through all 151, but the first two pages appeared to be exclusively referring to E. macularius. It is my impression that nearly all people searching for "leopard gecko", including academics in disciplines other than maybe herpetological taxonomy, would likely be expecting the page to take them to E. macularius. Connorlong90 (talk) 09:20, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
The IUCN use Eastern and Western Leopard Gecko for Eublepharis hardwickii and Eublepharis fuscus. They also say the latter was formerly a subspecies of Eublepharis macularius. And this scientific article refers to crossing two distinct species of leopard geckos (Eublepharis angramainyu and E. macularius). That's four species getting referred to as leopard geckos. So I think we should keep the E. macularius article at common leopard gecko to avoid ambiguity.
However, the majority use and what do potential readers expect arguments could justify the redirect for leopard gecko going to common leopard gecko. Let's see if anyone else has an opinion here. —  Jts1882 | talk  10:16, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
I can see the argument for the common pet trade names also for the reason that people looking for the pet trade name are going to just use leopard gecko. This does represent the majority of searches I would imagine. Also I think generally those wanting to be more scientific would probably know the differences already too. Mention of other species should be included in the common leopard gecko page to provide additional information for those that want it, thus covering the minor loss of information that sending the redirect to common leopard gecko causes. All up I agree with the proposal. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 15:28, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
How long do you all feel we should allow for comments before moving? I strongly agree with the above observations about most searches being related to pets and pet searches expecting E. macularius. I'd also like to reiterate that the wide majority of scientific articles appear to also use "leopard gecko" to refer to "E. macularius". https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=leopard%20gecko&page=2 . I am happy to include a mention of other species on the E. macularius page, or perhaps we should include the template that says something along the lines of "this article is about E. macularius, the species most commonly kept in captivity, for other species referred to as leopard gecko see disambiguation" or something along those lines. Thoughts?
Best, Connorlong90 (talk) 05:28, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sandbox organiser

Sandbox Organiser

A place to help you organise your work

Hi all

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

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

Hope its helpful

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

Requested moves again....

See Talk:Bungarus_niger and Talk:Bungarus lividus Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:19, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

FYI: Edit warring and/or lack of proper citations on multiple articles discussing behavior of eyelid (Eublepharid) geckos

Hello,

I just wanted to bring the attention of the group to an odd phenomenon I have witnessed on a few of the pages for eyelid gecko species (particularly those kept as pets including the leopard gecko and the African fat tailed gecko).

TLDR - editors (mostly IP editors) have been repeatedly changing the pages of certain nocturnal gecko species (I have noted it on the E. macularius page and the H. caudicinctus page, as well as the Eublepharis genus page) to say these species are not nocturnal, without providing references to support that assertion, when the references listed on the pages clearly state the species is nocturnal. This is a problem because it has been spawning third party articles stating these species are not nocturnal, as low quality third party sites will often plagiarize the Wikipedia article on a given topic. This problem is discussed on the E. macularius talk page, with a summary of the literature and examples of third party sites pulling from Wikipedia.

More detail: These are species that have been documented as nocturnal in the literature (I have done an extensive literature review for Eublepharis macularius, and cursory for the other species). Recently, editors (mostly IP editors without a Wikipedia account) have been changing the behavior sections to assert these species are cathemeral or crepuscular and not nocturnal, without providing citations to support these assertions. In the case of Eublepharis macularius and Hemitheconyx caudicinctus, the original citations supporting the assertion that the species is nocturnal have been left in place, but the wording has been changed to say these species are not nocturnal without adding any citations. On the Eublepharis macularius page specifically, this has turned into an edit war where IP editors repeatedly change the assertion the species is nocturnal to state it is cathemeral or crepuscular, while refusing to provide any sources to support that assertion, leaving the sources that seem to contradict that assertion in place so it appears their edits are cited when they are not, and refusing to discuss on the talk page. It has become so bad that I looped in an administrator (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Johnuniq) who has been managing the disruptive edits.

The whole ordeal is discussed in some detail on the E. macularius talk page. I provide details and a summary of citations I have reviewed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Common_leopard_gecko#Discussion:_Nocturnal_vs._Crepuscular_vs._Cathemeral

My impression is that these edits are made by individuals getting their information from social media (Facebook groups and/or pet keeping forums) where uncited myths have - in my experience - come into being and taken root in the collective consciousness. I discuss this in some detail on the Eublepharis macularius page as well - that article has over the years been edited repeatedly to be a how-to husbandry guide (with often fairly low quality references), which I believe supports my belief that these edits are coming from low information pet keepers who do not actually have primary sources to support their beliefs. As I discussed on the E. macularius page, this might seem trivial, but the big concern is that third party websites are actively plagiarizing these species level articles, so then incorrect information has the potential to linger online long after the wiki article has been corrected. Additionally, the few third party websites I have seen suggesting these species are cathemeral or crepuscular tend to be hobbyist websites trying to sell UVB lights, so it is possible that there is a financial incentive to convince hobbyists these animals are active when the sun is up (as E. macularius in particular is one of the most commonly kept pet lizards, and has been traditionally housed without UVB). That last point is speculation for sure, I'm just racking my brain trying to think of why individuals are so insistent on changing this wording while also refusing to provide citations.

I am not sure of the best action to take in this situation, but I wanted to bring it to the attention of the group so that consensus could be reached about what action to take (if any), and to let herpetologically inclined editors know to be on the lookout for uncited information on Eublepharid gecko pages.

Thank you,

Connorlong90 (talk) 05:13, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I should add - above novel aside, does anyone have thoughts about what should be done? My plan at present has been to edit articles to be consistent with the available literature (on subjects I am very familiar with), or to just mark questionable assertions as "citation needed" with an explanation. I am looking for input from the group about the validity of these assertions though - is there a consensus that these species are nocturnal, as the literature seems to have traditionally indicated? Or is that up-in-the-air on our end as well?
Connorlong90 (talk) 01:55, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
Update: On the common leopard gecko page 12:40, 8 April 2021 - A now banned account from a business selling Reptile supplies including UVB bulbs attempted to link to a care sheet on their website that stated leopard geckos are crepuscular and thus require UVB. I do not know if this is linked to the other disruptive edits, but it is supporting evidence that at least one business has tried to use the Wikipedia article on this species to sell light bulbs.
Connorlong90 (talk) 18:26, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Johnny Iguana

As you may have noticed, this article is about a Chicago blues pianist with an odd stage name (birth name Brian Berkowitz), rather than any real amphibian or reptile ! - Derek R Bullamore (talk) 12:57, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Casque

I've recently started a casque (anatomy) article. While my reason for doing so was related to birds, I'm finding a fair few reptile and amphibian references as I search for sources, so thought someone in this project might want to add information about reptile/amphibian casques. If so, I'd suggest we break out sections for each group of animals, i.e. birds, modern reptiles (basilisks, chameleons, etc.), non-avian dinosaurs, etc. MeegsC (talk) 09:49, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Reptile Database citation templates – slight update needed

Reptile Database citation templates (NRDB species, genus, family) use conventions that are becoming less and less standard. At present, one would expect that parameter "access-date" works, but it is just silently ignored. Instead, "accessdate" or "date"&"year" is expected. Could somebody update the script to accept "access-date"? Cheers, Micromesistius (talk) 09:10, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

I've made an update at {{NRDB species/sandbox}}, which I think is what you want. My quick test worked, but do you want to double check? —  Jts1882 | talk  12:07, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
Yes, exactly what I was wishing to see. Many thanks! Could you add this to the genus and family templates too? Cheers, Micromesistius (talk) 17:43, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
I've updated the three templates to take |access-date=.
For reptile database citations I use {{BioRef|reptileDB}}. It takes parameters |taxon=, |family=, |genus= and/or |species=. With appropriate parameters it replicates the functions of {{NRDB family}}, {{NRDB genus}} and {{NRDB species}}, as well as adding the option for other taxa. A custom title can be specified with |title=. The template wraps {{cite web}} and can take any additional parameters used by that template (e.g. |mode=cs1/cs2). It also handles a variety of other taxonomy databases (e.g. ASW6, Amphibiaweb) in a standard format so you don't have to remember the peculiarities of each citation template. —  Jts1882 | talk  06:54, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Epic new classification of Amphibia

I've just seen this new paper by Dubois, Ohler and Pyron (2021).[1].

At 738 pages its not for the faint hearted. It's an attempt to produce a suprageneric taxonomy based on phylogenetic results following objective criteria and rules of nomenclature (a "cladonomy"). It could be considered a Linnean riposte to the Phylocode as it applies names and ranks to any division supported by the data (following certain criteria). To do so it includes 23 ranks between genus and class, including hypoorders, epifamilies and apofamilies, six phalanx levels (between order and family) and five clanus ranks (betwen genus and tribe). Unfortunately the way the rules are set up it means they replace most of the familiar suprafamiliar taxon names and most of the surviving superfamilies get redefined. Furthermore, because the taxonomy follows the phylogenetic results, it is not stable (although they have choice words for people who think this a problem). While I doubt it will catch on, the paper includes a wealth of information on nomenclature and taxonomy. A valuable reference, if not the taxonomy of tomorrow. —  Jts1882 | talk  15:37, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Wow. Question is, how widely accepted will it be I guess....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:27, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ ALAIN DUBOIS, ANNEMARIE OHLER, R. ALEXANDER PYRON (2021) New concepts and methods for phylogenetic taxonomy and nomenclature in zoology, exemplified by a new ranked cladonomy of recent amphibians (Lissamphibia) Megataxa 005 (1)

Coral_snake#Antivenom_shortage could really use an update

Coral_snake#Antivenom_shortage could really use an update.

As of 2012, the relative rarity of coral snake bites, combined with the high costs of producing and maintaining an antivenom supply, means that antivenom (also called "antivenin") production in the United States has ceased.
The existing American coral snake antivenom stock technically expired in 2008, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has extended the expiration date every year through to at least 30 April 2017.[16][17]
As of 2016, the Venom Immunochemistry, Pharmacology and Emergency Response (VIPER) institute of the University of Arizona College of Medicine was enrolling participants in a clinical trial of INA2013, a "novel antivenom,"

So, any new developments?

Please add any more-recent info to Coral_snake.

Thanks - 2804:14D:5C59:8833:2191:4BF2:B573:4F95 (talk) 01:47, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Reptile

I've started a discussion named "Is this article about the clade Reptilia, or about the paraphyletic group "Reptiles"?". Project members and other editors are invited to participate. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:04, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Reptile Database update

Just an FYI, the new Reptile Database update is out with plenty of changes. I'll be updating as time allows, but feel free to join in the fun!Pvmoutside (talk) 20:39, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

In line with the above converation on TTWG the Reptile Database has also released a statement on Taxonomic Vandalism and will not be recognizing names from the Australasian Journal of Herpetology as available. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 21:05, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Help

Hi there, I have been editing the Wikipage Saltuarius salebrosus could some experienced Wikiusers please have a look at my progress, and if possible grade the stub. Playground123 (talk) 04:33, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Anoles

I was looking ahead a bit to the anoles, and noticed someone created red-links to some genera that have not been adopted by the reptile database or IUCN. One has been created - Norops, but the references are old or outdated. Any preference on keeping the article or making it a redirect to Anolis?....Pvmoutside (talk) 15:29, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

The genus Anolis has been split several times in last decade or so, but the people who work on Anoles want all their species in one genus, its inconvenient to split it they say. Even though the science to split the genus is well founded its unlikely to be accepted I would say. On wikispecies and the same goes for Reptile Database we gave up. They ignore any science that does not agree with it being one enus. I suggest redirect. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 16:55, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Asp (reptile)#Requested move 30 July 2021

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Asp (reptile)#Requested move 30 July 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 18:25, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Natrix megalocephala or Natrix tessellata?

Dear colleagues, look, please, at c:File:Natrix_megalocephala_01.JPG and its talk page. Sneeuwschaap (talk) 01:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

I have requested User:Fice to explain his changed identification. He is still active on Commons. Ashwin Baindur (User:AshLin) (talk) 06:44, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

FAR for Cyclura nubila

I have nominated Cyclura nubila for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 15:44, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

I see that Cyclura nubila has been delisted as FA; perhaps it can be now reviewed for GA on its route back? Ashwin Baindur (User:AshLin) (talk) 06:49, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Agkistrodon piscivorus leucostoma#Requested move 17 July 2021

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Agkistrodon piscivorus leucostoma#Requested move 17 July 2021 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 04:37, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

This move has been made today, only hours after relisting and informing the project. The "consensus" for the non-admin closure of the discussion was two in support and two against (one explicitly, one implicitly). —  Jts1882 | talk  08:30, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

"Varanoid lizard" references in opening paragraphs

According to the current Varanoidea page, this superfamily only includes the Varanidae, the Lanthanotidae and a handful of extinct genera. Apparently, however, Wikipedia used to include the Mosasaurs and a number of extinct families. Unfortunately, there are a good number of taxon pages that still say in the first sentence or two that the taxa in question are "Varanoid lizards". For instance, Judeasaurus says "Judeasaurus is an extinct genus of small, aquatic varanoid lizard related to the mosasauroids, " and gives Varanoidea as the parent in the taxobox. Even in pages where the taxobox has been changed, such sentences are fairly common. I gather it was some kind of default sentence used in article-creation boilerplate.

This leads to strangeness like at Aigialosauridae, which opens with "Aigialosauridae (from Greek, aigialos = "seashore" and sauros= lizard) is a family of Late Cretaceous semiaquatic varanoid lizards closely related to the mosasaurs", but is shown as a member of the Mosasauroidea in the taxobox, with no reference to the Varanoidea anywhere else in the text. That article also has the "Varanoidea" template in the footer, even though that template doesn't include the Aigalosauridae or the Mosasaurs. If they click on the link to Varanoidea in the opening sentence, they will find no mention of the Aigialosauridae anywhere.

I would suggest that someone who knows what they're doing should go through Special:Whatlinkshere/Varanoidea and fix all of the contradictory and confusing bad references to the Varanoidea. Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 21:36, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

RM Trimeresurus albolabris to White-lipped pit viper

An editor has requested for Trimeresurus albolabris to be moved to White-lipped pit viper. Since you had some involvement with Trimeresurus albolabris, you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so). Havelock Jones (talk) 17:07, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Position Statement TTWG - Turtle Taxonomy Working Group

Hi I have been given permission to share this with you all. In the upcoming (in press) 2021 Checklist of the turtles of the world the following statement will be published regarding the nomenclature of Raymond Hoser.

  • Names coined by Hoser: The nomenclatural chaos and taxonomic destabilization perpetrated by Hoser (2013, 2014a,b, 2018a,b, and multiple other works as documented in Wüster et al. 2021) has led to unprecedented scientific community reaction and rejection of the works in question. Hoser has repeatedly and continuously circumvented conventional and acceptable standards of scientific analysis and peer-review in his broadly sweeping and extensive self-produced taxonomies and nomenclatures. Though only coining 15 new turtle nomina to date, Hoser has attempted to promulgate a total of 1795 new taxon names (1453 reptiles, 290 frogs, 46 mammals, 4 spiders, and 2 fish) from 2000 through January 2021 (Wüster et al. 2021). We regard his actions as disruptive and unwarranted acts of nomenclatural destabilization in defiance of the guiding principles of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature to promote nomenclatural stability (ICZN 1999), and also in contravention of its own recommended Code of Ethics. Further, we do not regard the self-produced documents circulated under the name Australasian Journal of Herpetology as objective scientific publications (Kaiser et al. 2013; Kaiser 2014; Rhodin et al. 2015; Wüster et al. 2021).
  • In collaboration with a wide leadership group representing the global herpetological and zoological communities, we petitioned the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) to use its plenary power to declare and treat Hoser’s works as nomenclaturally unavailable (Rhodin et al. 2015). In response, the ICZN (2021) has now issued an opinion on this and related petitions, in which the Commissioners declined to either formally confirm or reject the availability of Hoser’s names and self-produced works, and also indicated that they had no authority to uphold their own Code of Ethics.
  • As a result of this opinion by ICZN, and in view of Hoser’s numerous nomenclaturally destabilizing novelties and confrontational unethical practices, we therefore now agree with and follow the recommendation by Wüster et al. (2021), including their 464 supportive zoologist signatories, to follow the scientific community’s outright rejection of Hoser’s work as being unscientific and disruptive, and the community’s strong support and acceptance of new replacement names (aspidonyms) as valid. We also agree with the analysis and recommendations by Krell (2021), who suggested that prevailing usage within the scientific community could serve as a potential solution to the problems created by Hoser’s approach. We therefore now regard all of Hoser’s turtle names as nomina rejecta and accept such replacement aspidonyms as are validly published, available, and scientifically justified based on best available objective analysis and peer-review.
  • Refs:
    • Turtle Taxonomy Working Group. In press (2021). Turtles of the World: Annotated Checklist and Atlas (9th Ed.). Chelonian Research Monographs No. 8.”
    • Krell, Frank-Thorsten (30 April 2021). "Suppressing works of contemporary authors using the Code's publication requirements is neither easy nor advisable". The Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 78 (1): 61–67. doi:10.21805/bzn.v78.a021. ISSN 0007-5167
    • International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (30 April 2021). "Opinion 2468 (Case 3601) – Spracklandus Hoser, 2009 (Reptilia, Serpentes, Elapidae) and Australasian Journal of Herpetology issues 1–24: confirmation of availability declined; Appendix A (Code of Ethics): not adopted as a formal criterion for ruling on Cases". The Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 78 (1). doi:10.21805/bzn.v78.a012. ISSN 0007-5167
    • Wüster, Wolfgang; Thomson, Scott A.; O'Shea, Mark & Kaiser, Hinrich (2021). "Confronting taxonomic vandalism in biology: conscientious community self-organization can preserve nomenclatural stability". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2021, XX, 1–26.

I am supplying this for information for those determining correct nomenclature in reptiles. This position is supported by over 450 professional herpetologists as outlined in Wuster et al, 2021, and follows the principals of community suppression of Taxonomic Vandalism as outlined by Krell, 2021. Similar positions are under discussion for Reptile Database and other major international checklists many of which we use here as primary references. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 06:45, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

thanks for the clarification...just a quick question. I usually use the reptile database (and the IUCN) currently to update taxonomy when I find conflicts. Are they using Hoser or are they ok now to use as updating platforms or should I wait....Pvmoutside (talk) 20:36, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
The next update for Reptile Database is out soon but too late to make any changes with this so it will be next update. From what I have seen they do not use Hoser at all except pre 2000 names. Science community does not intend to use the names from what I hear. They will follow Krell 2021 etc. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 21:00, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
I note that Reptile DB updated the turtle taxonomy in the Higher Taxa classification page about a month ago. It now uses Chelydroidea for Chelydridae and kinosternoids (dropping Kinosternoidea). Is the new TTWG checklist going to have a different taxonomy?
The taxonomy section in Turtles claims to be following Joyce et al (2021), but uses Linnaean ranks. This becomes an issue if trying to include Chelydroidea and Kinosternoidea. Both are defined in Joyce, but only the latter is listed in the article. Should the list be without ranks or is it acceptable to use two superfamilies (a la Benton)? —  Jts1882 | talk  07:57, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
In Thomson and Pritchard, 2018 (a plenary conference talk), I presented that these taxa should all be in Chelydroidea, which when you include the fossils is the right approach, in agreement with Joyce et al. I am not sure if the new checklist will update for this, though if the past indicates they tend to acknowledge the PhyloCode system though not follow it. Living turtles follow the Linaean system and do so under IUCN and CITES also so its difficult to change. However in this case I would put them under Chelydroidea only. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 08:09, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Darrell Frost is also unhappy with the ICZN. A recent blog entry (May 3) states "I have given up on the ICZN as an organization that is unwilling to address its own pipeline problems". I wonder if the usage he was asked to avoid involved Hoser names, as otherwise it seems an odd coincident to have publicly expressed doubts from major amphibian and turtle authorities so close together. —  Jts1882 | talk  14:15, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Frost makes some valid points in that post, I think I may be aware of the specific issue he was referring to when a Commissioner tried to warn him. I was also approached about it at the time, but best left go. The ICZN has unfortunately not kept pace with the speed at which things change in science these days. Is in a quandary about how to deal with some issues, such as Vandalism. The recent decision over Hoser for example was split decisions, 66% of Commissioners must agree on a motion for it to pass. Hard line to cross. There is precedent in what Krell suggests (though there is no case law in ICZN code) butterfly taxonomists have ignored the Principal of Coordination, so all names are spelled in original form, no changes if the gender of the genus changes through recombination. What Herpetology as a scientific community is doing with regards to taxonomic vandalism is similar. I am in the process of removing all Hoser names (post 2000) from Wikispecies at present, most are gone now. Hoser complains about it, at least on Twitter, Facebook and in his self published journal, but he is not worth engaging, most ignore him. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 18:41, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Is the new TTWG checklist published yet? —  Jts1882 | talk  16:32, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
Not yet I will ask the author if there is a proposed date yet. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 19:25, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
Any news on this? —  Jts1882 | talk  09:06, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
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