User talk:Aranae/Archive1

This is an archive for my user talk page. It contains all discussion from my first year as an editor. For current messages, see User talk:Aranae.

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Hello, Aranae/Archive1, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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Murinae

"It has been said that murines are in the process of taking over the world, and humans just came along in the middle of it."

Love that line :) 68.81.231.127 11:47, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

My pleasure... you're contributing a lot (and it's very well referenced). You may be familiar with it already — but if you're not there's a whole section on taxoboxes at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life that covers a lot of arcana, along with some fairly active talk pages. 68.81.231.127 18:16, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Re:Metatherian poll

The best place to post your comments would probably be on the talk page of WikiProject Tree of Life. →Iñgólemo← (talk) 16:53, 2004 Dec 23 (UTC)

Mammalian taxonomy

I know very little about mammal classification, so I can't comment intelligently on the taxonomy. But yes, the different schemes should definitely be discussed in the article. Wikipedia is supposed to reflect the current state of the art; if there are multiple schemes in widespread use, they all need to be addressed. Most of the actual discussion of taxonomy in the article is just fine, I'd just strip out the... List of mammal classifications, maybe? Ask on Talk:Mammal... there might be a better suggestion, and it's always a good practice to see if there are any objections before moving content to a new page. (Though I can't see any serious objections: the article is 56 screens long on my computer, 49(!) of which are taxonomic.)

The default system appears to be just a simplified version of the textbook classification, with a few missing families, a few missing intermediate taxons, and a couple renamed taxons. It was apparently set by that old poll you commented on, but it didn't get a lot of support either way (not many votes) so it should still be open to discussion over at ToL. You make a few good points. There are certainly enough Multituberculate articles.

Re Metatheria/Marsupialia etc... I used to put Superorder Dinosauria in all my dinosaur taxoboxes, even when I was adding a new genus. But then I thought about it. It doesn't add any new taxonomic information. Class Reptilia or Archosauria, and Order Saurischia or Ornithischia implies the intermediate taxon. And more importantly, it's just as accessible. The casual reader doesn't look at the taxobox, first. They start with the first paragraph, and just about every dinosaur article starts with a line like "... is the first theropod dinosaur discovered clutching a chemistry set" or something equivalent. And that's where easily recognized terms like dinosaur, or marsupial, really belong: in the article. It's ok to stick Metatheria in the taxobox.

And thanks, but aside from a little context and the authorities I didn't add much to Repenomamus. I just moved all that dull, boring technical classification stuff to the end of the article and put the what is it stuff? at the beginning ;).

68.81.231.127 20:08, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Most ToLers may agree with you, but I think we're forgetting our audience. Saying a whale is an artiodactyl, or that Dinosauria is the node-based clade stemming from the most recent common ancestor of Passer and Triceratops doesn't mean anything without context. It's very good to say that whales are more closely related to hippos than any other land animals, or that birds are descended from dinosaurs, but it's also not more important than saying whales are a group of aquatic mammals that include the largest animals in the world, or that dinosaurs are extinct reptiles that dominated the terrestrial ecosystem for 150 million years and fascinate children. A good introduction can cover all that in a paragraph or three, using easily-accessible terms. The technical jargon is important, but it really belongs later in the article where it can be explained. 68.81.231.127 12:49, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Fat Chicks

Thanks for the info on Fat Chicks in Party Hats.

Classification of Mammalia

I've suggested another system at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Marsupial poll. It's rather different from others, but I think it's the best one. Please comment. Ucucha See Mammal Taxonomy 11:56, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Adzebill is now a gull!

Nice catch. I think that was my fault all the way back when I created the article. I think I must have used the Kittiwake taxobox as a template. Can't believe I didn't catch that! Sabine's Sunbird 02:15, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Vole teeth

Thank you for your clarification, it's much better now. Wikipedia should have more specialists like you! — Sebastian (T) 04:50, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

Congratulations

You beat the press on the Laotian rock rat by about 20 days. You're a credit to the encyclopedia. Keep up the good work. Dave (talk) 15:32, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

"The Vole" Nickname Discussion

Appreciated your comments on Talk:Vole I am preparing a response to Nathan J. Yoder. It seems crazy that I'm having to expend this much energy on a simple link to an existing article which already refers to the term - do you know anyone who can help me? Winston Smith 20:59, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Homo floresiensis was/were

Dear Aranae.

I'm not a native English speaker; I don't know if you are. But are you sure that this is incorrect:

The first of these fossils were unearthed in 2003...

Suppose it was seven fossils, couldn't it be

The first seven of these fossils were unearthed in 2003...

Not knowing how many, couldn't it be

The first fossils were unearthed in 2003...

or as it was in the article previously? The point is, I think you change the meaning when you fix the grammar that way. --Niels Ø 20:06, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

Laotian Rock Rat

Hi Aranae - I'm writing an article at the moment for the Signpost about how Wikipedia (led by you!) broke the news of the Laotian Rock Rat before the mainstream press picked up on it. I was just wondering, are you a biologist by profession? How did you come to find out about the rock rat? Would much appreciate it if you could let me know how your scoop came about! Thanks very much - Worldtraveller 16:27, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Having just read this in the Signpost, I wanted to add my congratulations and thanks for this excellent piece of work. Wikipedia benefits enormously from the presence of specialists. Good work! OpenToppedBus - Talk 11:39, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

Delicate Slender Opossum

Hi, I can't claim any expertise in mammals. I started working on the List of mammals because I like lists, and had a vague interest in "nature" (I'm more of Birder though). After started made the list, I decided to fix some of the red links, and cobbled the opossum articles from tidbits gleaned from the web. It's hard to tell, but each of those stubs took me several hours to put together.

All that said, I think Delicate Slender Opossum is probably a hoax. The one external link to the "story" on the this beast took me to what looks to be like some sort of cell phone ad in Spanish. A google search on "Delicate Slender Opossum" and seperate search on "Marmosops parvidens" turned up nothing on this. I just don't buy it, the beast is not adapted to life underground. This sort of discovery would be big news if it were true, and would have left footprints all over the web. It hasn't, so it's not. Dsmdgold 04:53, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

One more point, the actual common name of Marmosops parvidens is Delicate slender mouse opossum. Google search on that turns up nada also. Dsmdgold 05:02, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Gerbillus

Hi Aranae, I must admit that I am not familiar with this particular kind of articles and did not realize that there is a standard format. Thank you for your advice. PM Poon 06:14, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi Arane, I had done 4 articles on Gerbillus when you alerted me:

• Gerbillus burtoni
• Gerbillus garamantis
• Gerbillus dongolanus
• Gerbillus floweri

You had corrected "Gerbillus burtoni" for me. I have since, used your template to correct the other three. Thank you very much for notifying me. I have indeed learned from you. PM Poon 08:25, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Celaenomys redirected to Chrotomys

Hi ! Please excuse my poor english.. I'm working on interwikification English<->French ; According to this french page, Celaenomys and Chrotomys are two different Genus. But I found this redirection page. Shouldn't we delete it ?

Garulfo 27 agust 2005, 15:17

(I'm sorry I'm answering for Aranae). No, there has been a recent article on Chrotomys (probably in "Literature" section), stating that Celaeonomys is a synonym of Chrotomys. Ucucha|... 13:56, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Precisely what Ucucha says. It's based on the Rickart et al. (2005) reference at the bottom of the Chrotomys page. Older references may refer to the name Celaeonomys so it's important to redirect anyone looking it up to the Chrotomys page. --Aranae 16:43, August 27, 2005 (UTC)

It should however be noted that their cyt b analyses showed Chrotomys s.s. to be monophyletic. Only the phenetic tree showed nl:Chrotomys sibuyanensis to be more closely related to C. silaceus. There is some evidence that Celaenomys might be a real genus, but I think it's fine to have it under Chrotomys, since it shares many characteristics with other species and Chrotomys s.s. may not be monophyletic. Anyway: you're right. Ucucha|... 20:05, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Taxobox

Hi, may I know why you removed all the sub- and infra- level entries for Gerbillus andersoni and Gerbillus bonhotei, and probably all the other Gerbillus articles? Is there a guideline? Thanks. -Miborovsky 23:59, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the elaboration. As you've done far more biology-related articles than I have, I'll defer to your good judgment. :D Those 60+ Gerbillus species look pretty daunting, and I'm been tempted more than once to clean them up, but never actually had the time or patience to do so... -- Miborovsky 05:37, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

DYK

Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Blesmol, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

Echimyids

Hi Aranae, here is an interesting paper about the Echimyidae (together with some other interesting articles ;-)). My classification in nl:Stekelratten is based on Emmons' new classification. Note that Hoplomys is a synonym of Proechimys now. Ucucha (talk) 05:55, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

It's probably obvious that I was just being lazy and looking only at Nowak. I updated the page. I'm not really sure what to do with Chaetomys. I noticed you listed it as an erethizontid in nl. Do you have any reason for that beyond McKenna and Bell? Emmons doesn't seem to deal with it, except maybe to suggest that it's a separate family like the nutria. It looks like both echimyids excluding it and erethizontids excluding it would be valid since it appears to be basal to one or the other depending on who you read. Does this mean English wikipedia still has another extant rodent family that needs a page? I was hoping to check that off as finished as of Echimyidae. Vaguely. I guess there's the Sicistidae problem and the future could always hold a new family and/or a splitting of an ancient group such as dormice or squirrels. --Aranae 07:07, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe Heterocephalus is another new family... the monophyly of the Bathyergidae isn't certain, I think. Some muroids may also be a separate family.

Huchon and Douzery (2001) showed weak support for bathyergid monophyly. Bathyergid monophyly seems to me to be the default hypothesis and it falls to the opposition to disprove that. Most other authors (such as the papers from Honeycutt's lab) seem to assume monophyly as well but don't explicitly test it. There's good data saying that the other bathyergids form a monophyletic group to the exclusion of Heterocephalus. Meanwhile it appears to have diverged from other bathyergids much earlier than, for example, the dassie rats split from cane rats. Family status seems valid but not required. For that matter, I'm not convinced the Petromuridae, Thryonomyidae, and perhaps &daggger;Phiomyidae shouldn't be united. --Aranae 01:20, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe indeed. Some of the phylogenetic analyses of the Laonastidae showed that the Bathyergidae wasn't monophyletic. Ucucha (talk) 05:44, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

400 bp of cytochrome b isn't much to go on, especially at those older divergences. But then a posterior probability of 94% isn't too bad. I'm still waiting for its connection to the bathyergids to be disproven. No need for it to follow in the footsteps of the old guinea pigs aren't rodents argument. --Aranae 07:35, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

There have been too much weird molecular hypotheses now, this may be another one. You're right about that. Maybe cavias are the sister group of the Marsupionta or however it was called? Ucucha (talk) 11:19, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

But Chaetomys, as far as I know, is an erethizontid. Most sources I know consider it as such, however I haven't ever read much about it. Ucucha (talk) 12:51, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

No molecular work on the genus. Woods seems to be the strongest proponent of including it in the Echimyidae. There were two papers on teeth, one on incisor enamel and one on premolar replacement, that people cite as evidence against a close relationship with echimyids. But different authors either use those citations to argue that Chaetomyinae is the most basal echimyid subfamily or to argue that it's a porcupine. The basic message is that there isn't enough data to make a conclusion. I think if I were putting together a taxonomy I'd probably erect a separate family for it. Erethizontids and echimyids aren't particularly closely related and I wouldn't be surprised if this thing turns out to be somer relictual caviomorph. --Aranae 01:20, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

It's a bit weird indeed, that the genus is either placed in probably one of the most basal caviidan families, the Erethizontidae, or in a diverged family Echimyidae. The separate family seems the best solution. Do you also know what the reasons are to place it in the Erethizontidae? Ucucha (talk) 05:44, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure there's all that much more to the story than that it's a hystricognath with spines and is Neotropical. It really looks a lot more like Coendu than anything else. In the face and tail in particular. Molar pattern, cranial characters, etc. seem to suggest it's fairly distinct. But again, I'm missing the two key papers. --Aranae 07:35, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

A thylacine looks like a dog, to go in another old story... I don't yet know what it is, but the separate family Chaetomyidae seems probable to me. Ucucha (talk) 11:19, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I've also written an article on the nl:Chinchillaratten now. There are several more species than you stated, nine in fact. A PDF of Braun and Mares' paper can be found here. Ucucha (talk) 14:27, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Wasn't me. The only thing I've done to that article is add it to [[Category:Rodents]]. I don't mean to say every rodent family has an adequate article on en wikipedia, just that there's something there filling up space. I'll make the change. --Aranae 01:20, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I just thought all rodent articles here were written by you ;-). Most families have an article now on en: (nl:Sjabloon:Knaagdieren), but some still don't. We have still more work to do. Ucucha (talk) 05:44, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

And Cryptomys has recently been split to exclude Coetomys. Species are as following:

• Coetomys
  • Coetomys amatus
  • Coetomys anselli
  • Coetomys bocagei
  • Coetomys damarensis
  • Coetomys darlingi
  • Coetomys foxi
  • Coetomys kafuensis
  • Coetomys mechowi
  • Coetomys micklemi
  • Coetomys ochraceocinereus
  • Coetomys whytei
  • Coetomys zechi
• Cryptomys
  • Cryptomys anomalus
  • Cryptomys holosericeus
  • Cryptomys hottentotus
  • Cryptomys natalensis
  • Cryptomys nimrodi

Ucucha (talk) 14:31, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

From Ingram et al. 2004. I need to stop being so lazy. I'll make the change. --Aranae 01:20, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

That was the references, yes. I couldn't find it. Ucucha (talk) 05:44, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

2005 Atlantic hurricane season

Hi, I saw your edits and I reverted them as the official name is Jose and not José. NSLE _(讨论) \^<extra> 01:32, 15 November 2005 (UTC)