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Can't display some taxa's authorities

Latest comment: 9 days ago64 comments7 people in discussion

In Microcaldus and Fidelibacter pages, Microcaldota and Fidelibacterota's authorities can't be displayed because there is not enough parameters for speciesboxes. This needs to be fixed somehow. Jako96 (talk) 18:15, 31 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Wow, monotypic taxa so far up the hierarchy. So there would need to be provision for |greatgreatgreatgrandparent_authority=. Not a priority, but fixable if others think it worthwhile. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:01, 31 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

A little surprising, right? Let's wait for others. And it is worthwhile, there is no other way around. Jako96 (talk) 21:05, 31 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would say it is worthwhile. This is probably not the only time it will happen (Picozoa comes to mind). — Snoteleks (talk) 00:34, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Wait, so there are monotypic class, order and family in Picozoa but they are not displayed because of this issue? Jako96 (talk) 07:45, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

No, the taxon is set to Picozoa and templates don' exist for other taxa. This could be changed by setting taxon to Picomonas and creating necessary templates.  —  Jts1882 | talk  09:17, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I meant that, actually. Thanks. Jako96 (talk) 09:40, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Jts, so do you think it's worthwhile? Jako96 (talk) 09:41, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Peter coxhead do you support my proposal too? Jako96 (talk) 20:14, 6 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Omg it's so funny. Even for this, we can't reach a consensus. Still, I have more problems with the automated taxobox system that I will try to get consensus in the future. We can't even solve this lmao. Jako96 (talk) 06:54, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I changed automatic taxobox with a speciesbox in Picozoa page. Jako96 (talk) 10:10, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think it is worthwhile to allow |greatgreatgreatgrandparent_authority=. greatgreatgreatgrandparent_authority is sufficient to cover parents from species up to phylum, and there are single species phyla. I don't think single species kingdoms are likely. Plantdrew (talk) 14:38, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Peter coxhead You have the permission and I think you should make the change already. I support it, Snoteleks supports it, Plantdrew supports it, and CiaPan supports it too but he proposed to change the name (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#How about reducing greatgreat?). Jako96 (talk) 09:14, 11 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

The flow of control is Template:Automatic taxobox, Template:Speciesbox, etc. → Module:Automated taxobox.automaticTaxobox() → Template:Taxobox/core → Module:Autotaxobox.taxoboxList(). The last is where the taxon names and authorities are actually shown in the taxobox. All of these would need to be altered, which is a non-trivial task, fraught with risk because of the massive usage of these modules and templates. It needs an editor with significant uninterrupted time available (which I don't have at present).

There's also the issue of whether there's a more generic solution, albeit somewhat more complicated, using parameters of the form greatNgrandparent_authority or something similar as per the comment below. This should be settled first, with agreement on exactly what parameter names to use. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:42, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

My vote is in favor of parentN_authority. It's intuitive and reminiscent of the original one, without the confusion of greats and grands. — Snoteleks (talk) 17:25, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Snoteleks: So parent1_authority would be a synonym of parent_authority, parent2_authority of grandparent_authority, etc.? Peter coxhead (talk) 20:07, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes! That's how I envisioned it — Snoteleks (talk) 20:20, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I also support that. This was the thing I was gonna propose. But I don't know if we should use parent1_authority or parent_authority. Jako96 (talk) 20:49, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Peter coxhead Is it possible to make parent_authority synonymous with parent1_authority? Like how in {{Citation}} the parameters first and first1 do the same? — Snoteleks (talk) 02:05, 15 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Absolutely.

(Initially I wrote that some aliases are already supported, because either underscores or spaces are allowed in parameters, so that e.g. parent_authority and parent authority are aliases. However, when I checked, I found that underscores or spaces are still ok in {{Speciesbox}}, but the underscore versions were enforced in {{Automatic taxobox}} via this set of edits, which should be fixed unless there was a consensus for this change.)

Allowing aliases for the existing authority parameters in all taxobox templates that support them is straightforward if a bit tedious to implement, since e.g. parent3_authority would just be passed on as greatgrandparent_authority, which has support in Module:Automated taxobox, Template:Taxobox/core and Module:Autotaxobox, so they wouldn't need changing. It's adding new levels of authority that is more tricky. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:03, 16 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I dislike aliased parameters. Spaced parameters aren't really being used in taxoboxes, although they do work. I'm not sure if spaced parameters are functional in any other infobox templates (I have tested {{Infobox settlement}} and {{Infobox person}}, and spaced parameters are not functional with those).

I don't know anything about the principles of good user interface design, so I'm not sure if it is a good thing to make some variations in syntax work (space vs. underscore in taxoboxes) or a bad thing to make variations in syntax work, but not universally (taxoboxes vs. other infoboxes).

Numbered parent authorities are less tied to English (rebisabuelo is Spanish for great-great-grandfather, not bisbisabuelo or rereabuelo), but I think most taxoboxes on other language Wikipedias have not translated the parameter names. Regardless of whether the parameters are translated or not, I wouldn't expect any other language Wikipedias to change their parameters to numbered parents if we do that here.

I do think numbered parent authorities would have been a better way to go if that had been done since the beginning, but I don't very much like the idea of having two systems (numbered/greatgreat) with aliases. I'd be on board with numbered parents if a bot could change everything over. Plantdrew (talk) 21:04, 16 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Like Plantdrew, in general I'm not keen on aliased parameters; for one thing they make maintenance more difficult. There is, I think, a possible case for space versus underscore aliases, because of their widespread equivalence in other contexts. However, for consistency we should either allow them in all taxobox templates or none, rather than in only some as at present.

I do agree that we should avoid aliased numbered and greatgreat.. parameters. Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's a good idea. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:33, 17 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am slowly working up the call chain adding support for greatgreatgreatgrandparent_authority. I've reached the sandbox version of Template:Taxobox/core. As I noted above, although each step is straightforward, the templates and modules involved are very widely used, so I'm going slowly, including adding and checking new test cases. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:58, 22 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

{{Speciesbox}} now supports |greatgreatgreatgrandparent_authority= as at Microcaldus.

Aside: It turns out that {{Speciesbox}} has accepted greatgreatgreatgrandparent_authority since 2011. Then it was used to deal with a subgenus being included in the taxobox, and was passed on as one level less, i.e. as greatgreatgrandparent_authority. In December 2018, I revised the way levels between species and genus were handled, and mistakenly passed on greatgreatgreatgrandparent_authority, which was then ignored by {{Taxobox/core}}.

I did some work towards getting {{Automatic taxobox}} to support this parameter, but on reflection I'm not sure that it's needed. {{Speciesbox}} now allows the authority to be given for the species, genus, and four levels above. When the target of {{Automatic taxobox}} is the genus, greatgreatgrandparent_authority reaches the same four levels above the genus.

Peter coxhead (talk) 08:50, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Nice! I also updated Fidelibacter and Picozoa. Jako96 (talk) 10:20, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I find myself asking why it is necessary to specify the authorities for parent etc. taxa in the speciesbox (etc), rather than storing the authority in each node, and picking up from there when needed. It's not a trivial change anymore with tens (hundreds?) of thousands on taxobox templates, but would it be possible to make authority an optional parameter at each node, and use it when it is present?

One could in principle code and run a bot to insert authorities in nodes, but I guess one would worry about the risk of something going wrong. Perhaps a bot that just deals with the nodes above one terminal; if that goes wrong there's only a few nodes that need repair. And the bot could terminate when it hits a node with an authority present. (Usall could manually populate the top 1000 or so boxes by usage.) Lavateraguy (talk)

@Lavateraguy: this has been discussed before I'm pretty sure (though I can't find where offhand).

The major problem is that we only do this for monotypic taxa. Whether a taxon is monotypic can't be determined from taxonomy templates, since child templates may not have been created yet.

My recollection is that another issue was a degree of inconsistency between sources as to the authority, and editors' reluctance to pick one standard source for each taxonomic group. My experience is that for plants even PoWO and IPNI don't always agree, particularly for things like ex authors, even though they supposedly share databases. For animals, it's more difficult, since there are no standardized ways of representing authors' names.Peter coxhead (talk) 12:31, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Can confirm that the infrastructure setup at Kew is a bit weird in ways that I don't understand: Rafaël definitely makes fixes to authorities etc. in POWO (typically addition of parenthetical authorities) that don't immediately get back-ported into IPNI. Choess (talk) 13:25, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Candidatus discussion

@Peter coxhead: @Snoteleks: @Plantdrew: Guys, it looks like the problem is NOT solved for Candidatus taxa, after the changes I made. See Candidatus Hodarchaeum. Jako96 (talk) 15:20, 27 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

NOTHING has been solved for Candidatus taxa, including the question of whether to even have articles for most of them (they don't meet the requirements of WP:NSPECIES), and the question of how to title articles if we have them (include Candidatus in the title, or not? Most articles on Candidatus taxa don't include it in the title). Once those questions are solved we can address how taxoboxes should work for Candidatus taxa

Peter coxhead said he wasn't going to enable |greatgreatgreatgrandparent_authority= for {{Automatic taxobox}} (reasoning that it would need one less parent level than {{Speciesbox}}). Candidatus Hodarchaeum is using Automatic taxobox with |binomial_text= and |genus_text=. I'm surprised to see at Candidatus Hodarchaeum that |authority= is functioning to fill in the authority for the binomial. I would have expected |authority= to fill in the authority for the taxon called by |taxon=.

|binomial_text= is mostly used in articles for undescribed species with a provisional designation, to keep the provisional designation unitalicized. These don't have authorities, which I guess is why it wasn't aware of how the authority parameter behaved with binomial_text.

|genus_text= is used in only 17 articles. 10 of those are Candidatus taxa, and the others are mostly case of uncertain generic assignment. Uncertain generic placement has mostly been dealt with by using taxonomy templates with a query (e.g. Template:Taxonomy/Amia/?). Do we need |genus_text= for uncertain generic placement? Is |genus_text= a good way to handle Candidatus taxa? The "_text" parameters are intended to handle a small number of unusual cases. I don't think "_text" should be used for the large number of articles on Candidatus taxa, but a solution is needed for those. Plantdrew (talk) 19:08, 27 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree with Plantdrew that the key issue is the status of Candidatus taxon names and corresponding articles. These names depart from the standard rules of biological nomenclature so don't fit into the automated taxobox system, which expects uninomials at genus level and above, binomials for species, etc. If Candidatus Hodarchaeum were a normal monospecific genus, then a Speciesbox would be used, but it can't be because the first word of the species name isn't the genus. A possible way forward would be to have new "Candidatus autotaxobox" and "Candidatus speciesbox" templates, but I don't think this is worthwhile, and I have no interest in working on it.

@Plantdrew: I think the principle is that when |binomial_text= is used in an Automatic taxobox, the target taxon is then the species, so this is what |authority= applies to. Otherwise there would need to be |child_authority= to go down from the genus to the species. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:20, 27 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

In case we need feedback for that issue, I disagree with putting Candidatus on titles. From an encyclopedic standpoint, it is as irrelevant in the title as the authority of an accepted taxon; that's my perspective. — Snoteleks (talk) 00:58, 28 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

In my opinion, I don't think articles should need to have "Candidatus" in the page name; can't we just use the {{DISPLAYTITLE:}} template to add "Candidatus" in the title (as well as the double quotes for uncertain designations or whatever that's called, plus italicization of scientific name)? @Snoteleks @Peter coxhead

@Snoteleks: {{DISPLAYTITLE:}} can only change the formatting of a page title; the text must match exactly. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:37, 8 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Or better yet, how about a new template that is more appropriate that could to do that? With parameters like:

Parameters	Purpose
|candidatus=	to set whether or not the subject is a candidate taxon
|valid=	to set whether or not its name is tentative (double quote marks)
|scientific=	to set whether or not the article's name/title is a genus/binomial name (italicization)

Can't tell if this table is even working. Seems like posting on mobile is always whack.

CheckNineEight (talk) 08:43, 8 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@CheckNineEight: I'm not aware of any way of changing the characters in a page title. The formatting (e.g. italic) can be changed using {{DISPLAYTITLE:}}, but you can't add " or Candidatus with a template. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:41, 8 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

{{Italic verbatim title}} adds " and italicizes the entire title (except for a parenthetical disambiguation). There are some other templates that modify the title listed in the documentation for {{Italic verbatim title}}. Plantdrew (talk) 16:08, 8 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think we should either add these parameters to existing templates or create a new template for Candidatus taxa. Jako96 (talk) 08:49, 9 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Same. I just realized, though, that the parameter names I gave might cause confusion; let's think of better names for these. CheckNineEight (talk) 11:13, 9 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think we just need the "candidatus" parameter. Right? Jako96 (talk) 12:53, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure what you mean. I'm only sharing ideas/suggestions. I guess "candidatus" is actually a good enough name for the parameter, but I don't know what template you guys have decided to add it to; though if you ask me, I think it's a good idea to have a new template with all three parameters/settings, and it'd be nice to have it automate-able for automatic updates, like what the IAbot and Citation Bot does to {{Citation}} templates. CheckNineEight (talk) 13:48, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

We would add the "candidatus" parameter to Template:Automatic taxobox, Template:Paraphyletic group, Template:Speciesbox and Template:Subspeciesbox. Jako96 (talk) 14:50, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Those templates can modify the display title, too? (Genuinely don't know about this) CheckNineEight (talk) 14:54, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

These 4 templates can't change how the title appeares for now. But this can be changed, of course. Jako96 (talk) 15:04, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Alrighty CheckNineEight (talk) 15:24, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

So what do you think about the "candidatus" parameter, @Peter coxhead, @Snoteleks and @Plantdrew? Jako96 (talk) 16:40, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Personally I am against having "candidatus" in the title, but perfectly fine with having it displayed in the taxobox, kind of like the exinct parameter. — Snoteleks (talk) 17:01, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Interesting idea. I can see how a "candidatus" parameter could add something to the beginning of the name (as the extinct parameter does). However, we may have "candidatus" at a multiple ranks. The extinct parameter works at a single rank (typical use case is an extinct species in a extant genus), with extinction at other ranks specified in taxonomy templates. Would candidatus be a parameter in taxonomy templates to cover multiple ranks? Plantdrew (talk) 18:02, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think this is a good idea Jako96 (talk) 18:20, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

If this can be automated, that would be great; it'd be nice if the candidate status of a taxon and lower ranks can update as soon as a species in this lineage loses that status (and sister taxa within this lineage remains "Candidatus" while all species within them remains so). CheckNineEight (talk) 00:13, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

By the way, I forgot about Template:Taxobox. Jako96 (talk) 17:14, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Jako96: so the page would be at the 'plain' name, and then |candidatus=yes would add "Candidatus" to the taxobox display – is that the idea? (Personally I think the candidatus nomenclature is an abomination, but we appear to be stuck with it.) Peter coxhead (talk) 16:54, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes. But I think we should probably also have "Candidatus" in the title of the page. Jako96 (talk) 17:11, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Again, personally I would never add that to the title. But I'm not enough into prokaryotes to be an authority here, so do not consider me for this. — Snoteleks (talk) 17:52, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

We want to stop naming our articles Candidatus [taxon name], but we still need to show "Candidatus" on the display title to let the readers know that the taxon does not yet have any cultured strains. Kinda important, to hopefully give readers the idea that the species they're reading about (or that is/are within the higher taxonomic rank they're reading about) is barely known about beyond just metagenomic analyses (and, if they're lucky, proteomic and/or microscopy analyses also). CheckNineEight (talk) 23:47, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

But why does that need to be in the title, just out of curiosity? There's plenty of eukaryotic species that are so poorly known there's only one 19th century drawing of them, or a fossil. But you never see nomen nudum or † in the title. Why can't that simply be in the taxobox alone? — Snoteleks (talk) 00:35, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Actually, you're right. We don't need to display Candidatus in the title. Anyway, there is another problem. Will the quotes on the taxobox be in bold? Currently, we do use quotes in bold in text, and also in taxoboxes, but the quotes on Template:Life on Earth do not appear bold in pages. Jako96 (talk) 06:45, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

See Candidatus Aenigmatarchaeum for example. Jako96 (talk) 06:49, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I changed my mind again. I think we should display Candidatus in the title. Because in text, we will be using the word Candidatus for such taxa anyway. For example, we will use "Candidatus Thorarchaeia" in text, not "Thorarchaeia". Jako96 (talk) 09:07, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

If you want Candidatus in the title, move the page to that title (after getting consensus for the change). The taxoboxes can only add formatting to the title, not change the characters.

Adding candidatus to the taxoboxes in the taxon name is ugly, especially when bolded as in Candidatus Hodarchaeum. It might be better not bold the "Candidatus" or move it to the rank column.  —  Jts1882 | talk  11:43, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Jts1882: I couldn't agree more strongly that the taxobox at Candidatus Hodarchaeum is ugly, but this is the fault of the nomenclature system, which the taxobox reflects; see the LPSN entry. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:10, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

It is indeed, ugly. But we can just write "Ca." instead of "Candidatus", if you want. Jako96 (talk) 09:18, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm not an expert on this, but I think the term Candidatus was, if I recall correctly, made specifically for the fact that prokaryotes are, not only hard to be observed alive, but also hard to isolate and grow (culture)... unlike the term nomen nudum. "Candidatus" indicates that much of what is known about this cell is just its relationship with other taxa (phylogeny, and maybe even its environmental and pathogenic effects) and its' description/characterization is, overall, purely theoretical and subject to further characterization/identification and even changes; "nomina nudum" is a designation specifically for multicellular organisms, and it's equivalent to adding double quotes [" "] around the taxon name. CheckNineEight (talk) 07:38, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

How about this as a solution? We treat the Candidatus taxa the same way we treat extinct taxa.

• We add a |candidatus= parameter to the taxonomy templates.
• We add Ca. before the taxon name in the taxobox, just as we add † for extinct taxa (incidentally should the † be linked?)
• While adding parameters to the taxonomy templates hasrin't been done almost since the inception, I think this would be easy to implememt in Module:autotaxonomy.

Thoughts?  —  Jts1882 | talk  10:36, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

How about a legend at the top of the list? That way, you don't have to hyperlink every instance of Ca. or † beside the taxon names.

Ca. – Candidatus

† – extinct CheckNineEight (talk) 23:42, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Jts1882: it's a bit more tricky than †, at least if the result is to be like the taxobox here but with "Ca." rather than "Candidatus", because no name is italicized regardless of rank, and double quotes are added. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:20, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

How about reducing greatgreat?

Latest comment: 1 month ago5 comments4 people in discussion

Hi, everybody! Not my area at all, but don't you think a |parentlvl5_authority= or |ancestor5_authority= woud be easier to write (and read!) than |greatgreatgreatgrandparent_authority=? Probably some bot could do such substitution for any number of levels needed... CiaPan (talk) 15:53, 6 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

You're right! I support that. These "greatgreat" jokes are not funny anyway. Jako96 (talk) 17:47, 6 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree, that is much more intuitive too. I remember when I first started using the taxobox templates and I was confused by the use of grandparent and greatgrandparent instead of parent1, parent2, etc. for the authorities. — Snoteleks (talk) 15:17, 11 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I support ancestorN_authority (or parentN_authority) over greatN-2grandparent_authority (where N is an arbitrary integer). While kingdoms monotypic down to the species level are rare, they shall also be considered (especially now, given kingdoms are no longer limited to eukaryotic classification, increasing the possibility of discovering a kingdom with 1 species), as well as the fact that sometimes a taxon is important despite not being any of the varying number of primary ranks, or not even being ranked. Alfa-ketosav (talk) 07:53, 17 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

You are right. Such kingdoms should be considered. Jako96 (talk) 08:18, 17 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

About using quotes on prokaryotic taxa

Latest comment: 9 days ago15 comments5 people in discussion

Should we continue using invalid prokaryotic taxa with quotes? Jako96 (talk) 09:40, 4 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm not a prokaryote expert, but I just think quotes are ugly for any taxon. I don't know why Wikipedia should use them besides when sometimes referring to non-monophyletic taxa. Same with using Candidatus always in front of many of the names; it's not appealing to the average reader, I don't see the necessity to disclose it in every mention. Personally, it just makes me think: if the name is invalid, just make it valid already and shut up about invalidity! Still, more prokaryote-inclined editors should have the say here. — Snoteleks (talk) 22:05, 9 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I generally stay away from editing prokaryotes because of this stuff, but I don't think we're very consistent in using quotes where LPSN does so, and we are definitely not flagging up all the Candidatus taxa. I don't really have any recommendations to make about using quotes or not, but I do think we should be using |classification_status= more in taxoboxes to flag Candidatus taxa. Plantdrew (talk) 01:50, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

As in classification_status=proposed (or similar), or classification_status=Candidatus? — Snoteleks (talk) 13:13, 11 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

classification_status=Candidatus. Plantdrew (talk) 15:24, 11 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

We don't need that. The taxoboxes already state they are candidates. See Vampirovibrionophyceae and Candidatus Thorarchaeota. Jako96 (talk) 17:13, 11 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Their are hundreds of articles on Candidatus species in non-Candidatus genera that don't mention that they are Candidatus, and speciesboxes don't support showing Candidatus very well (I guess we could have two taxonomy templates for the genus; one for Candidatus species and another one for non). Plantdrew (talk) 17:36, 11 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

That was a problem I was gonna talk about in the future. It can be fixed. We don't need classification_status=Candidatus. Jako96 (talk) 17:41, 11 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am a prokaryote-inclined editor, so I think I do have a say. I think we should probably just continue using quotes. Or maybe, just maybe, we should not use quotes only for taxa that we use. Jako96 (talk) 07:50, 10 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Pinging "more prokaryote-inclined editors" just in case: @Petr Karel, @Videsh Ramsahai and @Artoria2e5. Jako96 (talk) 09:09, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Quotes are definitely the right thing in the Taxobox. I do believe we should do the same in the article body. As for page titles… they do make category sorting and link creation bit unwieldy. For category sorting there’s the DEFAULTSORT: thing, but creating a properly-formatted link to such a page is clunky. A Lua template might help. Artoria2e5 🌉 01:32, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have no problem with using Candidatus/Ca. for the formal taxa with valid publication (LPSN) but with not distinguishing of these formal taxa and phylogenetically correcter clades with similar name.[1] --Petr Karel (talk) 13:43, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The cited sources didn't include such a "Proteoarchaeota". Not my fault. If there is such a taxon, please add it to Wikipedia with the correct sources instead of trying to humiliate me. Jako96 (talk) 14:01, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Also you hypocritically saying "I am not Jako96" in this discussion, even though you first added about Glissandrida and Glissandra to CRuMs page with this edit. Jako96 (talk) 14:03, 18 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Also, the "Proteoarchaeota" that includes Promethearchaeati and Thermoproteati is WP:OR. The source you showed only includes "Ca. Lokiarchaeota" from the Asgard group. Jako96 (talk) 09:47, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

About the classification of the class "Candidatus Sericytochromatia"

Latest comment: 1 month ago10 comments2 people in discussion

How should we classify the class "Candidatus Sericytochromatia"? This paper puts it as a class under the phylum "Candidatus Melainabacteria", this paper treats it as a "phylum or class" under somewhere in the ___domain Bacteria (they don't necessarily specify the phylum when it's ranked as a class), GTDB puts it as a class under the phylum Cyanobacteriota and NCBI taxonomy puts it as a class under the clade "Cyanobacteriota/Melainabacteria group". I'm asking this here because it's hard to find someone to discuss in WikiProject Microbiology. Jako96 (talk) 12:32, 13 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

As far as I have seen in he literature, it's a proposed class part of phylum Cyanobacteriota, and Melainabacteria (=Vampirovibrionia) is a different class in the same phylum. I can research more when I have time — Snoteleks (talk) 17:34, 14 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

And one thing, LPSN doesn't use it by the way. Jako96 (talk) 06:27, 15 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Ok, it seems there is a huge taxonomic miscommunication. First, the name Candidatus Sericytochromatia was published and proposed as class of Cyanobacteriota (Soo et al. 2017). This class had two orders accepted in the GTDB: S15B-MN24 and UBA7694 (according to Soo et al. 2019). Afterwards, Candidatus Blackallbacteria was proposed by different authors (Probst et al. 2018) as the phylum containing metagenome-assembly genomes of one of the orders that had already been assigned to Sericytochromatia, UBA7694. The LPSN subsequently ignored the first authors and only accepted the status of phylum of the second authors and corrected the name by changing the spelling to Blackalliibacteriota (see their website). LPSN says there are no synonyms, but these two groups are very evidently synonymous and other authors notice this (e.g., Pinevich & Averina 2021). — Snoteleks (talk) 11:47, 15 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Nice! We would just create a page with the name Candidatus Blackalliibacteriota then. Jako96 (talk) 19:57, 15 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Not really. Sericytochromatia has 313 hits on Google Scholar, Blackallbacteria has 11, and Blackalliibacteriota has 0. By all accounts, the scientific literature supports Sericytochromatia, so as per WP:COMMONNAME we should reflect that. LPSN is clearly misinterpreting or ignoring most of the data, we cannot simply parrot them. — Snoteleks (talk) 20:14, 15 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think we should just classify "Candidatus Sericytochromatia" under the phylum Cyanobacteriota with also Vampirovibrionophyceae, then. What do you think? Maybe later, we'd follow the NCBI treatment and also use the phylum "Candidatus Blackalliibacteriota" (using the LPSN name). Jako96 (talk) 08:59, 16 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Done. Jako96 (talk) 10:57, 18 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes I like that — Snoteleks (talk) 11:47, 18 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. Jako96 (talk) 13:11, 18 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Criteria for the listing of species in a taxobox of their genus

Latest comment: 1 month ago9 comments6 people in discussion

I am creating this section following a recent discussion with @UtherSRG in their talk page regarding what makes a species eligible to be listed in the taxobox of an article on a genus. The original discussion was focused on the eligibility of A. fuscus, a species of the acorn worm in the genus Allapasus , but I would like to understand the current stance held by editors concerning this topic in all its cases.

I would advise you to read the original discussion, found at User talk:UtherSRG#Allapasus - Wikipedia , to understand some of the context, but summarizing, tentatively, some of the main questions, arguments and stances I retrieved from it:

UtherSRG

• "Inclusion of species should be based on secondary or tertiary sources. A single paper describing a new species is insufficient; it should be picked up and used by at least one further source, and not one merely reporting on the new description/discovery."
  • (In the case of Allapasus, they use the listing of species found in WoRMS and GBIF to reference the listing added to Allapasus, which lacks A. fuscus).

Me, Sclerotized

• Species databases are not always maintained up to date, especially clades with less workers (eg., many niche invertebrate clades, like soil arthropods), and as such they are not always reliable or complete listings of species.
  • (In the case of Allapasus, the last update of the page on WoRMS, 2012, precedes the discovery of A. fuscus, 2018).
• Is the need for secondary sources, as a criteria for inclusion of the species, a particular Wikipedia guideline for organisms or an extension of general referencing trends?

• WP:NSPECIES, as I interpret it, holds that a name needs only a valid naming act and be sourced to at least one academic publication to be notable and usable. If this makes it eligible for an article would it not make it eligible to get listed in the taxobox of the article on the genus?
  • (In the case of Allapasus, the A. fuscus is described in a peer-reviewed publication here [2]. The publication [3] (and [4] I think, I lost access to it) mention it once each, simple name drops, no further discussion).

UtherSRG

• NSPECIES only "sets up the boundaries for an AFD argument, but it does not prescribe best practices. A good guideline is to wait on non-primary for creating a new species article, or having a discussion in the genus article about newly described species that have not yet been reported by non-primary sources."

I would like to know the opinion of other editors on this. I also apologize in advance to UtherSRG if I misrepresented any of their claims. Sclerotized (talk) 22:55, 16 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am 100% on the side against using databases as the main source. I have frequently commented about this issue, since some editors like to rely on taxonomic databases to perform edits, but often (especially for protists, which are my main ___domain) they are very unreliable and/or outdated. Also, as you stated, all (eukaryotic) species are notable. Lastly, only primary sources for species is perfectly good in the absence of secondary sources; might make the article a stub, but that does not mean it's not deserving of existence. I've never come across a species that does not have secondary sources mentioning it, though. Taxonomic papers are (afaik) cited by others all the time. However, assuming that by secondary source they mean non-academic ones, I disagree that they're necessary; academic sources are the most reliable when it comes to taxonomy. — Snoteleks (talk) 00:29, 17 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

And by unreliable, I mean that databases are often not subject to peer-review, are usually maintained by very few individuals and often outdated, and, when it comes to protists (and I believe many invertebrates), do not represent the recent consensus of the scientific literature. — Snoteleks (talk) 00:31, 17 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I haven't really got a strong opinion about the question you pose, however, re: Allapasus fuscus not yet being included in WoRMS - have you tried contacting the relevant database? In this case it would be the Hemichordata World Database, with the contact listed as Billie J. Swalla (who can be reached at [e-mail]). There may be a reason for not including A. fuscus, or it may simply have been missed, but either way I've found that the authors of these datasets are generally very responsive to emails. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 01:36, 17 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have done as you proposed and sent the email today. Curiously, even prior to editing the article I messaged the first author of the nomenclatural act on a different issue and mentioned this absence in databases, but I never got a response. Messaging Swalla seems more fitting for this concern anyway, thank you. Sclerotized (talk) 19:58, 21 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm not entirely happy with the way NSPECIES is worded at present but the debate over it was sufficiently unpleasant that I don't feel inclined to risk relitigating it to effect improvements. In any case, that's intended more to answer the question of "Should I create an article about this species" which is not quite what you posed. While two is a very small number of species and you could ordinarily fit them in the taxobox, I think creating a "Species" section of the article and listing them there would relieve the aesthetic problems of cramming a long author list into the box.

If the real question here is "Should Wikipedia treat A. fuscus as a bona fide member of Allapsus?", that's a tricky question to answer. In a high-quality journal that's suitable for the subject (say, a monograph on a genus in Systematic Botany), I don't think a secondary source is essential. On the other hand, I might consider a species described in a much lower quality source to be acceptable if a well-maintained database accepted it. But there is a lot of variation in the quality of databases! Unfortunately we suffer here from trying to devise guidelines that will "work" even if no one in the discussion has any subject matter expertise, and we wind up arguing about criteria like primary vs secondary sources or peer review that are recognizable to a lay person but are somewhat peripheral to the judgment of actual experts in the field. I think I would start by following Ethmostigmus' suggestion and seeing if there's a response in a reasonable amount of time. Choess (talk) 02:28, 17 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

The question asked is not really addressed by WP:NSPECIES, which is about notability for having an article on the species. The criteria for including a species in genus article should be looser and it is harder to set rules for. Quality of the journal where it is described, reputation of the authors, time since description, and the coverage of the group are factors. A mammal or bird described ten years ago and not included in a major checklist is not notable as it would surely have had further coverage. A species in an obscure tribe of beetles shouldn't be judged the same way. In the case of Allapasus fuscus a mention in the text that it was described in 2018 might be acceptable.  —  Jts1882 | talk  13:05, 17 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think best practice is to wait for a secondary taxonomic source to accept it before including a new taxon, but that shouldn't be an absolute requirement. Everybody who names a new taxon believes it is "valid" (in the ICZN sense), but most taxon names that have ever been published are regarded as "invalid" by subsequent workers. I'm also not entirely happy about the wording of NSPECIES, particularly the use of the nomenclatural code jargon "valid"/"correct", but that jargon is obviously intended to preclude stand-alone articles for taxon names that are "invalid", and "invalid" is a status that can only be determined by a subsequent workers judgement. A taxonomic database is often going to a decent source for the judgements of subsequent workers.

However, the reality is that there are clades with less workers where there are no taxonomic databases that are decent sources. And there is also an inverse situation where a newly described species (almost always a vertebrate) get a press release (in addition to their scientific description), and the press release gets picked up by media sources, and somebody writes a Wikipedia article for that species based on the media sources. Wikipedia generally sees coverage in the media as showing notability, but that coverage is useless for matters of taxonomy. Plantdrew (talk) 00:59, 18 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you all for the responses and insights, it's quite interesting to hear such diverse interpretations. It's also good to see there is what seems to be an almost unanimous agreement concerning quality and worker activity of databases on these types of taxa. Sclerotized (talk) 21:45, 21 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

About using unclassified taxa of prokaryotes

Latest comment: 1 month ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Should we use unclassified prokaryotic taxa in the automated taxobox system (for example order "JACMPN01" or order "UBA7694")? Jako96 (talk) 17:19, 19 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Where are you getting these from? Was it TRGdb? The first UBA7694 I found on a website I recognized was on NCBI. NCBI and GBIF already include a lot of provisionally designated species that we shouldn't be listing in genus pages. I've never encountered TRGdb before, but no, Wikipedia shouldn't incorporate their provisional higher taxa. Plantdrew (talk) 03:24, 20 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Taxon dates: first online release or final issue release?

Latest comment: 1 month ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Not sure if this has been talked about before, but I am unsure of which dates we are supposed to be using when displaying a taxon's authority. Some taxa were described in a paper/book that was first published online in one year, but later belong to a journal issue published the next year. For example:

• Neovahlkampfea Cavalier-Smith 2021 (Protoplasma article published 23 December 2021)
• Neovahlkampfea Cavalier-Smith 2022 (Protoplasma issue published in 2022 volume)

I could not find consensus in the literature, although I have seen a preference for the issue year. — Snoteleks (talk) 18:02, 19 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I try to follow the year used in other sources that are citing the original description, though this may not be possible in all cases. I think using the earliest publication date generally makes sense, but adding a note with Template:Efn or something similar noting the year published online and the year published in print may be worthwhile? Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 01:10, 20 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Unfortunately this is a complex topic and varies by code. The Zoological Code was updated about 15 years ago to allow for electronic publication with specific requirements that need to be met. Some journals meet those requirements as soon as the article appears online, some will meet them along the way through the publication process, some meet them only when a print issue is released, and some electronic-only publications never meet them. The date is based on when the requirements are met. It can easily span years. It's a mess. You can have a taxon that is Xus Smith, 2024, even though the reference is Smith 2025 because an early online version that met the requirements appeared in 2024 even though the compiled volume is a 2025 volume. You can also get Xus Smith, 2025, even though the reference is Smith 2025 because the volume was a late 2024 publication, but it wasn't actually released until early 2025. This happens with old references from the 1800s, for example, somewhat regularly, but still happens today. Hopefully one can get the date for a taxon authority from a secondary source rather than relying totally on the original reference. --Aranae (talk) 01:18, 20 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Understood. Thanks both for your comments. I guess the best we can do is base it on secondary sources, and use earliest when that is not possible. — Snoteleks (talk) 01:37, 20 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Taxa by author diffusion again

Latest comment: 13 days ago3 comments3 people in discussion

There is a proposal to diffuse Category:Animal taxa by author, in the form of a to-do list on Category talk:Animal taxa by author, that has been partially implemented (basically breaking animals into higher taxa that are the subjects of WikiProjects). The apparent consensus in the recent discussion about diffusing taxa by author, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life/Archive_64#Category:Taxa_by_author_diffusion came down against diffusing by nationality of authors, but had some support for diffusing by animal/plant. The nationality categories never got deleted (it seems the original impetus in creating them was to deal with bad category contents; e.g. Category:Czech taxonomists should only contain people, and shouldn't contain taxa in subcategories).

Breaking animal taxa by author into e.g. fish and reptiles is inevitably going to have some taxonomist who described both fish and reptiles having all of their taxa subcategorized as both fish and reptiles (we already have all Linnaeus taxa being subcategorized as both animals and plants).

There are an enormous number of taxa by author categories, so I get why some people want to diffuse them. I don't think there is really a workable system to diffuse. But another option would be to discuss limiting the creation of taxa by author categories and potentially deleting some existing ones.

For example, Category:Taxa named by Anthony J. Cobos. Cobos has been credited with naming 11 species (per publications listed at ResearchGate), and was the lead author for one species. The other ten species are because Larry Lee Grismer is quite generous about crediting undergraduates (and former undergraduates) with authorship (producing papers with 15 authors). Cobos is unlikely to ever have a Wikipedia article, and I don't think has done any further work as a taxonomist since his undergraduate days (his masters and PhD advisers are physiologists working with herps).

Then there's Category:Taxa named by Jason Alexander. No, it's not that Jason Alexander, but this one who was the lead author for one species, but otherwise does not seem interested in taxonomy.

Should everybody who was created with authorship get a taxa by author category? Is there some reasonable way to limit the proliferation of categories, in order to forestall calls for diffusion? Plantdrew (talk) 01:01, 22 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Not a lot of uptake on this. Agree that there's not a workable diffusing category system, and this blunt 2004-era tool is growing out of hand. I would support a category bar of "contains minimum 10 species" or "author has an article" as a short/medium-term fix. Perhaps long-term this sort of data belongs on Wikidata (along with the data contained in its contentious sibling category "Year described in"?) Then one could envision being able to do more interesting and complex searches ("find all the authors who have published taxa in two or more kingdoms"; "make a list of the 100 most prolific authors"; etc.) with Listeriabot/SPARQL queries. Esculenta (talk) 21:51, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm coming to this discussion a bit late, but it's something I find interesting having created a few "taxa named by [x]" categories myself (just a few minutes ago I created Category:Taxa named by Susan Carter Holmes!). There ought to be some threshold that authors are expected to meet in order to warrant a category like this - my personal benchmark is that the author must have (or be notable enough for) a biographical article and have described at least 5 valid taxa as a primary author. I see little point in creating categories like this for individuals who do not have their own article and are unlikely to pass WP:GNG, or for individuals who have only described <5 taxa. I really don't see any practical use for Category:Taxa named by Jason Alexander at this point. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 10:13, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Requested move at Talk:Python brongersmai#Requested move 19 July 2025

Latest comment: 1 month ago1 comment1 person in discussion

 

An editor has requested that Python brongersmai be moved to Blood python, which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 01:18, 22 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Proposal of displaying class Reptilia for reptile orders

Latest comment: 26 days ago45 comments9 people in discussion

I propose to display the class Reptilia for reptile orders. Jako96 (talk) 14:48, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Doesn't it already do that, at least for extant orders?  —  Jts1882 | talk  14:51, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

It does that for extant orders only. Jako96 (talk) 14:58, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Reptilia displays for ichthyosaurs (see Ichthyosaurus) and plesiosaurs (Plesiosaurus). It doesn't display for pterosaurs (Pterodactylus) or dinosaurs (Tyrannosaurus). I think something around class rank should be displayed for extinct "reptile" orders, but am not sure if that should be Reptilia or Sauropsida (dinosaurs and pterosaurs have Sauropsida in their taxonomy templates, with Reptilia skipped, and Sauropsida not set to alway display). I'm not sure if there are other extinct orders that display neither Reptilia nor Sauropsida. Plantdrew (talk) 15:29, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think also for pterosaurs and non-avian dinosaurs we should display Reptilia, and maybe also Sauropsida. Jako96 (talk) 15:44, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Reptilia/Sauropsida are not displayed for avemetatrsalians because these taxa are not significant in the context of avian-line archosaur taxonomy, where there are a significant number of clades whose display is much more useful. Sittaco (talk) 17:46, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Looking at Icthyosaurus, Plesiosaurus, Pterodactylus, and Tyrannosaurus, it does occur to me that it's odd for "Chordata" to be one of the two "higher" clades in each taxobox. Is it one of the single most useful clades for defining the position of tetrapods? That they're united in the group of vertebrates, tunicates, and lancelets? Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to highlight Vertebrata (or even Tetrapoda) as the major branch of the animal tree they're part of? I guess it's because Chordata is a "Phylum" and Linnaean ranking puts artificial importance on that, but is there any sort of workaround here to display the more intuitive group for cladistic parts of the tree? LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 18:38, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think we should display both Vertebrata and Tetrapoda. And, we should rank Tetrapoda as a superclass. Jako96 (talk) 10:33, 24 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

There is also a different interpretation of the ranking (doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.1729) that raises Chordata to superphylum and has Vertebrata, Tunicata and Cephalochordata be separate phyla. Personally I'd prefer that over the current ranking. — Snoteleks (talk) 21:52, 28 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I mean this is far away from scientific consensus, so, we can't use it. Jako96 (talk) 15:35, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's false that it's "far away" from scientific consensus. Here's a list of articles from authors that agree with this independently:

• Ascidians are marine invertebrates that are distributed all over the world, and belong to the phylum Urochordata, which are phylogenetically the sister group and closest relatives of the vertebrates within the superphylum Chordata doi:10.1016/j.ygcen.2023.114262
• Thus, transphyletic analyses provide many insights into the evolutionary history of the superphylum Chordata doi:10.1111/dgd.12684
• Recently, a new concept of chordate classification has been proposed: Chordata is ranked as a superphylum, and Vertebrata, Tunicata, and Cephalochordata are ranked as phyla doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-820649-2.00001-2.

Higher taxon ranks (specifically above order) are completely up for interpretation of the individual for many, MANY groups of organisms, not just for protists but also especially for animals and plants, where it's not as regulated (fungi and prokaryotes are much more consensed in that area). As Wikipedia editors, we already pick and choose which ones to use. As a fourth article perfectly states: What can we learn from these ranks? We can neither infer anything about the phylogenetic relations and position of a given taxon, nor anything about its biodiversity. It is consequently absolutely irrelevant whether chordates are ranked as a ‘Phylum’ or a ‘Superphylum’, because in fact they are neither. The only thing that (at least so far) seems unambiguous is that they represent a monophyletic taxon within deuterostomes. The important and interesting questions concern the search for the sister taxon and the phylogenetic relationships within chordates, which indeed is discussed by Satoh et al. (i.e., the people proposing the superphylum) and others [...]. The hierarchical rank, however, is at best superfluous. doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.2327. In short, there is nothing stopping us from using this ranking over the old one. Both systems are cladistic, there really is no difference and both are covered in the scientific literature. There is not a unique "true" ranking system that we should favor blindly, we always just end up using ranking systems that favor us (i.e., that are consistent, not original, and cladistic). — Snoteleks (talk) 23:39, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I mean the traditional system is a lot more consensual. Jako96 (talk) 13:10, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

How so? Tradition does not equal scientific consensus, especially after the 20th century in the phylogenetic era. Many other 200-year-old systems are just as obsolete regardless of how long they've been around for. Besides, there's always been different interpretations of rankings. There's tons of examples of this even disregarding obsolete taxa, like with flowering plants (a class? a division? subdivision? or just a clade?). Ultimately higher ranks are known to be superfluous and, like I said, we're responsible for deciding what suits best, based on current consensus and coherence with our automated taxobox system — Snoteleks (talk) 13:37, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Still, I think ranking Chordata as a phylum is a lot more consensual. If higher ranks are superflous, we might as well not use them. But if we are gonna rank Chordata, I think the best option is obviously phylum for now. Jako96 (talk) 13:41, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

And in https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.1729 they also rank Bilateria as a subkingdom, Protostomia and Deuterostomia as infrakingdoms and Ambulacraria as a superphylum. If we are gonna use that system, we should follow these rankings too. Jako96 (talk) 13:48, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think that's perfect. Bilateria as subkingdom and Deuterostomia and Protostomia as infrakingdoms is also supported in other systems, like Ruggiero et al. 2015 (doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0119248 ). — Snoteleks (talk) 14:36, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

At least we should display Reptilia for pterosaurs I think. Because pterosaurs are an order. Jako96 (talk) 10:29, 24 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

The clade Parareptilia was directly assigned to Sauropsida, which is probably due to the nomenclature used in some studies in the 1990s, where parareptiles fell outside Reptilia. Since such a classification cannot be found in recent studies, I have replaced the parent taxon of Parareptilia with Reptilia. Sittaco (talk) 15:44, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

In that case, I don't think there is any reason for Parareptilia to always be displayed. Plantdrew (talk) 16:07, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

This is a very important clade in reptilian taxonomy, so it makes sense that it should always be displayed (e.g. as Sauropterygia in Plesiosaurus). Sittaco (talk) 17:32, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Should Eureptilia also be always displayed? Plantdrew (talk) 17:39, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

The scopes of Parareptilia and Eureptilia are very different, and in most cases displaying Eureptilia would be clearly redundant. Sittaco (talk) 17:58, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Also, note that parareptile taxonomy uses many order- and family-level names for small taxa that are almost or completely identical to each other (Millerettidae/Millerosauria, Mesosauridae/Mesosauria, minor procolophonian families). It is inconvenient when the taxobox is "spammed" with relatively unimportant names, but does not mention the group that clasically unites these families/orders. Sittaco (talk) 18:08, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I do think that concerns whether Parareptilia is a natural grouping casts a bit of doubt on the usefulness of putting in taxoboxes, but otherwise I'd echo other voices here that Parareptilia is the major uniting clade for this radiation of reptiles and it makes more sense to have subtaxa include in their taxoboxes below Repitilia rather than one of several subgroups with much more limited notability. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 18:40, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I support that. Jako96 (talk) 17:49, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Also, the Sauropsida template shouldn't be used as a parent now. Edit: Linked Template:Taxonomy/Sauropsida instead of Template:Sauropsida now. Jako96 (talk) 20:18, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sorry for my ignorance, but I thought Reptilia and Sauropsida were synonyms? — Snoteleks (talk) 16:08, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

They are synonyms in most cladistic classifications (Reptilia is a crown group in PhyloCode, though), but the classification in Wikipedia is a compromise between cladistics and the Linnaean taxonomy, which is still used in herpetology. Sittaco (talk) 17:35, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Different classifications have different treatments. When they are treated as synonyms, Reptilia/Sauropsida includes Eureptilia and Parareptilia. When they are not treated as synonyms, Reptilia becomes synonymous with Eureptilia, Parareptilia is outside of Reptilia and Sauropsida includes Parareptilia and Reptilia. Jako96 (talk) 18:16, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure it is intentional that dinosaurs don't show Reptilia as the class. The reason is that Template:Taxonomy/Avemetatarsalia uses Template:Taxonomy/Archosauria/skip as the parent rather than Template:Taxonomy/Archosauria. My understanding is that the skip templates are to prevent all the taxoboxes on extant birds showing class Reptilia and class Aves. I would expect dinosaurs to use the regular template and not the skip one. The Avemetatarsalia taxonomy template hasn't been changed substantially for years, though, so it might be intentional.  —  Jts1882 | talk  11:10, 24 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

There is Template:Taxonomy/Avemetatarsalia/skip, that doesn't actually skip anything. I'm not sure what it is doing. There is a hidden comment "This template, whose immediate child is Ornithurae/skip, prevents Class Aves and Class Reptilia both appearing in a taxobox." The immediate child is not currently Ornithurae/skip. I guess what it is doing now is allowing display of Avemetatarsalia/Dinosauria/Theropoda/Ornithurae in the taxobox of Bird via |display_parents= (and displaying these only in the taxobox for bird/Aves and not any other child taxa). Plantdrew (talk) 16:18, 24 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

At one point, Template:Taxonomy/Avemetatarsalia/skip skipped Archosauria and went straight to Sauropsida. However, this edit changed the parent, so it no longer skipped. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:43, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I should have guessed that it was that editor who messed up. That was part of the off-wikipedia campaign to get Dinosauria displayed in all bird taxoboxes. I've edited the templates so Reptilia should appear in all non-bird taxoboxes, so pterosaurs (Pterodactylus) or dinosaurs (Tyrannosaurus) now show class Reptilia. —  Jts1882 | talk  06:45, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Nice! Jako96 (talk) 07:10, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I can't help but feel like we're combining the worst of both worlds here - there's both 'Class Reptilia' and 'Class Aves' coexisting as subgroups of 'Clade Sauropsida', and the Sauropsida taxobox doesn't list either among its subgroups! Recent Linnean taxonomies either include birds as a lower-rank group within Class Reptilia (subclass in Ruggiero et al. 2015, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0119248) or divide Reptilia into multiple classes (Tedersoo 2017, https://doi.org/10.1101/240929), not to mention the more fish-centered ones that reduce all tetrapods to a subclass or infraclass. I think splitting up Reptilia would be problematic for the endless extinct groups that don't fit in Sphenodontia/Squamata/Testudinata/Crocodylia. We could do like Benton (Vertebrate Palaeontology (book)) and the Animal Diversity Web (https://www.animaldiversity.org/) and accept a class within another class etc. but that eliminates the actual usefulness and purpose of ranks. Kiwi Rex (talk) 11:54, 1 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think probably we should just not use paraphyletic class Reptilia or maybe, just maybe treat Aves as a subclass. Jako96 (talk) 15:00, 1 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

That's the second most conservative option and probably the most likely to satisfy users. Wikispecies and the Taxonomicon currently treat Aves as a subclass of Reptilia too. Besides, Palaeognathae and Neognathae are currently ranked as infraclasses here, incorrectly implying there could be a subclass between Class Aves and them (this can't happen because the Bird page establishes that birds = Aves = Neornithes = crown-group). Kiwi Rex (talk) 15:49, 1 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have compiled a list of taxonomies for comparison here. Kiwi Rex (talk) 16:38, 1 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I meant that the best option was that to keep Aves as a class and not use paraphyletic Reptilia, just removing it. You supported the second best option I proposed. But now I think that the best option is we should use monophyletic Reptilia, the one you supported. Even the Campbell Biology seems to support the monophyletic Reptilia as a class because in a page they list all of other classes and also Reptilia (they didn't talk about these taxa's ranks in that page). Jako96 (talk) 16:57, 1 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

A quick look at the 'Reptile' and 'Bird' talk pages reveals this is the most common discussion topic. The 'reptile' page is also entirely written from a herpetological perspective, and would require extensive revision if we changed Aves to Subclass. This somewhat validates the possibility of not showing 'Class Reptilia' on any taxobox at all, leaving the so-called reptiles without a class (as was the case with dinosaurs until recently); this is the current situation of former polychaetes and turbellarians (e.g. Eunice aphroditois, Planarian). But then I supposed Aves would still have to be "fixed" at some point. Kiwi Rex (talk) 20:59, 1 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

This does make me notice Dinosauria has a very sorry taxobox situation, with a horribly bloated list of clades. Dracohors is a synonym of Dinosauria in many modern trees, and sees little usage. Meanwhile, Dinosauromorpha and Dinosauriformes are broadly synonymous due to modern trees finding Lagerpetidae to be part of Pterosauromorpha. Having all three in the taxobox is redundant, and as is it's impossible to display Archosauria in the Dinosauria taxobox (as should clearly be the case) without going through all three (nevermind the nearly identical Ornithodira and Avemetatarsalia). The Dinosauria taxonomy template is fully protected, so I am proposing here that it be changed to have its parent as Dinosauromorpha in light of the redundancy of the intervening two terms. I'd also love to see one of Ornithodira and Avemetatarsalia skipped in the order as it's very unnecessary to display both in the taxoboxes for Dinosauria and Pterosauria, but as these are universally considered to have slightly distinct taxon inclusion I'm more willing to live with the status quo on this front. Ideally, I'd like the Dinosauria taxobox to go: Dinosauria, Dinosauromorpha, Avemetatarsalia/Ornithodira, Archosauria, Reptilia/Sauropsida, Chordata, Animalia. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 01:44, 1 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree with this for most points, but disagree about the necessity of Avemetatarsalia. Given the contention around the PhyloCode at this point its not clear whether Avemetatarsalia or Pan-Aves is the consensus name, which makes it feel better to avoid the choice for now and only include the more important higher-clade Archosauria. I would say Dinosauromorpha (direct? parent), Archosauria (major clade) and Reptilia (major clade plus public perception) are the only parents to Dinosauria that are necessary, and since I prefer a minimalist approach they would also be the only ones I would want to see included. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 15:53, 1 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Dinosauriformes would make more sense, following the current practice of allowing links to redirected pages on taxoboxes (e.g. Avetheropoda in Coelurosauria's box; it redirects to Tetanurae now). Dinosauromorpha might lose some relevance now that lagerpetids appear to be pterosaur relatives. Kiwi Rex (talk) 16:38, 1 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

You actually have it the opposite way around. Dinosauromorpha is established regardless of the position of lagerpetids or not, while Dinosauriformes is dependent on their position. In the case of lagerpetids as pterosauromorphs, and silesaurids as ornithischians (as is becoming consensus) there are no groups and perhaps very few taxa within Dinosauromorpha and not Dinosauria, so Dinosauromorpha becomes the senior synonym of Dinosauriformes. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 22:32, 1 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

They can never be synonyms because their definitions are different, though a topology certainly can make them redundant. Dinosauriformes is Lagosuchus + Dinosauria, a clade no one has questioned so far - and is probably the only "subgroup" within Dinosauromorpha, so it really is unnecessary for a taxobox... but so is Avetheropoda (in Coelurosauria). Either we use those redirects consistently or we ignore them and leave taxoboxes cleaner. Kiwi Rex (talk) 00:16, 2 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Tetrapoda § Proposal of changing the parent to Stegocephali

Latest comment: 1 month ago1 comment1 person in discussion

  You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Tetrapoda § Proposal of changing the parent to Stegocephali. Jako96 (talk) 15:38, 23 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion at Talk:Lepidosauria § Subclass vs. Superorder

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  You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Lepidosauria § Subclass vs. Superorder. Jako96 (talk) 09:08, 24 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Reptilia § Template-protected edit request on 23 July 2025

Latest comment: 1 month ago1 comment1 person in discussion

  You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Reptilia § Template-protected edit request on 23 July 2025. Jako96 (talk) 09:35, 24 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Archosauria/skip § Template-protected edit request on 23 July 2025

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Discussion at Talk:Reptile § About using the paraphyletic group template

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  You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Reptile § About using the paraphyletic group template. Jako96 (talk) 20:38, 26 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Lepidosauria § Proposal for always display

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  You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Lepidosauria § Proposal for always display. Jako96 (talk) 11:57, 27 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Cuttlefish

Latest comment: 27 days ago7 comments2 people in discussion

As i've discussed previously, i've been improving the cuttlefish pages. It seems that what i'll have to do is to merge the page Sepiidae (genus list) with cuttlefish (well-rounded article) as WoRMS considers the order of cuttlefish Sepiida to be monotypic as opposed to how it's presently shown in the article. I would like some advice on how to proceed with this. Anthropophoca (talk) 15:59, 27 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Anthropophoca: WoRMS still includes the fossil families Anomalosaepiidae, Belosaepiidae, Belosepiellidae and Vasseuriidae in Sepiida; make sure you turn off "extant only" when viewing WoRMS. And it looks like WoRMS recognition of Sepiolida as an order is very recent (the record for Sepiolida was edited on 13 July 2025). Plantdrew (talk) 17:55, 28 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

The page on cuttlefish mostly discusses species of Sepia (=Sepiidae sensu Lupše et al.), and aren't those fossil families considered stem-groups of "true cuttlefish"?

I've not removed references to Sepiolida on the Cuttlefish namespace, that was someone else

I guess the best thing to do would be to move the information on anatomy, biology, and human uses to Sepiidae? Maybe move Sepiidae to the cuttlefish namespace while retaining Sepiida/Sepiina? Anthropophoca (talk) 03:29, 29 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think you should merge Sepiidae to cuttlefish and split out an article for Sepiida. Cuttlefish was arbitrarily changed from being about the genus Sepia to being about Sepiida in this edit in 2004. In that era of Wikipedia there was an attitude about using common names as article titles without considering what taxon best corresponded to the common name. I don't think anybody searching for "cuttlefish" is wanting to read about the order Sepiida, nor would they consider the extinct families to be "cuttlefish".

It might be worth checking references to make sure there aren't any about Sepiida, but I expect the only references for Sepiida are in the Taxonomy section.Plantdrew (talk) 15:53, 29 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

So that's technical move territory then? Or i guess i can just move all the Sepiid/na information to that namespace and then turn Sepiidae into a redirect? Anthropophoca (talk) 08:02, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

No page move is needed. Copy the Sepiid/na information to that name and turn Sepiidae into a redirect. Plantdrew (talk) 15:05, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Done. Anthropophoca (talk) 12:16, 1 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Category:<Animal>s described in <year> with very confined scope submitted to CfD (again)

Latest comment: 29 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Includes bees, bugs, cockroaches, damselflies, flies, grasshoppers, sawflies, and wasps. @ Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 July 30#Category:<Animal>s described in <year> with very confined scope.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  12:37, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Nangnang fish

Latest comment: 28 days ago4 comments4 people in discussion

This article needs some cleanup. GZWDer (talk) 03:48, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

For a description and map of the much wider distribution see Lalèyè, P. 2020. Brycinus nurse. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2020: e.T54045716A58340429. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2020 2.RLTS.T54045716A58340429.en

Cleanup might equate to rewrite. Lavateraguy (talk) 15:04, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

It is not clear which species this is. None of the sources in the article give a scientific name. One source gives "African tiger fish" as an additional name, which might be Hydrocynus vittatus or another Hydrocynus species. I assume the claim that it is only in Pakwach District doesn't necessarily apply to the species, but might apply to the particular recipe and the usage of the name "nangnang". Perhaps it would be better to write this as an article about a food/recipe than a species. I did find an undergraduate dissertation that says nangnang is Brycinus nurse. Plantdrew (talk) 15:47, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Maybe just move the food bit to a human uses section. Quite a few of the fish articles use As Food (e.g. Cod, Mackerel), although perhaps a more general human interaction/uses section would be better here.  —  Jts1882 | talk  18:55, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Teleostomi is paraphyletic

Latest comment: 17 days ago11 comments5 people in discussion

Teleostomi is paraphyletic, so we should not use its taxonomy template as a parent. See Jako96 (talk) 07:08, 2 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I can only repeat that a taxon being paraphyletic does not of itself justify our not using it in taxoboxes. What matters is what reliable sources do. Unfortunately, |refs= is too rarely completed in taxonomy templates. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:30, 2 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Let's make it unranked then. See https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174655 for example. Jako96 (talk) 09:39, 2 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Is it paraphyletic? I thought it was one of the fish taxa that have been redefined to include tetrapods (like Osteichthyes). It would be helpful if such assertions were accompanied by sources supporting them.  —  Jts1882 | talk  12:37, 2 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Recent sources pretty much never use Teleostomi, since it was meant to group acanthodians together with osteichthyans while excluding chondrichthyans. But acanthodians are now universally accepted as stem-chondrichthyans (as seen in the paper linked by Jako). Even if Teleostomi was treated as a monophyletic group, it would just be a synonym of crown-Gnathostomata/Eugnathostomata, so why not just get rid of it? —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 13:07, 2 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

So let's get rid of it. Pinging @Plantdrew and @Snoteleks as they are pretty active on this WikiProject. Jako96 (talk) 19:01, 10 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Ehh sure, I can give it a go. I honestly did not participate on this thread on purpose because I am quite ignorant about fish taxonomy. I actually thought Teleostomi was just a synonym of Osteichthyes or Gnathostomata or something like that, not its own thing... — Snoteleks (talk) 19:08, 10 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Ah wait, I'm not a template editor or an administrator. I cannot change this on my own. But I see that you've already suggested the edit. I'll leave a support comment just for good measure. — Snoteleks (talk) 21:55, 10 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

What? I did provide a source. I don't know what you mean. Jako96 (talk) 13:15, 2 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think this should be discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fishes; at the bare minimum the discussion here should be advertised there. It seems to me that there are too many discussions here which should be at more specific WikiProjects. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:08, 2 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Agreed. I put up a notice of this discussion at that talk page. — Snoteleks (talk) 22:09, 10 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Protista § About protist superphyla

Latest comment: 25 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

  You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Protista § About protist superphyla. Jako96 (talk) 13:04, 3 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Bamboo coral

Latest comment: 21 days ago8 comments4 people in discussion

From what i gather the taxonomic status is volatile, but this concerns the namespace "Bamboo coral", which is a page on Keratoisididae, which was split out from Isididae quite recently. The issue is that Isididae (and a number of other families) are also referred to as "bamboo coral"; so what we should do is to see if these disparate families actually form a clade, then that clade should receive the "Bamboo coral" namespace. If not, then disambiguate. Anthropophoca (talk) 14:31, 3 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

There is no clade. "Bamboo coral" refers to their morphology; articulated, with bamboo-like nodes and internodes. The former circumscription of Isididae was based on this morphology, but it turns out the morphology evolved at least 5 times, making Isididae s.l. polyphyletic (see this reference which is cited in the article). Plantdrew (talk) 18:44, 4 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Then a disambiguation/page discussing the taxonomic situation is needed Anthropophoca (talk) 08:40, 5 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Make it a set index article. Donald Albury 13:31, 5 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

After deliberating, I believe that the best course of action would be to move Bamboo coral to Keratoisidae and then move Isididae into Bamboo coral; the taxonomic situation is already explained in Isididae and the necessary pages are linked over there (though many still redlinked), so any potential improvements to the coverage would likely be best included in the "original" bamboo coral clade.

Would Ahecht's pageswap script work in this scenario?

PS: The original pagestate of Bamboo coral states that it describes the family Isididae. I think this will effectively be an overdue homecoming for this name

Anthropophoca (talk) 10:46, 6 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Except, you have already been told that "bamboo coral" is NOT phylogenetic. Its a morphology shared by unrelated groups. We should be moving towards monophyletic page groups not polyphyletic page groups. Make "Bamboo coral" a set index article and leave the family pages alone.--Kevmin § 15:00, 6 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

If bamboo coral was to be the title for Isididae, there should be a history split, not any kind of move or pageswap. Prior to 12 July 2024, the nominal subject of bamboo coral was Isididae (in its broader circumscription). However, the article content prior to that was (and still is) mostly complete garbage (especially the Description section), and many of the references are dead links. Going into detail about a 2007 mission is unnecessary, "giving scientists a window into the ocean's past" is not encyclopedic language, and life span is given as 75-126 years in one place, and 4000 years in another place (I suspect the 4000 years might be a dead coral that was alive around 4000 years ago, but the reference link is dead).

I don't think there is really any article content/history with bamboo coral that is worth associating with articles about any family. The history can stay with bamboo coral if it is converted into a set index article. Plantdrew (talk) 16:28, 6 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Alright then, so the first half of my proposal would still work out? I'm gonna try fixing the tree i coded at Isididae so that it's closer to the one in the cited paper for now. Anthropophoca (talk) 01:07, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Split of Cephalopod size

Latest comment: 24 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I think there really isn't a way to save Cephalopod size at this point, other than splitting it and rending it asunder and turning it into a summary/table listicle/overgrown disambiguation page. After 19 years it is now nearing 370 thousand bytes in size, and the noteslist and reflist which take up half the page are a pain to try and get through, especially as it does not use the modern <ref> format, and all the time and effort that could be used to fix it could just be used to fix any of the "fossilized" pages or eternal stubs, and luckily the page has a lot of salvageable material.

This is somewhat tangential but it seems that many cephalopod pages started out as basically outgrowths of the tolweb.org's cephalopod pages, and its philosophy may be why we have all the pages linked within Template:Cephalopod anatomy, the merging of which is yet another longer term project of mine.

If Wikipedia:WikiProject Cephalopods were still alive i would've asked for help with these there, but it's evidently a dead project; the second paragraph of this section is basically just a rehash of a comment i made over there Anthropophoca (talk) 06:47, 4 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion at Talk:Asgard (Archaea) § Requested move 5 August 2025

Latest comment: 23 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

  You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Asgard (Archaea) § Requested move 5 August 2025. Jako96 (talk) 18:14, 5 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Neognathae § Always display

Latest comment: 10 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

  You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Neognathae § Always display. Jako96 (talk) 22:01, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Red algae-related book search

Latest comment: 5 days ago5 comments2 people in discussion

I am trying to update the protist classification article but particularly the rhodophyte classification is hard to access. There are two specific books that I'm trying to find online:

• Kamiya, M. et al. (editors). Syllabus of plant families; Adolf Engler’s Syllabus der Planzenfamilien—Part 2/2—Photoautotrophic eukaryotic algae—Rhodophyta. Borntraeger Science, Stuttgart (2017).
• Huisman, J.M. (editor). Algae of Australia. Marine benthic algae of north-western Australia. 2. Red Algae. ABRS & CSIRO Publishing (2018).

Are these accessible somewhere for autoconfirmed Wikipedia editors? Or, is there anyone here that has access to those books and can contribute? For those interested, I am updating the page slowly in this test page. — Snoteleks (talk) 20:00, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have access to the Algae of Australia set through the State Library Victoria and would be happy to go in and scan it for you when I have the time, though that probably won't be until the beginning of next month. If no one else is able to source it for you before then, just give me a ping around the first day of September and I will request it from the library and organise to go in and scan it. Best of luck! Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 00:48, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, that would be wonderful! I will let you know next month. Meanwhile, I might be able to request the Syllabus of plant families volume from a local college library. I will try my luck with it. — Snoteleks (talk) 14:46, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Nope, turned out to be just academic reviews of the book... However I've requested it from libraries worldwide through my university's delivery system, hopefully that works out. — Snoteleks (talk) 15:33, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Unfortunately that was also a stump. None of the country's libraries have it, and borrowing it internationally is too expensive. — Snoteleks (talk) 19:36, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Ecdysozoa § Template-protected edit request on 20 August 2025

Latest comment: 7 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

  You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Ecdysozoa § Template-protected edit request on 20 August 2025. Jako96 (talk) 10:20, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Lophotrochozoa § Template-protected edit request on 20 August 2025

Latest comment: 7 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

  You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Lophotrochozoa § Template-protected edit request on 20 August 2025. Jako96 (talk) 10:22, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

About WP:OR in diatom classification

Latest comment: 4 days ago22 comments4 people in discussion

We are using an original research diatom classification, which we should not. The classification we are using is from Adl et al. 2019, but taxa are given ranks, though Adl et al. used unranked groupings. We should use a different classification. Pinging @Plantdrew and @Snoteleks as they were involved in this discussion. By the way, I'm posting this here because Algae and Protista talk pages are kinda dead. Jako96 (talk) 18:52, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I was not aware that we were giving ranks to the Adl et al. (2019) diatom clades. That should be reverted (except for classes and below). — Snoteleks (talk) 19:18, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think we can use the Cavalier-Smith classification. What do you think? Jako96 (talk) 20:01, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Absolutely not. His diatom scheme makes no sense, it's an isolate that lacks scientific consensus and needs to be forgotten. — Snoteleks (talk) 21:45, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well, we can't use Adl et al. Jako96 (talk) 21:46, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think we should use NCBI Taxonomy, DiatomBase or WoRMS classification at this point. Jako96 (talk) 21:47, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Jako96 Why do you say that? — Snoteleks (talk) 23:39, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

DiatomBase is WoRMS. I set up taxonomy templates for diatoms following WoRMS in May 2024. To the extent that diatom taxonony templates aren't following WoRMS, it looks like that is largely due to edits that you made, Jako96. I don't particularly care what classification is used. My primary interest in the area of diatoms was implementing automatic taxoboxes, and that required a source that assigns genera to families. Plantdrew (talk) 00:22, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I think this whole situation is a non-issue. Adl et al. (2019) provides the classification above class level, and WoRMS and pre-2019 taxonomic revisions provide the classifications below class level. I have not seen any conflict between them yet. — Snoteleks (talk) 00:36, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Because first Snoteleks started to apply Adl et al. classification, and I continued. Jako96 (talk) 16:06, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Because, Adl et al. themselves say that even these "classes" are unranked. Jako96 (talk) 07:28, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

That's like saying we can't use Adl et al. for anything. They purposefully don't disclose ranks because they don't want to delve into ranking higher taxa, because it would be a controversial ever-changing system. That doesn't mean their paper makes all ranks ever described disappear, it just means it's not their objective to display them. If clades displayed in Adl et al. have a rank outside of Adl et al. in a way that is not supporting an obsolete/non-consensus ranking system (like Chromista), it means it's compatible. In the case of diatoms, since there's never been anything above class level, the introduction of above-class clades in Adl et al. is compatible with previously recognized classes. There's even formal descriptions of each diatom clade and some of the genera they include, making it even easier for others to know what classes, orders, etc. are included. It's not exhaustive (it does not display down to family level always) because that's not the purpose of this paper, just like it does not display all foraminifera or radiolaria. That does not force us at any point to use an earlier, more erroneous classification. — Snoteleks (talk) 13:01, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

You're right. I'm fixing diatom taxonomy now. The reason I said they are using unranked groupings is that there was a sentence in their article which they said that, I think I remember. I'll try to find it later, but uh, we should probably follow Adl et al., yes. Jako96 (talk) 15:58, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Snoteleks, also Adl et al. ranked Diatomeae as a phylum in table 3.1. I think we should also do that, what do you think? Jako96 (talk) 18:34, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

That table should not be used as a reference for ranks. The researcher Sina Adl in particular has this weird belief where he gives random ranks to taxa depending on how many child taxa they have. This is something also seen in his 2025 book "Protistology". But it's far from the practice of the majority of taxonomists. We should make it a clade, so that it is compatible with the Ochrophyta phylum. — Snoteleks (talk) 19:44, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

You're right, actually. Because they say that they don't care about ranks in their classification system. Also, that table is kinda goofy. They both use the phyla Discoba and Euglenozoa, like, bro what? I mean they are even using a monophyletic Discoba in table 1. Jako96 (talk) 22:30, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well, Discoba is monophyletic. But yes, it's vey goofy. It was very frustrating when I first noticed how incoherent table 1 is. But I suppose with so many authors there is limited ability to coordinate in such a long paper. — Snoteleks (talk) 00:51, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I meant that they use a paraphyletic Gyrista in table 1, and also a monophyletic Discoba. But for some reason, they treat Discoba and Euglenozoa as separate phyla in table 3.1. They are not even using such a Discoba in table 1, like what? Why would they do that? Jako96 (talk) 09:12, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am extremely uninitiated in the complexities of taxonomy, so pardon my intrusion, but I was under the impression that phyla are endlessly debated classification which we're unlikely to find one consensus on. Our current system ranks Ochrophyta as a phylum, which I dare say has fairly strong support. We should probably leave it as is. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 19:45, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, that's pretty much correct. — Snoteleks (talk) 19:50, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Okay, I didn't know that. Classical Cavalier-Smith things, eh. Jako96 (talk) 21:49, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

And I agree that WP:Algae is kinda dead, but WP:Protista? Almost all discussions of its talk page have gotten comments. — Snoteleks (talk) 19:26, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Type species in dinosaur families

Latest comment: 2 days ago4 comments4 people in discussion

I've noticed a lot of articles about dinosaur families have a type species despite families always being named after the type genus. I asked about this in the Spinosauridae article and got led here. Are these errors or am I just misinformed? :) Battlebox0 (talk) 15:11, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I believe those are errors. Although technically correct, since the type species of the type genus "would be" the type species of the family, it's not something explicitly written by taxonomists. The families are (as far as I know) only assigned a type genus. — Snoteleks (talk) 15:58, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Under the ICZN, family-rank taxa have type genera, they do not have type species. No WP article should ever list a type species for any taxonomic rank above genus; it literally does not work that way. Now that I think about it, the automated taxobox system should - at least in principle - not allow for type species to be included unless the taxon is a genus, but I suspect that sort of programming would be extremely difficult to implement. Dyanega (talk) 17:35, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Given families with a single genus, that would be basically impossible to implement. Another error with types on Wikipedia is giving a subsequent combination for a type species (I don't remember if this is an error under all the codes). Searching for |type_species_authority= with a parentheses could catch some of those (provided a type species authority is specified and has correct parentheses). Searching for "idae" or "aceae" in a page title and |type_species= will catch some of type species that should be type genera (but won't work if a common name is used as a title).

Aside from user errors, there are some technical limitations. Speciesboxes don't support |type_species= which could be applicable in the case of a monotypic genus. |type_strain= is supported for prokaryotes, but type specimens are not supported for plants and animals (although I don't think type specimens should be supported in taxoboxes). Plantdrew (talk) 18:12, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion at Talk:Skink § Requested move 27 August 2025

Latest comment: 1 day ago1 comment1 person in discussion

  You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Skink § Requested move 27 August 2025. Jako96 (talk) 07:57, 27 August 2025 (UTC)Reply