Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles/Archive 6

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WP Amphibians and Reptiles in the Signpost

The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. -Mabeenot (talk) 23:05, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks and done. ZooPro 09:07, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Category:Reptile conservation

I have created Category:Reptile conservation. It needs populating if possible and a Reptile conservation article should be written. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 06:20, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Transitional Fossil peer-review

It is a very important subject, and I wish to take it to GA/FA status in the future. The "mammal like reptile" Thrinaxodon is a subsection of the article. Input from members of this wikiproject would be highly valued. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 00:37, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Cape cobra/GA1

Hi there- seeing as the nominator of this article has been blocked as a sock of a banned user, would anyone be interested in taking up the review? I'll be posting some more comments in the coming days if anyone is interested; if not, I'll just close the review as failed. J Milburn (talk) 15:55, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm, outside my comfort zone but I am warming to doing a few snake articles myself. If you are reviewing and think it is within striking distance of GA, then maybe post some to-do items and we'll see what we can do. If you really get the idea a substantial amount of work needs doing, maybe better to quick fail it damn, there are so many things to review and fix, it's no great loss to quick-fail it maybe. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:51, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/VeronicaPR

(See also J Milburn's note, above.)

I'd like to point your attention to this SPI: VeronicaPR returned as User:RedGKS, User:Lax33, User:Sebastian80, and possibly other socks. They have an interest in snakes, esp. venomous ones, and in working toward GA promotion. In fact, it was Sebastian's work on Black mamba's GA review, something for which they were eminently unqualified, that prompted my snooping around. I hope you will all keep an eye out for new editors who immediately start assessing articles and working on GA reviews: it's a tell-tale sign. Other interests of theirs are drug related, esp. morphine and associated pills. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 16:47, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Big snake image purge

Was looking for some good snake images, and came across commons:User_talk:Jwinius#File_tagging_File:Vipera-seoanei-seoanei-4.jpg and what follows underneath it. It seems that permission was obtained, but not filed through OTRS. I wonder if anyone would be interested in getting those permissions confirmed, as Jwinius seems to be inactive. Papa Lima Whiskey 2 (talk) 10:52, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

File:P1000571.JPG

As I was working through some Orphaned files, I stumbled across File:P1000571.JPG. The image seems to be of a good quality and would most likely make a good addition to an article. Unfortunately neither myself nor the original uploader seem to know what type of lizard (or other reptile) is in the picture. If anyone knows, could find out, or could point me in a better direction, it would be most helpful so that we can rename it and de-orphan it. Thanks, -- ТимофейЛееСуда.

If definitley deserves a place. It is from the genus Platysaurus. It might be Platysaurus orientalis. Dger (talk) 23:26, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
After looking at other pictures, the coloring, headshape and markings. Also, this image was taken in the same area that the species exists. I will rename it and attach it to the article. Thanks for your help! -- ТимофейЛееСуда. 23:33, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
Very good. The article currently has no picture. Dger (talk) 23:47, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Australian lizard ID

On a related note, I took a picture of this fella, and don't know how to categorize it. Taken in Western Australia. -kelapstick(bainuu) 22:39, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Looks like Eremiascincus richardsonii (Broad-banded Sand-swimmer). Dger (talk) 23:55, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:HighBeam

Wikipedia:HighBeam describes a limited opportunity for Wikipedia editors to have access to HighBeam Research.
—Wavelength (talk) 16:27, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Desert crocodile or West African crocodile?

Earlier this month, a user by the name of Mecistops (talk · contribs) changed every instance of "desert crocodile" in the above article to "West African crocodile" without explanation. I reverted the edits, with a note advising the user about the verifiability policy on Wikipedia. He left me a note a few days later on my talk page, explaining that he is the scientist most of the article is based on, that the species is a relatively recent discovery the name hasn't yet been settled on, and that "desert crocodile" is rather arbitrary anyway. I'm a bit skeptical but I'm assuming good faith, so I advised him to bring it here. I'm not an expert in the field so I thought this WikiProject would be better place to ask a second opinion on the matter. Thanks! elektrikSHOOS (talk) 06:43, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Asking User:Bob the Wikipedian as he made the initial redirect to the desert crocodile naming. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 13:57, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Even if (especially if) he is the scientist in question, this would qualify as original research. He needs to publish the argument for this name in a verifiable source before it can be used on Wikipedia. But he also raises the point that the name "desert crocodile" is not cited. We should be using the common name that is currently most prevalent in available sources (newspaper or magazine articles, popular books, etc.), and citing those sources. MMartyniuk (talk) 14:32, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
This took some major detective work trhough my browsing history, but I can confirm that this 2005 source is where I got the name: http://www.markoshea.info/oba4-1_mauritania_senegal03.php
Hope that helps! Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 14:40, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
P.S.: It would appear that website is maintained by someone who physically making the expeditions to find it. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 14:43, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Given that none of the Nature articles et.c use common names, and that page itself alternately calls it the Desert and Northwest African croc, I'd say it's probably too soon to assign this species a common name. More verifiable to leave it as C. suchus for now until something catches on or appears in print. MMartyniuk (talk) 14:46, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Also noting that was a TV scientist, so the name he used may have been simply out of convenience; no one likes a show about a nameless animal. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 14:48, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
The Reptile Database also uses the name [West African crocodile] for this genus. This database is a reputable source for common names. My vote is to start using it and move the article to this name. Dger (talk) 15:11, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
I'll second that motion. Thanks for the interesting conversation on this topic. I am new to working on Wikepedia entries, i'll get the hang of it someday. Mecistops (talk) 18:53, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Unidentified lizards

Hello,

Could you please help identifying these lizards? Thanks, Yann (talk) 14:57, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

  • Unidentified lizard, Gogina, Uttarakhand, India
    Unidentified lizard, Gogina, Uttarakhand, India
  • Lizard eating a mouse, Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh, India
    Lizard eating a mouse, Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh, India
The first is a Laudakia sp., the second is a Psammophilus sp. (never seen one feeding on a rodent!) Shyamal (talk) 02:41, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

An unsupported claim on the article of king cobra ?

I think there exists an unsupported claim on this article.

There is a sentence claiming that severe bites from king cobras are exceptionally rare as most untreated victims in Asia live through their bites and two websites are given as references.

Yet, this source doesn't have such information. Instead, it mentions that bites form king cobras should be considered as true medical emergency.

Another website cited does mention that many bites from king cobras involve non-fatal dose of venom. However, this is just based on a single source.Bites involving non-fatal amounts of venom (to normal people) can also cause deaths since some victims could be allergic to the toxins and such bites may induce some other problems as well (like bacterial infection).

Here are two reports which show that bites from this species are often severe - this document which mentions that although bites from king cobras are rare, they're among snakes causing the most fatalities in Thailand (P.66) (but...I think this source has a problem regarding the scientific name of this species.It gives a name of Naja hannah which is wrong.) and [http://www.ispub.com/journal/the-internet-journal-of-emergency-medicine/volume-5-number-1/snake-bite-envenomation-a-comprehensive-evaluation-of-severity-treatment-and-outcome-in-a-tertiary-care-south-indian-hospital.html this website] which is about the evaluation of snakebite severity and other medical information based on snakebite precedents received by South Indian Hospital (Table 3 reveals that two-thirds of the patients bitten by king cobras were classified as "severe" grade). I think this evaluation is good as it clearly and directly presents the statistics.

Toxic Walker (talk) 15:46, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, the sources you give does not contradict each other. The last sources, stating that two thirds of bites are "severe", does not indicate the majority of victims die. One third will have "non-severe" bites, and of the severe cases, a number of victims are expected to survive, even without aid (I'd guess badly mangled, but alive). So if anything, the hospital source conform the sentence that the majority of bite victims will survive.
As for survival due to low doses of venom, it should be self evident. The king cobras venom is quite potent, and the potential amount a large snake like it can deliver means a king cobra more than capable of killing a man (heck, it can kill several with the amount it has), which can only mean the cobra holds back on the venom (i.e. that the wast majority of bites are warning-bites rather than all out killing bites. Petter Bøckman (talk) 15:37, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I see your point and thanks for your discussion.

Yes, the source I provided mentions that those victims survived finally but it was probably due to proper medical treatment. They’d have died if no medical aid had been given. So, I think it is improper to say that many people live through their bites because many bites involve non-fatal doses of venom. Having two-thirds of the victims getting severe bites, envenomation from the king cobra tends to be true medical emergency.

Toxic Walker (talk) 13:36, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Photo ID

Can anyone identify what turtle species this is? The file clearly needs renaming. CMD (talk) 13:09, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

It's definitely either a Kemp's Ridley or Loggerhead. My bet would be on the latter, but it's hard to know definitely because it's a juvenile and we only have one view. HCA (talk) 13:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
It's a loggerhead sea turtle like this one. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 14:13, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Requested Moved Discussions needing Expert input

The following move discussions: Talk:Boulengerina annulata and Talk:Boulengerina christyi really need the input of experts in the community. As an admin who is contemplating closing these RMs, I would like to see some additional input. They have already been relisted once. Thanks. --Mike Cline (talk) 22:07, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I have made a comment at Talk:Boulengerina annulata and copied that comment to the other species, as they are the same issue.This is an issue that WP maybe should develop some good policy over, it would be difficult. Anyway for what its worth I put in my views as a taxonomist. My specialty is turtles not snakes btw, so I have no vested interest in these species. Cheers, Faendalimas talk 22:42, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Scope of project tags for lists and list type articles?

I noticed that recently that List of reptiles of Michigan got given an {{AARTalk}}/{{WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles}} project tag. Was starting to tag some others but have realised the amount of A and R content can vary from all(i.e. List of reptiles of Italy) to nothing(i.e. Flora and fauna of Greenland). Would it be appropriate to tag an article even if it only has a sentence (i.e. Wildlife of Gabon related to the project? Regards, SunCreator (talk) 11:30, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Some lists entirely within scope of WikiProject
Regards, SunCreator (talk) 12:14, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Comments required - Myuchelys

Could anyone willing please comment on the talk page of Myuchelys please:Talk:Myuchelys#Discussion_on_this_paragraph Faendalimas talk 05:22, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Albinos

Do we really want a subsection in every reptile (and animal, for that matter) on albinos? See alligator. My thought is one sentence saying that albinos are possible (linked) with maybe an additional sentence if there are more than a "usual" incidence of albino-ism. Student7 (talk) 19:15, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

I dont think so, after all albinism is just one of the possible genetic deformities possible and information about them is really for pages devoted to that subject. Cheers, Faendalimas talk 19:40, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Renaming discussion regarding article Sphenodontia

The proposed renaming being discussed at Talk:Sphenodontia#Requested move may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Favonian (talk) 14:42, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

added a response in support, I recommend having some pdf's available that support this proposal however. Faendalimas talk 18:57, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Amphibians of Madagascar

Blommersia blommersae listed there is actually Mantidactylus blommersae. There are lots of frogs listed in the genus Gephyromantis which is a synonym of Mantidactylus. So, are those species names valid? And are there others in that list that are synonyms? Please advise. Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:58, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Lists including non-native species

It seems logical to me that fauna lists should include all established species (and extinct ones) whether or not they are native to the geographic region in question. Am I right?

For background info on this query, please see Talk:List_of_reptiles_of_Great_Britain.

Thanks—GRM (talk) 16:55, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

As long as it's a wild, breeding population, of course. From my work on Caribbean herp lists, I also know that it's even sometimes in dispute whether a species is native or introduced, and if introduced was it pre- or post-Columbian. The list should clearly annotate these differences, but I see no reason for excluding introduced/invasive species unless we're talking about domestic herds or the occasional escaped pet rather than a sustained wild breeding population. Might be best to keep the extinct species in separate lists, however, or at most a separate section within the living Iists for very recent extinctions. postdlf (talk) 17:17, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
As long as it is sourced. I've added one source now, but the validity of some stuff off the unsource old list I doubt(for example Emys orbicularis). Regards, SunCreator (talk) 20:35, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Proposed merger for comment please

I have proposed to merge the genus and species accounts for the monotypic genus Rhinemys here would appreciate comments. Faendalimas talk 15:29, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Lonesome George

Lonesome George subspecies page name. Please see Requested move Regards, SunCreator (talk) 15:55, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Updated for another request Talk:Chelonoidis_nigra_abingdonii#Requested_move_2 Regards, SunCreator (talk) 12:04, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

RM

Hi. I was wondering if some project members would be interested in giving their opinion at the requested move at Talk:Rana archotaphus. Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 11:40, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Frog

I have been doing some extensive work on the article Frog and have put it up for peer review here. I would welcome comments on how the article can be further improved. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:47, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Eleutherodactylus andicola

Hi!, I want to call you the attention to Eleutherodactylus andicola. Actually that name is a synonym of Gastrotheca marsupiata, that in this wiki is redirected incorrectly to G. griswoldi (is considered a full species: [1]). I don't know the processes in this wiki to solve it, so I hope you can sort it out :) Cheers --Erfil (talk) 17:36, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Caimans in the Pantanal

The Yacare caiman is the most common caiman species Pantanal. Spectacled caimans and black caimans seem to be found there, too. In the case of the two above (and more not uploaded) photos I was not able to identify the species based on the information in the articles. Can anyone tell me how this should be done? --Leyo 00:17, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

They look like Yacare caimans to me, based on the head shape and coloration. HCA (talk) 14:30, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. You seem to be an expert. I added a third picture showing a group of caimans. Are they all Yacare caimans, too? --Leyo 22:36, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
I don't know about expert, but the third looks to be mostly Yacares too. There could be other species in the mix but they're not in-focus enough to spot. HCA (talk) 15:11, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
According to your user page, you are knowledgeable enough for me. ;-) You are right, the photograph is not really good. --Leyo 16:46, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Common toad Featured Article candidate

Is there anyone here who can help with the FA candidate Common toad? A hard-working editor is trying to make it a featured article, doing an excellent job working with criticisms, seeking sources, making corrections, but his biological background is weak, and I do not have the right books to edit the article, nor vertebrate background. Is there someone here who can help out with the taxonomy, not sorting, the sources are fine, just spitting it out, and evolutionary biology? This would be a great main page article, but it requires an editor with education in biology to sort these problems. Thanks. Eau (talk) 09:17, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject tagging

I'm the operator of User:Tom's Tagging Bot, which I use to bulk tag Wikipedia articles into WikiProjects. I am planning to start bulk tagging amphibian and reptile articles into WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles. I plan to start with stub articles, tagging them with the WikiProject banner, and setting class=stub and importance=low. Tagging should start in around an hour or so. If you have any requests or concerns, please feel free to respond here or leave a message on my talk page. —Tom Morris (talk) 09:29, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

All done. —Tom Morris (talk) 12:13, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Tom. A record of tagging diffs here. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 12:56, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Enhydrina schistosa

A quick heads-up that the article for Enhydrina schistosa will need some work, based on this article from the incomparable Ed Yong. I'd do it myself but I'd be sure to make mistakes and I figure you folks are the experts. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 12:18, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

The gecko genus Rhacodactylus has been significantly reordered. However I have been unable to find exact information on the subject. If anyone has access to such information please update the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhacodactylus as well as the included species.

S.e.hunt (talk) 11:01, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Comments please:

Have started an important discussion for turtles HERE. Cheers Faendalimas talk 03:07, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

File:BorneopythonAugmented.jpg

File:BorneopythonAugmented.jpg has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 06:22, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to merge Fuller's caecilian with Chikilidae

The proposal to merge Fuller's caecilian with Chikilidae has been made here. Editors are requested to add their opinion for/against the move. AshLin (talk) 14:19, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Hatchling

User:Brambleclawx has done a lot of work with the article Hatchling, which this WikiProject still lists as stub-class. It's at least start, but I'd like a reassessment to see if it is C. öBrambleberry of RiverClan 15:39, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

New updated data on Geographic Range of the Green Anaconda ("Eunected murinus"), this time in English (the previous reference is outdated and in Spanish)

New updated data on Geographic Range of the Green Anaconda ("Eunected murinus"), this time in English (the previous reference is outdated and in Spanish):

http://www.naturapop.com/home/southern-limit-of-the-distribution-of-the-green-anaconda — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.2.207.74 (talk) 13:01, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Amphibian taxonomy

As an exercise I wrote a little python script which checks whether the scientific name used in ambhibian species articles is valid according to Ambhibian Species of the World. As a starting point I took all 7453 articles in Category:Amphibians and subcategories from catscan. I then tried to figure out binomial name from infobox ({{Taxobox}}, {{Speciesbox}}, {{Automatic taxobox}}); there were some parsing errors here and there, but overall I think it worked pretty well. Here's the results:

  • 4767 species articles have valid binomial names according to ASW 5.6
  • 1401 nonvalid binomial names. ASW considers 1211 of them as synonyms. The rest of them are mostly genera and higher taxa articles where the script did't parse the infobox correctly, but there is also e.g. Lithobates areolata which ASW doesn't recognise as synonym (ASW gives L. areolatus as valid).
  • 1070 articles which have an infobox, but where the script failed to find binomial name. Vast majority of these are about genera and higher taxa, but there are also some subspecies, fossils and few missparsings, too.
  • 215 articles had none of the three infoboxes. For example Kermit the frog, Jar Jar Binks, lists of ambhibians of various places etc.

ASW recognises 7044 valid species. 7044 - 4767 = 2277 missing species, but most of them are listed among the 1211 above. Probably around 1000 or so missing species.

I'm not a taxonomist, so I have no idea whether ASW is considered as a good reference or not. At the very least the "valid" taxa (according to ASW) should be redirects; majority of them are redlinks at the moment. Also there are at least 70 articles listed under the frogs Spanish common name, e.g. Rana-chirriadora Del Nevado De Colima, Ranita Marsupial Pigmea. Here's a small snippet from the list of 1211 "nonvalid" pages I got:

wp page wp binomial name valid name from ASW ASW
Colorado River toad Bufo alvarius Incilius alvarius [2]
Black toad Bufo exsul Anaxyrus exsul [3]
European green toad Bufo viridis Bufotes viridis [4]
American toad Bufo americanus Anaxyrus americanus [5]
Pickerel frog Rana palustris Lithobates palustris [6]
Paddletail newt Pachytriton labiatus Paramesotriton labiatus [7]
Houston toad Bufo houstonensis Anaxyrus houstonensis [8]
Physalaemus nattereri Physalaemus nattereri Eupemphix nattereri [9]
Arroyo toad Bufo californicus Anaxyrus californicus [10]
Red-spotted toad Bufo punctatus Anaxyrus punctatus [11]
Wyoming toad Bufo baxteri Anaxyrus baxteri [12]
Florida bog frog Rana okaloosae Lithobates okaloosae [13]
Bufo asper Bufo asper Phrynoidis aspera [14]
Rococo toad Chaunus schneideri Rhinella schneideri [15]
Chaunus chavin Chaunus chavin Rhinella chavin [16]
Large-crested toad Bufo cristatus Incilius cristatus [17]

The full table is too long to dump on this page.

So, the question is whether the pages should be moved and articles edited accordingly, or simply create redirects. As an IP, I cannot go on a moving or creation spree... 88.148.249.186 (talk) 08:56, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

This is a good initiative. It is a bit of a disgrace that "important" groups like Ranidae and Bufonidae are so outdated when it comes to taxonomy.
ASW is the authoritative source of taxonomy for this project (according to our project page), so to me it is clear that we should aim at not lagging much behind. IUCN is largely following it, and AmphibiaWeb is not much different either. Currently we are several years behind for many groups with respect to any of these sources. As the solution, I think the way to go is to move and edit articles accordingly (ideally using the automatic taxobox system to ease future maintenance), instead of creating a patchwork of redirects (could be used for taxa where taxonomy is particularly volatile). The challenge is that it is a lot of work. In some cases the job needs to start from the family level. Care is needed that pages do not get orphaned and that duplicates are not accidentally created. Having been updating Rhacophoridae and Megophryidae, I can assure that even a minimal update per article amounts to a good amount of work.
As a first step, I would suggest putting the list as a sub-page to the project page. It would be good to get better idea where the biggest challenges are. Few cases are easy, like the articles with Spanish names that should be moved to their scientific names (yes, I am against using common names except for few well-known species). Otherwise, it probably is best if people could "adopt" a group, so as to avoid orphaning pages and keeping some uniformity. However, a sad truth is that there are not many people active in this project, so all this will take time. I do not know how to increase participation in this work. Another point to consider is that we are hopefully not so far from ASW 5.7.
Why do you not want to register? I see that you have already been doing a lot of good work! I have nothing against good IP editors, but it is usually more reassuring to see changes by registered editors. Micromesistius (talk) 20:47, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
OK, the full list is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles/Amphibian taxonomy. I can only create talk pages, so feel free to move it if you like. Unfortunately it's not in alphabetical or taxonomical order, but refreshing the list is fairly easy - I actually did that this evening.
Like you said, some of these are easy, like getting rid of Spanish names (there are more of them still, but I can't find them automatically). Some taxa are now considered junior synonyms; if they are bot-created one can simply redirect them. It might be possible to get a bot to do part of the job, but it needs to be a pretty clever bot... otherwise it might leave another mess to fix. For higher taxa, I suppose {{Anura}} is more or less accurate representation of the system in use in Wikipedia. It lists ~33 families, but ASW gives 54. I have no idea how widely accepted ASW families are; (re)writing them is a lot of work.
I actually like editing as an IP more than I liked editing with account. I used to be fairly active, but that was several years ago. 88.148.249.186 (talk) 20:47, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Great work, many thanks! I think it is fine where it is, but I will add a link to the main page.
Many of Spanish names belong to taxa where the "correct" genus-level setting is lacking, so they are more laborious than I thought. In contrast, junior synonyms are quick and easy to handle, so I would not worry too much about creating a bot. Perhaps the biggest chunk of work is with South American frogs. My impression is that there also the taxonomy is less settled. Micromesistius (talk) 13:05, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
I opened a huge move request at Talk:Eleutherodactylus actinolaimus; renaming large number of pages might be considered controversial, and more importantly, the requested move might draw some new eyes (and hands) here. 88.148.249.186 (talk) 17:16, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
The move request noted above was carried out by me, but the cleanup after that move—fixing the article content— is not something I can even attempt without input from subject matter experts. It would be great if someone here could weigh in at Talk:Pristimantis actinolaimus#Cleaning up after the move. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:41, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
Is it too much trouble to get a bot to do the clean-up? Manual clean-up would be daunting and not the best use of human editor time. It would also be great to have the list of discrepancies (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles/Amphibian taxonomy) updated—much progress has been made! Micromesistius (talk) 11:42, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Norops and Anolis need work

There are currently two articles on the taxon Norops: Norops and Norops (clade). There is also Anolis (the more inclusive taxon) and List of Anolis lizards. I think at the very least the two Norops articles should be merged with each other, and the Phenotypical Comparison section slimmed down to gallery format in the interest of space. The discussion of "Norops" as a clade should be briefly summarized in the article for Anolis as well.--Animalparty-- (talk) 03:57, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Scolecophidia

The past decade had seen a number of changes in Scolecophidia taxonomy. Their does not appear to be any published objections to these changes. A sampling of articles:

  • Marin, Julie; et al. (2013). "Hidden species diversity of Australian burrowing snakes (Ramphotyphlops)" (PDF). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 110 (2): 427–441. doi:10.1111/bij.12132. Archived (PDF) from the original on 21 December 2013. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
  • Pyron, Robert Alexander; Burbrink, Frank T. and Wiens, John J. (2013). "A phylogeny and revised classification of Squamata, including 4161 species of lizards and snakes" (PDF). BMC Evolutionary Biology. 13 (1): 93–145. Bibcode:2013BMCEE..13...93P. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-13-93. PMC 3682911. PMID 23627680.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Broadley, Donald G., and Wallach, Van (2007). "A review of East and Central African species of Letheobia Cope, revived from the synonymy of Rhinotyphlops Fitzinger, with descriptions of five new species (Serpentes: Typhlopidae)". Zootaxa. 1515 (1515): 31–68. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.1515.1.2.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Abstract
  • Broadley, Donald G., and Wallach, Van (2009). "A review of the eastern and southern African blind-snakes (Serpentes: Typhlopidae), excluding Letheobia Cope, with the description of two new genera and a new species" (PDF). Zootaxa. 2255 (2255): 1–100. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.2255.1.1.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Is there any reason not to update the Wikipedia with these changes? --Bejnar (talk) 22:41, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Well no contrary mention to the articles you itemize on this navigational warning so I think you're good to go regarding that tetrad. --Dracontes (talk) 17:14, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Crocodylus suchus image

This image is labelled as a Nile crocodile on Flickr[18], but has been uploaded to Commons as Crocodylus suchus[19], because the photo was taken in West Africa. Are all West African crocodiles of this type Crocodylus suchus? If not, the identifty of the image is in question. FunkMonk (talk) 09:17, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Based on present evidence, yes, all crocodiles in West African are Crocodylus suchus, or the very different dwarf crocodile or slender-snouted crocodile. However, if you look at the source of the image you linked, it wasn't taken anywhere near West Africa. Rather, it was taken in the "African Savanna" exhibit in Honolulu Zoo, and theirs are Nile crocodiles. The only confirmed Crocodylus suchus in the United States, and indeed anywhere in the Americas, is at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. Regardless, "desert crocodile" is a bad name for reasons described in my comment at Template talk:Crocodilia. I have corrected the category for the commons image and requested a file rename. 62.107.218.103 (talk) 17:20, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
The photo has now been moved to File:Crocodylus niloticus (Honolulu Zoo).jpg. 62.107.218.103 (talk) 17:34, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! By the way, the "Nile crocodiles" in Zurich Zoo have also just been shown to be Crocodylus suchus, which lead to examination of the ones in Copenhagen. Offspring of these specimens are found throughout European Zoos, so there are many more.[20] FunkMonk (talk) 23:36, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Automatic taxobox

I found this note at Template talk:Automatic taxobox:

I did not realize that replacing taxoboxes with automatic taxoboxes would require a consensus... In short: I am much in favour of automatic taxoboxes/speciesboxes as they make updates much easier (and there is much to update). I have not encountered any significant problems with the system. Personally, I think they are absolutely necessary if we are to make amphibian taxonomy in Wikipedia to approach the Amphibian Species of the World 6.0 or other modern taxonomies. Are there some good arguments against? Micromesistius (talk) 18:29, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't think you need to take that notice to mean that you can't go ahead and add automatic taxoboxes to articles. Someone put that there, and that was that. If there is a dispute about them on a particular article, or if you do them en masse and someone asks you to stop and talk about it first, then maybe don't do any more of them until that discussion is resolved. But ATs are on quite a number of high-profile articles already, and there doesn't seem to be much objection. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 07:41, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
Great, I'm glad you see it that way! Micromesistius (talk) 12:05, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Help needed: Water snake

Expert attention is needed to fix incoming links to the disambiguation page, Water snake. Any help would be appreciated! bd2412 T 16:10, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I might be able to help out. Just a related thought (tangential): rather than a straight disambiguation page, it might be better to format as a set index: see Greasewood and Category:Set index article templates. It might even be beneficial to create a set index template for "animal common name", but only in cases where there are unlikely to be non-animal meanings (in which case the standard disambiguation format would apply, see Grass (disambiguation). If so, this should be discussed at WikiProject Animals. But this doesn't change the need to clarify/disambiguate incoming water snake links. --Animalparty-- (talk) 18:56, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
I agree, a set index would be more useful here, particularly for articles like Aquatic predation containing text like "A number of species have evolved narrow snouts, as in gar fish and water snakes", which appears to treat water snakes as an informal class based on a common characteristic. The conventional treatment for such links (per WP:INTDABLINK), is to pipe them through the Water snake (disambiguation) redirect, so that it is clear that there is nothing there that needs "fixing". I see that Swamp Rat is in a similar position, but without so many incoming links (if the animal meanings are taken as a collective "common name", they are the clear primary topic to the non-animal meanings). bd2412 T 19:09, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Popular pages tool update

As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).

Web tools, to replace the ones at tools:~alexz/pop, will become available over the next few weeks at toollabs:popularpages. All of the historical data (back to July 2009 for some projects) has been copied over. The tool to view historical data is currently partially available (assessment data and a few projects may not be available at the moment). The tool to add new projects to the bot's list is also available now (editing the configuration of current projects coming soon). Unlike the previous tool, all changes will be effective immediately. OAuth is used to authenticate users, allowing only regular users to make changes to prevent abuse. A visible history of configuration additions and changes is coming soon. Once tools become fully available, their toolserver versions will redirect to Labs.

If you have any questions, want to report any bugs, or there are any features you would like to see that aren't currently available on the Toolserver tools, see the updated FAQ or contact me on my talk page. Mr.Z-bot (talk) (for Mr.Z-man) 04:51, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Important Request

I have started a discussion ar Talk:Narrow-breasted_snake-necked_turtle#Name_Change_and_Move that I would appreciate discussion on. WP could actually have a lead role and assist with this. Faendalimas talk 10:56, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Help needed at RfD regarding synonymic redirects

Hi there, could we get some opinions on an RfD discussion? Specifically, "Acontias (synonym)" and similar redirects that were created around 2008 by one of your members, Jwinius (who hasn't edited since 2011). Thank you! — Scott • talk 22:35, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Herpetoculture needs work

A call to all interested editors: Herpetoculture is almost entirely unsourced and can use some expert attention.--Animalparty-- (talk) 18:09, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Request for article reviewers

Questions have been raised about the accuracy of science articles written by the prolific author Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs). The background can be read in a regrettably long and bad-tempered thread at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive835#Harassment. If you do not want to read the whole thing, start here. To her credit, Cwmhiraeth has initiated Wikipedia:Editor review/Cwmhiraeth. It would help to generate light, rather than more heat, and to decide whether there is a serious problem, if scientifically-qualified editors uninvolved in the row could review some of Cwmhiraeth's articles and comment at the editor review. JohnCD (talk) 21:13, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Links to archived thread updated. JohnCD (talk) 13:16, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 28/04

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/''Araripesuchus wegeneri''. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:22, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 29/04

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Lepidosaur Herbivory. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 12:52, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Copyright concerns related to your project

This notice is to advise interested editors that a Contributor copyright investigation has been opened which may impact this project. Such investigations are launched when contributors have been found to have placed non-free copyrighted content on Wikipedia on multiple occasions. It may result in the deletion of images or text and possibly articles in accordance with Wikipedia:Copyright violations. The specific investigation which may impact this project is located at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/DendroNaja.

All contributors with no history of copyright problems are welcome to contribute to CCI clean up. There are instructions for participating on that page. Additional information may be requested from the user who placed this notice, at the process board talkpage, or from an active CCI clerk. Thank you. Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:30, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

large list, seems to be largely focused on snakes. Well I can probably help you with this one @Moonriddengirl I have followed you copyvio page for some time and am also familiar with many of the species in this investigation, including their literature. Let me know if you want me to do anything. Cheers Faendalimas talk 13:58, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 18/05

Draft:Lepidosaur Herbivory. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 15:33, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Cnemaspis Girii or girii?

There's a new stub at Cnemaspis Girii; the list in Cnemaspis includes "C. girii", and Googling shows me a mixture of "Girii" and "girii". Some expert in the area might be able to resolve whether it's capital "G" or lower-case "g" here? PamD 22:06, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I note we've got a Dendrelaphis girii. PamD 22:12, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
The correct spelling, regardless of how it is presented in popular press articles, is Cnemaspis girii (in animals the specific epithet is always lowercase, even if derived from a proper noun). I have moved the article to the correct case.--Animalparty-- (talk) 23:54, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
Thanks - I knew there'd be a helpful expert around here.PamD 05:58, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Merger discussion

I have started a merger discussion as I suspect that we have two separate articles about the same species of frog. Any constructive comments you are willing to provide there would be greatly appreciated. Neelix (talk) 19:02, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject Anatomy

There is a discussion at the Anatomy Project about a mismatch between the title of the project and its scope. The title refers broadly to anatomy, but the project rejects all articles that are not primarily about human anatomy. Thus, for example, none of the articles in Category:Amphibian anatomy and Category:Reptile anatomy are accepted by the project. There is a similar issue with WikiProject Physiology. --Epipelagic (talk) 09:08, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

New toad species

This is way outside my area of knowledge, but a new species of toad endemic to Jersey, Channel Islands has been identified. Looks like we need an article on the Jersey toad creating. Mjroots (talk) 19:27, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Gekkos of Zimbabwe

GEKKOS OF ZIMBABWE DrC.Humphreys (talk) 00:45, 20 October 2014 (UTC) My article Gekkos of Zimbabwe was deleted and then userfied. It was noted for a duplication with Gekko an Asian Genus of Lizard .... When I wanted to share information on African Lizards in the Order Gekkonidae. I have looked at your entry level requirements for Herp entries and my article seems to qualify. I note the huge proportion of articles that are stubs or starts and I feel I have something to offer. I have studied lizards in Zimbabwe all my life. Zimbabwe is not noted for reptile endemicity but it has several endemic geckos species / subspecies. They live in locals houses and gardens and they live in the lodges, chalets, tents, hides etc that are used by tourists that come to see the big game animals and the scenery. I have been asked so many times about these small critters than I feel there is a need for a page like the one I started to write Gekkos in Zimbabwe I would though like to use the standardised English Gecko to Geckos of Zimbabwe and this might have helped avoid the confusion I and disappointment I had when the article went through two deletions. Please help me resurrect it. DrC.Humphreys (talk) 00:45, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry your article got deleted. If it's userfied, is it still present and editable on Wikipedia? Can you link us to it?(Never mind, here it is). But a more important question: is why limit the list only to geckos? There are several lists of reptiles by country or region: See for instance List of reptiles of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, List of reptiles of Guatemala, or everything at Category:Lists of reptiles by location. It's generally better to start with a more general list (e.g. all reptiles rather than an arbitrary family) or a national list as compared to a specific region (as you've done in Reptiles and Frogs of the Eastern Highlands). Since Wikipedia doesn't yet have a List of reptiles of Zimbabwe, or List of amphibians of Zimbabwe, those should be probably be created first, as those would provide a greater amount of knowledge to a wider audience. --Animalparty-- (talk) 01:23, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
(as a side note, I separated your comment into a new section. to make a new section on talk pages click the "New Section" tab at the top of the page, or add "==" before and after a new title, e.g. ==New section==). --Animalparty-- (talk) 01:23, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Dyeing dart frog

I have made a comment on Dyeing dart frog, and would value input. I believe this frog has been classified with wrong red list status.Dan Koehl (talk) 17:24, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Eryx, Gongylophis & Erycidae

I have been informed by an acquaintance that

"the Gongylophis genus (last used in 2004), has been placed by other taxonomical reviews back to genus Eryx which was 1st assigned by Dumeril and Bibron in 1844. In 2013, Professor Alex Pyron did a complete revision of all Boas in the world and he updated the E.conicus to a new family Erycidae (Previously in Family Boidae and subfamily Erycinae) and keeping it's genus to Eryx. So the latest name is Eryx conicus. Gongylophis is scientifically not a valid as be a separate genus. currently 13 living sand boa species in the world and all of them are categorised under Eryx."

Do we accept Pyron's body of work & update the articles?

AshLin (talk) 04:07, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, the convention for this project is to follow the ITIS site, which is fairly slow to update, in order to avoid changing pages back and forth in the cases of contentious taxa or having to evaluate papers ourselves (which would be WP:OR). HCA (talk) 17:49, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

do you have the reference for this? link a pdf so we can see how its been done. If it is a substantial peer reviewed revisionthen it may be worth followin up on. Cheers Faendalimas talk 10:15, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
@ @Faendalimas:, I have found these two :-

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Monitoring needed

An enthusiastic but silent editor has been doing quite a lot of reptile edits, often with regard to their use as pets. Some edits have been obviously inappropriate (bad page moves, copyvios) and have been reverted, but it would be very helpful if someone knowledgeable in the area would monitor the situation and report if there is a problem. The editor is currently blocked but that will expire soon. One minor issue is the tendency to copy text from one article to another, for example, from Trachylepis margaritifera#Description to Trachylepis quinquetaeniata#Description. Johnuniq (talk) 21:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Category discussion Category:Frogs of New Zealand

Category:Frogs of New Zealand is being discussed for merger or renaming. Please see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_January_23#Category:Frogs_of_New_Zealand. Cheers, --Animalparty-- (talk) 20:05, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

If anyone's wondering, it was merged to Category:Amphibians of New Zealand —Pengo 03:51, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

FINDING STUBS

Hi I am new here. I tried to find the stubs that need work. I clicked on the button in the box but it would not open. How do I find the top stubs that need work? Reefswaggie (talk) 11:35, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Welcome. I'm not quite sure where you're trying to click. If you're looking at the table "Amphibian and reptile articles by quality and importance" on the project page, there are no Top importance Stubs. Ordinarily, you should be able to click a cell in that table to get a list of the articles (like the 6 High importance Stubs), but the tool that generates the list has been malfunctioning for the last few days. It will probably be working again soon. In the meantime, you can click on the row and column headers in the table to see everything in that class; click the link in the red Stub box to see all stubs (not sorted by importance). Plantdrew (talk) 19:13, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
For the time being, Reefswaggie, you could pick from Category:Stub-Class amphibian and reptile articles or browse Category:Amphibian and reptile articles by importance. Category:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles also has a handful of articles "Requiring attention", so those could be looked at to resolve any issues (although in some cases the issue may not be specified or apparent).--Animalparty-- (talk) 23:21, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
thanks Animalparty! It was actually the high importance stubs that I was trying to get to and it was definitely malfunctioning. Will go in the other way - I can't do much on wikipedia yet but i am becoming a bit of a stubmaster. Quite enjoy sniffing out info on little known animal groups and putting it together on stubs, so thanks for the help :) Reefswaggie (talk) 04:56, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Your efforts are appreciated! Any work towards getting stubs into C class quality or higher is commendable. Cheers! --Animalparty-- (talk) 05:39, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Thats intriguing... what does it take to qualify as C class quality? I often wonder at what point i can remove the stub classification. I just edited an article about a Guatemalan lungless salamander (Bolitoglossa centenorum) but so little was known about it I could only add short description and distribution sections so i am thinking it is still a stub. Reefswaggie (talk) 11:17, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Quality rankings are kind of subjective, but given how little is known about Bolitoglossa centenorum what is now on Wikipedia is more than a Stub (certainly Start-class, and perhaps C-class). The entirety of human knowledge of this species is presented in one scientific paper, and it is only known from the individual salamanders examined by the scientists who first described it. You might want to read this essay, WP:CL-RULE, for an example of how stub (or better) class is considered with regard to cities.
Quality depends, in part, on how much existing information there is on the topic. For a relatively obscure species (but one better known than B. centenorum), a paragraph for each of the bullet points in Wikipedia:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles#Article contents may well be enough for C-class. For a species which is common, widely distributed and well-known to the lay person, much more information would be necessary for C-class. Compare the C-class articles King cobra (well-known) and Blue poison dart frog (obscure). You might also take a look at Dendrogramma; this B-class rated article is another animal known only from a single scientific paper. It attracted a fair amount of media attention, so there are some additional sources to draw on, but much of the article is quotations about what is not known about the organism, rather than the known facts. Plantdrew (talk) 20:58, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
This is an interesting discussion! How would you classify Rana brama, which was described in a way that makes it impossible to relate it to any existing populations, and thereby ever know much more than is already stated in the article? Should Rana brama and similar cases be classified as C class or higher when the state of affairs is stated? Without the combination of the Global Amphibian Assessment and Polbot, these articles would not even exist (which would not be a sad state of affairs). Micromesistius (talk) 12:08, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
Rana brama (or articles with a similar state of affairs) could be rated C or higher in my opinion. Though two issues come up with Rana brama. Firstly, from the citations given in the article, it appears that ASW and IUCN treat it as Fejervaya brama, so a source is needed for placing it in Rana. Secondly and more importantly, I can't find any record for this frog on ASW or IUCN under either name. That's really strange. Did ASW/IUCN delete their records since you updated the article in 2013? It almost makes me wonder if the holotype illustration is a hoax (it's happened before; Audubon tricked Rafinesque into describing a bunch of non-existent fishes (see here, click View)). It might be best to just nominate Rana brama for deletion. Plantdrew (talk) 17:34, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
IUCN has indeed removed the listing (this seems to have happened for some other species with similar status too), but it is included in the ASW, as Rana brama but under Fejervaya. I updated the page accordingly. Although a bit of nuisance, I would be inclined to keep these articles as the species continue to appear on various listings. Micromesistius (talk) 01:47, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
I didn't click through before to the ASW page for Fejervaya. It's kind of sneaky that ASW only displays some problematic "Rana" species on their Fejervaya page (while delivering no results for the binomial in either genus). Since ASW does address the status of Rana brama, keeping the article seems appropriate. Plantdrew (talk) 07:28, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Check my work please

I've added a couple of recently described species to Slender salamander#Species; see Jockusch et al for the source. I've not done much in genus articles, so it would be nice for sometone to take a look to see if I did it right and also if more should be done (like creating the two new species articles). Thanks! --jpgordon::==( o ) 07:05, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Australian green tree frog

I have nominated Australian green tree frog for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. DrKiernan (talk) 08:51, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Amphbians TFA April 25th:

Just a heads up that Amphibians is going to be Today's Featured Article for April 25th. The following pages are linked to in the blurb, and will likely recieve quite a bit of attention. I would suggest adding at least some to your watchlist (at least temporarily), and checking some of them over for quality before the 25th.

--Harizotoh9 (talk) 18:43, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Skeletal changes of organisms transitioning from water to land

Discussion taking place on a new article at:

--Harizotoh9 (talk) 11:13, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

What's the best way for me to help?

Hey, all! I'm fairly new to Wikipedia and am looking to add some contributions as part of my coursework for a university class. I'm sure there are plenty of stubs that could use work, but where would help be most appreciated? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ns4571a (talk • contribs) 01:36, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Welcome aboard! The short answer is contribute to whatever you're most interested in! Stubs are at Category:Reptile stubs and Category:Amphibian stubs. Aside from that, I feel like genus and family articles get less attention than species articles, which can result in a lot of species stubs but no greater context (e.g. what are the unifying features of said species...) So you might try a top down approach in your favorite taxon (lizards, frogs, amphibians, etc), and see where you encounter an underdeveloped taxon article. Or conversely, pick your favorite species, improve that, then work your way up the taxonomy. Alternately, you could check out the project Assessment table, and clicking on the respective grid will show, for instance, high-importance, stub-class articles (keeping in mind that class and especially importance are somewhat subjective). All the best! --Animalparty-- (talk) 03:10, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Oh and if you're editing Wikipedia for coursework, check out Wikipedia:Student assignments, and especially Advice for students. In many cases standards for a university-level paper are different than Wikipedia: professors usually want to see you analyze primary literature, and/or cutting-edge developments in the field: here it's better to rely more heavily on secondary sources (e.g. scholarly books or review articles) to give a more balanced view, putting everything in context. --Animalparty-- (talk) 03:18, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Help is welcome anywhere. Animalparty has some good suggestions. It also kind of depends on what sources you want to use. There are various global databases that provide enough information to create a new stub on any species that doesn't have an article yet. But it might be difficult to locate sources to take an obscure Asian species past stub; on the other hand there are often ample sources that could be used to improve a North American species past stub (this link should show some Amphibians species that occur in the US that are ranked as stubs). Another approach might be to look for highly viewed articles that are ranked stub or start class and work on improving those; that will benefit the largest number of readers (see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Amphibians_and_Reptiles/Popular_pages for a ranking of articles by page views). Plantdrew (talk) 04:10, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Thank you both so much, I'll take a look at some stubs and see where I can lend a hand. All of your information has been super helpful. --ns4571a--

Herpetoculture wikiproject

FYI, there's a proposal for a wikiproject on herpetoculture. For the discussion, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Herpetoculture -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 07:53, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Serpent (Bible) listed at Requested moves

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Serpent (Bible) to be moved to Serpents in the Bible. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 23:04, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

RfC on common name of Frill-necked lizard

Join talk at Talk:Frill-necked_lizard#RFC:_article_title. cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:02, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Snake ID

Does anyone know this snake? It is a roadkill on Hainan island, south China. Thank you. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 18:39, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Oreocryptophis porphyraceus laticinctus. HCA (talk) 00:49, 7 July 2015 (UTC)
Thank you, HCA. You are very kind and knowledgeable. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:23, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Several articles need attention...

Hello!

I did some editing on the page of king cobra and venomous snakes, adding some information and removing some old contents. I had tried to put my suggestions on the talk page of the king cobra article before I started my editing. However, no one gave any response. I'm not sure if my edition is appropriate so I would like to have your comments here so that I can ensure the quality of the articles. Please have a look at those pages if you have time.

Thanks a lot !

(User:Toxic Walker) (talk) (UTC)

Robert C. Stebbins nominated for Good Article

The biography of Robert C. Stebbins, herpetologist and field guide illustrator, has been nominated as a Good Articles in Biology and medicine. Any editor is welcome to review. Cheers, --Animalparty! (talk) 04:47, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Classification question on Trans-Pecos striped whiptail

I posted a question on the talk page of this lizard, which someone with a lot more knowledge might look into. Onel5969 TT me 16:16, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Iguana, Physignathus, Cyclura or something else?

Dear colleagues, couldn't you help me with identification of this lizard: commons:file:Washington DC Zoo - Physignathus cocincinus 1.jpg? The filename says that it is Physignathus cocincinus, but I have seen some suspects that it is an unusually colored Iguana iguana. I tried to investigate this question and it seems that Iguana iguana should have a very big round scale at the lower base of the head (commons:category:Iguana iguana heads), but this specimen lacks it. And it somewhat resembles Cyclura lewisi. Is this specimen identifiable at all (at least to family)? Stas (talk) 22:22, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Cyclura lewisi, juvenile. HCA (talk) 14:29, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Systematic Biology; Taxonomy Elapidae/ Hydrophiinae/ Laticaudinae

Hello together,

  • Sorry for my English, I am usually in the Germen Wikipedia.
  • Usually taxonomy is not the main field of my work.

But after working on the Toxinology of the Hydrophiinae de:Seeschlangen, I god the idea to try to edith the section of Taxonomy. My Question: [concerning the higher taxa and their relationships]

1)

  • Elapidae
    • Hydrophiinae
    • Laticaudinae
    • Elapinae

2)

  • Elapidae
    • Hydrophiinae (inkl. Laticauda)
    • Elapinae

I did some recherché, but even with professional information the basic taxonomy of the higher taxa is diffused? What is a sub-family, what family taxon?

  • Allg. / Hydrophiinae / Laticaudinae
  • Sanders, Rasmussen et al.: Multilocus phylogeny and recent rapid Radiation of the viviparous sea snakes (Elapidae: Hydrophinae), Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Elsevier 2012.
  • Pyron et al. (2013): A phylogeny and revised classification of Squamata, including 4161 species of lizards and snakes, BMC Evolutionary Biology 13: 93 [21]
  • Sanders KL, Lee MSY, Bertozzi T, Rasmussen AR: Multilocus phylogeny and recent rapid radiation of the viviparous sea snakes (Elapidae: Hydrophiinae). Mol Phylogenet Evol 2012, 66:575-591.

German Wikipedia: Source for reptiles taxonomy: http://www.reptile-database.org/db-info/taxa.html.

This link [1] tells me, that they see genus Laticauda as part of sub-family Laticaudinae... And de:Wikipedia works with these sites...

Actually Many Researchers are working hardly on great projects (molecular, phylogenetic). Maybe my question comes to early ;)

Thanks for ideas!

--Danny S. (talk) 23:21, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Ok if I am understanding you correctly. Reptile Database is a good place to work from, use and cite their nomenclature is acceptable. If it ends in "idae" it is a family, if it ends in "inae" it is a sub-family. Whether the Laticauda are in their own subfamily of Elapidae or another genus in the Hydrohophiinae is not a major difference so just cite and follow the most recent accepted nomenclature. That will usually be that on Reptile Database. Pyron gets cited alot, and if you read through Reptile Database they will too. There is currently alot of work being done on snake evolution, unfortunately much of it solely molecular which is high risk taxonomy as it excludes comparative datasets, but that's unfortunately been the way of science in recent years. So you have to run with what you have. Cheers Faendalimas talk 14:04, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Rana vs Lithobates

A user has changed, without discussion, most of Lithobates species into Rana — see here. Any views on this? Use of Lithobates is in accordance with Frost et al. (2006) and the Amphibian Species of the World, the supposed sources of amphibian taxonomy for this project. This is an old controversy, but my impression is that the tide has turned in favour of recognizing Lithobates as a genus, although the AmphibiaWeb sticks to Rana. If we deviate from Frost et al. (2006)/Amphibian Species of the World, new consensus should first be established. Micromesistius (talk) 15:05, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that, while Lithobates is not without critics, nobody has published a formal paper moving these species back into Rana. The inconsistency and sheer inertia of Rana, both in scientific and non-scientific literature, doesn't help. However, it's now been almost a decade since Frost et al's paper, so we're hardly being too rash by adopting Lithobates is their use. I suggest that, in the absence of a peer-reviewed paper formally attempting to move Lithobates back into Rana (as opposed to merely criticizing the move), we stick to Lithobates.
We should also look further back at this user's edit history - I've found several edits to Bufo and the associated new genera Incilius and Anaxyrus, with the user making major moves and revisions in favor of the pre-Frost taxonomy. I'm less familiar with Bufonid taxonomy, but a quick peek at recent literature shows both genera widely used.
Indeed, a thorough examination of this user's edit history suggests this is a single-issue account, with all or nearly all edits done in opposition to the taxonomic proposals of Frost et al 2006, almost exclusively with regards to North and Central American taxa.HCA (talk) 19:39, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
It's pretty sloppy work. L. clamitans was citing ITIS for placement in Lithobates, but the article was cut and pasted to Rana clamitans with changes to scientific names in the text, with the result that it's now incorrectly citing ITIS for placement in Rana. An old version of L. megapoda was copied to Rana megapoda with the loss of informative recently added content sourced to IUCN. It appears the user didn't want it since IUCN now goes with Lithobates, but the article still cites IUCN as of 2006 (though the IUCN link now goes to L. megapoda). All the sources cited in Guerreran leopard frog go with Lithobates, but it's Rana in the text now with nothing to back that up. The users changes do at least seem to get binomial authority parentheses right (Guerraran leopard frog was previously missing parentheses needed for placement in Lithobates)
I don't know enough about the taxonomy here to weigh in on that aspect, but as the changes are effectively misrepresenting the sources in the articles now (rather than adding new sources arguing for Rana), I think they should be reverted. If Lithobates is still contentious maybe placement in Rana should be mentioned in the text of affected articles (not just in the synonym field of the taxobox). Plantdrew (talk)
This discussion is continuing here: User talk:Ranapipiens#Rana_vs_Lithobates. Micromesistius (talk) 07:12, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
This extensive discussion needs to come to some conclusion. The discussants (myself included) have seemingly run out of new arguments, without reaching a consensus. Some clean-up will be needed, whatever the conclusion is. Could some editor with experience dealing with this kind of situations step in? I am uncertain about the correct procedure. Micromesistius (talk) 20:03, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I have responded at the contiuation on @Ranapipiens: talk page. Cheers Faendalimas talk 22:39, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

OK, this is still ongoing, and I'm a bit afraid of it petering out and reaching consensus only by declining interest. I know which way I perceive the debate, but we ultimately need more folks with taxonomic backgrounds. I'll leave this here, but also add a request for comment to WP:Animals. If you have taxonomic expertise, please weigh in on the talk page: User talk:Ranapipiens#Rana_vs_Lithobates. Thanks! HCA (talk) 15:49, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
@HCA:, It would seem to me that this discussion may need formal mediation. It meets the criteria and despite the length of the argument I do believe all parties are acting in good faith with an aim to improving WP. It has not descended into a fight or an edit war where Arbitration would be more appropriate. I acknowledge all parties here for their restraint on that. Some resolution is needed though. I can start that process if everyone would like this to occur. I will wait and see what @Ranapipiens: and @Micromesistius: say also. Cheers Faendalimas talk 00:07, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
I think that's a good idea at this point, so I'm up for it. And thanks again for weighing in with some formal taxonomic expertise; my experience with this taxon is largely physiological, and insufficient to really get into the nitty-gritty details of the issue. HCA (talk) 16:28, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Re-evaluation of the recommended secondary sources.

Hi everyone,

I think we need to re-evaluate the secondary sources for this Project. At present we have the following:

Internet - Secondary References

That was copied from our main page. Some of these are out of date, some are in conflict. Some need constant testing before automatic usage. However, before jumping into which ones should be removed or replaced, I think a brief discussion on what the particular site has achieved is helpful. I must say although I am a fan of International lists I am not a fan of purely web based ones as they have no visible accountability or refereeing. But in saying that it depends who they are. So some points to consider are:

  1. World Wide Acceptance - Ie number of International Organisations that accept and use their nomenclature. I would say a round figure of at least 5 for example. eg SSAR, ASIH, HL, ASH, IUCN SSC, etc
  2. Compliance with IUCN and CITES - it is absolutely crucial that any nomenclature complies here, for legal reasons. The IUCN and CITES meet every year to update Nomenclature, if they do not use it no one should.

Any other points people wish to make here? Just on measures to include no opinions on which should stay or go yet please. Cheers Faendalimas talk 18:36, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I would add that active curation by an expert is a huge bonus - the last thing we need to change a page repeatedly based on a rapid-fire sequence of contradictory papers, or have someone including low-quality taxonomies published under dubious metrics (those who work on snakes know *exactly* who I'm talking about). HCA (talk) 18:53, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
I hope the sources chosen will address available names appearing in low-quality taxonomies with dubious metrics (perhaps with rapid-fire synonymization (when possible) of names proposed by any notorious taxonomic vandals); but I haven't actually checked how currently recommended sources are dealing with these (and it's not just snakes if you're talking about who I'm assuming you are, there are some North American turtles as well).
I think independence of sources is important. There's no need to recommend two sources one of which follows the other in it's entirety, especially when the second source is using 6 year old data from the first source. Independence only need apply to taxonomic sources; it's fine to recommend IUCN for additional data (habitat, range, threats) as well as the source on which IUCN taxonomy is based. Plantdrew (talk) 19:37, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
Fair points. I agree that active curation by an expert panel is important. I also would like to see it actually reviewed and published. Rather than web based, however I accept that may be impossible world wide. Would be possible for more local levels, eg by country, however I think that is not feasible. I also agree that independence of sources is important. I meant by stating the IUCN and CITES is for the species they cover we should be doing exactly what you say and seeing what their sources are. Fortunately with the Redlist and CITES I know who does those final reports each year so can get that info, actually I already know it just have not mentioned it yet. I am trying to flesh out some basic principles to follow first then come up with a list that meets them. I think there are sources that address quite well the issues of the infamous snake descriptions we are all thinking of, and yes it is not limited to snakes. Thanks for the input so far. Cheers Faendalimas talk 19:59, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
What about the The Reptile Database? That's much used in WP but is not "officially" recognized by this project. Micromesistius (talk) 21:02, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
haha you are getting ahead of me, it is one of those I was going to suggest. I am just trying to establish some ground rules first. But certainly for Reptiles it is a major source, it is edited by a team of herpetologists, overseen by its creator with reviewers for each section and clearly defines its sources, which is largely the original primary literature. Peter Uetz also widely communicates with specialists of each group to ensure his versions are correct. it covers 10200 species, who could know them all, no one. Cheers Faendalimas talk 21:48, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Ok in the aim of keeping this moving I think that first up a checklist be it online or journal style, even electronic must meet the following conditions:

  1. have a clear update, review and curatorial style.
  2. be readily accessible free of charge.
  3. must be clearly being used and followed, ie signed off on by the majority of the world major Herpetological Societies
  4. be clearly curated by specialists who have a working knowledge of taxonomy and nomenclature.
  5. its nomenclature must be in agreement with IUCN Redlist and CITES.
    • Remove - Turtles of the World Has not been updated in years and will not be. It should be removed from the list.
    • Remove - Amphibia.web its methodology is not apparent and is out of touch with international endangered species listings and not supported by world Herpetological Associations.

Ok that would be my view on this at this stage. Cheers, Faendalimas talk 05:09, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Looks good to me! HCA (talk) 17:02, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
I think we should first make explicit that this discussion is about taxonomic sources. I agree that AmphibiaWeb should not be used as a source of taxonomy, but is a valuable source of other types information. I would be a bit more cautious regarding ITIS as it seems not to have been systematically updated after 2009 (I am speaking for amphibians only). For example ITIS treats Alsodidae and Telmatobiidae as subfamilies, contra ASW, AmphibiaWeb, and Blackburn & Wake 2011 (but Vitt & Caldwell 2014 use subfamilies here). So I would say Use with Caution. Regarding the Amphibian Species of the World, it has a Running log of changes and additions, so updates (starting with version 6.0) are frequent and transparent. Also starting a few weeks ago, IUCN has started to include taxonomic sources on each page, and now it is immediately visible that they rely on ASW for amphibians. So here I would say Keep. However, one could also argue for being cautious and not to implement larger changes (i.e., genus level and above) before they are reflected in the IUCN Redlist. Thus, the IUCN Redlist could act as a kind of independently reviewed version of ASW. I do not know how IUCN assesses their taxonomic sources, but User:Faendalimas seems to know how IUCN works, so his opinion would be valuable here. However, I do not think that IUCN intends to be a source of taxonomy. They also ignore subfamilies. Micromesistius (talk) 20:21, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
@Micromesistius: Yes I am referring to our nomenclatural and taxonomic sources. The IUCN's primary function is conservation, they are not primarily a taxonomic source. However, their nomenclature is used in legislation in many countries so it is better to be in agreement with them. They update the Redlist 3 times per year, the next one is in November, however they do not do all of it at once so some species may go many years before reassessment, it depends on the urgency. They do not cover all species, it is done on an as needed or opportunistic basis also. CITES is also about Conservation and are heavily controlled by legislation and border control with endangered species. They update their nomenclature once per year, just did it last week, again because of the legal implications its best if everyone is using the same nomenclature as the IUCN and CITES. The reptiles on ITIS were given a major overhaul between 2013 and 2014 a number of groups of the Amphibians seemed not much worse off than that. I think one of the difficulties is the nomenclatural availability of good information on amphibians is way behind that of reptiles, I do not know why there are plenty of people who work on them and have done for a long time. In any case hopefully that is improving. With amphibians it may take a bit of ensuring some balance, being careful and fact checking against good primary literature when it gets messy. Cheers, Faendalimas talk 20:43, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
Another issue is the taxonomy between families and orders. Amphibians were "traditionally" split in three suborders (Archaeobatrachia, Mesobatrachia, Neobatrachia), which are still partly in use in Wikipedia, but I think mainstream taxonomies no longer use them. However, none of sources we have discussed covers this intermediate ground. I suggest erasing the suborders from the classification in use in the taxoboxes. If using the primary literature, we can find some reasonably well supported superfamilies, which could be used when relevant. Micromesistius (talk) 21:00, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
I have not followed recent developments in higher order taxonomy of amphibians, my one and only taxonomic paper on frogs was 20 years ago on Hylids. Suborder and Superfamily is 6 of one half a dozen of the other unless both are in there, but no matter. We should try to follow whatever the current view is on that. I shall dig around a bit see what I can find for higher orders. In general once they are in place its only the below family stuff thats problematic. Just getting it all set up to start with. Cheers Faendalimas talk 22:04, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
@Micromesistius, HCA, and Plantdrew: For the higher taxa how about using Blackburn and Wake (2011) PDF this will get the structure and then take the family down from other sources. Apart from that can I consider we have some consensus and make some apprpriate changes to the project page? Cheers Faendalimas talk 14:40, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Looks good to me; is there a comparable paper for reptiles? HCA (talk) 15:11, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

King Cobra

I have just seen a photo of a LARGE King on facebook: [22]

I don't recall ever seeing the crest illustrated before. Is it common? or a male display thing?--Petebutt (talk) 04:03, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

It's fake. Either photoshop or a physical add-on. They don't have "crests". HCA (talk) 14:28, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

A butterfly feeding on the tears of a turtle in Ecuador

Original – Two Julia Butterflies (Dryas iulia) drinking the tears of turtles in Ecuador

I've nominated A butterfly feeding on the tears of a turtle in Ecuador for Featured Picture consideration.

Discussion is ongoing, at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/A butterfly feeding on the tears of a turtle in Ecuador.

— Cirt (talk) 02:34, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Ameiva ameiva

Two of us have been having a debate about the female Ameiva ameiva because I didn't think the second image on [[23]] could be identified as one. Our correspondence is copied below. Does anyone have an authoritative opinion please?

I changed the main image as usually, the main image should be, if possible, of a complete animal, rather than a part of one. My image shows the legs and tail. Quality is of course subjective, but my image also appears sharper. I do not believe there is any difference between males and females (from a photo anyway). Happy to have a third party adjudicate... Charlesjsharp (talk) 16:50, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

The problem with lizards is they can have very long (and boring) tails. You may not have noticed that the colours are almost reversed in the females. I believe that is worth seeing. Cheers. Dger (talk) 18:45, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Hello again - I'm afraid everything I can read says that the only difference is that the males' colours are brighter. I can find no reference online to your comment that 'the colours are almost reversed in the females'. Are you sure that your female is a Ameiva ameiva? Might it be a different species by any chance? I'll copy the debate to the discussion page if you like. Charlesjsharp (talk) 22:16, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Anything is possible with this species. I did find some other pictures similar to mine, in particular see here at the Reptile Database (3rd picture). It is also possible that it might be an A. atrigularis but that species has also been a synonym of A. ameiva or it may be a new species. I can't recall where I got the information. It may have come from the naturalist guide we were with in Peru. I will do some more sleuthing. Dger (talk) 01:11, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
See also 10. Dger (talk) 01:17, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
I did some more checking and found out that A. atrigularis is only found in Venezuela. I have come to the vague conclusion that the females of A. ameiva are indeed differently coloured so I stand by my images; however, I do recognize that several sources do not agree. Perhaps a better authority will appear that can clarify the situation. I keep an open mind. Dger (talk) 18:29, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

discussion ends. Charlesjsharp (talk) 14:18, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

From what I can tell of the species the sexes are generally the same base color as adults, however there is a marked difference between juveniles and adults (based on reading entries at EOL). However, the caveat on that is there is a lot of variation in color so it going to be possible to get a male and female that look different. Beyond that I am not much help, but I shall ask a few people here in Brazil what they think. Sorry my specialty is turtles. Cheers Faendalimas talk 17:48, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps this will help: http://www.fieldherpforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17911 HCA (talk) 15:12, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Suggestions welcome on species-article writing handbook for university students

Hello all; I'm writing on behalf of the Wiki Education Foundation, which works with instructors who assign university students to write or edit Wikipedia articles in the United States and Canada. We're developing a print handbook for students who will write or expand articles on a brochure - found here - about editing species articles, including animals, plants and fungi. I'd appreciate any feedback on the draft! It is open for comment until November 5th; after that we will set it to print. Thanks so much! Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:13, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

FrogWatch

Start with this link: https://www.aza.org/frogwatch/

Requesting that greater stakeholders than me flesh out the details of what matters & why, while pointing to ways to make a diff & get involved with vanishing amphibians world-wide and at home, no? Time's a wastin' and spp. are being lost.

ribbit-rutrowRibbit-rutrow (talk) 15:53, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Psittacosaurus

I have nominated Psittacosaurus for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. DrKay (talk) 16:36, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Hainan snake ID

Could someone please tell me the species? Thank you kindly. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 19:58, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Definitely an Asian pit viper. My best guess is Trimeresurus albolabris. The coloration fits, and the eyes seem too small to be Trimeresurus macrops. bibliomaniac15 23:22, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
Thank you so much, Bibliomaniac15. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:39, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Frogs redirects

Could we get some eyes here at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Neelix_frog_redirects? It's about redirects created by editor User:Neelix that all relate to frog articles. As noted, some of these are incorrect to the wrong species and the like for obscure ones and that coverage then gets promulgated based on these wrong redirects so then it continues and you get the point. The actual list is at User:Anomie/Neelix list/frogs. I'm an admin so feel free to contact me or any other admin if you see something glaringly obviously wrong at Neelix's redirects are G6 immediately deletable. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:52, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Hainan lizard ID

Could someone please tell me the species? Thank you kindly. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 15:43, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Anna Frodesiak: Seems like a skink of some sort, but I can't tell the exact species. bibliomaniac15 19:32, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you Bibliomaniac15. That is exactly where I am, but am unable to refine my search. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:08, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

†Gangiguana

Expert help is sought from this project and from the Palaeontology project to provide reliable sources for the Gangiguana article – see also Talk:Gangiguana. Any and all help would be dearly appreciated. Thank you in advance!  Stick to sources! Paine  02:29, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Taxobox discussion

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Redundancies in the taxoboxes for a discussion about the format of taxoboxes for species and below. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:16, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Rana/Lithobates Yet Again

So, in spite of an extremely long and inordinately complex discussion this time last year, which made it all the way to Wikipedia Official Arbitration, the consensus to use the AMNH database as the source of amphibian taxonomy is once again being disregarded by users intent to forcing a particular POV, this time using a new publication as an excuse to ignore the database. See Rana_(genus) and Lithobates. What's the point of having decisions made, if they'll simply be ignored at the flimsiest pretext? I've maxed out on the 3RR rule, but someone needs to remedy this so we don't have to have the same damn debate all over again. HCA (talk) 19:12, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Until a clear and accepted, internationally, change has been made to amphibian taxonomy we should continue to follow consensus. The shame is that the WP page was finally receiving some respect after it was noticed that Lithobates was now a genus. This only to be undone again by personal opinion. I have reverted the Rana_(genus) the other page in question Lithobates needs to be fixed also. If the users in question wishes to make changes they need to engage on the talk page. These pages are the way they are after thorough consensus was reached they cannot just be changed because of one or two people. I have also left a warning on User:Ranapipiens page. Cheers Faendalimas talk 22:41, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
The consensus that was reached in Arbitration was that ALL current views on the taxonomy of this groups would be represented evenly and fairly. There was never an agreement to use the AMNH database exclusively, especially since that database is written by the person (Frost) who proposed using Lithobates as a genus. Despite this agreement, in March HCA unilaterally changed all the pages, which has presented both the AMNH and the alternative, widespread viewpoint, to show the AMNH viewpoint only. In June, a consortium of Rana systematists from throughout Europe, Asia, and North America, who had previously supported different taxonomic arrangements, published a major systemtic review of the group, with considerable new data from many genes and sampled across most of the taxa. They supported the view that Rana, in the sense of all the Holarctic brown/true frogs, was monophyletic; that the group called Lithobates was nested within Rana; and that recognition of Lithobates as a genus made the rest of Rana paraphyletc. They presented a classification of all the species of Rana which kept all these species in a single genus Rana, and they recognized several well known and well supported species groups within Rana as subgenera. Another user updated the Rana page to reflect the Yuan et al. (2016) paper; this was immediately reverted by HCA. Consistent with the Arbitration agreement, I modified the Rana page to show the differences between the Yuan et al. (2016) taxonomy and the Frost (2006) taxonomy, and added the Yuan et al. (2016) reference back to the Rana page. I also noted that the taxonomy supported by the international group (Yuan et al., 2016) has been adopted by the online resource AmphibiaWeb. All of this is exactly in agreement with the Arbitration agreement, agreed upon by myself, HCA, and Faendalimas.Ranapipiens (talk) 20:36, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Rectilinear locomotion

This article on rectilinear locomotion looks pretty important, but the article is just a couple of uncited paragraphs. Can anyone improve it? LK (talk) 06:31, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

I added citations, but I can't get WP's weird formatting to work. Is there a WP citation style file for EndNote I can just download? Or can someone fix these? HCA (talk) 16:56, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
Fixed. You needed pipes (the character produced by shift+\) between the fields in the citation template. This tool can fill out a citation template if given a DOI. There's another tool that can fill in citation templates for web pages (I've never tried to use it though). I'm not aware of any tools that generate citation templates for books. Plantdrew (talk) 18:56, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Notice to participants at this page about adminship

Many participants here create a lot of content, have to evaluate whether or not a subject is notable, decide if content complies with BLP policy, and much more. Well, these are just some of the skills considered at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.

So, please consider taking a look at and watchlisting this page:

You could be very helpful in evaluating potential candidates, and even finding out if you would be a suitable RfA candidate.

Many thanks and best wishes,

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:46, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

The project sepration

I think this project has to be seprated to Wikiproject Amphibians, Wikiproject Birds and Reptiles (sauropsids). Because reptiles are more related to birds than to the amphibians. Birds are now consider as a reptiles. So reptiles has to merge with birds, not with amphibians.Line 8 the Pink (talk) 05:11, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

There might be a case for separating amphibians and reptiles. But this project doesn't have many editors in the first place. Professional societies such as ASIH aren't organized along phylogenetic lines that include birds as a crown group of reptiles. Paraphyletic amphibians+reptiles better represents how the topics here are usually adddressd professionally than an (also paraphyletic) bird+reptiles/amphibians/fish grouping.Plantdrew (talk) 06:35, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
@Line 8 the Pink and Plantdrew: I agree with Plantdrew here. Although from a phylogenetic viewpoint amphibians and reptiles are not related the traditions of Herpetology are useful. Many herpetologists work on both amphibians and reptiles and not many herpetologists work on birds. Likewise, not many ornithologists work with reptiles. Some groupings make sense from a productivity point of view even if they are not supported by phylogeny. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 12:35, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
No need to separate these two projects, nor disciplines (i.e. herpetology and ornithology), that have historic and modern differences in scope and, more importantly, in Wikipedia editorship. To quote Miles Kington, "Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it a fruit salad." --Animalparty! (talk) 00:26, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

2016 Community Wishlist Survey Proposal to Revive Popular Pages

Greetings WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles/Archive 6 Members!

This is a one-time-only message to inform you about a technical proposal to revive your Popular Pages list in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey that I think you may be interested in reviewing and perhaps even voting for:

If the above proposal gets in the Top 10 based on the votes, there is a high likelihood of this bot being restored so your project will again see monthly updates of popular pages.

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Thank you for your consideration. Please note that voting for proposals continues through December 12, 2016.

Best regards, Stevietheman — Delivered: 17:51, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Gavialis pachyrhynchus

Unsourced, controversial text.Xx236 (talk) 09:29, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Fixed, found source including original description. Surprisingly remarkable - the original description is based only on a premaxilla and fragment of anterior maxilla, but the text of the paper says the bones are three times the size of those in a 20 foot gharial skull. Does anyone know of any new work on this taxon? HCA (talk) 15:45, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles

hi all, a very cool reference, the Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles, has now been put online open access. You can access it here and find out more here. A great scholarly reference for all manner of American amphibians. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 21:33, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Popular pages report

We – Community Tech – are happy to announce that the Popular pages bot is back up-and-running (after a one year hiatus)! You're receiving this message because your WikiProject or task force is signed up to receive the popular pages report. Every month, Community Tech bot will post at Wikipedia:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles/Archive 6/Popular pages with a list of the most-viewed pages over the previous month that are within the scope of WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles.

We've made some enhancements to the original report. Here's what's new:

  • The pageview data includes both desktop and mobile data.
  • The report will include a link to the pageviews tool for each article, to dig deeper into any surprises or anomalies.
  • The report will include the total pageviews for the entire project (including redirects).

We're grateful to Mr.Z-man for his original Mr.Z-bot, and we wish his bot a happy robot retirement. Just as before, we hope the popular pages reports will aid you in understanding the reach of WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles, and what articles may be deserving of more attention. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at m:User talk:Community Tech bot.

Warm regards, the Community Tech Team 17:15, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Help identifying a lizard

I recently photographed this lizard at the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary. It's a little blurred toward the middle but I was able to get pretty close to it. I know very little about animals and I'm unable to identify its species. Can someone help? Thanks! EricEnfermero (Talk) 02:22, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Appears to be a Great Basin fence lizard, a subspecies of the Western fence lizard. --Animalparty! (talk) 02:31, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the assistance! EricEnfermero (Talk) 05:20, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Project image

Is it only me who finds it inappropriate that the project image depicts a lizard held in a human hand? I think a better photo could be found, perhaps one showing an entire animal. Or anything without humans, at least. FunkMonk (talk) 01:51, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Grass snake - new species/losing a sub-species

I'm no expert on the subject, so won't attempt to change the article here, and I'm sure a more robust site is needed for the information, but the BBC have reported that a new species of Grass Snake has been found in the UK: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40853286 81.129.252.113 (talk) 15:17, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

I think we need to wait until a peer-reviewed study is published. "Discovering" that a subspecies is "really" a species is very arbitrary anyway. FunkMonk (talk) 15:26, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170807082324.htm 81.129.252.113 (talk) 16:17, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
That is also just press-coverage, but it links to the actual study:[24] FunkMonk (talk) 16:19, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

See Barred grass snake. In general I agree it's better to wait for a secondary source, but the paper seems pretty clear, and there has been a lot of publicity (in the UK, anyway) about this 'new' species. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:03, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Article titles for subspecies

Where subspecies exist, I find many of the article covered by this project unclear as to the topic. Often it seems that an account of the nominate subspecies is given at a title corresponding to the entire species. Liasis olivaceus is just one of many examples. The title suggests that the entire species is being discussed, but the article says "Two subspecies are currently recognized, including the nominate subspecies described here." Then there's an article at Liasis olivaceus barroni. The impression being created is that a trinomial of the form A b b means the same as the binomial A b, whereas actually A b includes A b b, A b c, etc. Is this titling accidental, policy or what? Why is the existing Liasis olivaceus article not at Liasis olivaceus olivaceus given that this is the taxon it is concerned with? Peter coxhead (talk) 08:12, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't think there is policy, but in this particular case, I see no compelling reasons for having separate articles for each subspecies, and as a reader would prefer them both discussed in one article. --Animalparty! (talk) 00:13, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Need help checking some contributions

Could someone please check the articles Boiga siamensis and Glyphoglossus molossus, particularly the additions by User:Khunpolrattachana? Seems like they're pushing some unpublished original research; I've already PRODed Boiga siamensis naranjita. --Paul_012 (talk) 07:44, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Boiga siamensis naranjita is pure fiction. I see the edits on Glyphoglossus molossus, but they seem to have been removed, and the current version seems like it's well cited (though I may have missed something). I've stripped out the more egregious uncited material in Boiga siamensis. However, they have several photos on WP Commons with their uncited names. I'll rename those. HCA (talk) 19:51, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm not sure what's going on with Khunpolrattachana. I had their article on Leptolalax zapzorzen speedily deleted as a hoax yesterday. I wasn't sure if hoax was quite the right way to describe it; I did have thoughts of it being based on unpublished research. However, it had a totally bogus IUCN citation (as Microhyla zapzorzen), with the name of the assessor being similar to Khunpolrattachana. And the species authority was Frank Cuesta, 2014. Cuesta doesn't seem to be somebody likely to describe new species, and 2014 is surely long enough for one of the names to show up somewhere besides Wikipedia, even if there were some unpublished research transferring it from Microhyla to Leptolalax (or vice versa). That article can be seen in this sandbox edit. Plantdrew (talk) 20:23, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
Looks like a sock puppet showed up. User:Kamolht created Draft:Sam Lan Red frog ("Leptobrachium zapzorzen") Plantdrew (talk) 20:55, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
Update: The PROD tag was removed, so it's at AfD here. --Paul_012 (talk) 02:21, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Edits to Turtle.

Hi everyone, as it has been flagged as too long, and having looked I agree, it is also way out of date. I have started major editing of the Turtle I am doing it in steps with a save so that is easier to track what I have done. So far I have done the first paraagraph, still needs some refs, and removed the enourmous phylogeny, that is out of date and plain wrong anyway. I am also going to slash the references, currently it has notes and refs, will make one refs list only that will refer to inlines and remove any unused refs from the bottom. Not done this yet. Would appreciate feedback as I go through it. Particularly from anyone who knows turtles well. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) talk 06:36, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

Blue-tailed skink

Can anyone resolve the report at Talk:Blue-tailed skink#Wrong photo which states that the image in the article is for a different species. Johnuniq (talk) 02:32, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

This was resolved. The talk page has been moved to Talk:Cryptoblepharus egeriae. Johnuniq (talk) 09:32, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Saltwater crocodile

Would someone please check an IP's recent edits. There is an error in a {{convert}} template which has option disp=on. The "on" should be changed to "or" but I don't want to fix that unless the recent edits are checked as ok. Johnuniq (talk) 09:37, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Pinocchio frog

The article Pinocchio frog has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

WP:DEL7 and WP:DEL8 It is not possible to link this vernacular name with a valid scientific name. Neither Amphibian Species of the World nor Amphibiaweb know a "pinocchio frog" or "spike-nosed tree frog". This page is now nearly eight years old, orphan, and it is likely that by now the species is described, but the vernacular names mentioned were not used, or that the specimen turned out to be an already described species. Even though National Geographic etc. are reliable sources, they are not reliable in proving that the vernacular name represent a valid species.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Micromesistius (talk) 19:33, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

It's a tricky one. I found this paper, which lists several Litoria in the region with nasal protruberances, one of which, Litoria pronimia, is mentioned in one of the links on the page: http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1071/ZO15016 Maybe it's one of these? It's hard to definitely ID, you're right. HCA (talk) 21:18, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

images of a snake in Iran

Hi this set of images is not well categorized on commons. One users told me it's for sure a colubridae, probably Coronella austriaca, but he is not sure. Can you give me some further advice? Thank you.--Alexmar983 (talk) 12:05, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

RfC on categorizing by year of formal description

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comment: categorizing by year of formal description for a discussion on possible guidelines for categorizing by year of formal description of a species. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:56, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

A link to a DAB page

Limnonectes lauhachindai links to the DAB page caruncle, which has no relevant entry that I can see. The feature is described in the abstract of the Zootaxa citation. Can any expert help solve this problem? Thanks in advance, Narky Blert (talk) 16:14, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

Orange crocodiles

A recent Mark Trail had information about them. Wikipedia does not have an article about them. Here is the feature.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:22, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

They're covered in Dwarf_crocodile, which is apropriate, as they do not appear to be a different species, merely a different population. HCA (talk) 20:01, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Synapsids

I have recently proposed to create a new WikiProject (WikiProject:Synapsids) that maybe related to this WikiProject. I would like anyone to make comments and discuss it on the Proposal (link for discussion is in section title). Lavalizard101 (talk) 20:15, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   07:25, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Amphibians and reptiles and at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Reptiles

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Amphibians and reptiles. And at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Reptiles – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 07:06, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

A link to a DAB page

List of snakes by common name links to the DAB page Sonoran. Is this a duplicate of Sonoran sidewinder (5 lines above), or a different species? Narky Blert (talk) 09:50, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

@Narky Blert:, it's certainly just a fragment of a name, not a full name, and can be deleted (which I have now done). Plantdrew (talk) 15:22, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks - that was my guess, but it's good to have confirmation. Narky Blert (talk) 15:25, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment on recommending usage of automatic taxoboxes

There is an RfC regarding recommending usage of automatic taxoboxes at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Request for comments: Should the automatic taxobox system be the current recommended practice?. Inviting anybody who watches this page to contribute their thoughts to that thread.

WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles is currently using automatic taxoboxes in 83.2% of project tagged articles that have any form of taxobox. Plantdrew (talk) 01:33, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Reptile taxonomy question

Itasuchidae has a messed up species box. I see now it might be a bit messy, with Template:Taxonomy/Itasuchidae previously existing but then getting deleted. The deletion edit summary noted to use Template:Taxonomy/Trematochampsidae instead, but that redirects to Template:Taxonomy/Peirosauridae. Should the Itasuchidae page exist at all, or should it redirect somewhere? And if it should exist, what should its species box parameters be? Enwebb (talk) 01:14, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

The taxobox of Metasuchia lists Itasuchus as a subdivision (with no placement to family). The taxobox at Itasuchus has Peirosauridae as the parent. I don't know if Itasuchidae should be recognized, but related articles are inconsistent in how it is treated. Plantdrew (talk) 03:11, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
The history is described in a bit more detail in Trematochampsidae#Taxonomy. It seems the family Itasuchidae was dropped because the original relationship defining the family wasn't supported in later studies. Pinheiro et al (2018) ressurrect the family with a new formulation. The article contradicts itself in the defintion of the family. The results and discussion seem clear on the defintion and sister relationships, but the abstract says something different. In general the abstract is poor, as it misstates the polytomy, gives a different sister relationship to the main text, and doen't mention the new combination for the material that is the main subject of the article.
If the latter is valid taxonomy, the template for the family should be reinstated here. The taxobox certainly needs a better parent to indicate a crocodylian nature. But what is considered an appropriate taxonomic authority for extinct crocofyliformes?   Jts1882 | talk  10:12, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Another link to a DAB page

Uropeltidae links to the DAB page worm snake; a problem which was first spotted in May 2017. Can any expert here solve the puzzle? Narky Blert (talk) 16:45, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

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