Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Animals

Request: Handbook of the Mammals of the World Vol. 9 - Bats

I am currently in search of the "Handbook of the Mammals of the World, Vol. 9 - Bats" to aid in improving related articles. Unfortunately, due to the high cost, obtaining a copy has proven challenging for me. If any members have access to the handbook and are willing to share it, I would deeply appreciate it. I'm currently working on trying to improve the bat articles and I think the handbook would be a great reference to have. Myth Sys (talk) 03:14, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Socks (cat) naming ambiguity

An editor has requested that Socks (cat) be moved to another page, which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. -- 65.92.247.90 (talk) 20:22, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Fossorials!

Hello fellow Wikipedians! I have just created a new WikiProject, WikiProject Fossorials. If you can, please join, as we are in desperate need of members! Fossorials are animals that spend much of their time underground, so if you are interested, please join!

Thank you, UserMemer (chat) Tribs 00:30, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Man-eater#Requested move 30 January 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Man-eater#Requested move 30 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 15:18, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at List of wealthiest animals

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:List of wealthiest animals#Disputed worth, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. Spinixster (chat!) 06:24, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Rewilding (conservation biology)#Requested move 4 March 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Rewilding (conservation biology)#Requested move 4 March 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 15:09, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

review of coverage of animal sounds

I quite like listening to audio in Wikipedia articles, so I thought I'd take a look at how our coverage of the audible side of Animalia is doing. Putting it here since the media wikiproject is inactive. — Arlo James Barnes 00:34, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

current status

• list of animal sounds  List — de-facto main page for the topic, unfortunately has an unintuitive organisation; see also list of onomatopoeias § Animal and bird noises List
• vertebrates
  • birds — bird vocalization B
    • turkey call  List — article trying to be two things at once, merge non-animal content into game call?  Stub
  • mammals
    • carnivorans
      • bark (sound)  B
      • roar (vocalization)  C
      • growling  Stub
      • howling  Start
      • meow  Start
      • purr  C
    • primates
      • gecker  Start
      • girneys  C — should be WP:SINGULAR
    • cetaceans — are tail-slaps covered somewhere?
      • dolphin § Vocalization B
      • signature whistle  C
      • whale vocalization  C
      • list of whale vocalizations  List
    • ungulates
      • bellow (sound)  C
• inverts
  • stridulation  C
  • Jerusalem cricket § Communication Start

suggestion for reorganisation (will continue to revise)

• new root page, name depending on format
  • animal sound production
  • index of animal sound or maybe plural 'sounds'
  • outline of animal sound

discussion

There are quite a few other pages in category:animal sounds —   Jts1882 | talk  16:28, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, I added the ones you highlighted. I'll take a look at the some of the others tomorrow. — Arlo James Barnes 16:54, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Fancy group names & misinformation from reliable sources

Some species or groups of animals have commonly accepted group names. Think of a "flock" of birds or a "pack" of wolves. Others, like a "murder" of crows or a "clowder" of cats are less well known, but firmly supported by major dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary. However, I'm dealing with a problem involving unsupported and even fake group names circulating on the internet that are now finding their way into "reliable" sources. Allow me to explain. And sorry in advance for the length of the post.

The group that concerns me is lemurs. Years ago, I was a major editor here, writing extensively about lemurs and their relatives, taking my work all the way to FA status. Having not only collected vasts amounts of information about them for the Wiki articles, I also worked with lemurs professionally, both in research and as a zookeeper. Therefore, I knew it was commonly accepted that a group of lemurs was called a "troop," just like all other primates. However, none of my copious sources explicitly came out and said this basic fact. After all, most lemur species don't live in large groups. Without a source explicitly stating it, I was unable to include this detail into the Lemur or Ring-tailed lemur article. Yet there are many published works that use the term "troop," not only in their title, but also in their text. But again, without someone explicitly stating that "a group of lemurs is called a 'troop,'" I was unable to include the information.

In the years since, the internet and social media have done what they do best: spread misinformation. A new term for a group of lemurs, a "conspiracy," has started to dominate popular culture. There are now dozens of blogs and other informal (but fancy looking) websites that make it look official that a group of lemurs is called a conspiracy. All of them feed on each other, parroting one another's term use and explanations without due diligence.

The worst and most troubling offender is the BBC, which published an article that not only backed up these claims, but also parroted some of the websites by claiming that the term originates from a book called "The Book of Hawking, Hunting and Blasing of Arms" from 1486, also known as Book of Saint Albans. The obvious problem is that lemurs were not known to Europeans back then, and they weren't even named "lemurs" until 1758, when they were formally described by Carl Linnaeus. I wrote to the BBC recently asking for a correction, but because the article is older than 30 days, their policy is to let the misinformation that they published remain online. This allows it to be used as a reference on Wikipedia since the BBC is considered a reliable source. In fact, it has already been used at least once as a bloated footnote for the relevant and mostly unsourced article Collective noun.

This problem with the lemur group name is widening. Search "group of lemurs is called" on any major search engine, and they will all return "conspiracy" in large, bold letters. Yet from what I can tell after hours of combing the web, the name might have started with a 2007 Reddit post or shortly before. In the years that followed, it spread like wildfire on social media and through blogs.

I would like to address this in the lemur articles, and I think wider action should be taken as a part of this project. I've tackled a problem like this before when another respected Wikipedia editor and I worked with Colin Groves to publish an article with lemur etymologies. In it, we debunked decades of speculation about the origin of the term "lemur." At the time, we found the primary source (in Latin, by Linnaeus) that contradicted all the sources that came after. However, since Wiki doesn't allow us to use primary sources to override decades of published, reliable secondary sources—despite their obvious errors—I needed a peer-reviewed, reliable secondary source. But for today's case with "conspiracy," I don't have the means to do this. A simple group name won't merit a published rebuttal.

While I'm still filing complaints with the BBC over their article, I have little hope of having it corrected. I can, however, cite Merriam-Webster, which does define a "troop" as a "a flock of mammals or birds." In other words, it's a general term. However, I feel I'll be powerless to stop someone else from hopping on and adding "conspiracy" with a citation pointed at the BBC (like search engines). Edit wars will inevitably ensue.

What can we do, not just for the lemur articles, but also for other animal group names that were probably included in this mess of misinformation based on some jokester's whim from pre-2007? Is there any way we can ban that single "reliable" BBC source?

Personally, I have issues with its reliability from a second standpoint: it's practically a children's article. Its "Newsround" section is included with others such as "Games" and "Puzzles." Over-simplified (and factually incorrect) children's material shouldn't be used as a sole reliable source for academic Wikipedia articles.

Other thoughts?

Sorry for the long post. I like to be thorough and clear. —Maky (talk) 21:10, 3 April 2024 (UTC)