Talk:Artiodactyl

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Cetartiodactyla

The Cetartiodactyla link at the bottom of the second paragraph leads right back to the Artiodactyla. Seems rather pointless! Perhaps the page should be changed to Cetartiodactyla as it's more scientifically correct, with artiodactyla redirecting to Cetartiodactyla rather than the other way round, and even toed ungulate leading to a page about the historical wastebasket group rather than the scientific information, similar to the pages for cetacea and whales (see the nomination for deletion for the 'whale' article.).

Bovidae?

Are sheep and goats really bovidae? Vicki Rosenzweig, Saturday, June 8, 2002

Yes they are, but they are not bovinae. Bovidae include all the ruminants with conical or heliconical horns, goats, sheep, and antelopes as well as cows. The families of ruminants are distinguished by their horns: chevrotains have none, pronghorns have pronged horns, giraffes have stubs, deer have antlers, and bovids have heliconical horns. -phma

Kosher?

Does anyone else think the info on what is/isn't considered Kosher doesn't belong on this page? -- stewacide 05:36, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think it makes sense to have the stuff on food taboos in here - the distinctions between what may and may not be eaten by the different religions do actually follow the taxonomy, and this is the page on which the taxonomy is being presented. The existing material on food permissions does need a bit of a rewrite, though, I'll get round to it sooner or later if no-one else does. seglea 07:11, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

But add quotation marks and/ or mention "hallal" as well at least! Wikipedia, pretending to be neutral, cannot allow such a statement which could all to easily be explained as Jewish-coloured (or coloured by any culture, to be sure), can it?--Caesarion 09:57, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, now that I read the line better I see that the first sentence is relativated by the following --Caesarion 10:00, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)again.

Whales?

The article lists hippos as closest to pigs, but according to Richard Dawkins in The Ancestor's Tale the closest relatives to the hippos are the whales (he refers to post-2000 molecular research). Given that this hypothesis is quite young I could understand it not being the accepted relationship, but does anyone know enough about it to mention it? I ask this here instead of at hippopotamus because this is where the family tree is presented. —Rory ☺ 22:30, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, and by now fossil evidence that supports this theory has been found, too. (Origin of Whales from Early Artiodactyls: Hands and Feet of Eocene Protocetidae from Pakistan. Philip D. Gingerich, Munir ul Haq, Iyad S. Zalmout, Intizar Hussain Khan, and M. Sadiq Malkan. Science 21 September 2001; 293: 2239-2242.) Both DNA and fossils pointing in one direction -- seems like it's time to update the taxonomy. --Chl 16:30, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You seem more knowledgeable than I about the topic. Could you add that information to the relevant articles? —Rory ☺ 17:03, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC)

Demise of the Artiodactyla

Since the Artiodactyla as traditionally composed is paraphyletic, because it excludes cetaceans, future authors will be inclined to throw the Artiodactyla into the "laundry basket" by using the name Cetartiodactyla to include land-living artiodactyls and cetaceans. The phrase "laundry basket" means a bunch of paraphyletic or polyphyletic assemblages.

The other option is to recognize Artiodactyla as the name of the clade instead of Cetartiodactyla, since the Cetacea is just one (successful) group that arose within that clade of artiodactyls. There are precedents for both approaches. Cephal-odd 19:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

†Agriochoeridae

The family †Agriochoeridae is still unlisted, and therefore in red, but the Genus †Agriochoerus does have an entry. Is there a way to place †Agriochoeridae in blue, but redirect to †Agriochoerus? That way a user can go directly to the article without having to "google it" like I had to do. User:retrograde62 22:30, 18 November 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.189.161.147 (talk) [reply]

Economic importance?

The article's introductory paragraph concludes with the phrase "...including many that are of great economic importance to humans." However, information to support this statement is absent from the article. Is this appropriate? --Cheers, Folajimi (leave a note) 13:29, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cetartiodactyla

Should Cetartiodactyla officially be put in as the superorder of Artiodactyla and Cetacea? Eli Falk 18:08, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, let's wait a couple of years. In any case, let's leave anything as controversial as this out of the taxoboxes for now... Fedor 09:54, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

EDIT: 1 yr later, I think that Cetartiodactyla should have whales and hippos and be placed in the Artiodactyls. -Walkingwith08 (talk) 16:31, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ungulate template

I removed the ungulate template for a couple reasons. 1) If we are going to use it, it has to actually be a template. A template is updated from one central page in the template space, and then changes occur on all the pages. If this template was on all the pages, and someone wanted to update it, they'd have to make the same edit dozens of times. 2) Classifying cetaceans as "ungulates" is not an uncontroversial assumption. While most agree that they are descended from ungulates, it's not accurate to call them ungulates -- whales, after all, are not hooved. If we want to include cetaceans I think the template has to be for the superorder certartiodactyls. Remember ungulates is not an exclusively taxonomic term. --JayHenry 19:11, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Changes happening today

I'm going to be doing quite a bit of editing of this page today, so it'll probably go through various stages of readiness. Cheers, Jack (talk) 13:46, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What does this mean?

The international trade in beef for 2000 was over $30 billion and represented only 23 percent of world beef production.

Does this assert that 77% of world beef production is not traded internationally, suggesting that the total beef market is somewhere in the neighborhood of $130B? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 02:21, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mating and reproduction�Perissodactyl males are just like most anlmals they fight for the attention of the females.� When a male finds a female he will taste her urine to see if she is in (estrus)heat.�The female can also signal the male if she is in estrus.� Perissodactyls most often only have one baby at a time, rarely, the females ever twins.�The pregnancy is very long, from about 11 months in horses to 16 months for rhinoceroses.� The calf or foal is able to stand within moments of birth, but is very dependent on its mother.� The young stays with its mother even after it is independent, usually until it is chased off by the mother upon the birth of a new foal or calf. � In horses, the foal will enter into the herd proper, later, young stallions are often chased off and join bachelor herds.� With rhinos and tapirs, the newly weaned calf wanders away to search for new feeding grounds� —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.48.129.151 (talk) 23:20, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just why is Artiodactyla paraphyletic?

The matter is unclear, and I cannot be the only reader confused. The claim is that the exclusion of whales renders the group paraphyletic. The labels in the cladogram File:Artiodactylamorpha.png (included in the article) don't include either Artiodactyla or whales, but there are two pictures of whales and a shaded area labeled "Artiodactylamorpha". Generally, and perhaps in this case, tacking the -morpha suffix onto a taxon name produces the name of a more inclusive taxon.

It is evident from the cladogram that Artiodactylamorpha+Perissodactyla+Hydracotherium is a monophyletic group. Perhaps it has a real name; I shall call it the APH group. Since it is the clade originating with the last common ancestor of the Artiodactylamorpha, the latter is paraphyletic if and only if it lacks some subclade of the APH group. It does lack the Perissodactyla+Hydracotherium subclade and of course subsubclades like the Rinocerotidae, so it is indeed paraphyletic. The whales, though (at least those depicted) have nothing to do with the matter.

Of course, the claim is that Artiodactyla is paraphyletic, not that Artiodactylamorpha is. If Artiodactyla is indeed included in Artiodactylamorpha, however, then the last common ancestor of the Artiodactyla is included as well, and—going by the cladogram—so is every animal descended from that ancestor. The paraphyly of Artiodactyla would need to be a consequence of the exclusion of some of these artiodactylamorph descendants. It appears from the cladogram, though, that none of these are whales.

The exclusion of whales could render Artiodactyla paraphyletic, then, only if the group is more inclusive than Artiodactylamorpha. Is it the entire set of animals shown in File:Artiodactylamorpha.png, including dogs and cats, minus some group that includes the whales?

Peter M. Brown (talk) 18:53, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's actually somewhat simpler than that: the cladogram does not show the current consensus on artiodactyl-cetacean relationships. Instead, it represents the findings of one paper, published in 2009, that challenged that consensus, and disputing that artiodactyla is paraphyletic. It was a sound enough paper at the time, but it has since been contradicted by more research, showing the cladogram in the article to be incorrect (see, for example, this 2011 paper).

So, the latest research (to the best of my knowledge) shows that the article text is correct, and the cladogram is wrong. I don't blame you for being confused, and, in my view, the image should simply be removed from the article - at best, it contradicts the text. Anaxial (talk) 20:45, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The current text reads: "The group excludes whales (Cetacea), although DNA sequence data indicate they share a common ancestor, making the group paraphyletic." This is still problematic: sharing a common ancestor with whales does not per se make the group paraphyletic. For example, Hominidae shares a common ancestor with Cetacea, but Hominidae is monophyletic. This should be clarified. 151.46.255.132 (talk) 17:17, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"double-pulley structure"

Since the lead section mentions "double-pulley structure", it would be useful if this was explained somewhere in the article, or if there was a link to an article that explained it. Thanks, Wanderer57 (talk) 04:36, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cladogram

It is not obvious what the numbers on the cladogram mean. Thanks.

The Letter J (talk) 11:18, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Horses and related

Also, are horses even-toed? The article says they're odd-toed, but the cladogram lists equus. The Letter J (talk) 11:22, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]