Talk:Pilosans of the Caribbean

A fact from Pilosans of the Caribbean appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 30 November 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the extinction of the Greater Antillean sloths coincided with the first colonization of their islands by humans?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2009/November.

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Article title

I have a suggestion - since all the species except those of Trinidad are sloths, how about cutting out Trinidad and giving the article a title more accurately reflecting its content, such as "Sloths of the Caribbean"? Or perhaps cut out Escudo de Veraguas as well, as make it "Extinct Megalonychid Sloths of the Caribbean"? WolfmanSF (talk) 06:18, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I quite agree that the current title is awkward. However, it is part of a series on mammals of the Caribbean which includes several orders with more substantial representation on islands like Trinidad, so I'd prefer to keep it like that. Ucucha 12:08, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Other genera

We currently have articles for Habanocnus and Miocnus that apparently need to be redirected to Acratocnus. WolfmanSF (talk) 06:32, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the taxonomy of our megalonychid articles needs revision. The classification at Megalonychidae, straight out of McKenna and Bell, also needs to be changed. Ucucha 12:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Species delinking

I am not happy with the delinking of all the species. Even if it's true that those are all unlikely to get articles, which I don't necessarily believe, the species articles should redirect to (an appropriate section of) the genus article and it is good to have them linked here for easy navigation. Ucucha 12:19, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree. At present most fossil species are housed at the genus page, but they should nonetheless be redirecting there. As you suggested, in time it will be best if they have their own subheading at the genus page. There's nothing wrong with red links so long as they should lead somewhere eventually and these should. --Aranae (talk) 14:36, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Then why not direct the red links to the appropriate genus articles where possible? The present state of affairs constitutes encouragement to any editor not aware of the relevant discussions to create little stub articles on each of the species, which is unlikely to be very useful. WolfmanSF (talk) 17:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would have no objection to that. I guess the question is will these ultimately link to redirects to the genus article in general or will they link to a subheading in the genus article? --Aranae (talk) 18:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Even then, I prefer to link as precisely as possible here. The discussion you linked to talked about species known only from a few vertebrae or similar, and I believe those sloths are known from a lot more than that, enough to justify separate articles on each. I might do some work on that in a while. Ucucha 20:23, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Split

It appears that all the Antilles sloths are monophyletic, so it seems strange that every other sloth family has an article bar Megalocnidae. @WolfmanSF: given that you are the main contributor to this article, do you think of the proposal? Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:03, 5 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Hemiauchenia: The article is slightly more general than Megalocnidae; however, if Megalocnidae was split off, the remainder (Bradypus pygmaeus and the anteaters of Trinidad) would be too small for more than a stub article. I don't see creating the latter as being very useful. WolfmanSF (talk) 23:57, 5 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's necessary to remove any content from this article perhaps the split suggestion was misleading, my idea was to create a new Megalocnidae article that would focus on the origins of the group during GAARlandia, Pre Quaternary fossil record, relations to other sloths and life habits, and ultimately extinction while this article is primarily a list, I just wanted your approval to do so as you are the primary contributor to extinct sloth articles. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:20, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's fine, although I wouldn't take the GAARlandia hypothesis very seriously, since the fauna of the Antilles is obviously depauperate and derived from oceanic dispersal. WolfmanSF (talk) 00:26, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's anything stopping you from creating a typical family article about the Megalocnidae, but I don't see why that would require this article to be split, or really be changed in any big way. Guettarda (talk) 04:00, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The new article has been created. Any feedback? Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:19, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]