Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life

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Can't display some taxa's authorities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Absolutely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How about reducing greatgreat?

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

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

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

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

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

Rays

So today i learned (after an embarassingly long time) that we have two pages about rays that overlap heavily in scope: Myliobatiformes and Myliobatoidei . I hadn't found the latter prior because i navigate wiki through pages and taxonomic names, so of course Myliobatoidei (on the namespace "Stingray") remained off my radar.

The order page is just a family list and a cladogram, so i feel like it would quickly gain unanimous support for merging into the Stingray page, but i've not delved into Batoid systematics too deeply so i'm hesitant to just implement it then and there, which is why i decided to ask everyone on here on the matter. Should the two pages be merged?

Anthropophoca (talk) 00:18, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

If zanobatids could be accepted as true stingrays, then maybe. If not, then no I think. Jako96 (talk) 18:56, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

The issue is that they seem to have never developed a stinger, and they may not even be close to stingrays. Anthropophoca (talk) 22:15, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Harpacochampsa

There is a discussion going on at Talk:Harpacochampsa#Incorrect etymology that might benefit from additional eyeballs. It seems to be devolving into rehashing arguments stated previously, has some behavioral aspects to it that probably belong at User talk and not article talk, and has other aspects that while relevant to the article are not specific to it but could be relevant at any species article. (To the latter point, those aspects might be better debated here than there, but the conversation is already lengthy and perhaps not worth moving here at this point.) Not sure how to untangle this, perhaps splitting it into three discussions, but something needs to be done; maybe someone here will have a fresh approach. Mathglot (talk) 00:29, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

The issue is rooted in etymological discussion; one of the involved parties insists on not translating scientific names if their meanings have never been specified in the original descriptions.

Thank god for ETYFish. Anthropophoca (talk) 00:35, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

Illustration or photograph for lead image?

Do we have a general preference for whether the lead (taxobox) image for a taxon should be a line drawing or a live/preserved photograph, if both options are of similar quality? This question arises frequently, for example at Discoplax longipes, where we have a detailed, high-quality, black and white line drawing that could be replaced with either this high-quality colour photograph of a preserved specimen or by this lower-quality photograph that has the plus of showing a live specimen in situ. It wouldn't be unreasonable to include all three in the article, but a lead image should still be picked. Do we have a general preference for whether the lead image should be an illustration, a preserved photograph, or a live photograph (when they are of comparable quality) or is it best to leave the status quo of deciding article by article? I feel some sort of general consensus would be useful, since many of these articles have very few watchers and the images can be endlessly swapped around to editor's aesthetic whims. I myself prefer in situ photographs for the lead, as the higher-detail preserved photographs and scientific drawings are better-suited, in my opinion, to the Description section, and live photographs are more representative of the entire article. Cremastra (talk) 22:23, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

I'd somewhat prefer a photo over an illustration (especially if the photo is in color and the illustration is black and white). However, I think you're exhibiting some unconscious bias with the organisms you are interested in asking whether an illustration or a photograph should be first (assuming multiple high quality images are even available). It is not that simple.

For highly sexually dimorphic organisms, does the male or female go first? I don't think there's an answer to that, unless it's "use an image with both sexes" (which means it's almost certainly is going to be an illustration rather than a photograph).

For large plants (trees), I'd prefer an illustration (or photo-montage) with details of leaves/flowers/fruits/habit over a photo of the entire plant where details can't be made out, but good illustrations are few. I guess I'd prefer a closeup photo capturing flowers and leaves over a photo of an entire plant. Plants cultivated for edible tubers, fruits or seeds would be better with an initial image of the edible part than an image of a flower.

People are more likely to encounter workers than queens of social insects. Sometimes larval forms will be more familiar than adults (I think that is the case with Pyrrharctia isabella for North Americans). Galls might be more informative than images of gall-makers. Microscopic plant pathogens might be better with images of infected plants than illustrations/microphotos of the cells.

I think there's been some discussion about life restoration illustrations vs. fossils (either photos or illustrated) for paleontological taxa. Plantdrew (talk) 00:18, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

My two cents regarding pathogens are that this should be the order of priority: microphotos of the cells > images of infected plants > illustrations of the cells. I understand prioritizing an actual photo of the pathogen's consequences over an illustration, but it should not be prioritized over the actual photo of the pathogen. It's the same as if we had a photo of a trypanosomiasis patient instead of Trypanosoma. — Snoteleks (talk) 13:11, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Intersex (biology) § Requested move 3 July 2025

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Intersex (biology) § Requested move 3 July 2025. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 01:04, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

About using quotes on prokaryotic taxa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discussion at Talk:Postgaardia § Renaming to Symbiontida

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Postgaardia § Renaming to Symbiontida. Jako96 (talk) 11:55, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

Etymologies

In response to the ongoing etymology saga, I've made a start on an essay on the subject. I hope that we might be able to refine this to the point where it could become at least an informal guideline. It definitely needs some more work - in particular I would be grateful for any good examples for the last section (and I'm not sure this has quite the right heading). Comments, fixes, improvements etc. welcome. YFB ¿ 14:16, 6 July 2025 (UTC)

I think this is very good, thank you for working on this. I have not participated in these debates but have read through a few of them and I find the guidance here clear and helpful. While discussing how this aligns with other broadly applicable P&G, you might add a reference to WP:DUE. Etymologies are interesting and are part of a comprehensive treatment of an organism, but the overall length and level of detail should usually be limited relative to coverage of other aspects. Where there is ambiguity or controversy, consideration should be given to the relative prominence of various (published) perspectives. I think your examples demonstrate this but it could be made more explicit. For comparison, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Chemistry § Etymology (part of MOS:CHEM) and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Chemistry/Chemicals § History don't discuss the length of these sections but I read these as saying etymologies should not be given undue prominence and I would think a similar approach applies in biology articles. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 17:02, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

You briefly mention Neal Evenhuis and the genus Pieza, but this is an author who always gave an etymology that is deliberately misleading. The names Pieza pi, Pieza kake, Pieza rhea and Pieza deresistans are obvious plays on words, but he pretends they have legitimate etymologies, which he provides, as part of the joke. I don't know how you want to treat those examples, but the point is that WP editors need to distinguish between the translation of a name (its formal etymology, which is what most of your essay covers), versus the derivation of a name (the reason the name was given, which you don't presently discuss much), because these two things may not be the same, as in Evenhuis' numerous examples. Dyanega (talk) 18:06, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @Dyanega, I agree that we need that distinction. I hadn't actually seen Evenhuis' faux-derivations. My aim in mentioning his work was just to highlight that it's not always meaningful to look for a direct translation, even if one appears to be available. I don't think I have drawn the translation/derivation line clearly enough in the current draft.

Not saying much about derivations (yet) was intentional, as I was aiming to capture the aspects where there seemed to be least controversy first! What's your view on derivations? I think the position I've landed on is roughly that (absent evidence of mischief a la Evenhuis):

1. If the derivation is stated by the author including specific word elements, we should ideally quote it directly (especially if their linguistic choices are a bit dodgy)
2. If the rationale for the name is specified but without an explanation of the actual derivation, then IMO if there are reasonably obvious word elements for which a rationale-aligned translation is available, we should offer it, without stating directly that x is derived from y.
3. If the rationale isn't stated (pretty standard for pre-1950 names) but an obvious translation is available that corresponds to significant or differentiating features in the description/diagnosis, then we could reasonably safely offer that too
4. If there's no rationale given, no secondary sources to draw from, and no obvious / largely unambiguous translation available, then we should remain silent on etymology. YFB ¿ 00:04, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @Myceteae, these are really helpful points. YFB ¿ 00:27, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

The points made in the essay are very helpful moving forward. I've been frustrated time and time again working with eighteenth-century documents trying to find etymologies to no avail, but it feels strange having a section devoted to describing the first description without any mention of why the species was named as it is. Some editors are very fortunate in having resources like the Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names to rely on, which is often better than just having a direct dictionary translation of a Latin or Greek term. -- Reconrabbit 19:30, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

At the risk of beating the proverbial horse to death, I want to expound more on the pitfalls of ANY use of external sources, no matter how sincere the attempt an editor may be making to provide a proper etymology. I can preface this by pointing out that as part of my work on the ICZN, I've screened over 300,000 genus-rank names, a task commonly requiring research into their etymology. There are a certain percentage of scientific names - small, but far more than most people would suspect - where the dictionary is not just unhelpful, but very clearly disconnected from the scientific name. I don't see any way to prevent editors from providing bad etymologies except by the rigid enforcement of WP:NOR and use of clear disclaimers in those rare cases where a name is so important that the article cannot survive without having a hypothetical etymology provided (e.g., Tyrannosaurus rex). That is, the dictionary sometimes gives a result that just by chance matches a genus name. One example is the wasp genus Liris Fabricius, 1804; the name is neither Latin nor Greek, but in the dictionary it appears as a latinized spelling variant of the name of a river in Italy. There is a genus Daridna Walker, 1858, a leafhopper from the Amazon; by coincidence, there was a town in what is now Turkey that was known to the Greeks as Daridna. Another example involves the suffixes "-andra/-andrus/-andrum", which are properly interpreted as latinized variants of the Greek genitive " ἀνδρός" (for "man"). However, in the dictionary, "Andrus" appears as the latinized name of an island. Another example is the genus Atta Fabricius, 1804 (and related genera with names based upon it). In addition to all of the other possible derivations listed in Wikipedia, the word "atta" appears in Latin dictionaries as a noun for "a salutation used for old men". The genus name Terranova Leiper & Atkinson, 1914, coincidentally matches (among other things) a word "terranova" in both Italian and Spanish referring to a dog breed, a fact that would be unknowable without exhaustive online dictionaries. In these and a small number of other cases, the dictionary contains an entry that is a match purely by coincidence, only detectable due to the efficiency of modern search engine algorithms. It is these and similar examples that suggest we shouldn't allow etymologies proposed by editors, and it seems like it would be very hard to properly incorporate this into the guidelines you're proposing - but I think the point is important. While rejecting a dictionary entry is very subjective, in cases of obvious conflict like these, it seems like a zealous editor using Wiktionary might easily, and boldly, suggest etymologies that should never be suggested. I don't know how to establish a policy that allows a suggested translation of Tyrannosaurus but precludes doing the same thing for names like Liris, Daridna, Atta, Terranova, etc. My antipathy towards allowing editors to supply etymologies is because I know better than just about anyone else how easy it is to get the wrong answer, and that's not what Wikipedia should be promoting. Dyanega (talk) 21:50, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for this detailed response @Dyanega and for providing these examples. I agree that we shouldn't allow etymologies in cases where there's nothing to work from and it's literally just a case of matching terms in a dictionary; as you say, there's significant risk of a false positive via this approach. In pursuit of a sensible place to draw the line between 'anything goes' and 'explaining Tyrannosaurus is banned' I've tried to cover some of the incremental steps in my numbered outline above. (1) is presumably uncontroversial (Author A says 'x' means y); I think (2) is also pretty much free of false-positive risk (Author B says they named it wx after yz; 'w' roughly translates as y and 'x' as z). The qualifications I've included in (3) are my attempt to permit translations that are supported in some way by what we know about the taxon - so for example:

• Author C doesn't specify why they named it X. capensis, but it's endemic to/was first collected from the Western Cape
• Author D doesn't specify why they named it Y. leucophylla, but it's the only species in the genus with white patches on the leaves
• Author O doesn't fully specify why they named it Tyrannosaurus rex, but it's a massive terrifying carnivorous reptile of "enormous proportions"

I may not have the wording of (3) tightened up sufficiently, but I hope you'd agree that "corresponds to significant or differentiating features in the description/diagnosis" (or something along those lines) would eliminate many of the false-positive examples you've highlighted? There's presumably nothing in the description of the Brazilian leafhopper to associate it with a former town in Turkey, or in the description of the nematode to link it to the Italian word for Newfoundland (dog)? YFB ¿ 21:06, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

I know T. rex is being used to illustrate a point—a good one, at that—but I think this is already covered in your essay where you discuss secondary sourcing. Perhaps including some of these examples of the pitfalls of using dictionaries and strengthening the guidance to gain consensus for borderline cases would help. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 23:34, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/CAM § Template-protected edit request on 19 June 2025

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/CAM § Template-protected edit request on 19 June 2025. Jako96 (talk) 08:04, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

Sepiolina

So the order Sepiolida is now a suborder, Sepiolina...which is also the name of genus Sepiolina which is subordinate to this suborder. What do? Anthropophoca (talk) 12:39, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

You could move the genus page to Sepiolina (genus) or something. Sepiolina can be made a disambiguation page, or maybe redirected to Bobtail squid, idk. —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 13:06, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

@Anthropophoca: And move Template:Taxonomy/Sepiolida to Template:Taxonomy/Sepiolina (suborder). —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 13:11, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Agree with this. Sepiolina can be a disambiguation page. This matches what is done with Anura and Appendicularia, where a genus shares a name with a higher taxon, and the higher taxon uses a common name as the title. I don't think we ever treat a genus as a primary topic when it shares a name with a higher taxon (Acanthocephala (disambiguation), Diplura (disambiguation) and Ranoidea treat the higher taxon as the primary topic, titled by scientific name). Plantdrew (talk) 14:21, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Alright @Trilletrollet @Plantdrew but what about the taxonomy template? Anthropophoca (talk) 23:24, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't know that there are enough cases like this to have really established any consensus about how to handle them. Ranoidea is the only one of the examples I listed where the genus is included in the higher taxon with the same name. Superfamily Ranoidea uses an undisambiguated taxonomy template, and the taxonomy template for genus Ranoidea is disambiguated with (genus). So I guess you could go that route. Plantdrew (talk) 23:34, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Alright, i'll try to move them; i was advised that moving Template:Taxonomy pages is possible, so i will try that Anthropophoca (talk) 23:38, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

I've moved the template page for the order/suborder as it seemed like the simplest solution. A cursory checkup on the subordinate pages seems to show that the move worked out Anthropophoca (talk) 01:10, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

Suborder Sepiolina is monotypic with a single superfamily, Sepioloidea. The Sepiolida article could be moved there and modified to cover superfamily and suborder.  —  Jts1882 | talk  13:15, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Template:Cite WoRMS

I've attempted to improve the TemplateData of Cite WoRMS as can be seen in this sandbox. Is there a way to test the impact of this change anywhere? Anthropophoca (talk) 01:02, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

I saw your request on the TemplateData talk page and was working on adding the TemplateData to the WoRMS template while you were working in the sandbox. TemplateData is put on the documentation page, not the template itself, so I'm not sure how it would work with the templates sandbox, but anyway, there is TemplateData for WoRMS now. Plantdrew (talk) 01:25, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

Would a {{subst:DATE}} work better in the date parameter? Anthropophoca (talk) 01:36, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't know. You could try it, but I think if it would work, high-use templates like {{Cite web}} would be using it. I don't use Visual Editor and am mainly interested in TemplateData for the monthly reports that show bad parameters. Plantdrew (talk) 02:01, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

Looking at templates such as and shows that they have subst templates on their date autovalue. I'll emulate these but using {{date}} instead. Anthropophoca (talk) 02:32, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Myllokunmingiidae § Requested move 12 July 2025

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Myllokunmingiidae § Requested move 12 July 2025. Jako96 (talk) 15:24, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

Synonyms

Just to confirm, articles that turn out to be synonyms are usually blanked and redirected to the species they are a synonym of, correct? (ex. I BLAR'd Carlottaemyia as a synonym of Diacrita) I think I've done that quite a few times, but now that I think about it, I don't remember seeing any guidance regarding what to do with them. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 03:22, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

Merged/redirected is the norm, yes. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 03:51, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

About the classification of the class "Candidatus Sericytochromatia"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discussion at Template talk:Automatic taxobox § Template-protected edit request on 12 July 2025

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Automatic taxobox § Template-protected edit request on 12 July 2025. Jako96 (talk) 16:10, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

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

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

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

UtherSRG

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

Me, Sclerotized

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

• WP:NSPECIES, as I interpret it, holds that a name needs only a valid naming act and be sourced to at least one academic publication to be notable and usable. If this makes it eligible for an article would it not make it eligible to get listed in the taxobox of the article on the genus?
  • (In the case of Allapasus, the A. fuscus is described in a peer-reviewed publication here [1]. The publication [2] (and [3] I think, I lost access to it) mention it once each, simple name drops, no further discussion).

UtherSRG

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discussion at Template_talk:Taxonomy/Amorphea#Edit_request_17_July_2025

Per Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life/Archive_66#"Domain"_rank_to_be_always_displayed_in_taxoboxes:_request_for_consensus, I've made an edit request at Template_talk:Taxonomy/Amorphea#Edit_request_17_July_2025 to stop displaying Eukaryota in automatic taxoboxes for fungi and animals (while continuing to display it for non-animal/fungi/plant eukaryotes). Plantdrew (talk) 01:19, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

About using unclassified taxa of prokaryotes

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

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

Taxon dates: first online release or final issue release?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Pterygota § Template-protected edit request on 21 July 2025

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Pterygota § Template-protected edit request on 21 July 2025. Jako96 (talk) 06:58, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Taxa by author diffusion again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Proposal of displaying class Reptilia for reptile orders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discussion at Talk:Lepidosauria § Subclass vs. Superorder

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

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

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

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

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Taxonomy/Archosauria/skip § Template-protected edit request on 23 July 2025. Jako96 (talk) 09:37, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

Cuttlefish

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nangnang fish

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

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

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

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

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

Teleostomi is paraphyletic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Protista § About protist superphyla

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

Bamboo coral

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

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

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

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

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

Would Ahecht's pageswap script work in this scenario?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Split of Cephalopod size

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

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

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

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

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