Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Animals/Archive 13

There is some inconsistencies regarding if the article title should be the scientific name or the more informal common name most often used to describe an individual species. Is there a formal preference? If there is, should the titles of articles be changed? --SpiritedMichelle (talk) 02:39, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

It actually varies from project to project. For the paleo and dino wikiprojects, it is almost also the scientific name. Same for much of the invertebrates and microbes and such. Only those animals where the vernacular name is actually the common name (i.e. tiger, lion, elephant, robin) should the vernacular be used. If the species is obscure, it is more likely to be better known by the scientific name.

Additionally, if the vernacular name is nonspecific- applies to multiple species, etc.- then it should be a disambig, with the species at scientific names. And in a few cases, species with difficult vernacular names are placed at the scientific name (i.e. Panthera pardus tulliana, a subspecies with sadly controversial vernacular names).

But in short, don't move articles if you don't know, ask at the most local wikiproject and get consensus. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 02:56, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Adding to the above, the common name in Wikipediaese is the name most widely (commonly) used rather than another word for vernacular (common) name. Most extinct species are known by their scientific name so an article on Tyrannosaurus is following the Wikipedia common name convention. Often an animal is known by several vernacular names and none is clearly most commonly used name. Or the vernacular name may be used for more than one animal. In these cases the scientific name is an unambiguous and neutral name for the title. See WP:FAUNA. —  Jts1882 | talk  07:40, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

There are some notable exceptions among prehistoric animals, such as many species of mammoth and others. So I guess it depends on the specific case. FunkMonk (talk) 17:51, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Excuse me, I do appreciate how all of these animal names are listed down since 1757-preasent.

But because I am autistic, I can't understand their scientific or in this case, Latin, names. I would most like like to see and know all of their names listed down, with their common names only.

For example, if you see these lists of the certain animals described. And because most of them are listed down in scientific names, I would want a whole list of common names for each creature from every genus.

Insects described in the 18th-20th century listed in common names.

Beetles described in the 18th-20th century‎ listed in common names.

Butterflies described in the 18th-20th century‎ listed in common names.

Moths described in the 18th-20th century‎ listed in common names.

Amphibians described in the 18th-20th century listed in common names.

Crustaceans described in the 18th-20th century listed in common names.

Fish described in the 18th-20th century listed in common names.

Molluscs described in the 18th-20th century listed in common names.

Bivalves described in the 18th-20th century‎ listed in common names.

Cephalopods described in the 18th-20th century‎ listed in common names.

Chitons described in the 18th-20th century‎ listed in common names.

Gastropods described in the 18th-20th century‎ listed in common names.

Nematodes described in the 18th-20th century listed in common names.

Reptiles described in the 18th-20th century listed in common names.

Spiders described in the 18th-20th century listed in common names.

Starfish described in the 18th-20th century listed in common names.

It's just so that since I am working on some kind of article of Noah's Ark. So I was wondering that I would like to see all of these names listed down from all of these species described from the 18th to 20th centuries. And even if you do put their scientific or Latin names, at least have any who have common names be replaced with their common names.

Conthauberger (talk) 04:25, 8 February 2022 (UTC)ConthaubergerConthauberger (talk) 04:25, 8 February 2022 (UTC)^[1]

@Conthauberger: what your asking there is impossible for many groups, particularly of the spread you are asking. Most animals actually do not have a common name, they are only known from their scientific names. Only larger, usually mammals birds fish etc, that have been obvious have common names. When we describe species, and I have described a number, we do not propose common names, these come in through general usage. For animals that are less observable they may never get one, at least not one thats unique. There may be collective common names but these often refer to many species not one. The scientific names are actually no different to a common name, they are words, they are not always latin, they may be many languages, they are in the latin alphabet. Which is the alphabet english uses. Common names are also regional, they differ from place to place, they also have language impacts, the turtle Hydromedusa maximilliani is called the Cágado pescoço de cobra in Brazil, where it occurs, yet here on wikipedia it is called the Argentinian Snake-necked turtle. Which name is correct? I would argue that as the turtle occurs in Brazil it should be the Portuguese common name that sticks. Another one is say Elseya novaehuineae, called the New Guinea Snapping Turtle, yet it does not occur in New Guinea, its from Indonesia, so does this make sense? Your lists above include many thousands of species, and I could garuntee most do not have any common name. Cheers Scott Thomson (Faendalimas) ^talk 12:12, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Exactly. The overwhelming majority of described animal species don't have an English name, and even if they do, these are often used for more than one species. Very few spiders have English names, for example – and there's no reason why they would do because they are known only by specialists, like the 4,700 or so mostly very small "money spiders" (family Linyphiidae). Spiders kept as pets, like tarantulas, do have English names, but even these are not used consistently. "Mexican red knee tarantula" is used for at least three species of Brachypelma for example – one of which has now been (re)named "Mexican flame knee tarantula".

Another very important point is that except in well known groups, like birds and mammals, the scientific name is the common name (i.e. the one most commonly used). Thus I got about 11,000 Google hits for "Mexican flame knee" but 48,900 for "Brachypelma auratum". Peter coxhead (talk) 17:52, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't know if this helps, but when i create reptile articles, if there is an english name for it, i create a redirect for the english name to the scientific name. The reptile database is usually accurate. Some animal databases may not, FYI. Birds all usually have common names, so their pages are all listed as such....Pvmoutside (talk) 20:17, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

For context's sake, Conthauberger rose the issue at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Insects as well, with essentially the same response (This is what led me here). They also made a similar request at Category talk:Animals by year of formal description and here at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Years. The latter two posts did not get any reply. Etriusus 03:55, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Category:Zoologists with author abbreviations -- what is this category? I see It is also auto-populated by the {{Zoologist}} template, but that template was deleted: Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2021 May 31#Template:Zoologist. I don't really think of zoologists as having a "standard" unique abbreviation the way botanists do (hence the template being deleted), so should this category be renamed to something like Category:Taxon authorities of animals? Not sure if this is the right place to ask, thanks for any comments! Umimmak (talk) 22:38, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, I agree that Category:Zoologists with author abbreviations is obviously wrongly title. Maybe Category:Authors of animal taxon names is better?

Please see the discussion at Template talk:Edit taxonomy § Pencil icon, 2022 on a proposal to change the "edit taxonomy" icon from the current to . Peter coxhead (talk) 17:18, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Articles of interest to this project—Micro-animal and Microfauna—have been proposed for merging with each other. If you are interested, please participate in the discussion here. Thank you. 9³ (talk) 20:25, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Animals in LGBT culture

---Another Believer _(Talk) 17:14, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Am doing my normal thing of just clicking on "random article" and seeing where it takes me - and it took me to Horatocera. This says that it is a genus of beetles described by Lewis in 1895. A search online for further sources to add to the article turned up this which says:

"The single type specimen of Horatocera niponica var. galloisi Pic, 1932 syn. nov. represents only a colour variation of Simianus niponicus (Lewis, 1895). According to previously published synonymy of the genus Horatocera Lewis, 1895 with the genus Simianus Blanchard, 1853, fol|owing taxa are introduced in new generic combinations: Simianus niponicas (Lewis, 1895) comb. nov., S. oshimanus (Nakane, 1973) comb. nov., and S' rubricollis (Pic, 191ó) comb. nov. Homoeorhipis mesomelaena Fairmaire, 1887 is designated as the type species ofthe genus Homoeorhrpri Fairmaire, 1887."

I don't feel I know enough about this subject field to say anything about this, but it does seem to be saying that Horatocera is not actually a proper genus, is that correct? FOARP (talk) 08:09, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

@FOARP: Looks like it. The Callirhipidae article cites Hajek (2011),^[1] which says that Horatocera is a junior subjective synonym of Simianus (syn. nov. Emden 1931)

Unless there is something new, Horatocera should be redirect to Simianus. However, I note the species list at the latter doesn't include the two species listed under Horatocera. The list also misses some of the other species listed in the citation used (Hajek, 2011). —  Jts1882 | talk  10:56, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

67.161.6.243 (talk · contribs · IP contribs · WHOIS) has been making a rash of taxonomic edits lately to many different articles. I have concerns about their editing, because some of their edits that they were making seem like vandalism. On Caprinae, they were making edits that attributed the two species of tur, the West Caucasian tur and East Caucasian tur to the genus Brachyceros, which as far as I can tell does not exist, the term is only used as a subspecies to refer to Aurochs. They were also attributing the Markhor to the genus Aegoceros, which appears to at least exist as a genus but appears to be deprecated, and I can find only one source refering to the combination Aegoceros falconeri, which states that it is a junior synyonym from 1839. Given this, the dozens of other edits they have made to animal taxonomy articles really need to be checked. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:16, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Lately I've been adding species to categories based on who named them. I noticed two different styles regarding the categories and the zoologists. In some cases, the zoologist is added to the taxa named by them category, for example René Léon Bourret. In other cases they're not in the category, for example Arthur Adams (zoologist) & Category:Taxa named by Arthur Adams (zoologist). Sometimes the category is added to a "see also" section of the zoologist, for example Jacques Daget. Which style should be followed? --Rusentaja (talk) 12:33, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Well, the description at Category:Taxa named by Arthur Adams (zoologist) says "Taxa named by Arthur Adams..." As he isn't a taxon named by himself, I would say the article about him definitely shouldn't be in the category. How could a category that included both taxa and a zoologist be described? Peter coxhead (talk) 21:11, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Is it ok to take the zoologists themselves out of the taxa categories and then creating an additional 'see also' section to their articles that has link to the taxa category? --Rusentaja (talk) 22:01, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Definitely in my view. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:03, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Should we merge Cephalochordate into Lancelet? The latter is much better developed and covers extinct Cephalochordata as well as the extant Lancelets. Fences&Windows 06:24, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure of a merger as they do have different scope. Not all cephalochordates are lancelets, so a short article on the former makes sense, but one good article is better than two conflicting ones.

Either way, the lancelet article needs some changes. According to the lede and taxobox the lancelets are Order Amphioxiformes. The Physiology and Taxonomy section treats lancelets as Order Branchiostomiformes, but its not clear what source is used for the listing. ITIS uses Amphioxiformes and doesn't recognise genus Asymmetron. WoRMS recognises the genus but doesn't use an order and has a single family Branchiostomatidae in class Leptocardii. WoRMS also considers Amphioxus as a synonym of Branchiostoma which suggests Branchiostomiformes has priority. WoRMS is probably a better source than ITIS, but perhaps there is something better. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:52, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

An RfC has been opened at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology#RfC on boldfacing of scientific names in articles about organisms. The discussion should take place there, not here, in order to keep the discussion centralized. Thank you. SchreiberBike | ⌨  21:43, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale; the primary issue of concern is editors creating large numbers of stubs. Articles on species are repeatedly brought up as examples. "Large numbers" is not defined, but from the positions taken by some commenters an editor who regularly creates one article a day might be considered to be engaged in article creation at scale. Plantdrew (talk) 17:11, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi all, I brought Gigantorhynchus up to featured article, but I wonder if this new format is better or worse. Any opinions/advice welcome!

• Old format: has a small table for each species
• New format: Gigantorhynchus has merged the tables into 2 giant tables, and added a table summarizing the number of hooks.

Thanks for your input! Mattximus (talk) 16:30, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I wrote a page for The Photo Ark and keep it updated with new info, including a section "Progress," which captures the large milestones of the project. (I also note this on each of the milestone-animal's articles)

Along comes an editor who decides without discussion that the Progress info "is relative trivia and indiscrimnate info. Wikipedia is not a vessel to promote everything Nat Geo posts, no matter how neat the content." and takes it upon themselves to delete the entire section.

This was done a while ago, but I noticed it just recently. I restored the section, and even updated it. Please add this page to your watchlists and chime in if this becomes a battle, whichever way you think it should go. Rp2006 (talk) 21:51, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

WikiProject members, please note this edit request regarding {{Animal tasks}}. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:22, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Unreviewed featured articles/2020 (URFA/2020) is a systematic approach to reviewing older Featured articles (FAs) to ensure they still meet the FA standards. A January 2022 Signpost article called "Forgotten Featured" explored the effort.

Progress is recorded at the monthly stats page. Through 2022, with 4,526 very old (from the 2004–2009 period) and old (2010–2015) FAs initially needing review:

• 357 FAs were delisted at Featured article review (FAR).
• 222 FAs were kept at FAR or deemed "satisfactory" by three URFA reviewers, with hundreds more being marked as "satisfactory", but awaiting three reviews.
• FAs needing review were reduced from 77% of total FAs at the end of 2020 to 64% at the end of 2022.

Of the FAs kept, deemed satisfactory by three reviewers, or delisted, about 60% had prior review between 2004 and 2007; another 20% dated to the period from 2008–2009; and another 20% to 2010–2015. Roughly two-thirds of the old FAs reviewed have retained FA status or been marked "satisfactory", while two-thirds of the very old FAs have been defeatured.

Entering its third year, URFA is working to help maintain FA standards; FAs are being restored not only via FAR, but also via improvements initiated after articles are reviewed and talk pages are noticed. Since the Featured Article Save Award (FASA) was added to the FAR process a year ago, 38 FAs were restored to FA status by editors other than the original FAC nominator. Ten FAs restored to status have been listed at WP:MILLION, recognizing articles with annual readership over a million pageviews, and many have been rerun as Today's featured article, helping increase mainpage diversity.

But there remain almost 4,000 old and very old FAs to be reviewed. Some topic areas and WikiProjects have been more proactive than others in restoring or maintaining their old FAs. As seen in the chart below, the following have very high ratios of FAs kept to those delisted (ordered from highest ratio):

• Biology
• Physics and astronomy
• Warfare
• Video gaming

and others have a good ratio of kept to delisted FAs:

• Literature and theatre
• Engineering and technology
• Religion, mysticism and mythology
• Media
• Geology and geophysics

... so kudos to those editors who pitched in to help maintain older FAs !

But looking only at the oldest FAs (from the 2004–2007 period), there are 12 content areas with more than 20 FAs still needing review: Biology, Music, Royalty and nobility, Media, Sport and recreation, History, Warfare, Meteorology, Physics and astronomy, Literature and theatre, Video gaming, and Geography and places. In the coming weeks, URFA/2020 editors will be posting lists to individual WikiProjects with the goal of getting these oldest-of-the-old FAs reviewed during 2023.

Ideas for how you can help are listed below and at the Signpost article.

• Review a 2004 to 2007 FA. With three "Satisfactory" marks, article can be moved to the FAR not needed section.
• Review "your" articles: Did you nominate a featured article between 2004 and 2015 that you have continuously maintained? Check these articles, update as needed, and mark them as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020. A continuously maintained FA is a good predictor that standards are still met, and with two more "Satisfactory" marks, "your" articles can be listed as "FAR not needed". If they no longer meet the FA standards, please begin the FAR process by posting your concerns on the article's talk page.
• Review articles that already have one "Satisfactory" mark: more FAs can be indicated as "FAR not needed" if other reviewers will have a look at those already indicated as maintained by the original nominator. If you find issues, you can enter them at the talk page.
• Fix an existing featured article: Choose an article at URFA/2020 or FAR and bring it back to FA standards. Enlist the help of the original nominator, frequent FA reviewers, WikiProjects listed on the talk page, or editors that have written similar topics. When the article returns to FA standards, please mark it as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020 or note your progress in the article's FAR.
• Review and nominate an article to FAR that has been 'noticed' of a FAR needed but issues raised on talk have not been addressed. Sometimes nominating at FAR draws additional editors to help improve the article that would otherwise not look at it.

More regular URFA and FAR reviewers will help assure that FAs continue to represent examples of Wikipedia's best work. If you have any questions or feedback, please visit Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020/4Q2022.

Hi everybody, can you please assess this article and give it a grade. 20 upper (talk) 15:46, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Could someone please have a look at Talk:Lion attacks? @Jimfbleak and FunkMonk: if either of you are able to access any of the (considerable numnber of) offline sources to do a copyvio/too-close-paraphrasing check, that would really advance the effort. It appears that some citations were later retrofitted, and some sources are too old to be useful. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:29, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi SandyGeorgia, I don't have any uni-type access to sources, so can't help on this. However, I see Barn swallow in the list above, one of mine, should be OK, but I'll take a look Jimfbleak - talk to me? 09:06, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I've previously marked as satisfactory at the review page, now commented on article talk too Jimfbleak - talk to me? 09:16, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

For plant articles there is a template that provides a standardised scope for the order and content, see: Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Template. It specifies that for many plants information is lacking to apply the full template, and the may be good reasons to deviate from the template in specific cases. Would a standard scope for animal articles by useful as well? Dwergenpaartje (talk) 12:17, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Quality assessments are used by Wikipedia editors to rate the quality of articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project decides to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:02, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

I've been working on Larvacean and related articles (for which Wikipedia coverage is unfortunately very poor, espcially compared to the amount of sources about these creatures)!

The article name has been a little bit problematic. The common name is larvacean, but the scientific name is Appendicularia, with Larvacea being a junior synonym. While the page was originally at Larvacea, contradicting the lead sentence, it has been recently moved to the common name (Larvacean).

Appendicularia is where it gets a little more problematic. A plant genus also bears this name, as well as an animal genus in the class Appendicularia itself! The page has been remade into a disambiguation page, with the common name used as natural disambiguation for the class, but this was a few days before the page's name itself was moved (from Larvacea to Larvacean). In the meanwhile, a lot of articles with links to Appendicularia were disambiguated with DisamAssist and made to point to Larvacea, creating a clunky situation where piped links point to a redirect through a junior synonym.

I've fixed a few of these links when I found them, but is there a way to automate the process? (changing [[Larvacea|Appendicularia]] to [[Larvacean|Appendicularia]])

PS: If anyone wants to help with larvaceans, tunicates or even non-vertebrate chordates in general, I'd be down to create a task force for it! Chaotic Enby (talk) 20:34, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

In the course of a humdinger of a cleanup operation, I came across the article Pinworm (parasite). Second in the species list in the infobox is Enterobius atelis, which doesn't seem to appear in the cited reference, and in the NCBI taxonomy browser it appears to be Trypanoxyuris atelis instead. According to Hugot et al. (1996) and Solórzano-García et al. (2015), T. atelis was originally placed in the genus Enterobius back in 1929 and the classification has changed at least twice in the interim. I'm a theoretical physicist and shouldn't be the one who sorts this out. Any suggestions? XOR'easter (talk) 22:02, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

As this is a highly active WikiProject, I would like to introduce you to Credibility bot. This is a bot that makes it easier to track source usage across articles through automated reports and alerts. We piloted this approach at Wikipedia:Vaccine safety and we want to offer it to any subject area or domain. We need your support to demonstrate demand for this toolkit. If you have a desire for this functionality, or would like to leave other feedback, please endorse the tool or comment at WP:CREDBOT. Thanks! Harej (talk) 17:45, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other thoughts?

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

I was recently in a conversation about raccoons, when the topic of a collective noun for them came up. I searched Google for "name for a group of racoons", and Google suggested brace/gaze/smack/committee/nursery/troop. The first webpage result was a wildlife control blog that stated that the internet will tell you that "nursery" or "gaze" are terms. The blog post went on to mention the Book of Saint Albans, and notes that raccoons wouldn't be mentioned in the book. There are a lot of dubious collective nouns for various animals. The Book of Saint Albans may provide a baseline for some "real" (albeit fanciful and actually little-used) collective nouns for some animals. The Internet (circa 2007 or any other date) is only going to spew out more fanciful and little-used collective nouns. Plantdrew (talk) 02:50, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it's a problem... a very broad problem. The BBC article mentioned above lists wildebeests, giraffes, and others that couldn't have been known to Europeans in the 15th century. I'm glad others have seen this issue, too. The question is, how do we deal with it? Again, for the lemur articles, I can add a general reference to Merriam-Webster, but that's tenuous since it doesn't mention lemurs. I could pick a random research article that talks about lemur "troops," even if it doesn't say explicitly that "troop" is the correct word, but that won't stop someone from adding "conspiracy" and pointing to that horrible BBC article. It might help if someone could fix up the Collective noun article, but finding sources might be a pain. Once again, so many sources point to the Book of Saint Albans, but we can't debunk that because it would be original research. —Maky (talk) 05:39, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

There comes a point where a word is used widely and it become part of the language. This might be a case.

I did a Google search with a restricted date range. There is nothing before 2008 (1990-2008). The earliest result I could find was a result on slideshare dated August 2008. However this contains an advertisement for a book published in 2023 so not a use of the term. The first result for the collective noun is in 2011 (search), which picks up an article on BuzzFeed, 36 Bizarre Group Names For Animals, which just has a few selected examples with no sourcing. In the years that follow it becomes more widespread, well before the article on CBBC.

The book I mentioned in the ad is called A Conspiracy of Lemurs, which is an autobiography by the woman who set up the Lemur Conservation Foundation, and she uses the term as a collective noun in this interview. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:59, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia has no control over this; we simply add what the sources say, even if they are factually incorrect. The term's debunking will take time. We can wait for more reliable secondary sources to disprove the term in the interim. To put it succinctly, nothing can be done. When something lacks credible sources, we shouldn't include it, in my opinion. Wolverine XI ^{(talk to me)} 11:38, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I suggest reviewing Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth. It is not a good solution, but I think it is better than any alternative.

In the Bronx Zoo article, I'm quite sure there is false information, but false information is what was reported by the supposedly reliable sources (probably because it made a more attention getting headline). See Talk:Bronx Zoo/Archive 1#Snouted cobra vs Egyptian cobra. SchreiberBike | ⌨  13:06, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Personally I think most of these "group terms" are silly and virtually nobody uses them in reality. I would ignore them as much as I can. I am pleasantly surprised that our Wikipedia articles reflect that reality (List of animal names#Usage of collective nouns; Collective noun#Terms of venery).

As others have said, at Wikipedia we should be concerned with verifiability, not truth, so we can't necessarily ignore a "reliable" source such as the BBC. However, we also have a concept of undue weight. I would point to the references in List of animal names#Usage of collective nouns as establishing that terms like "a conspiracy of lemurs" have little real-world importance, and it would be undue weight to discuss them unless they are routinely used in sources that are specifically concerned with lemurs. Ucucha (talk) 15:47, 6 April 2024 (UTC)