Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive 38

Malkani dinosaurs, again. (See also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology/Archive 14#Muzaffarabadmachli, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palaeontology/Archive 16#Deletion requests of Malkani taxa, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Archive 35#Taxa named by Malkani.) Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:02, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

I've started a discussion at the above article, a synthesis of the O'Hare and outdoors Field Museum mounts, to see if we can come to a consensus about status before too much time is put into it and whether deletion or merging (to Brachiosaurus#Cultural significance) is preferred. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 16:19, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I don't normally participate in dinosaur articles, but other members have brought up the idea of bringing older dinosaur GA/FA articles to modern quality standards without taking them to reassessments formally, so here's the link for participation: Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology/Article workshop#Thescelosaurus. PrimalMustelid (talk) 01:02, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Looks like we could use an article or specific section about Dryomorpha.

Existing mentions redirect to non-specific articles.

- 189.122.84.88 (talk) 03:01, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

There is very little content to discuss at Dryomorpha that is not already discussed at Ornithopoda, where it redirects. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 03:17, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps an anchor at Ornithopoda#Taxonomy would help? Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 04:42, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Dryomorpha is a node-based clade and was recently merged per a major set of changes to dinosaur taxonomy on WP. The article was a stub, had very little independent value, and did not contain any information that would not be equally easily contained within the page for Ornithopoda (WP:N, WP:REDUNDANT). There is a section on the page for Ornithopoda. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 05:08, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Muhammad Sadiq Malkani. Please participate if interested. Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:05, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

For the few of you who are not already also watching the palaeoproject talk page, a discussion: FunkMonk (talk) 23:25, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

I've put forwards a proposal at WT:PALEO#Page merging to suggest the consolidation of List of years in paleontology articles, and redirection of "Timeline of research" articles as part of the revamping and reorganization efforts of the paleo project. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 00:58, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

A proposal has popped up to merge the article for the dubious allosaurid Epanterias into the Allosaurus page. Posting here to get some more input, please participate if interested. Thank you Talk:Allosaurus#Proposal_to_merge_Epanterias_into_Allosaurus The Morrison Man (talk) 11:23, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

I want restore the content on:

• Heterodontosaurinae
• Huayangosauridae?
• Nodosaurinae
• Thescelosaurinae?
• Cerapoda
• Hadrosauromorpha
• Massopoda
• Gravisauria
• Saltasaurini
• Neotheropoda and/or Averostra Furileusauria
• Carnotaurini
• Orionides
• Avetheropoda
• Neovenatoridae
• Eutyrannosauria
• Daspletosaurini
• Pennaraptora
• Caenagnathoidea
• Sinovenatorinae
• Troodontinae
• Saurornitholestinae, Dromaeosaurinae, Velociraptorinae
• Stegosauridae
• Coelophysidae
• Ceratosauridae
• Mojoceratops
• Dilophosauridae
• Allosauroidea
• Abelisauroidea
• Rubeosaurus

Doiusar (talk) 16:12, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

All of these were merged after discussions because the content has a better home under either their senior synonyms ( for Rubeosaurus and Mojoceratops) or higher taxonomic clades for the rest. Restoring content is not needed. The Morrison Man (talk) 16:28, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

Is there a reason you want these restored? We had a lengthy discussion about merging them and pretty much everyone was in agreement that most of these nodes do not warrant their own articles. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 18:03, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, exist. I want to known the world about these subjects. Doiusar (talk) 18:04, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

And information on them can be found on the pages they redirect to. The Morrison Man (talk) 18:36, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

I want restore the content Doiusar (talk) 18:37, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

Again, there is no need to. Information on the subjects can be found easily after searching for them and splitting the articles out wouldn't have any added value in my opinion. The Morrison Man (talk) 18:54, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, it is necessary. Please remove the informations on the pages which redirect. Doiusar (talk) 18:56, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree 2601:246:5B83:89D0:919:A869:F2E8:FB16 (talk) 02:10, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

Then restore content on Heterodontosaurinae

Huayangosauridae?

Nodosaurinae

Thescelosaurinae?

Cerapoda

Hadrosauromorpha

Massopoda

Gravisauria

Saltasaurini

Neotheropoda and/or Averostra Furileusauria

Carnotaurini

Orionides

Avetheropoda

Neovenatoridae

Eutyrannosauria

Daspletosaurini

Pennaraptora

Caenagnathoidea

Sinovenatorinae

Troodontinae

Saurornitholestinae, Dromaeosaurinae, Velociraptorinae

Stegosauridae

Coelophysidae

Ceratosauridae

Mojoceratops

Dilophosauridae

Allosauroidea

Abelisauroidea

Rubeosaurus 2601:246:5B83:89D0:919:A869:F2E8:FB16 (talk) 02:12, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

No The Morrison Man (talk) 07:35, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

Maybe you should stop evading your block when you've been blocked from Wikipedia? Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:05, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense. The Morrison Man (talk) 19:29, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

Unmerge all of them please 98.223.194.198 (talk) 00:59, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

No. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 04:46, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

I wanted to discuss this among a broad range of editors before bringing it to WP:PALEOAW. Presently, "Prosauropod" and "Prosauropoda" redirect to Sauropodomorpha. Obviously, the concept of "prosauropods" is not in keeping with the modern understanding of phylogeny, but I think it may still be worthwhile to erect a dedicated article to this concept. Other paraphyletic grades have dedicated articles because the delineations are useful to researchers in the literature (see Rhamphorhynchoidea, Acanthodii). There is a considerable body of scientific literature on "prosauropods" as a group, to the exclusion of true sauropods, as is the case for other paraphyletic groups like non-avian theropods, non-eugnathostome placoderms, etc, and I suggest that a new article would be an appropriate addition to an encyclopedia for both historical reasons and internal coherence of the subject matter. Furthermore, I think it would be inadequate to limit coverage of "prosauropods" holistically to Sauropodomorpha because sauropods make up the vast bulk of sauropodomorph diversity in the fossil record, and therefore bears considerable coverage in that article. I think having an article dedicated exclusively to the history, study, and biology of non-sauropod sauropodomorphs would be useful. Does anyone have any thoughts/objections/improvements? A Cynical Idealist (talk) 02:04, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Definitely support this, for similar reasons. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 02:20, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm a bit torn between two places, so it might be worth asking @Jens Lallensack his perspective as a prosauropod researcher in some capacity. Prosauropoda has not been an abandoned clade very long, it persisted as an idea well into the phylogenetic age with Sereno (2007) discussing it as a viable idea. As an informal concept it could get an article yes, but as the clade Prosauropoda, it could almost be considered a synonym of Plateosauria, which was also used for a Plateosaurid + Massospondylid clade in that same paper. Sereno even defined Prosauropoda as the clade of Plateosaurus, Massospondylus, Lufengosaurus, Yunnanosaurus, Riojasaurus but not Saltasaurus, while Plateosauria was the clade of Plateosaurus and Massospondylus (and inadvertently has become a clade to include sauropods by the nature of poor definitions). He says "Should ‘core prosauropods’ prove to be paraphyletic, the taxon Prosauropoda would not be applicable", but functionally, a paraphyletic Prosauropoda is equivalent to an (accidentaiiy non-paraphyletic) Plateosauria, which could be a good place to discuss the history of prosauropods and plateosaurians with regards to their monophyly and including sauropods. I am a bit on the fence about this, but at the moment I oppose a unique article for Prosauropoda, instead supporting having it redirect to Plateosauria and explaining the history there. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 02:45, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Side note: a provision of this is the reinstatement of Plateosauria as an article rather than a redirect to Sauropodomorpha. If my idea to explain prosauropod history there is supported, that is probably a fine page to revive. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 02:46, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Oppose. I think that basal sauropodomorphs have to be covered in the Sauropodomorpha article, simply because this is the accepted taxon and therefore the place people would expect and look for that information. Yes, Sauropodomorpha will have to cover sauropods, too, but the focus should clearly be on the basal taxa (non-sauropods). Also, the scope of "Prosauropoda" would be unclear – it was a synonym of Plateosauria but was also used to refer to all basal sauropodomorphs. However, I am not against resurrecting Prosauropoda to merely discuss taxonomic history, as it could be quite useful in that function (but probably, Sauropodomorpha itself should be expanded first before creating such a spin-off). For now, I would support a redirect to Sauropodomorpha (not Plateosauria), because I think that the idea Prosauropoda = Basal Sauropodomorpha is more widespread than the idea Prosauropoda = Plateosauria. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 09:43, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I would be inclined to agree with this. Perhaps Sauropodomorpha could be taken to WP:PALEOAW instead? The Morrison Man (talk) 13:24, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Regardless of the decision, I'm planning on taking this to the article workshop. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 01:14, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Oppose Prosauropoda, oppose Plateosauria, support expansion of Sauropodomorpha to discuss the taxonomic history of these taxa properly. It's the most natural place to discuss it and is in keeping with common use of Prosauropoda as referring to the grade, not the clade. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 20:15, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I feel like this discussion is missing the heart of the pitch here for the weeds. The proposal was (or very much seems to me) an article to talk about the general concept and historical grouping of the prosauropod grade, primarily but not exclusively centered on historical understanding. Getting caught up on the exact definition of formal clade Prosauropoda and how it's equivalent to Plateosauria or whatever seems, to me, to be missing the point of the concept (perhaps the title of the section caused confusion?). Two of the people who opposed even specifically that "as an informal clade it could get an article" and "I am not against resurrecting Prosauropoda to merely discuss taxonomic history", which sounds like being open to the actual pitch despite voting oppose. Now if we still decide we don't want that article, that's fine, but I did want to realign the discussion before we rejected the whole idea on the premise of clade Prosauropoda. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 05:30, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I think what the equivalent taxonomic group is matters for Prosauropoda, just as much as any other obsolete clade article. If the concept of Thecodontia was intertwined with the use of Archosauria (and the archosaur article would not be burdened by the inclusion of thecodont history in addition to it as the crown clade for birds and crocodiles), then I would suggest that the former is discussed at the latter article. The history of Hypsilophodontidae can be discussed at the article of the same clade even though its use as "all early ornithopods" might otherwise be discussed at Ornithopoda. In this case, the use of Prosauropoda is directly intertwined with the history of Sauropodomorpha (and Plateosauria), so unless it becomes too much information to discuss in the history of Sauropodomorpha how all non-sauropods were once thought to be within their own group, it doesn't feel quite as clear that a unique prosauropod article exists. I bring up Plateosauria rather than Sauropodomorpha because the two are in my eyes more equivalent and intertwined histories. The use of Plateosauria is the same as the use of Prosauropoda initially, and they both gradually became the groups of large sauropodomorphs. There are even studies that use "prosauropods" as an informal name for Plateosauria (Otero et al., 2022) and others that use it informally for all basal sauropodomorphs (Yates, 2012 etc). I don't see published referrals to Buriolestes or Bagualosaurus or other post-2007 new basal sauropodomorphs as "prosauropods", which was part of why I suggested Plateosauria, but either way the history of Prosauropoda is a significant part of the history of Sauropodomorpha and Plateosauria and unless it feels out of place in one of the two articles, which I don't think it will, I don't think it needs its own article. At the same time, I'm not strongly opposed to a standalone article, I just feel like it isn't a necessity. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 06:10, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

The main problem with a prosauropod article as proposed above is that this would be an unacceptable content fork according to WP:BADFORK: The Sauropodomorpha article should already focus on non-sauropod sauropodomorphs, so both articles would be largely overlapping. In this case, the content fork prosauropod would only be acceptable as a spin-off article after the Sauropodomorpha article grew too large. Of course, "prosauropod" as a possible future spin-off article can only be about a particular aspect of the sauropodomorpha parent article (or else it wouldn't be an acceptable content fork), so it would necessarily have to be restricted to taxonomic history. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 09:28, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm gonna go ahead and close this discussion with the consensus generally being oppose, with the possibility open for an article to exist in the future to discuss the purely historical relevance of the "taxon" Prosauropoda. Any such splitting should be done after the current Sauropodomorpha article is brought to a more complete status. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 20:39, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

 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)

I've created an article about a dinosaur-themed art exhibit and pop-up museum Dinolandia. I am less familiar with how to refer to dinosaurs, specifically when to use italics and caps for the genus, when to use a common name, how to correctly use singular vs. plural, etc. Could any editors here take a quick look at the text to make sure dinosaurs are being described correctly? Thank you!! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:58, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Will have a look when I have time. Also note that we have the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Palaeontology/Article_workshop for such things, you could list it there. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:18, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

@Jens Lallensack: Thanks for offering to take a look and for the link! I'll review now. There's not a lot of species-specific info, so I'm hoping it'd be a quick copy edit for someone more familiar with dino terminology. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 21:35, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

This article has been promoted to Good status. Thanks to all who helped improve the entry! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:09, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

Howdy all, I improved the lead section of the Tirmurlengia article. How do we remove it from the list of articles needing cleanup associated with this project? AndresVeraBello (talk) 19:00, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

Many thanks for that, much appreciated! The list you linked is automatically generated by a bot, based on the presence of maintenance templates. You already removed the template, so the list should be updated automatically at some point. On another note, you might wish to have a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Palaeontology, where most discussion (including on dinosaurs) takes place. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:13, 9 August 2025 (UTC)

Thank you!! AndresVeraBello (talk) 05:14, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Jurassic_Park_(film)#Requested_move_17_August_2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Ladtrack (talk) 05:44, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Vitakridrinda, a Malkani taxon, is up for deletion after having been restored from a redirect: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vitakridrinda. Please participate if interested. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:38, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Citation_overkill says

While adding inline citations is helpful, adding too many can cause citation clutter, making articles look untidy in read mode and difficult to navigate in markup edit mode.

... examples like "Graphism is the study[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] ...

Extreme cases have seen fifteen or more footnotes after a single word ...

In Hypsilophodontidae, the lead paragraph says

there have also been many finding that the family is an unnatural grouping which should only include the type genus, Hypsilophodon, with the other genera being within clades like Thescelosauridae and Elasmaria.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]

- Eleven cites there. If that isn't quite the record for Wikipedia, it is at least "a lot".

Should we trim this? - I don't know myself which of these cites might be worth keeping and which not.

Thanks - 189.122.84.88 (talk) 01:41, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Definitely agreed they needed to be reduced. All those references would be useful if the article is expanded, but for now I cut the ones I felt are least significant. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 03:19, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

This article was resurrected by an IP in December 2023 because Regalado Fernández et al. resurrected the genus. But their paper calls it Pachysaurus, because they believe that name isn't actually preoccupied (unlike the IP). What should be done about the page? ~2025-31243-24 (talk) 04:09, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Archaeoraptor has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 17:24, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

For WikiProjects that participate in rating articles, the banners for talk pages usually say something like:

• "This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale."

There is a proposal to change the default wording on the banners to say "priority" instead of "importance". This could affect the template for your group. Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council#Proposal to update wording on WikiProject banners. Stefen 𝕋ower ^{Huddle • Handiwerk} 19:41, 6 December 2025 (UTC) (on behalf of the WikiProject Council)