The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the name Pachylemur, now used for a type of
extinct giant lemur, was first used as group name of primitive primates once considered intermediate between
pachyderms and
lemurs?
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Thank you. Yes, please review with FAC-level scrutiny, but keep in mind that there is more anatomical information out there for us to include, particularly from Lamberton 1948. Unfortunately, Ucucha is very busy and my copy of the document is a 15-page, non-OCR PDF in French... which I can only read a little bit of and would have great difficulty translating fully. ... Actually, I just managed to run it through OCR, but it will still take a long time to incorporate the information since I have to first fix all the OCR errors and then run everything through Google Translate. Anyway, just helping catch the problems with the existing material would be a big help. I know, for instance, that the extinction material might not make the best sense because the sources are terribly inconsistent. (In fact, I had discovered that one of my secondary sources made an error: for the last three editions it has given Pachylemur an extinction date intended for Megaladapis. In other sources, I'm not sure where the dates come from. Anyway, take your time, and I'm eager to see the review. Again, thanks! – VisionHolder «
talk »23:14, 5 February 2012 (UTC)reply
Comments - Hmmm, I'm not finding much to complain about. Some slim (nit)pickings follow; I'll try harder tomorrow when I'm less tired :)
Sasata (
talk)
06:10, 11 February 2012 (UTC)reply
the weaselly phrase "is thought" is overused in "Behavior"
I have tried to address this. Let me know if this is sufficient. I could also include the name of the researchers who did the research that allowed us to hypothesize these things, but then the section will get bogged down with "Godfrey et al." – VisionHolder «
talk »17:04, 11 February 2012 (UTC)reply
shouldn't Lemur insignis be listed as a synonym of P. insignis?
I decided for some reason not to list original combinations separately (notice that Palaeochirogalus jullyi isn't in there either). But I'll change it.
Ucucha (
talk)
20:48, 12 February 2012 (UTC)reply
"Based on dental wear the presence of dental caries," not sure which word is missing
"African species within the same genus (congeners)" is it necessary to introduce the jargon word if the jargon word is not used later? (there's other instances as well) Alternatively, you could pipe like
species within the same genus
I think this is fixed. I prefer to introduce basic biological terms so that if people don't know them, then they can start learning them. But you're right... this is probably cleaner. – VisionHolder «
talk »17:04, 11 February 2012 (UTC)reply
any more details on the specifics of the "recent analysis" that suggests that Pachylemur was arboreal, i.e., what made them change their minds?
I will have to go back and hit the literature later tonight. I think I avoided that because I didn't want to bump elbows with Ucucha and his Anatomy section. It probably just had to do with limb proportions. – VisionHolder «
talk »17:04, 11 February 2012 (UTC)reply
there's no clear indication of how many fossil remains have been found. Judging from the number of sites I'm guessing 1-2 dozen? Are any of the skeletons complete? Male/female?
I don't think that information has been published anywhere. I have seen photos of complete skeletons, but they may have been pieced together using fossils from multiple locations. Unfortunately, the early days of subfossil hunting in Madagascar make this a very difficult question to answer for any researcher. – VisionHolder «
talk »17:04, 11 February 2012 (UTC)reply
If Lamberton didn't select a type, what is being used as the type?
That's mostly what paragraph 2 of the lead is about, unless I'm missing what you're referring to. I think we should avoid overemphasizing this obscure point of nomenclature, though—describing the actual animal is more important.
Ucucha (
talk)
16:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)reply
Done, and a short article has been created for him. Since there were only three sources, two of which were largely redundant, it was easy enough to write a short article for him. – VisionHolder «
talk »06:01, 12 February 2012 (UTC)reply
"
DNA studies have confirmed a sister group" I think
DNA studies would be a more informative link; DNA is a pretty common term, but many will not understand what is meant by "DNA study"
To be honest, I'm not sure. He is mentioned on this article and
Subfossil lemur for his aquatic lemur hypothesis. Otherwise he did describe some of the subfossil lemurs (see
Mesopropithecus)... though with the mess surrounding their discovery, it may just be luck that his work had priority over other names. I'm just not sure if we'll find much about him as a person. – VisionHolder «
talk »20:00, 14 February 2012 (UTC)reply
"Meanwhile, in 1904, Herbert Standing had named a different species using the same name, Lemur jullyi" I'm confused as to why he would have used the same name. I might presume he wasn't aware of the 1899 Grandidier publication that already used the name, but why pick "jullyi" as the epithet?
Jully was the President of the Academy of Madagascar or something like that if I recall correctly, though neither Grandidier nor Standing makes the etymology explicit. Standing was either unaware of Grandidier's name, thought it didn't matter because Palaeochirogalus jullyi was in a different genus, or he figured that that way he'd confuse even more people.
Ucucha (
talk)
16:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)reply
Is there any information available on the etymology of the names jullyi or insignis (or the synonyms)?
"In a 1982 review, Ian Tattersall recognized two species, Lemur insignis and Lemur jullyi. (He did not regard Pachylemur as a valid genus or even subgenus.)" I think the parenthetical sentence is relevant enough to the discussion that it doesn't have to be made parenthetical
I actually switched out two uses of "valid", because Pachylemur is not technically "valid"—if we were following the ICZN's rules strictly, this article would have to be called Palaeochirogalus. I added the link in the discussion of jullyi though.
Ucucha (
talk)
16:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)reply
"The subfossil remains of Pachylemur have been found in all regions of Madagascar" are we sure that Godfrey et al.'s idea of a Malagasy ecoregion is the same as indicated in our article on the subject; i.e., we can confirm with this source that remains have been found in six of the seven terrestrial ecoregions?
Heh... I've been struggling with the ecoregions for some time now. I've been tempted to write an article about them to formalize what we know, but although most sources agree on the spiny thickets, dry deciduous forests, and rainforests, all the other ecoregions of Madagascar vary from source to source. Godfrey, in fact, seems to just stick to North, South, East, West, and Central... probably to avoid dealing with the mess. In terms of those general "ecoregions" then the statement is true. Outside of that, we'd need to know what the "official" ecoregions are. But generally speaking, it has been found in every region in which we find subfossils... but the sources don't say it that way. – VisionHolder «
talk »20:00, 14 February 2012 (UTC)reply
lit cited list is not quite in alphabetical order (e.g., Goodman is before Godfrey; "Godfrey, L.R.; Rasoazanabary, E." before "Godfrey, L.R.; Jungers, W.L.")
Two final nits: the spacing of author initials is inconsistent, and the short sentence in "Distribution and habitat" could probably be combined with the one previous. That's all I got; the article meets GA criteria, so will pass it now. Nice article, with good illustrations (the taxobox picture is—
like usual— fantastic!).
Sasata (
talk)
21:17, 14 February 2012 (UTC)reply
I can never tell which to use... a space between the initials or not. Either way, because I use the {{cite doi}} and related templates, it will throw off an article somewhere. Anyway, I haven't forgotten about the locomotion issue above and hope to fix it tonight. The source was just a secondary source with no details, and it pointed me to a book chapter on subfossil lemurs I had not read before. – VisionHolder «
talk »03:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)reply
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the name Pachylemur, now used for a type of
extinct giant lemur, was first used as group name of primitive primates once considered intermediate between
pachyderms and
lemurs?
This article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following
WikiProjects:
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Primates, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Primates on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PrimatesWikipedia:WikiProject PrimatesTemplate:WikiProject PrimatesPrimate articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Africa, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Africa on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AfricaWikipedia:WikiProject AfricaTemplate:WikiProject AfricaAfrica articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Palaeontology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
palaeontology-related topics and create a standardized, informative, comprehensive and easy-to-use resource on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PalaeontologyWikipedia:WikiProject PalaeontologyTemplate:WikiProject PalaeontologyPalaeontology articles
This article is a part of WikiProject Extinction, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative, comprehensive and easy-to-use resource on
extinction and extinct organisms. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the
project page for more information.ExtinctionWikipedia:WikiProject ExtinctionTemplate:WikiProject ExtinctionExtinction articles
Thank you. Yes, please review with FAC-level scrutiny, but keep in mind that there is more anatomical information out there for us to include, particularly from Lamberton 1948. Unfortunately, Ucucha is very busy and my copy of the document is a 15-page, non-OCR PDF in French... which I can only read a little bit of and would have great difficulty translating fully. ... Actually, I just managed to run it through OCR, but it will still take a long time to incorporate the information since I have to first fix all the OCR errors and then run everything through Google Translate. Anyway, just helping catch the problems with the existing material would be a big help. I know, for instance, that the extinction material might not make the best sense because the sources are terribly inconsistent. (In fact, I had discovered that one of my secondary sources made an error: for the last three editions it has given Pachylemur an extinction date intended for Megaladapis. In other sources, I'm not sure where the dates come from. Anyway, take your time, and I'm eager to see the review. Again, thanks! – VisionHolder «
talk »23:14, 5 February 2012 (UTC)reply
Comments - Hmmm, I'm not finding much to complain about. Some slim (nit)pickings follow; I'll try harder tomorrow when I'm less tired :)
Sasata (
talk)
06:10, 11 February 2012 (UTC)reply
the weaselly phrase "is thought" is overused in "Behavior"
I have tried to address this. Let me know if this is sufficient. I could also include the name of the researchers who did the research that allowed us to hypothesize these things, but then the section will get bogged down with "Godfrey et al." – VisionHolder «
talk »17:04, 11 February 2012 (UTC)reply
shouldn't Lemur insignis be listed as a synonym of P. insignis?
I decided for some reason not to list original combinations separately (notice that Palaeochirogalus jullyi isn't in there either). But I'll change it.
Ucucha (
talk)
20:48, 12 February 2012 (UTC)reply
"Based on dental wear the presence of dental caries," not sure which word is missing
"African species within the same genus (congeners)" is it necessary to introduce the jargon word if the jargon word is not used later? (there's other instances as well) Alternatively, you could pipe like
species within the same genus
I think this is fixed. I prefer to introduce basic biological terms so that if people don't know them, then they can start learning them. But you're right... this is probably cleaner. – VisionHolder «
talk »17:04, 11 February 2012 (UTC)reply
any more details on the specifics of the "recent analysis" that suggests that Pachylemur was arboreal, i.e., what made them change their minds?
I will have to go back and hit the literature later tonight. I think I avoided that because I didn't want to bump elbows with Ucucha and his Anatomy section. It probably just had to do with limb proportions. – VisionHolder «
talk »17:04, 11 February 2012 (UTC)reply
there's no clear indication of how many fossil remains have been found. Judging from the number of sites I'm guessing 1-2 dozen? Are any of the skeletons complete? Male/female?
I don't think that information has been published anywhere. I have seen photos of complete skeletons, but they may have been pieced together using fossils from multiple locations. Unfortunately, the early days of subfossil hunting in Madagascar make this a very difficult question to answer for any researcher. – VisionHolder «
talk »17:04, 11 February 2012 (UTC)reply
If Lamberton didn't select a type, what is being used as the type?
That's mostly what paragraph 2 of the lead is about, unless I'm missing what you're referring to. I think we should avoid overemphasizing this obscure point of nomenclature, though—describing the actual animal is more important.
Ucucha (
talk)
16:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)reply
Done, and a short article has been created for him. Since there were only three sources, two of which were largely redundant, it was easy enough to write a short article for him. – VisionHolder «
talk »06:01, 12 February 2012 (UTC)reply
"
DNA studies have confirmed a sister group" I think
DNA studies would be a more informative link; DNA is a pretty common term, but many will not understand what is meant by "DNA study"
To be honest, I'm not sure. He is mentioned on this article and
Subfossil lemur for his aquatic lemur hypothesis. Otherwise he did describe some of the subfossil lemurs (see
Mesopropithecus)... though with the mess surrounding their discovery, it may just be luck that his work had priority over other names. I'm just not sure if we'll find much about him as a person. – VisionHolder «
talk »20:00, 14 February 2012 (UTC)reply
"Meanwhile, in 1904, Herbert Standing had named a different species using the same name, Lemur jullyi" I'm confused as to why he would have used the same name. I might presume he wasn't aware of the 1899 Grandidier publication that already used the name, but why pick "jullyi" as the epithet?
Jully was the President of the Academy of Madagascar or something like that if I recall correctly, though neither Grandidier nor Standing makes the etymology explicit. Standing was either unaware of Grandidier's name, thought it didn't matter because Palaeochirogalus jullyi was in a different genus, or he figured that that way he'd confuse even more people.
Ucucha (
talk)
16:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)reply
Is there any information available on the etymology of the names jullyi or insignis (or the synonyms)?
"In a 1982 review, Ian Tattersall recognized two species, Lemur insignis and Lemur jullyi. (He did not regard Pachylemur as a valid genus or even subgenus.)" I think the parenthetical sentence is relevant enough to the discussion that it doesn't have to be made parenthetical
I actually switched out two uses of "valid", because Pachylemur is not technically "valid"—if we were following the ICZN's rules strictly, this article would have to be called Palaeochirogalus. I added the link in the discussion of jullyi though.
Ucucha (
talk)
16:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)reply
"The subfossil remains of Pachylemur have been found in all regions of Madagascar" are we sure that Godfrey et al.'s idea of a Malagasy ecoregion is the same as indicated in our article on the subject; i.e., we can confirm with this source that remains have been found in six of the seven terrestrial ecoregions?
Heh... I've been struggling with the ecoregions for some time now. I've been tempted to write an article about them to formalize what we know, but although most sources agree on the spiny thickets, dry deciduous forests, and rainforests, all the other ecoregions of Madagascar vary from source to source. Godfrey, in fact, seems to just stick to North, South, East, West, and Central... probably to avoid dealing with the mess. In terms of those general "ecoregions" then the statement is true. Outside of that, we'd need to know what the "official" ecoregions are. But generally speaking, it has been found in every region in which we find subfossils... but the sources don't say it that way. – VisionHolder «
talk »20:00, 14 February 2012 (UTC)reply
lit cited list is not quite in alphabetical order (e.g., Goodman is before Godfrey; "Godfrey, L.R.; Rasoazanabary, E." before "Godfrey, L.R.; Jungers, W.L.")
Two final nits: the spacing of author initials is inconsistent, and the short sentence in "Distribution and habitat" could probably be combined with the one previous. That's all I got; the article meets GA criteria, so will pass it now. Nice article, with good illustrations (the taxobox picture is—
like usual— fantastic!).
Sasata (
talk)
21:17, 14 February 2012 (UTC)reply
I can never tell which to use... a space between the initials or not. Either way, because I use the {{cite doi}} and related templates, it will throw off an article somewhere. Anyway, I haven't forgotten about the locomotion issue above and hope to fix it tonight. The source was just a secondary source with no details, and it pointed me to a book chapter on subfossil lemurs I had not read before. – VisionHolder «
talk »03:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)reply