Talk:Canidae

COMMENTS

The Falkland Island wolf is called the Falkland Island fox on the fox page. Which is it? Do me need a redirect? (after someone writes an article, of course!) Rmhermen 15:45, Nov 8, 2003 (UTC)

Both names are in use, but in its appearance this animal is rather a fox than a wolf. I will change it on this page from "wolf" to "fox". If anybody should ever write an article about this animal, a redirect would be a good idea. -- Baldhur 20:52, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Signed for date/time archiving purposes only. William Harris • (talk) • 09:19, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Tibetan sand fox (Vulpes ferrilata) missing from cladogram?

The cladogram in the article appears complete except for one species, the Tibetan sand fox (Vulpes ferrilata). I would update it myself, but I don't know where exactly it belongs within the Vulpes genus. In the (seemingly) most comprehensive review of Carnivoran evolutionary relationships that I could find, the authors admitted to having placed it erroneously in Cerdocyonina alongside the New World genera Dusicyon and Atelocynus, but did not offer a correct placement.

I will snoop around for some more answers. In the meantime, if anyone knows where to place V. ferrilata within Vulpes, please update the cladogram accordingly. Adrianrorheim (talk) 08:56, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

As the Nyakatura & Bininda-Emonds say the position in their supertree is suspect, but they used the only cladistic study available (see page 138). The only evidence available is the pairing with the Falkland wolf, which itself is absent from the cladogram. Unfortunately that means we either guess, which makes it POV, or use the most complete study available (Koepfli et al 2015) and omit species that weren't used. Jts1882 (talk) 15:20, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Figure 2 in Austin et al (2013) gives an unambiguous position for the Falkland wolf (Dusicyon australis) and the extinct D. avus as sisters to the maned wolf. A case could be made to extend the cladogram to include this finding. This doesn't help with V. ferrilata which is obviously not a South American species. Jts1882 (talk) 15:27, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Bininda-Emonds et al (1998) (Fig 9) has a cladogram with V. ferrilata as sister to V. corsica. It also has placement for a few others (V. velox). For some reason he doesn't mention this in the later supertree study with Nyakatura, as if the data had been excluded. However, a recent Mt-DNA study (Zhao et al, 2016) seems to confirm this relationship (based on the abstract; I can't access the full article). I think this is unambiguous and a good reason to include it in the cladogram. Jts1882 (talk) 15:55, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the response! The Zhao et al, 2016 study does indeed confirm its relationship with V. corsac unambiguously enough to place them together in the cladogram. I'll go ahead and do that, making sure to link both articles you cited, Jts1882.Adrianrorheim (talk) 07:51, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Added. Now we need the picture. The "Thibetan fox" had a plate in the Mivart book. I wonder if @Mariomassone: can conjurer up an image with a white background. I know how to replace a white background with a transparent one, but my attempt on the coloured image left a sorry carcass. Jts1882 (talk) 08:36, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I've now added this picture, cropped from this one. It's far from perfect, as I was unable to find the full version of this particular species in archive versions of Mivart's Dogs, jackals, wolves and foxes (1890) and so had to make do with the tiny version that was already in the commons. Adrianrorheim (talk) 08:39, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Is the image in Plate XXVIII (opposite p120) better in this version of Dogs, jackals, wolves, and foxes: a monograph of the Canidae any better? You can get the PDF from that web page.

I note you have reinserted the picture of the hoary fox. I think this is the wrong animal. Several (three?) members of the dog family have been given this name. The hoary fox in the book, plate XXXI (opposite p132), is referred to as Canis canus, which is in the cladogram as Blanford's fox (Vulpes cana). Jts1882 (talk) 09:20, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dogs,_jackals,_wolves,_and_foxes_(Plate_XXVIII)_(white_background).jpg Mariomassone (talk) 19:26, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Jts1882 Yep, I noticed the double but didn't get time to bring it up here. I'm quite sure that illustration (Plate XXXI) is indeed the species currently known as the Hoary fox – it is, at least, not Blanford's fox (which has larger ears, a black "mask", and no stripes on its tail). I'll see if I can add a picture of Blanford's fox tomorrow.

Mariomassone thanks for the hi-res version of the Tibetan fox. I'll remove the background and reupload it as a PNG as soon as possible (unless one of you beat me to it, of course). Adrianrorheim (talk) 22:08, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Shopped together a somewhat crappy picture of Blanford's fox and added it to the cladogram. It should do the trick for now. Adrianrorheim (talk) 06:53, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

At least we can be sure of the identity of that image, but I'm still not convinced that plate XXXI is the Hoary fox. I don't pretend to be an expert, but the google images for Blanford's fox look like plate XXXI to me and the google images for the Hoary fox look like a different animal (but more like the common red fox). However, my main reason was the Latin names used. Minart uses Canis canus for plate XXXI and Blanford's fox is now called Vulpes cana. I note that Minart synonymizes Azara's dog (Canis azarae, plate XVII) with Canis vetulus and that the Hoary fox is Lycalopex vetulus. We use plate XVII with the Pampas fox (Lycalopex gymnocercus), though.

There is a picture of a Canis azarae in Darwin's books (plate VII, near p221). There are a number of other plates for South American canids in the book which could be useful for missing South American canids. One would assume the Darwin's fox was named after one he described. Jts1882 (talk) 07:53, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Plate VI from this volume of Darwin's The Zoology of the voyage of the Beagle is labelled as Canis fulvipes, which appears to be the same animal now known as Darwin's fox. I think this can be used if someone can remove the background. Jts1882 (talk) 08:01, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Just letting you know I've done some for felids and hyenas. There are some viverrids coming up too. Check out my commons upload list. Mariomassone (talk) 09:21, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Excellent. A nice collection. I see you have one image by Lydekker from his Handbook of Carnivora. Any plans to make some images from the other cats, civets and mongooses in there? As a general point, is there any reason to prefer a white background over a transparent one, which are better for cladograms with coloured backgrounds. Jts1882 (talk) 12:24, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't really plan on uploading more from Handbook unless there is a species there not present anywhere else (I choose on the basis of pose and realism). As for white backgrounds, I use them simply because I have no idea on how to make them transparent. Mariomassone (talk) 13:28, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

It's easy to make transparent backgrounds using Adobe PS – but that's an expensive piece of software many don't have. Since you've already done the hard work of tracing the illustration and making a solid color background, though, it takes only a few seconds to remove it and save it as a PNG using Adobe PS. I'd be happy to do that for your uploads if you don't have the software available. As for the animal in plate XXXI, I think you're right, and that I was confusing Mivart's V. canus for V. chama – my apologies. This still leaves us without an image for the Hoary fox, though. Adrianrorheim (talk) 08:40, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll endorse that comment about the hard work being removing the background image. I can convert the white to transparent using Photoshop 6 (sic) but my attempts at getting rid of a background image are not pretty. The work by Mariomassone is much appreciated.

As to the hoary fox image, is this Charles Hamilton Smith print the right animal? Jts1882 (talk) 09:57, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Cerdocyonina branch needs updating

Chilla is a sister taxon to culpeo: L. Tchaicka et al. "Molecular assessment of the phylogeny and biogeography of a recently diversified endemic group of South American canids (Mammalia: Carnivora: Canidae). Genetics and Molecular Biology, 39 (3): 442-451
Falkland Island wolf needs to be included as sister taxon of maned wolf: Slater, G. J.; Thalmann, O.; Leonard, J. A.; Schweizer, R. M.; Koepfli, K.-P.; Pollinger, J. P.; Rawlence, N. J.; Austin, J. J.; Cooper, A.; Wayne, R. K. (2009-11-03). "Evolutionary history of the Falklands wolf" (PDF). Current Biology. 19 (20): R937–R938. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2009.09.018. ISSN 0960-9822. PMID 19889366. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 4, 2013.Mariomassone (talk) 13:23, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. The cladogram already has updates for Canis and Vulpes so an update for Lycalopex is appropriate. The result for the Falkland wolf looks fairly definitive. Do you want to make the changes or do you want me to do them?   Jts1882 | talk  16:12, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Could you? I've tried but I still need to work these cladograms out without making messes of them. Mariomassone (talk) 19:35, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

 Done. I've also put the Lycalopex section in the Lycalopex article if you plan on adding more images.   Jts1882 | talk  07:16, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Borophagus.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:27, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Why 10 and not 13?

I have no expertise in this subject but cannot understand why only 10 of the 13 extant canid genera are pictured. It seems to me that the average Wiki user would wonder that as well. And, it is the more aggravating because neither here nor in the ‘List of Canids’ are the three missing ones identified. Irish Melkite (talk) 17:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

The mosaic images in taxoboxes usually just show a representative sample of the taxon's members. There are often too many to show them all. Here you have the additional problem of fitting 13 into a rectangle. For what it's worth the missing genera are Atelocynus, Lupulella and Lycalopex (from listing at List of canids).—  Jts1882 | talk  12:17, 8 January 2024 (UTC)