Talk:Ethiopian wolf

Untitled

Picture needed.

Signed for archiving purposes only: William Harris • (talk) • 12:30, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Picture

Hello,

Recently, I've sent an email to the EWCP and to the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, asking them if they could help Wikipedia in getting one or more free picture about Canis simensis

I've just received and email from Jorgelina Marino (Wildlife Conservation Research Unit), saying:

Hi Manchot!

I visited your wolf page and it's very good, with accurate information (my only comment is that the IUCN category for Ethiopian wolves is now endangered, rather than critically endangered)

If the wolf picture is for the website only, and so it can be at low resolution, then there is no problem with using one of the pictures in our website -let me know which one you choose and we will let you know the name of the photographer so that you can add a copyright note. Let me know if that's OK with you.

Also check the EWCP page:
http://www.ethiopianwolf.org/afroalpine/BaleMountains.shtml
That ahs information for you Bale Mountains National Park page

Cheers

Jorgelina


Jorgelina Marino, DPhil


Wildlife Conservation Research Unit
Tubney House, University of Oxford
Abingdon Road, Tubney OX13 5QL, UK
jorgelina.marino@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Ph: 01865 393110/100 - Fax: 01865 393101
www.wildcru.org
www.peopleandwildlife.org.uk
www.ethiopianwolf.org

This is the reason why I'm correctig the category.

Please, also not that it needs a bit more work to obtain a really free picture. I'm working at it, and since I'm not really english fluent, any help to explain what is a free license and how it helps Wikipedia is welcome !

Regards.

Manchot 18:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Low resolution? That is very selfish for a conservation organization, and if images become free, they cannot be only used for one website. Editor abcdef (talk) 06:37, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

To be more precise: "Freely licensed: You can prove that the copyright holder has released the image under an acceptable free license. Note that images that are licensed for use only on Wikipedia, or only for non-commercial or educational use, or under a license that doesn't allow for the creation of modified/derived works, are unsuitable." - Wikipedia: Image use policy Editor abcdef (talk) 10:17, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

"African wolf"

The usage and primary topic of African wolf is under discussion, see talk:Egyptian jackal -- 70.51.200.101 (talk) 03:50, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110927122528/http://www.wildcru.org/research/research-detail/?theme=endangered_species&project_id=41 to http://www.wildcru.org/research/research-detail/?theme=endangered_species&project_id=41

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Deletion of Latin description wrongly attributed to Solinus

I came to this article because a photo of an Ethiopian wolf was recently nominated for Featured Picture status. It seems like a strong article overall, but the Latin text and translation attributed to Solinus at the beginning of the "Historical account" section is a problem. I have removed this block quote for several reasons:

1. The quoted text does not come from Solinus's Collectanea rerum memorabilium (a Roman work of the 3rd century), as claimed in the article. Both the text and the translation were taken (with citation) from the website of the so-called Aberdeen Bestiary, which is medieval work (ca. A.D. 1200). The bestiary does rely heavily on Solinus in this passage and follows his wording closely, but the two texts are not identical and the bestiary is not a reliable guide to what Solinus actually wrote. For one thing, it combines Solinus's description of two different animals (see point #3 below). The text of Solinus can be found here, in sections 30.24 and 30.27.
2. Neither of the two sources cited in the sentence that introduces the block quote supports the attribution of this text to Solinus. One of the citations is the Aberdeen Bestiary web site, the actual source of the text and translation. The other, the paper by the IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group, says nothing at all about Solinus; it states that the earliest mention of the Ethiopian wolf dates to the 13th century (which is the date of the bestiary, not of Solinus). The source cited in the lettered footnote attached to this same sentence (Smith's Dogs, published in 1839), does mentions Solinus, but it does not quote the Latin text, so there is no way to tell (from this source) whether the text in the article is that of Solinus or not (and in fact it is not).
3. The text as quoted here from the medieval bestiary is misleading in that it combines information derived from two different passages in Solinus, which describe two different animals. The first sentence (about the manes and the diverse coloration) is based on Solinus's description of an animal called a lycaon; the following sentences (about the leaping, the thickness of their coats, and the fact that they don't attack humans) are based on his description of an animal called a thos (= Greek θώς). The word theas in the final sentence of the passage as quoted in the article is a misunderstanding of the word thoas in Solinus; it was garbled in the medieval tradition by western European scribes who knew no Greek.
4. Solinus drew most of his information from earlier sources, especially Pliny the Elder, and his information about both the lycaon and the thos appears already, albeit expressed in different words, in Book 8 of Pliny's Natural History, written in the 1st century. Pliny specifically says that the lycaon lives in India (not Ethiopia), and the detail of the mane doesn't fit the Ethiopian wolf at all, so that animal, whatever it is, is irrelevant here. The thos is a better candidate for the Ethiopian wolf, but not much better, since the use of this word by ancient Greek and Roman authors varies considerably, and modern scholars do not agree on just what modern species it denotes. The usual translation is "jackal", but other canids have been suggested, and even non-canids such as the civet or genet. This is a common problem in the study of ancient Greek and Roman sources for natural history, because the Greek or Latin word for a particular plant or bird or mammal often does not map neatly onto a single recognized modern species.

TLDR: The text and translation quoted here are not by Solinus, as claimed in the article; the sources cited to support the attribution to Solinus do not support it; and the application of the medieval description quoted here (regardless of authorship) to the species known today as the Ethiopian wolf is very uncertain, there being no consensus among scholars about the identification of the animal known as the θώς or thos in ancient Greek and Roman sources. In these circumstances, I think it's probably best to just omit this quotation altogether and start the "Historical account" section with the first modern scientific description of the species by Rüppell in 1835. So that's what I've done. Questions or different viewpoints welcome, of course. (Please ping me if you want a reply, since I may not be watching this article.) Choliamb (talk) 15:23, 25 January 2023 (UTC)