Talk:Caprinae

Nice article

Nice article; this is a group that badly needed sorting out (I thought they were marsupials...O the shame) jimfbleak 11:26 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thanks Jim. Actually, you can blame Stan Shebs. He made a comment about capitalising "Sheep" and "Goat" and that made me wonder how many different sheep and goats there are, and if they ought to be capitalised or not, so I cruised over here, saw that there wasn't anything yet ... and that was about 12 hours ago! That's what I love about this place: yesterday I knew that you usually shear sheep and milk goats but sometimes the other way around, and that they had a number of wild relatives but not much more than that. OK, three-quarters of what I learn here falls out the other ear a day or two later, but some of it has to stick. Tannin

As long as it sticks long enough for you to write it up in an article, then that's long enough! ^_^ -- Toby Bartels 10:56 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Mountain goat

When I typed in "mountain goat," it came to this page. While that is not necessarily wrong, I think that, since the name "mountain goat" tends to refer specifically to the Rocky Mountain Goat, I think it would be preferable to redirect "mountain goat" to that page. -- Funnyhat 19:28, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I'm switching the redirect so it points there. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 19:44, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Panthalopinae

There ought to be an explanation and reference for this. The genus Pantholops is usually spelled with an o and placed in the subfamily Antilopinae. Who spells it with an a and who proposes to move it to its own subfamily? Gdr 19:54, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Template

I think, we should included a template for the Goat Antelopes. User:4444hhhh

Images

Both images on the page are of the same species, namely, the Barbary Sheep, and look rather similar. Since this page refers to a group, I've replaced the second image with one of a different species within that group. Anaxial (talk) 14:38, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Goat-antelope

Is there a reference for the term "goat antelope"? I find it confusing as two words. Is it widely established elsewhere? I'd never heard it, and most Google hits seem to be Wikipedia itself (or derivatives) – technical papers seem to use "caprid" instead. It seems to me that it would be clearer to use it hyphenated: "goat-antelope". To me this makes it more obvious that we are talking about a single group of animals, without the risk of confusion with either goats as such, or antelopes proper. This particularly applies in sentences with other names in them, where you end up having to puzzle out a series of apparently equal animal names: "the Rocky Mountain goat is a goat antelope", "the Barbary sheep is a goat antelope", "the Tibetan antelope is not a goat antelope", "the family Bovidae includes goat antelopes, antelopes and cattle". To anyone unfamiliar with the term, the eye reads along as far as the "goat" – but then the loose "antelope" has to be explained. (Is it meant to be there, or is it an editing mistake?) I think the hyphen would make each of these examples clearer, making it obvious that the term is a compound noun – and it would also be more in keeping with normal English usage.--Richard New Forest (talk) 11:38, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

No comments for over a month, so I have made the change. I've also changed redirect pages, but not the dozens of other links. Is there a bot we can use for that? --Richard New Forest (talk) 17:52, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Didn't see this earlier, for whatever reason. Anyway, a quick check reveals that, of the two mammal encyclopaedias I have copies of, one uses the hyphen, and the other does not. So there's at least some debate on the matter.Anaxial (talk) 18:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the term goat antelope is wrong for this article. The Caprinae consist of sheep, goats, goat antelopes, and musk oxen.[1]--Altaileopard (talk) 17:15, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Shapi?

Hi. I'm curious to find out if the Shapi is in fact a real creature and not simply some cryptozoological legend? I've searched the net for any information upon it and can find VERY little, not even a scientific classification on it. In fact nearly all search engine hits I've run across are a sentence or two blurb that's been copied almost word for word in a sort of circular logic(did I use that correctly?), leaving me to wonder if it's not some self perpetuating myth/hoax? As such, should it be even included as a real goat-antelope and not a cryptid without more hard evidence? ~ Concerned passerby —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.215.188.130 (talk) 23:26, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

See the discussion page for the shapi stub. Someone finally tracked down more information about it, and it appears to be an alternate name for the Himalayan tahr. At any rate, the unsupported claim in this article has been removed.12.106.183.194 (talk) 14:49, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Proposed move

Please move this to Caprid and list it at proposed moves. --Eu-151 (talk) 19:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Can't see any good reason for this. The common name is usually preferred for an article title and "goat-antelope" is a term I've seen several times, so I don't think it's too obscure. Secondly, even where is no suitable common name to use, the name of the family would be preferred to the noun - see, for example, Mustelidae. Finally, "caprid" isn't even a proper word, since the correct term would actually be "caprine". Anaxial (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

• Comment. It seems to me that there are four possibilities for names for this article:
  • Caprinae. Scientific term, unambiguous, quite widely understood. Possibly over-technical.
  • Goat-antelope. Not technical. Perhaps misleading, as none of the members are known as antelopes, and "antelope" generally has a meaning excluding goat-like creatures. Apparently hardly used outside Wikipedia (I'd never heard it before) and perhaps not immediately clear what it means. Does seem to be used more than a year or two ago – I suspect due to this article itself.
  • Caprine. Obvious anglicisation of subfamily name – but not widely used for that purpose: more often used to mean "pertaining to a [domestic] goat".
  • Caprid. Slightly illogical anglicisation (suggesting non-existent family Capridae, though actually I think Caprinae may have had family rank in the past). However, widely used in technical writing (and really every word in common use is a "proper word").

Personally I found "goat-antelope" awkward when I first encountered it here, but I must say I've got used to it a bit, and it does seem more widely used than it was. Starting from scratch, I think I'd choose "Caprinae". (Have I missed any?) Whichever is best, do we have enough reason to change the current name? Richard New Forest (talk) 20:54, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

As to the word not being used outside Wikipedia, it's used as the relevant chapter heading in the 1984 edition of Macdonald's Encylopedia of Mammals, which I doubt was influenced by this site. Anaxial (talk) 21:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough – but precious few others of that date, surely? Though really it's current usage we should go with, and if WP has indeed changed that, it's still usage. Richard New Forest (talk) 22:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 18:05, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Goat-antelope → Caprinae – From a cursory look over the internet and the comments above, the term "goat-antelope" as a common name for the subfamily Caprinae appears to be either a Wikipedia neologism, or at best a secondary meaning for this term which is not widely used in the literature. In particular, I am not seeing much evidence that the term is supposed to include standard goats and sheep within its definition. The Free Dictionary Free Dictionary defines it as "any of various wild ruminant mammals of the family Bovidae, such as the mountain goat or the chamois, having characteristics of both goats and antelopes" and Britannica defines it as the tribe "rupicaprin" which is "intermediate between those of the stockily built goats (subfamily Caprinae) and the long-legged antelopes (subfamily Antilopinae)." Both these definitions appear to be more narrow than Caprinae as a whole. On a more informal level, invoking WP:ASTONISH, I think the idea that a sheep is a type of "goat-antelope" is not one that would make much sense in common usage. Looking at WP:NCFAUNA, there is a clause that says "Do not use vernacular names when it is not clear to what the name refers." This is one reason why we have an article at Hominidae rather than Great ape and I think the same applies here. --Relisted. Xoloz (talk) 23:08, 18 April 2014 (UTC)  — Amakuru (talk) 15:42, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Weak support I have come across the term before in a number of sources, and with the meaning used here. Having said that, I do think that Caprinae is a more readily understood term, and, while I have no strong opinion either way, I'm inclined to prefer it over what seems to be a less common one. Anaxial (talk) 18:02, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Classification

This article conflicts with Muskox in showing a close relationship between it and the takin. Some kind editor has made an explicit reference to the contradiction within the lead of the article on the takin which I'll remove as it does not help. The Muskox article seems to contain the more up-to-date info, so the clade (if that is what it is) shown here needs to be sorted out to agree.Chrismorey (talk) 05:21, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

• I believe that's correct; takins and muskoxen are no longer thought to be closely related, and the Ovibovini are no longer considered a tribe that I'm aware of. I believe there is also dispute as to the reality of the other two tribes (or at least, their membership) so I'd suggest simply removing the tribes from the classification, at least for the time being. Any objections? Anaxial (talk) 07:15, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

@Anaxial: Indeed, a complete phylogeny of Caprinae has been presented in "Unraveling the phylogenetic relationships of the extinct bovid Myotragus balearicus Bate 1909 from the Balearic Islands" direct link to relevant fig here, is this worth coding up as a cladogram? Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:06, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

That looks to be in agreement with a number of other phylogenies I have seen in papers going back to the 2000s, which suggests that it's fairly robust and well-supported by now. So, yes, I'd say that would be a good thing to add. Anaxial (talk) 20:54, 11 September 2020 (UTC)