Talk:Ichthyosauria

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I don't know where exactly the Mixosauridae belongs on the ichthyosaur family tree, but even I know it shouldn't appear three times in different locations on said family tree. Someone with a little more knowledge on ichthyosaurs should fix that at some point. 75.209.106.105 (talk) 18:04, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

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re "Ichythyosaur" stubby article merger, as well as being a mis-spelling it contains incorrect information (ichthyosaurs were reptiles, not mammals). But I'll incorporate the more factual information of that stub. M Alan Kazlev 00:17, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

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Re Dr. Nicholls: the '92 find on 27 Sept '00 earned her the US$75K Rolex Award, making her just 2d Canadian ever to win it. Trekphiler 17.51, 24 December 2005

Popular Culture

Why is the reference to They Might be Giants in popular culture being repeatedly removed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.237.161.42 (talk) 04:58, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

If it weren't for the "Nine Bowls of Soup" song, I'd have never landed on this wiki and learned so much about the Ichthyosaur. Soon kids everywhere will be singing his praises. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.223.72.5 (talk) 02:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

So, if you found this page because of the song, why does the song need to be mentioned, since anybody who find this via the song will obviously already know about it? In other words, mentioning the song will not teach you anything more about Ichthyosaurus, other than the fact it was in the song, which you already knew ;) Does the song itself teach you anything about Ichthyosaurus? Or try to? If so, then it could be mentioned. For now, if anything, Ichthyosaurus could be mentioned on the page about the song, if there is one, in case people listening to the song want to look up the animal but don't know how to spell it, etc. Dinoguy2 (talk) 07:24, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I would consider it relevant as a resource for early education. I loved dinosaurs as a kid. 99.16.209.16 (talk) 03:08, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Skeleton reconstruction and tail-fin

According to my references, the reconstruction of the skeleton from 1863 is wrong. There was a large dorsal fine, but it did not have a bony support and, therefore, was at one time not known to have existed and so it is not shown in the old reconstructions. There was a large asymmetrical tail-fin, in the vertical plane, which was stiffened by a downward bend of the vertebral column (a reversed heterocercal-type fin stiffened by the posterior caudal vertebrae). --Dysmachus 13:15, 5 March 2006 (UTC) cf. Source

...and the "broken" tail has been miscorrected, according to a Stephen Jay Gould article. This illustration would be a good base for a history subsection, though. --Wetman 23:15, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

• The article mentions some very old illustrations of ichthyosaur fossils, pre-dating the scientific naming. Anywhere these can be found so we can use them here? FunkMonk (talk) 20:34, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The flippers

In the early ichthyosaurs, all their limbs seems to be of similar size. But in some of the later species, the hind flippers appears to be much smaller than the front flippers. Could this reduction of the reduced hindlimbs be a beginning trend among these reptiles? In that case, maybe they would have disappeared completley with time if they hadn't become extinct.

It's possible, and it seems to have happened in whales, which evolved pretty convergantly with ichthyosaurs. But we'll never know for sure.Dinoguy2 00:13, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Order or suborder?

The Ichthyopterygia article says that group is a superorder and Ichthyosauria is an order, but here it says Ichthyopterygia is an order and Ichthyosauria is a suborder. The Paleobiology Database[1], which is edited by university professors, favors the former, but I'm still not sure. What should it be? Jerkov 21:24, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Have a look at Handbook of Paleoherpetology, Part 8: Ichthyopterygia This is a serious and up to date scientific monograph. In the classification they give, Ichthyopterygia is a superorder and Ichthyosauria is an order. I suggest we use this work as our reference for ichthyosaur classification. M Alan Kazlev 22:41, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Agree, I'll standardise to this if I come across anything that needs to be.Dinoguy2 23:42, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

What does it say about what subclass? The Ichthyopterygia article says subclass Diapsida, but this article saus subclass Euyapsida. Things should be harmonized, but which way? Bytor 00:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Phrasing

Scientists who believe in the Evolution theory suggest that the ichthyosaurs lived during a large part of the Mesozoic... This was in the introduction, I dont think it is appropriate for the article based on scientific evidence. Enlil Ninlil 02:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

No, it certainly is not appropriate. Good catch, his seems to have been a fairly recent addition that was missed. Dinoguy2 04:38, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

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"Ichthyosaur coproliths, petrified faeces, are very common, though, already being sold by Mary Anning." This is in the Gastroliths section of the article. I found this statement odd, uncited and containing some spelling errors. KaylaCarleton (talk) 05:05, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Behavior/Intelligence?

What were their brain/body ratios? What areas of the brain were largest/the most interesting? I'm guessing the optical lobes were proportionately large, but it would be nice to see what scientists currently think about what these animals thought. Were they rather dim like lizards, or was their demanding, competitive environment pushing them into producing bigger brains over the millions of years they developed? What do we know? Noxic 01:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Eye rings

Any idea what purpose the bony eye rings served? Other creatures seem to get along fine without them. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 13:17, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Sclerotic rings are actually present in a lot of things, like dinosaurs and birds, but not crocs and mammals. I don't think there's an accepted answer yet for their function beyond generally supporting the eye, but I imagine that would useful for an ichthyosaur, living underwater with gigantic eyes. J. Spencer (talk) 14:21, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

So where did the DOLPHIN's dorsal fins come from?

This isnt so much a request for information as just a comment that evolving a dorsal fin might not be that big a deal considering that the cetaceans did it sometime around the reign of Basilosaurus, also presumably from nothing. (Some whales seem to lack dorsal fins, but they could have evolved and then disappeared.) —Soap— 14:32, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't forget sharks. FunkMonk (talk) 14:41, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

'Reproduction' reference

Does the editor or can someone else verify the source for the first paragraph describing viviparous reproduction? It sounds plausible, but there is no reference cited. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Carlsez (talk • contribs) 16:56, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

It should be referenced, yes, but the viviparous reproduction in ichthyosaurs has been demonstrated by the discovery of several complete fossils of females with the remains of embryos and young in or near where the uterus was.--Mr Fink (talk) 16:59, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

One possible ref: First record of live birth in Cretaceous ichthyosaurs: closing an 80 million year gap. The specimens were named Maiaspondylus. Rnnsh (talk) 18:00, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Here is a recently published paper on live, head-first births, indicating they gave birth on land. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0088640 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.228.128.212 (talk) 05:20, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

The paper says that the head-first births in ichthyosaurs developed in their terrestrial ancestors: none of the ichthyosaurs, not even the most primitive ones, appear to be adapted for even crude crawling on land.--Mr Fink (talk) 06:12, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

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Ichthyosaur vs. Dolphin graphic

If users set our own fonts and/or font sizes, the text can be unreadable. Depending on users' accessibility needs, their browsers, and usable browser configurations, if browser settings and add-ons are inadequate, it may require manually editing css and reloading the page to read the text. 108.51.205.136 (talk) 23:04, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

P.S. This is for the full-size version, not the preview. 108.51.205.136 (talk) 23:07, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Baseisaurus

There a new genus called:Baseisaurus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PeaceAndGood (talk • contribs) 07:55, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 7 December 2023

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Ichthyosaur → Ichthyosauria – While it seems intuitive, "ichthyosaurs" is not always used as a common name for Ichthyosauria, and is sometimes used as an equivalent of Ichthyopterygia (Motani, 2005) or even Ichthyosauriformes (Moon, 2017) instead, including taxa like Utatsusaurus, Chaohusaurus, or even Cartorhynchus which fall outside of Ichthyosauria proper. Therefore, it seems "Ichthyosauria" would be a less ambiguous title for this article than "Ichthyosaur". --Slate Weasel [Talk - Contribs] 23:54, 7 December 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 14:37, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Palaeontology has been notified of this discussion. PrimalMustelid (talk) 17:34, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose Pretty stock standard WP:COMMONNAME situation. It's akin to the example of polio vs poliomyelitis. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 16:43, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Support on account of ambiguity issues: as Slate Weasel said, "ichthyosaur" doesn't always equal Ichthysauria doesn't always equal the other two. SilverTiger12 (talk) 03:11, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Support non-ichthyosaurian taxa have always been called ichthyosaurs in both technical and non-technical literature. Motani is quite explicit- “The common name “ichthyosaur” refers to the group Ichthyopterygia, which contains a smaller group Ichthyosauria.” If we’re to follow the Wikipedia common name practice our page for “ichthyosaur” should reflect the historical understanding of what an ichthyosaur is rather than the more restricted clade Ichthyosauria. Fishboy86164577 (talk) 16:29, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Comment If we go forward with renaming to Ichthyosauria, should we also rename Ichthyopterygia to Ichthyosaur and move the majority of the content to there? Macrophyseter | talk 04:51, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

No, since "ichthyosaur" is ambiguous- I have seen it used for both clades. SilverTiger12 (talk) 02:27, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.