Talk:Ocepeia

Comments

@Animalparty: This is a better place to complete our discussion. First off, we should try to expand the Paleoecology section as much as possible. If any extinct mammal article can become a FA, this could be it. It was described recently so the information that can be in the article should be relatively new research. Other sections to expand or create: Classification, Skull (under description), and if any information is found, Paleobiology. IJReid (talk) 14:44, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree that some areas can be expanded, especially the importance of Ocepeia in understanding early ungulate evolution. I also think it's important to not rely exclusively or too heavily on the PLOS ONE paper, to achieve better perspective and coverage. I have downloaded some additional papers (including the original 2001 description), and can retrieve Cenozoic Mammals of Africa today. Let me know if you'd like them e-mailed. While the PLOS paper likely provides the most detail on the genus, I don't think giving a play-by-play of the paper is needed (especially should future studies change or make superfluous the info here). In short, we should strive to make an article that is a comprehensive yet readable summary. I think the important guidelines to follow are WP:TECHNICAL and WP:SUMMARY. --Animalparty-- (talk) 22:01, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thank you, could you email me those articles? IJReid (talk) 00:48, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

@Reid,iain james: I guess there isn't a way to email through wikipedia. I don't know if you're comfortable posting your email address, or if there's a dropbox or other filesharing feature I could use.--Animalparty-- (talk) 20:29, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

There should be a tab under Tools (on the side of the page) that should say "Email this user". If not, go under "Preferences" (in the use bar at the top of the page) and confirm your email address. IJReid (talk) 01:58, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

thanks! you've got mail.--Animalparty-- (talk) 02:50, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

@Animalparty: I have been wondering, how did you upload only one third of the Ocepechelon figure. Knowing would greatly help me in future reference. Thanks. IJReid (talk) 13:40, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I simply croppped the original image in MS Paint. Due to the CC-license, anyone is free to use or adapt the material with attribution, and must indicate the changes made. --Animalparty-- (talk) 16:52, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

DYK

@Reid,iain james: I think this is ready for DYK nomination, especially since it needs to be within 5 days of the article's creation. Having read the original 2001 paper, I now think a better hook would be "...that Ocepeia (pictured), a 60 million-year-old Afrotherian mammal, is named after a Moroccan mining company?". I think this would appeal to more readers (i.e. most people who don't know or care what an Afrotherian is), and is not likely to change, whereas a hook regarding the oldest or best of anything may change as new discoveries are made. I believe the artist's restoration is the best photo to sub, especially with the hook not being based on the skull. --Animalparty-- (talk) 22:37, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Do you know what the name of the Minimg company is? Other than that, the hook is great. IJReid (talk) 00:48, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Office Chérifien des Phosphates, or "OCP". I don't think the name needs to be in the hook, however, that can be part of the draw. You should go ahead and nominate it: I don't really care about being a "co-nominator" but I don't see why 2 people couldn't be named (see the 3 creators named at Nankangia). Let me know either way and I'll follow the discussion. --Animalparty-- (talk) 01:09, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Pre-GA review

I am going through the article to help with getting it to reach GA. This does not count as a GA review, but hopefully it will help us improve the article faster. Here goes:

Lead

The style of the lead is good, but it could use some expansion, especially the paleoecology paragraph

The etymology of the name should be mentioned in the lead

A paleobiology paragraph could be added

Otherwise, good

To be continued once these comments are fixed... IJReid (talk) 13:54, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I think the evolutionary and biogeographical significance of Ocepia needs to be expanded as well, especially regarding different theories of the origin and radiation of Afrotheria and Paenungulates (e.g. Laurasia vs Africa). The PLOS article and others touch upon this, but I haven't fully digested it, nor quite found a way to succinctly summarize it without delving too far-off topic about the origins of Macroscelidea, discrepancies between morphological and molecular phylogenies, etc.

As for paleo-ecology, Gheerbrant et al 2003 probably has additional information that can be gleaned; as the article is in French I didn't want to mistakenly incorporate misleading information so I stuck close to the abstract. Another source that may provide pertinent info for this and especially the Oulad Abdoun article, is an updated faunal list of ~330 species, in press (and also probably in French): Bardet, N., Gheerbrant, E., Noubhani, et al. 2013. Les Vertébrés des Phosphates cretacés-paléogènes (70,6 – 46,6 Ma) du Maroc. In: Zhouri, S. (Ed.), La Paléontologie des Vertébrés du Maroc MAPG. Mémoires de la Société Géologique de France (in press).

--Animalparty-- (talk) 18:15, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Also, an image that would be great to include in paleoecology would be a map of the North Africa/Mediterranean region in the middle Paleocene-early Eocene, illustrating the extent of inland flooding. Something akin to the map to the right but more specific in time and place.

File:Blakey 65moll.jpg

--Animalparty-- (talk) 21:28, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Actually, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2012.02.002 (which I cannot access) might have a map of paleocene africa. After that, you could ask User:FunkMonk if he can modify it to show paleocene africa. That way, it might count as a derivative of the work. What I would suggest is that FunkMonk overlays a modern image of Africa with a paleocene map. IJReid (talk) 03:47, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

New revelation. http://www.geologicabelgica.be/PDF/Journal/vol164/SOLE_2013.pdf has a map of paleocene africa, along with the rest of the globe, dating to the end of the Paleocene, in figure 5 A. Once the license of the journal is determined, I will comment back here. IJReid (talk) 03:58, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

The maps in that source are are based on this image (50 MYA), which we have modified in Commons. The 65 MYA Commons map above might be better than the 50 MYA, if we're trying to get near 60. There's also Fig 57A of doi:10.1016/j.jafrearsci.2005.07.017 (download: here), which offers more detailed geology.--Animalparty-- (talk) 06:43, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

outdated cladogram?

It has horses closely related to elephants, but horses are Laurasian and elephants are African. Jonathan Tweet (talk) 02:02, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

@Jonathan Tweet: The cladogram is based on morphological traits, not molecular traits. See note e: "Gheerbrant et al. suggested the grouping in this analysis was due to convergent evolution of lophodont molars in both groups and gaps in the fossil record." The scientists are not strongly suggesting this relationship of horses and elephants, but it appeared in their analysis so they included it (see also Long branch attraction). I do think this is one drawback of including technical cladograms in Wikipedia articles: they do not represent "truth", and studies nowadays often include multiple cladograms, which can differ depending on type of analysis used and the taxa included. Cheers, --Animalparty! (talk) 17:34, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you @Animalparty:. If I find a cladogram based on molecular analysis, do you think I can it get added to the page? Jonathan Tweet (talk) 00:32, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

If it's relevant to Ocepeia, it could certainly be included (and if someone found DNA from Ocepeia, that'd be amazing!). But note that including too many cladograms might reduce clarity, per WP:MTAU. The most detailed study to my knowledge (Gheerbrant et al. 2014) and its supplemental materials provides several different cladograms, but this (Wikipedia) article (ideally a more approachable article to non-scientists) currently only includes the one chosen by Gheerbrant et al. as the reference topology. --Animalparty! (talk) 00:46, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

@Jonathan Tweet:@Animalparty: I have added a note cautioning the reader that the tree presented has been obsoleted with regards to the placement of Perissodactyla. BirdValiant (talk) 17:54, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

I wonder if we even need this level of resolution in an article like this. We don't really need to show all these interrelationships of much more derived clades that are not relevant to the subject. FunkMonk (talk) 18:00, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Ocepeia/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: FunkMonk (talk · contribs) 18:12, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi, I'll review this article. Took a while before you nominated it since the peer review? FunkMonk (talk) 18:12, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

• As I mentioned earlier, I'd personally use skeletal elements in the taxobox for prehistoric animals since life restorations are always way more speculative, and less reliable. But it's up to you. I'm going to stick with the current infobox image. I see your perspective, but in this case I disagree.
• The border around the map should probably be cropped, borders are discouraged. Y
• "Additionally, new lower jaw fragments with larger teeth led to the description of O. grandis" This was also in 2014? The adjacent text is a bit unclear on this. I think it's clear enough, at least to year.
• Footnotes need citations too. Y
• All captions should state which of the two species is shown. Like the one under Distinguishing anatomical features. Y
• "and highly derived traits" If possible, explain the meaning of derived. I can't do this without dumbing down or needlessly muddling the prose.
• Link ungulates, enamel, vestigial, convergent, bonebed. Perhaps explain some of them. Y
• "The cranium (upper part of the skull)" This is a bit ambiguous. Some readers may think it only means the top of the skull or some such... Y
• "The cranium of Ocepeia daouiensis" You are inconsistent in whether you abbreviate binomials or not. Y
• "and early paenunuglate-like ancestors" What is meant by "ancestors"? Ancestors of paenunuglates? Clarified.
• "CT scans in of the skull" The skull also shown in the image above? Also, seems there's a stray "in"? Y
• You should name the (main) taxon authors in-text. Y
• "believed to be an adult male" To belong to? The jaw is probably not an adult male... Y
• There seems to be little to no description of the lower jaws? There's not much to say without getting overly jargony, so I don't think it's relevant: "Symphysis short and partially fused; condyle significantly higher than the tooth row; corpus high and transversely inflated." I'm similarly omiting detailed discussion and photographs of the inner ear, as largely extraneous and crushingly pedantic.
• Personally (and this seems to be the general opinion), I think taxon diagnosis is far too technical to include in Wikipedia articles, unless in very summarised form. I'd cut it down, and simply make it part of the cranium and dentition descriptions. Especially since some of the info there simply seems to be elaborations on info already mentioned earlier in the article. If you want precedents for this, see for example the FAs of fossil tooth/jaw taxa written by Ucucha, such as Ferugliotherium, Bharattherium, Dermotherium, etc. FunkMonk (talk) 19:48, 6 October 2016 (UTC) I agree, and have removed it, per WP:NOTJOURNAL: articles shouldn't resemble diagnoses in primary literature, and in this case there is more material than simply a few teeth, somewhat obviating belabored descriptions.

Nothing there that could be salvaged and incorporated into the description section? As you can see on those featured articles, the descriptions are quite detailed. Didn't keep them from reaching FA. FunkMonk (talk) 19:49, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

• "Ocepeia has occupied various positions" Maybe say "has been placed in", to show it is a highly subjective matter. Y
• "On describing the most complete material to-date" Recentism, better say "until that point" or some such, as you never know whether more complete material will be found in the future. Clarified
• "monotypic family (Ocepeiidae)" Why parenthesis? YChanged to dashes
• "the best-known of any Paleocene mammal in Africa." Only stated as such in the intro, which should not have unique info. Y
• Any reason why the article under further reading isn't used as a source? If I recall it didn't offer new content, but provides an accessible overview of paenunuglates for interested readers.
• You there, Animalparty? FunkMonk (talk) 09:59, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

@FunkMonk: I'm here, just dropped the ball. I think I have addressed the issues, my replies are in green above. --Animalparty! (talk) 01:17, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I've added one last question above, but otherwise looks good. Hope you'll keep writing and nominating articles, its getting a bit lonely in the fossil department! FunkMonk (talk) 19:51, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Animalparty? FunkMonk (talk) 19:04, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

This is very close to passing, but I'd like to see if anything can be salvaged from the cut parts. You there? FunkMonk (talk) 20:25, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Not sure where the nominator went, but this is certainly good enough for GA as is, so I will now pass. FunkMonk (talk) 21:16, 14 November 2016 (UTC)