Talk:Paleofauna of the Messel Formation

Expansion

This page can be expanded upon by using the book "Messel: An Ancient Greenhouse Ecosystem" by Smith, Schaal and Habersetzer, 2018. I do not have first hand access to most of the book, limiting how much I could contribute to topics (primarily insect life) described within said book. Armin Reindl (talk) 19:21, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Species entries

Armin Reindl You have reverted my edits (multiple ones), with the note that bird and insects species don't (currently) have individual entries. I plan on moving them to individual entries as well, to match that of the other Paleobiota in articles (EG Burmese amber, Okanagan Highlands, and Paleofauna of the Messel Formation). It doesn't make sense to shoehorn taxa with differing histories and notes into a single line, especially when there are images and information unique to each species.--Kevmin § 16:00, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

The reversion of the other edits was not intended. Regardless splitting the genera to give each species its own entry only clutters the page and makes it less cohesive and harder to understand for the average person trying to read the list. Especially given there is not much to say about most of these. After all generally fossil species don't get their own entries either. Additionally, if each species is listed separately the whole genus/species collumns would be practically rendered redundant. Listing all species together in the species collumn is easier to understand and not a huge detriment for information. Armin Reindl (talk) 17:01, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Have to agree with Armin here. The species are clearly listed behind the genera, so adding them seperately would only serve to clutter the page and make it more confusing. If one of a genus' species is really different it can be mentioned in the notes section of the table. TimTheDragonRider (talk) 17:08, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Cluttered how? Right now the notes sections are not distinct for genera with multiple taxa, and as I have noted the precedent has already been set by other paleobiota articles. This does seem a bit vertebrate-centric of a structural choice, coming from a history of invertebrate and botanical article writing, where there is a much greater likelihood for mutiple species being placed into the same genera, whereas vertebrates are rarer and much more frequently split into segregate genera.

...whole genus/species collumns would be practically rendered redundant. How? This is destinctly an odd statement, lets take the Macropunctum entry for example. As it stand now you have 7 species from 5 different taxonomic treatments all placed into the same entry, with not discussion at all other than "A genus of click beetle" (which in itself is inacuurate as its 7 species of click beetles). Listing the 7 into separate entries would actually allow for accurate use of the notes section. Also it prevents the problem that currently is happening with the Cyrtopone, Europolemur, Pachycondyla, Paraprefica, Protopone etc. entries, namely which species is that fossil OF? I am not convinced that "clutter" is a moving pov, given that its used very effectively already in many lists.--Kevmin § 19:15, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Simply put the list is just meant to be an overview of the ecosystem. Having all species united in a single element for the genus means that you get a sense of all the species present at a single glance while reducing space taken up, rather than have half a clade filled up my members of a single genus. All elaboration on what makes them distinct is not the job of the list but the job of the article on the genus itself. There are formations that have 17 species within a single genera, giving them all their own space would just render the whole thing incredibly inconvenient and convoluted to read for any non-expert on the matter. And in the long run the job of Wikipedia is to communicate information in a simple way. My comment on redundancy meanwhile refers to the fact that why separate into genus and species if you're just gonna separate them entirely anyways. If you do that there is no point in having a column for genera (while in the format I had worked on you can immediately tell how many species of a single genus were present). The fact that not every single species is discussed is negligable, again because that's simply not the job of the list but the job of the individual articles for said genera. The notes are here utilized to give some basic info about the animals to give the reader a general idea, if they want more detail, well, go to the individual article. And as far as "which species is the fossil of" that SHOULD be mentioned in the image description. Click on the image and the information is apparent enough, and if that information is not included in the photo data and not otherwise determinable, then giving the individual species their own spaces won't make that any better. Armin Reindl (talk) 19:09, 3 July 2022 (UTC)