Talk:Aardonyx

Technical terms in this article

Impressively complete and informative article, especially considering that it's only a day or so old. :-)
But as we continue to work on it, I suggest that we keep Wikipedia:Technical terms and definitions in mind: "technical terms or terms of art and jargon ... should be defined or at least alternative language provided [or terms can be linked to explanatory articles], so that a non-technical reader can both learn the terms and understand how they are used by scientists." -- Writtenonsand (talk) 04:23, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Links should definitely be provided for many technical terms, especially the anatomical ones. If we were to include definitions for each term, the article would become very long and probably sound a bit awkward. However, many terms such as "craniolateral process" and "cranial trochanter" are not yet defined in separate Wikipedia articles. Smokeybjb (talk) 19:57, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Thx to all for attention to these concerns (this post and the following). -- Writtenonsand (talk) 12:14, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Entaxonic, Entaxony, Mesaxonic, Mesaxony

Following on the above, I see that the article uses the terms Entaxonic, Entaxony, Mesaxonic, Mesaxony. I don't know if we just want to define these in Aardonyx, or whether we want full articles on any of these, or whether we want to include definitions of them in some other article and make them redirects, or what. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 04:28, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Probably better to define them outside the article, if the terminology is also applicable to other articles. I'm wondering though whether one should have an article per word (keeping in mind this is not a dictionary) or an article with all the paleontological terminology (probably a bit of a tall order). Maybe I'll start with the first and if somebody wants to combine them they are welcome to do it. :-) Alwyn Vorster (talk) 09:16, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Name

The name is interesting. The article explains the macronic meaning of Aardonyx, but what does the celestae signify? Who is Celeste? Rwflammang (talk) 14:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

According to the Proceedings article, celestae is from Celeste Yates, who "prepared many of the bones". I'm not sure who she is, perhaps the wife or relative of Adam Yates? Smokeybjb (talk) 19:48, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I guess if I had followed the sources, I'd have seen this:

The creature was more than 20 feet long, six feet tall at the hip, weighed half a ton, and has been named after the wife of the palaeontologist who led the research.

Celeste Yates spent more than two years, and much of two pregnancies, chipping away at the rock that surrounded the fossil.

Rwflammang (talk) 00:35, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Publication date

For anyone having doubts about the publication date: the date is officially 2009! See the "doi:" after the citation: that is the valid source citation, this address is (theoretically) unchanging, and thus valid. OK, the print version is theoretically required, but the ICZN has defined that the paper version only makes the first version retroactively valid, thus the date is 2009.HMallison (talk) 19:09, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

"the ICZN has defined that the paper version only makes the first version retroactively valid" Where did they do that? I thought it would be major news if the ICZN started recognizing online publication and dois. Not to mention this would validate any number of old cases like Epidendrosaurus, not to mention the huge hubbub around the PLoS ONE publication of Darwinius. Dinoguy2 (talk) 20:21, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I can't find any ICZN change to the code to include dois, and in fact the paper discussed here [1] is only 4 months old. I refuse to believe the ICZN acts that fast ;) Dinoguy2 (talk) 20:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Furthermore, the current version of the code contains this: "8.6. Works produced after 1999 by a method that does not employ printing on paper. For a work produced after 1999 by a method other than printing on paper to be accepted as published within the meaning of the Code, it must contain a statement that copies (in the form in which it is published) have been deposited in at least 5 major publicly accessible libraries which are identified by name in the work itself."

I'm unaware if the online-first version of the Aardonyx paper contained such a statement, but if it didn't, it wasn't published. If one is added to the online version now (would it get a new doi? Biggest pitfall of allowing online publication IMO is this kind of severe impermanence), the date would still be 2010, since that's when the acceptable version was published. This is what happened with Aerosteon, which appeared online in 2009 but wasn't emended with the required statement and print copies distributed until 2009. Dinoguy2 (talk) 20:36, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

No, there is no official statement of actual change to the code, indeed. However, the panel was petitioned, IIRC, over the PLoS One incident, and members stated that post-factum printing in the case of Areosteon does not change the "publication date". There is an amendation under consideration: [[2]], but this is a case of practicality winning over. NOBODY ever suggested, or would suggest, that Nigersaurus was "published" in fall of 2009, with printing of those deplorable 5 dead-tree versions of the 2007 Sereno et al. paper.

OK, I know this appears to be contra factum, a bit like Thomas Aquinus: "credo quia absurdum". But I *am* a vertebrate paelontologist, I *am* actively publishing, and I *can* tell you how the scientific community treats this. And that's the sane way, best expressed in the words of a rather excentric colleague: "If I can get the f***ing PDF, nobody ain't ever stealing that info from me, so what's the fuss about dead trees and SiO2 pressed into round slices?". The ICZN has a long history of reversing previous version, retroactively changing rules to accomodate facts. For example, the rules on what is part of a type series pre-1999 were adapted to the practical use after several changes, and now conform to the actual use, the use that has been standard practice for nearly 50 years. Oops! Similarly, NOBODY will ever use the paper version of an online-only or online-fist paper to determine a date. Why should they? Everyone has the PDF that gets emailed out first :)

So yes, for the bean counters and nit-pickers, it will(!) be 2010 for Aardonyx (and now is actually "in print"), but reality will just pass them by. Factually, it is and always will be 2009.

(I guess you can tell I feel pretty strongly about this "oh no, online! How yucky!" nonsense!) HMallison (talk) 23:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I should note that my edit summary for the reversion of your edit was rather, shall we say: abridged? No offense meant.HMallison (talk) 00:18, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it's jumping the gun to start treating online pub as official for anything that has a DOI. I'm all for online publication but there are issues that have yet to be addressed. What counts as publication? Anything with a DOI? Can I self-publish a PDF on my personal web site, get it a DOI, and name dozens of undescribed specimens based on pics from Google or non-DOI manuscripts? How many people will follow me? I would guess none, and even though I named those taxa first, people will ignore my work. I think the ICZN is in the stone age as much as anybody but there's a reason we need governing bodies that everyone agrees to follow, or everyone will be following their own rules and priority will collapse. Therefore, it's important for everyone to follow one finished set of rules, not change the rules before they're official and then pretend that's all it takes. This is how "Ultrasaurus"es are born. Dinoguy2 (talk) 01:31, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

"NOBODY ever suggested, or would suggest, that Nigersaurus was "published" in fall of 2009, with printing of those deplorable 5 dead-tree versions of the 2007 Sereno et al. paper." I would suggest this is because nobody noticed the dead tree version took so long. When it's something more high-profile like Darwinius, people certainly noticed, and only then did more obscure cases come to light. Officially, Nigersaurus was a nomen manuscriptum for all that time. Luckily nobody else accidentally or maliciously re-named the taxon during that time, or gave new names to any referred specimens, but they easily could have. Authors publishing online should tread very lightly until the ICZN catches up or is disbanded in favor of anarchy, in which case it doesn't matter and I'll simply lump all dinosaur genera into Brontosaurus and go about my day ;) Dinoguy2 (talk) 01:34, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

"Officially, Nigersaurus was a nomen manuscriptum for all that time." – not exactly. Nigersaurus was officially named in this paper in Science, 8 years before the paper in PLoS ONE was published (on-line), so it is valid name since 1999, not 2007 or 2009. ;) Ag.Ent talk 11:38, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

hat's right, my bad. Actually I was just checking the PLoS ONE article and it does not contain the required disclaimer that print copies have been distributed either way. Dinoguy2 (talk) 14:30, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

oops, my mistake about Nigersaurus. If you, dinoguy2, want to nitpick, feel free to :) I'm fine with it, I just have my own nitpicking to do: it is NOT "2010", but "in print". Or do you wish to suggest that dead tree copies distributed by the publisher already exist? ;)HMallison (talk) 21:43, 12 January 2010 (UTC) to clarify: the publisher could burn down, be bombed, go broke, get hacked - there's a thousand (imporbable) reasons why the paper might NOT appear in 2010 on dead, pulped trees. Until it has, it is "in print". Once it has been distributed, it is "2010".HMallison (talk) 21:49, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

*cheekless evolving twice*

Because Chinshakiangosaurus is a more derived sauropodomorph, this suggests that a wide, cheekless gape may have evolved twice in Sauropodomorpha: once with Aardonyx and again , end quote. somehow i have a distrust about this sentence or construction that is postulated in several articles. after all regressive traits in evolution as well as outlying species commonly retain archaic or novel traits. so i checked and guess what, the chinshakiangosaurus article states the opposite, it states that most if not all sauropod remains older than it already lost the cheeks. iotw. that chinshakiangosaurus had probably a retained archaic trait, so is this repeated phenomenon of "evolved twice" (with the minimal genetic sense it makes) some creationist spam? 62.163.114.47 (talk) 21:36, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

It's not "creationist spam." If it was "creationist spam," it would be nonsensical nonsense that was trying to invalidate evolution, i.e., claims of "crocoducks" or how evolutionary biology is magically not necessary for innovation in medicine or oil prospecting. Very rarely, a trait can evolve more than once in a group, like horns and horn-like appendages in artiodactyls, or leglessness in squamate reptiles.--Mr Fink (talk) 23:36, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Is there a source citing evidence that any sauropods had cheeks in the first place? If anything, cheeklessness is undoubtedly the primitive condition for sauropodomorphs. The presence of cheeks in ornithischians is debated, let alone sauropods, which to not have complex teeth. MMartyniuk (talk) 12:57, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

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