Talk:Panthera tigris tigris

subspecies

I would not follow Kitchener et al. in subsuming most mainland tigers into one subspecies. It is an important manuscript, but it is bassically one opinion on tiger systematics. Even if Siberian tigers and Bengal tigers are closely related, they are clearly different. I would stick for the next two years at least to the old systematics. Tradition over new opinons. I think most people will be very confused and we have to keep in mind, that any classification is always a human perspective and will never show the real picture. More importantly Wikipedia should reflect sience and not influence it. Best regards,--Altaileopard (talk) 14:12, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Continental tiger

The term is used in the following:

• Wilting et al 2015 (the paper making the proposal)
• Felines of World (2020) (and extract here)
• WWF (consistently on many pages)
• PBS (following WWF)
• Carolina Tiger Rescue
• Sumanarathna et al 2017
• and a few other places: search

It seems to be gaining traction and there is no other common name that I have seen used. —  Jts1882 | talk  11:09, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Taxoboxes for populations of this subspecies

Right now, the taxoboxes on all the articles about Panthera tigris tigris populations except Caspian tiger are simply incorrect, since the target of the taxobox is the same for all of them, yet they are discussing different taxonomic units. Using the wrong taxobox has several consequences:

• There's no wikilink in the taxobox to the parent taxon of the populations, namely Panthera tigris tigris, which there should be. (Incidentally, this is not a disambiguation page as the banners at present wrongly show; disambiguation pages cannot have taxoboxes, references, etc.)
• The synonyms are incorrectly shown in some cases. Thus currently at Siberian tiger, synonyms are shown as if they were all those of the target of the taxobox, namely Panthera tigris tigris, whereas they actually only apply to Panthera tigris altaica.
• The name (title) of the taxobox does not match the target taxon. A taxobox with the name "Siberian tiger" should target the Siberian tiger, but at present it does not; it targets the subspecies of which the Siberian tiger is a subspecies or clade.
• Where the population is extinct, unless the taxobox targets the population, there's nowhere to put the †.

Since we don't have an automated taxobox for populations, all the taxoboxes need to be changed to manual ones as per Caspian tiger as of now. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:38, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
(P.S. if there were enough articles on populations of subspecies, an automated taxobox template could be written, but I doubt there are enough to justify it.) @Jts1882, Plantdrew, BhagyaMani, SilverTiger12, and YorkshireExpat: pinging relevant editors. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:46, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I altered disambig to stub ~ cygnis insignis 08:10, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

the red list status in the duplicated boxes is another undesirable consequence ~ cygnis insignis 09:02, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

if there must be a box, it ought to be readily distinguishable as notataxobox. The pertinent aspects would be geography, with political boundaries, and their conservation status. The redlist gives a taxonomy of more than two subspecies, flagged there as 'needs updating', whether any sources refer to significant populations within those circumscribed there I don’t know. ~ cygnis insignis 15:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I also checked the IUCN Red Lists of Tiger + Lion today. They both date to BEFORE 2017, i.e. do not yet reflect the 2017 revision of felid taxonomy. And the older assessments of the previously recognised subspecies are anyway replaced by those 2 assessments of the species dating to 2014 and 2016 [2017 errata version], respectively. – BhagyaMani (talk) 16:27, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Good idea to centralise this discussion.

• The wikilink to the subspecies is provided in the first sentences of each population, though I'm not happy with the awkward laborious formulation.
• When the regional tiger populations were subsumed to just 2 subspecies in 2017, each of the pages were so long that we decided to NOT merge them into just 2 pages, but to just adjust the subspecific name in the box. Note that the {{subspeciesbox}} was already in use in each of the pages before 2017. – BhagyaMani (talk) 08:11, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I've created a template to handle this. Following the IUCN Cat SG lumping there are enough examples to justify this just from the lions, tigers and leopards.

Barbary lion
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Suborder:	Feliformia
Family:	Felidae
Subfamily:	Pantherinae
Genus:	Panthera
Species:	P. leo
Subspecies:	P. l. leo
Population:	†Barbary lion

{{Population taxobox
|genus = Panthera
|species = leo
|subspecies = leo
|population = Barbary lion
|extinct=yes
}} 

To make it useful for more of these edge cases, I'm thinking of adding a |population_name= parameter to change the rank column (e.g. for Conservation unit). Also, should the trinomial should be suppressed? —  Jts1882 | talk  08:56, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Perfect!!!! I think it will be useful to allow SHOWing the trinomials. – BhagyaMani (talk) 09:00, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Can you add a parm to this box to make it possible to add 'extinct' for those appropriate? E.g. Cape lion, Caspian + Bali tigers. – BhagyaMani (talk) 09:13, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

You can use |status=EX (if using a conservation status) or |extinct=yes (now in example). The extinct symbol is currently added to the taxobox header, which I'm unsure about.

Again : super! – BhagyaMani (talk) 14:25, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I think the trinomial should not be shown, partly because trinomial refers to more than just the population in question, as mentioned about, but also because it can mislead about the range map. If you look at Siberian tiger, the trinomial serves as a header to the range map for the Siberain tiger, giving the impression than the range map applies to the trinomial. Another option would be to add (partim) to the trimonomial but I think this overcomplicates things. —  Jts1882 | talk  14:04, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I just replaced the box in the Cape lion page + like the new template a lot!! I think it important to make it clear also for the quick readers, i.e. those who only read intro, to which subspecies the population belongs to. But this is covered anyway by the parm |subspecies= in the pop box. KUDOS to you!!– BhagyaMani (talk) 14:25, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Good to have an automated taxobox to remove the need for manual ones. Thanks, Jts1882. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:55, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Fantastic! There are several articles on populations of non-felids with manual taxoboxes. I just switched Dolphin-Union caribou over to the new template.{{Arctos}} has a bunch of bears that are probably best understood as populations, although many have subspeciesbox presenting a formerly recognized subspecies name.

Consider adding |species_link= (and maybe also |subspecies_link=)?

Seeking opinions on whether populations that have been named as subspecies include the subspecies name in |synonyms=?Plantdrew (talk) 23:21, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Gulf Coast jaguarundi is a population; no subspecies of jaguarundi are recognized, so the new templates doesn't work. Plantdrew (talk) 01:03, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I added the template to both pages on jaguar populations, and it does work there. Just leave the parm |subspecies= empty! You can add images + maps using the same paras as in the other boxes. – BhagyaMani (talk) 07:29, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Some comments and replies

• You don't need an empty |subspecies=. It works without, although that was somewhat fortuitous the way I'd originally set it up.
• On former subspecies names, I think it is correct to say Herpailurus yagouaroundi cacomitli is a synonym for the Gulf Coast jaguarundi (and of Herpailurus yagouaroundi in current circumsciption), so the synonyms section seems an apprpriate place for the former subspecies name. An alternative is to use |subheader= as done in the Barbary lion example in {{Population_taxobox/doc}}.
• Are |species_link= and |subspecies_link=) really needed. Redirects should be there is most cases. It's easy enough to add if wanted.
• I was considering {{Informal group}} as a more general purpose template for these edge cases. It could be used for the few taxoboxes currently using {{paraphyletic group}} with the |infraspecies_rank= collection of parameters, as well as for zoological terms like forms and morphs.

—  Jts1882 | talk  11:36, 13 January 2022 (UTC)