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

Nominator: PrimalMustelid (talk · contribs) 00:31, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: ZKevinTheCat (talk · contribs) 06:20, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Beginning the GA review.
—ZKevinTheCat

Notes

• What do you mean by 'formal diagnosis'?

Tried giving more of an explanation. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:18, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• There is a lot of anatomical jargon in the description section that really needs to be cleared up. Can you clarify what the 'fronto-parietal suture', ' pars facialis ', 'medial position', and 'frontonasal suture', 'troclea', and 'sustentacular facet' are?

Explained the listed terms. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:18, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I would suggest removing the sentence There is no difference between amphimerycids in terms of the orbits, suggesting based on their morphologies that the snouts of both genera are elongated It's not really necessary (the orbits were already talked about in the previous sentence) and is unclear. Their snouts are elongated compared to what?

Removed. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:18, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• the morphology of the astragalus of P. renevieri further attests to anatomical support of the fused bone kind of comes out of nowhere. Nowhere before or after this does it mention the 'anatomical support' of the fused bones, so I don't why the words 'further attests' are used here. It would also be a good idea to explain why this is an anatomical advantage instead of simply stating it as so.

It literally is referenced though: "Both amphimerycid genera are best known by the "cubonavicular" bone (fused cuboid bone and navicular bone of the hind legs) recorded in multiple species". PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:18, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• The numbered digits are a little confusing. What digit corresponds to what number (are they numbered right to left, left to right, etc...?)

I mean, "left to right" views can be taken from multiple different perspectives unlike with "digit II" still being that regardless of the perspective you view it from, so make of that what you will I suppose. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:18, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• The lists of animals in the ecology section is extremely excessive

I suppose I can leave those to the respective genus pages. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:18, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• What exactly does 'abrasive vegetation' mean?

Physically tough vegetation. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:18, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll stop here for now, but there is still more things to be covered.

@ZKevinTheCat Addressed the first round of issues. Let me know when you have additional suggestions. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:20, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a bit busy this week so I might be slow with this review. I'll make a few small notes here in the mean time.

• A lot of the talk in the taxonomy sections about the phylogenetic trees don't mention Amphimerycidae. I removed some unecessary imformation (info not about the family) from the last paragraph, but the first two are basically completely seperate from the topic and need to be added to.
  • I think it's fine, though? I just gave a short and concise history of the Amphimerycidae and its two genera, and there's not much else to write about the taxonomic history. A short review should suffice fine. PrimalMustelid (talk) 05:27, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• The trees are also quite hefty and it would be helpful if you added daggers (†) to extinct groups or highlighted living groups.
  • Well, that's not typically something we do for paleontology articles, plus the relevant genus/family is highlighted already (also as referenced in-text, all are Paleogene taxa, which are all obviously extinct). PrimalMustelid (talk) 05:27, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@ZKevinTheCat I’m guessing that we’re not too far from addressing remaining issues in the article, so can we continue the review soon? PrimalMustelid (talk) 23:08, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm requesting a second opinion for this article. The prose in this article has me divided; it is highly technical, which may be inappropriate for GA. I can't decide whether this is enough for a failure or not though.
—ZKevinTheCat

I suppose that I do understand your concerns here, and it's not really the first time this issue has been brought up to me. However, for these incredibly niche paleontology taxa, it's kind of... necessary? Especially for fossil mammals in general, since these are limited remains that are described, so it requires a lot of technical explanations in regard to anatomy and phylogeny. That said, there is a reason why very few people here write about most fossil taxa, especially mammals. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:35, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@ZKevinTheCat:@PrimalMustelid: Please allow me to offer a second opinion. My understanding of WP:NOT is that there is no issue with using "advanced terms and concepts" as long as the reader can "infer their meaning from the text". Based on this reading, the principle of WP:ONEDOWN and an understanding of MOS:ORGANISMS, accepting this is still a work in progress, I believe that the technical level of this article meets the requirements of 1a and is not a hindrance to it being promoted to a GA. simongraham (talk) 20:46, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]