Merge proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of this discussion was unanimous and immediate support for the merge. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 01:48, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The article "List of informally named pterosaurs" is proposed for merging into this article. Discussion at WT:PAL has led to a consensus (as far as I can tell) that the List of informally named dinosaurs is sufficiently notable in its content to warrant a separate article. However, the length of the pterosaur article compared to this article does not warrant its coverage as a standalone list. Furthermore, the separating of "pterosaurs" from all other Mesozoic reptiles runs contrary to WP:SALAT which suggests avoiding creating lists that are overly specific in their content. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 05:35, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merge per nom. Ta-tea-two-te-to (talk) 06:08, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support merge, per nomination. -SlvrHwk (talk) 15:05, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support merge per nomination. Junsik1223 (talk) 15:35, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. FunkMonk (talk) 08:24, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support merge as per the nomination. Harold9595959 (talk) 18:26, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Possible entries

I don't have much time now, but through the Unnamed Reptilia fossils category on Commons[1], I found some images of nicknamed taxa that could perhaps be included (and there are possibly more). FunkMonk (talk) 00:00, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

FunkMonk (talk) 00:00, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Courtenay elasmosaur" ("Puntledge elasmosaur"), "Blockley plesiosaur" (which was described as "Raptocleidus" in 2012 thesis) and "Nakagawa-Kubinagaryu" are now included. I can't find a formal literature that describes "Addyman Plesiosaur" yet but will include it later if I manage to do it, though I'm not sure of how to include "Sereno's African Pterosaur" (is this one of the specimens that Paul Sereno described in press release but never published in formal literature?). Junsik1223 (talk) 14:38, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good! Yeah, the African pterosaur is the one Sereno even had a model made of.[2][3] Still don't know what the material really was. FunkMonk (talk) 18:14, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Searched more on Sereno's African pterosaur, and at least I found a footage in a 2005 documentary of his team's discovery (around 20-21 min), and it is indeed a partial wing bone (we can see a clear view of the specimen between 29:20 and 30:30). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duB6qdtGVeA Not sure how helpful this info would be though. Junsik1223 (talk) 19:29, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Think there are enough reliable sources for an entry? FunkMonk (talk) 19:33, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If we include this abstract then I guess so. From what I read, this partial wing is probably the anhanguerid partial wing mentioned in the 2002 abstract by Blackburn and Sereno (2002). https://www.miketaylor.org.uk/tmp/svp-abstracts/SVP%202002%20abstracts.pdf
"TWO EARLY CRETACEOUS PTEROSAURS FROM AFRICA BLACKBURN, David, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138. The Aptian-aged Elrhaz Formation of Niger has yielded many fossil vertebrates, including dinosaurs, crocodyliforms, turtles, and fish. Recent excavations produced two new pterodactyloid pterosaur specimens. These represent the only documented pterosaurian appendicular material from Africa. Both specimens are uncrushed. One specimen, a fairly complete left humerus, resembles those of tapejaroids such as Quetzalcoatlus, Tapejara, Bennettazhia, and a form from the Glen Rose Formation of Texas. The other specimen is an incomplete right wing. Characters such as an “ornithocheiroid” carpus and reduced metacarpals II and III suggest that the wing specimen be assigned to the Anhangueridae. African pterosaurs are mostly represented by teeth, cervical vertebrae, and very fragmentary cranial remains. These two appendicular specimens provide the best evidence for the African presence of tapejaroids and anhanguerids during the Early Cretaceous. As both clades are known from the Early Cretaceous of South America, this new evidence supports the idea of faunal continuity of vertebrate taxa between Africa and South America during the Early Cretaceous" Junsik1223 (talk) 19:36, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds very likely, but perhaps original research to connect the two... FunkMonk (talk) 19:39, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's a bit unfortunate then. At least we can know when the African pterosaur specimen is discovered. Paul Sereno's update on his 2000 Niger expedition shows that the pterosaur specimen is discovered in that expedition (https://paulsereno.uchicago.edu/journal/update_on_dinosaur_discoveries_from_paul_sereno_october_3_2000/) and the Chicago Chronicle news back in 2000 shows an interview of Blackburn in Sereno's team where he recounted the pterosaur partial wing discovery as one of his best memories also confirms this (https://chronicle.uchicago.edu/001130/niger.shtml).
My suggestion is that if we were to include this specimen, we can note that it isn't explicitly/officially stated which type of pterosaur the specimen is supposed to represent, and then we can write separate sentences below which cite the above mentioned abstract and the news articles/updates on uchicago websites about the pterosaur discoveries by Sereno's 2000 Niger expedition (just to make sure the section doesn't come off as original research). Something like in this way:
File:African pterosaur.jpg|Model of Sereno's African pterosaur
The "African pterosaur" is a pterosaur specimen from the Early Cretaceous of Niger, which was reported by Paul Sereno's team. The specimen is stated to be a partial wing, which is the first known in Africa. Although it is unstated which type of pterosaur it belongs to, it is noted to be similar to the pterosaurs known from Brazil of South America, and had a wingspan of 5 meters (16 feet).[cite 2003 Science Daily news] In his update blog of the 2000 Niger Expedition, Sereno mentioned that his team found evidence of a large pterosaur specimen.[cite Sereno's 2000 update] In his 2000 interview, David Blackburn who participated in that expedition recounted the pterosaur partial wing discovery.[cite Blackburn interview] He later discussed about the Elrhaz Formation pterosaur specimens in a 2002 conference abstracts, stated to be the "only documented pterosaurian appendicular material from Africa", with the left humerus belonging to a tapejaroid and the partial wing belonging to an anhanguerid.[cite 2002 abstract] Junsik1223 (talk) 20:51, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that would be ok. By the way, that Flickr photo is clearly from the GIANTS exhibition mentioned in the Sereno sources, if you look at the photos[4] after it in the stream. FunkMonk (talk) 22:33, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where does this leave Mesozoic birds (and others)?

Considering the informally named dinosaurs list excludes birds, where should they be covered (though I doubt there are so many possible entries anyway)? And now we're at it, this list is currently many times shorter than the dinosaur list, so could it make sense to expand the scope further somehow? FunkMonk (talk) 08:44, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As things stand, informally-named birds should be on the dinosaurs page. Birds in general tend to get descriptions quickly because the fossils are small and generally either very complete or way too fragmentary to even bother naming informally. Regarding expanding the scope, we could either expand it to all Mesozoic amniotes or to include reptiles from the Paleozoic and Cenozoic. I think the latter is probably more reasonable given that the subject matter of the page is already "reptiles". A Cynical Idealist (talk) 22:49, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The dinosaur list specifically states that it excludes birds, hence the issue. And if we include them, do we include post-Mesozoic birds also? FunkMonk (talk) 05:30, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The simplest solutions would just be to either create a new article either for all informal Cenozoic taxa (including birds, reptiles, and mammals), or else create an article for just birds that includes all Mesozoic and Cenozoic birds. The latter would lead to a much less balanced list length, but I'm not sure that actually matters since the existence of Cenozoic birds means the argument for merging them that was made for pterosaurs doesn't really apply. A Cynical Idealist (talk) 08:03, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_informally_named_Mesozoic_reptiles
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