User:Giantflightlessbirds/Project Ngārara

The Māori name for reptiles is ngārara. This project is an attempt to update the Wikimedia New Zealand skink and gecko coverage, using Reptiles and Amphibians of New Zealand (1st ed.) (Q76013985) (henceforth RANZ1) as an authoritative reference.

What does a good reptile page look like? The Solomon Islands skink is one, as is tuatara. See WP:Wikiproject Amphibians and Reptiles, and compare with the pages for the UK reptile species Western green lizard, sand lizard, Podarcis muralis.

Common name rather than Latin name, as this is more likely to be stable? No, common names are various and disputed in NZ, except for really well-known species like tuatara.

Taxon	Common name	Aliases	Wikidata	Commons
Sphenodon punctatus	Tuatara	Sphenodon guntheri	Q3007063
Oligosoma waimatense	Scree skink		Scree skink (Q2715510)	Category:Oligosoma waimatense

Wikidata

• Created Reptiles and Amphibians of New Zealand (Q76013945), Reptiles and Amphibians of New Zealand (1st ed.) (Q76013985), and the authors Dylan van Winkel (Q76014685) and Marleen Baling (Q76014924). Rod Hitchmough (Q21391577) already existed.
• Created a Google Sheet for all endemic NZ reptile species
• Work in Open Refine to complete the schema and fill in gaps
• Properties: instance of (taxon); image; taxon name with qualifiers taxon author(s), year of taxon name publication, reference;link to first description/recombination; taxon author citation; taxon rank (species); parent taxon (genus); taxon common name (English); endemic to (New Zealand); type locality; IUCN conservation status; IUCN taxon ID; taxon range map image; Commons category; described by source (Reptiles and Amphibians 1st ed); NZTCS conservation status
• And a bunch of identifiers: ADW taxon ID; ARKive ID; Catalogue of Life ID; Encyclopedia of Life ID; Freebase ID; GBIF taxon ID; IRMNG ID; iNaturalist taxon ID; Microsoft Academic ID; New Zealand Organisms Register ID; NCBI taxonomy ID; NZTCS ID; Observation.org ID; Plazi ID; The Reptile Database ID; uBio ID; ZooBank ID for name or act.

Lists

• Reptiles of NZ: To revise based on RANZ1. Overview of extinct and living reptiles.
• Sort out the list of NZ Oligosoma species so everything's included, not just the Reptile Database entries. See diff. Done by Siobhan 31/7/22

Wikipedia articles to fix

• Chevron skink: could add Hardy reference, maybe initial description, move to correct capitalisation, add DOC 2002 status and changes
• Macgregor's Skink: Fix the article name (!), and add more info from Jewell
• Add info on Open Bay Islands leech, skink, gecko based on Colin's blog post.

Template

• {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2020}} {{en-NZ|date=May 2020}}
• Speciesbox: good close-up mugshot, conservation status using NZ TCS (Hitchmough ref), classification, binomial (w linked authority name), nice range map, synonyms w ref(s).
• Nomenclature, if there are common or Māori names
• Taxonomy (covers etymology, includes taxonomic history)
• Description (including how to tell them apart form similar species) including subspecies
• Biology (subheadings ecology, behaviour, reproduction or just cover topics)
• Distribution and habitat (important; also why distribution maps will be important)
• Conservation
• Gallery, if needed
• See also: List of reptiles of New Zealand
• References
• Further reading: general books/papers not cited?
• External links: Wikimedia Commons, authority list, Critter of the Week appearance, other external links relating to NZ reptiles?