Talk:African wild ass

Population

Is anyone familiar enough to speak to their current population, what pressures they're facing, and what their outlook is? SG

They are in very serious trouble in the wild. In fact they might already be extinct there. The problems are hunting and interbreeding with feral domestic donkeys. The wars and instability going on in the region make the situation more difficult. Steve Dufour 18:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Species name

Every authority that I have seen says that there is one species Equus asinus which includes the Somali wild ass and the Nubian wild ass as subspecies. The domestic donkey is descended from the Nubian wild ass and is the same species. The Nubian wild ass is now totally extinct. I have changed the article to reflect this. Also the article on the Somali wild ass. I hope this is ok with everyone. Steve Dufour 18:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, every authority you've seen is outdated. The name Equus asinus is invalid, except in non-zoological circles where domesticated animals are still considered separate species to the wild ones they immediately descend from, and then it is only used to refer to domestic Donkeys/Burros. Here's a link for you: http://www.iucnredlist.org/search/details.php/7949/summ IUCN is about as current as it gets. They have their crap together, unlike much of the non-biological, and unfortunately, biological community. And if there's still a taxonomic dispute going on, they generally reference it, such as with E. quagga (though that dispute is pretty much settled). Also, you should be aware that when a domestic animal has a wild living ancestor, it doesn't matter if the domestic was named first or not. The wild name takes precedent. So, even though Donkeys and Wild Asses belong to the same specy, the Wild Ass' scientific name goes to both of them, not the Donkey's. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aunukia (talk • contribs) 08:00, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

OK, somebody keeps adding "alexandra gimple" to the top of the taxbox, where the common name is. I changed it last night, but it came back, so I changed it again. Semi-protect? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.137.161.44 (talk) 12:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC).

A Bit of New Work Soon

Hi, I am actually part of a research project conducted by Prof. Fiona Marshall at Washington University that is performing some of the first real research on the wild asses in a very long time. I do not have time right now, but in a few days I am going to go over this article and revisit a few issues, such as the historic distribution of the animal and the possible continued survival of the Nubian wild ass (in the Red Sea foothills, which are unaccessible to researchers due to land mines), and try to expand the sections on diet and behavior. Ben Mudd, Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis128.252.93.146 19:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism and protection

I have broken down and semi-protected this page after watching its edit history for probably close to a year. It is subject to persistent puerile vandalism, and unless schoolboys unexpectedly change character there is no reason to expect the vandalism to abate in the least. I have examined each edit since the first of this year, and the few productive edits seem to have been exclusively by logged-in users. They would not have been inconvenienced by semi-protection had it already been in place, so this is overdue, IMHO. --Kbh3^rdtalk 03:24, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

i think it was funny when i herd about it. my whole science class was laughing when a girl in my class said that she wanted to do the African Wild Ass as her project.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.169.132.2 (talk • contribs)

Quod erat demonstrandum. --Kbh3^rdtalk 19:39, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned references in African wild ass

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of African wild ass's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "WeinstockMolecularPerspective":

• From Onager: Weinstock, J.; et al. (2005). "Evolution, systematics, and phylogeography of Pleistocene horses in the New World: a molecular perspective". PLoS Biology. 3 (8): e241. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030241. PMC 1159165. PMID 15974804. Retrieved 2008-12-19.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
• From Equus (genus): Weinstock, J.; et al. (2005). "Evolution, systematics, and phylogeography of Pleistocene horses in the New World: a molecular perspective". PLoS Biology. 3 (8): e241. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0030241. PMC 1159165. PMID 15974804. Retrieved 2008-12-19.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 17:07, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Move undone

I have undone this move. "Someone might be offended by the name" is NOT a valid reason for moving an article. African wild ass is by far the more common usage [1] than African wild donkey [2], and that's what we should go by. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:32, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Elmidae! I came here to do the same thing, pleased to find it already done. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:15, 12 April 2020 (UTC)