Talk:Condylarthra

Latest comment: 5 months ago by Jerium in topic Requested move 13 November 2023

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I just discovered from Google Books that Arctocyon primaevus is also the name of a species of mite. Looks like somebody needs to be renamed? 153.2.246.30 (talk) 00:55, 13 April 2010 (UTC)Reply

I intended to replace some unsourced content in the article with the information below, but failed to incorporate it. I drop it here on the talk page just in case a more bold contributor might drop by. --Fama Clamosa (talk) 07:44, 18 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

At the end of the Cretaceous, i.e. the "dinosaur era", archaic mammal ungulates evolved alongside multituberculates and other insectivorous and omnivorous mammals, and survived the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event 65 mya. These ungulates are known as condylarths (condyle articulation) because their limb joints were related to the ungulate way of locomotion. They retained a basic, non-specialized anatomy with short limbs ending in a fived-toed foot. Their proximal limb bones (the humerus and femur) were roughly the same length as their distal limb bones (the radius and tibia) in contrast to the elongated distal limbs of modern artiodactyls and perissodactyls.

Some of the earliest forms of Cenozoic (65 mya to present) condylarths, such as the arctocyonids and mesonychids, were probably non-specialized omnivores that could act as predators and carrion-eaters and have therefore been classified as either primitive ungulates, i.e. condylarths, or primitive carnivores, i.e. creodonts. Small Cretaceous forms of arctocyonids, such as the North American Protungulatum, radiated into other groups, such as mesonychids, hyopsodontids, and meniscotherids.

  • Agusti, Jordi; Anton, Mauricio (2002). Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids: 65 Million Years of Mammalian Evolution in Europe. Columbia University Press. p. 7. ISBN 0231116403.

Update source edit

Find updated source which does not consider condylarths as ancestral to Afrotheria because that runs contrary to the latest understanding of mammalian phylogenetics.

"Due to their primitive characteristics condylarths have been considered ancestral to several ungulate orders, including the living Artiodactyla, Cetacea, Perissodactyla, Hyracoidea, Sirenia, and Proboscidea, as well as the extinct Desmostylia, Embrithopoda, Litopterna, Notoungulata, and Astrapotheria.[6]"

This must be outdated information. 2A02:1812:1126:5D00:8427:EB:4AF4:68EC (talk) 08:28, 21 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 13 November 2023 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Page moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jerium (talk) 17:25, 20 November 2023 (UTC)Reply


CondylarthCondylarthra – The order is now basically abandoned, but nonetheless, similar to Pachydermata and Insectivora, the page should prioritize taxonomic names over taxonomic term versions. PrimalMustelid (talk) 16:59, 13 November 2023 (UTC)Reply

  • Comment: you say prioritise taxonomic terms, but presumably this is not now a taxonomic term. YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:21, 14 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
  • Support I'd be sympathetic to an argument to not use formal taxon names in order to indicate that an entity is not a formal taxon (I'd also be sympathetic to an argument not to use a ending that indicates a taxon rank when something is being treated as an unranked clade). But what appears to be the case here (and for many other palaeontological taxa that ARE good taxa) is that in the early days of Wikipedia editors decided to use informal jargony shorthand instead of formal taxon names on the grounds that WP:COMMONNAME mandates using any title that is not the scientific name (even if that title is less commonly used than the scientific name). That was a dumb decision then and remains a dumb decision now. Plantdrew (talk) 22:59, 14 November 2023 (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.