Talk:Indian giant squirrel

Secondary and Tertiary Sources and Capitalization

I have changed the name of the page from Indian Giant Squirrel to Indian giant squirrel. The convention in mammal studies is unanimously not to capitalize; in other words, the capitalization so common in bird classification does not carry over to mammal studies. I am adding below a list of secondary and tertiary sources. (I will obviously need to take this up on a Wikipedia-wide level since a number of mammal pages have already been capitalized.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

• Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, 3rd Edition. Don E.Wilson and DeeAnn M. Reeder (eds.). Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2005, 2,142 pp., 2 vols., ISBN 0-8018-8221-4. In the review of MSW3 by B. D. Patterson (J Mammal Evol (2007) 14:67–69 DOI 10.1007/s10914-006-9022-6), Patterson states, "Like its predecessors, the third edition of Mammal Species of the World (MSW3) is a product of the Checklist Committee of the American Society of Mammalogists. ... Information in each account of MSW3 follows a standard format that lists sequentially: scientific name, author, year and publication details; common name; type locality, sometimes verbatim but more often standardized; distribution, listing all range countries in which the species occurs; conservation status, denoting the most recent CITES, U.S. ESA, and/or IUCN listing for the species; any designated synonyms (including their authorship and year of publication) and recognized subspecies; and comments, ... The potential to link the edition’s rich taxonomic information with the extensive biological details of Walker’s Mammals of the World (also published by Johns Hopkins) and with the IUCN’s assessments of species status and threats is rich."

Sources that do not capitalize:

Expand for excerpts from Ernest P. Walker's Mammals of the World, (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2-volume set). Articles on: "lion," "cheetah," "cougar," "clouded leopard," "snow leopard," "indri," "avahi," "sifaka," "woolly opossum," "black-shouldered opossum," and "mountain gorilla." Nomenclature based on MSW. Note, however, that English names are not capitalized in the text:

Here are excerpts from Ernest P. Walker's Mammals of the World, (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2-volume set, 2015 pages. 1,550 illustrations. 1999 edition), one of the pre-eminent reference guides on the subject. The title of each article is given first (before the colon). Note that the English name might be capitalized in the title, but never in the text. When discussing the geographic distribution (whether current or historical) the Latin species name is used; the rest of the time the English name in lower-case letters is used. However, the English names are never capitalized. I have put the English common names in boldface for easy recognition, they are not in boldface in the text itself. "Panthera leo (lion): ... The preferred habitats of the lion are grassy plains, savannahs, open woodlands, ... The lion readily enters trees, by jumping but is not an adept climber ... In the Serengeti most lions remain in a single area throughout ... The lion usually hunts by slow stalk ... The lion eats anything it can catch and kill, but it depends ... a lion may rest in the vicinity of the carcass for ..." "Acinonyx jubatus (Cheetah): ... An additional species, A. rex (king cheetah) was described in 1927 ... The habitat of the cheetah varies ... The cheetah is capable of climbing and often plays about in trees ... Unlike most cats, the cheetah usually does not ambush ..." "Felis concolor (cougar, puma, panther, or mountain lion): The names cougar, puma, panther, and mountain lion are used interchangeably for this species, ... The cougar has the greatest natural distribution of any mammal in the Western Hemisphere except Homo sapiens ... The cougar is agile and has great jumping ... The cougar carefully stalks its prey and may leap ... Density was about 1 adult cougar per ..." CARNIVORA; FELIDAE; Genus NEOFELIS (Clouded Leopard): The range of the single species, N. nebulosa, extends from central Nepal ... The clouded leopard inhabits various kinds of forest ... The clouded leopard is classified as vulnerable by the IUCN ..." "Panthera uncia (snow leopard): ... The snow leopard is found in the high mountains of ... Population density estimates across the range of P. uncia vary from ... Socially the snow leopard is thought to be like the tiger, essentially solitary but ... The snow leopard does not roar but has several vocalizations ... The snow leopard is classified as endangered ..." "PRIMATES; INDRIIDAE; Genus INDRI (Indri): The single species, I. indri, now occurs in northeastern Madagascar ... The indri inhabits coastal and montane ... The most characteristic vocalization of the indri is ... the indri was considered to be of the highest priority for conservation attention ..." "PRIMATES; INDRIIDAE; Genus AVAHI (Avahi, or Woolly Lemur): ... The avahi is classified as endangered by the USDI and is appendix I ... Unlike many primates, the avahi is extremely difficult to keep in captivity ..." "PRIMATES; INDRIIDAE; Genus PROPITHECUS (Sifaka): ... In warm weather the sifakas slept at noon ... She studied sifakas in both the northern and southern part of their range ... Based on such behavior, Richard (1985) suggested that sifaka groups are primarily ...." "Genus CALUROMYS (Woolly Opossums): ... Some forms are pale gray or otherwise not well marked, but woolly opossums usually have an ornate color pattern ...." "Genus CALUROMYIDAE (Black-shouldered Opossum): ... The black-shouldered opossum is thought to inhabit humid forests ..." "Mountain Gorilla: ... A third subspecies, G. g. beringei (mountain gorilla), is restricted to the six extinct volcanoes of the Virunga Range ... Harcourt and Stewart (1984) determined that the mountain gorilla spends about 45 percent of the day ..."

• IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. See their Species Information: Neofelis nebulosa (Clouded Leopard). Note that in the taxonomy section, they write the common names in block capitals: CLOUDED LEOPARD (E), PANTHÈRE LONGIBANDE (F), PANTHÈRE NÉBULEUSE (F), PANTERA DEL HIMALAYA (S); however, in their detailed documentation, "clouded leopard" is not capitalized. (e.g. " The clouded leopard historically had a wide distribution in China, south of the Yangtze ... The clouded leopard is found from eastern foothills of the Himalayas through most of southeast Asia ..." (Boldfacing mine.)
• Macdonald, David. 2006. The Encyclopedia of Mammals (searchable on Amazon). Facts on File. 976 pages. ISBN 0199206082. (David Macdonald is Professor of Wildlife Conservation at the University of Oxford, Founder and Director of the Wildlife Conservation Unit at Oxford, and creator of the documentary Meerkats United.) The only instances of capitalization are either in the titles of articles or in the table of contents, but never in the text. This goes for all mammal species, big and small, well known and little known.
• Gould, Edwin, George McKay, and David S. Kirschner. 1998. Encyclopedia of Mammals. Academic Press. ISBN 0122936701. (See index on Amazon). (Edwin Gould is Curator Emeritus of the National Zoo, Smithsonian Institution, after 16 years as Head of the Department of Mammalogy.)
• Perrin, William F., Bernd Wursig, and J. G. M. Thewissen. 2002. Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals (Searchable on Amazon). Academic Press. 1414 pages. ISBN 0125513402. (William Perrin is with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)).
• Mammalian Species published by the American Society of Mammalogists, with 25-35 individual species accounts issued each year. Each uniform account summarizes the current understanding of the biology of an individual species including systematics, distribution, fossil history, genetics, anatomy, physiology, behavior, ecology, and conservation. The accounts vary from 2-14 pages depending upon what is known about the species (See their editorial board here; it includes Kristofer M. Helgen, Division of Mammals, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.)
• Journal of Mammalogy also published by the American Society of Mammalogists. (ISSN 1545-1542, Bimonthly, the journal the flagship publication of the American Society of Mammalogists. Published since 1919, the highly respected international scientific journal promotes interest in mammals throughout the world by the publication of original and timely research on all aspects of the biology of mammals; e.g., ecology, genetics, conservation, behavior, and physiology.) Read the abstracts here. Not capitalizing vernacular or common names has been a long-standing convention in the journal. Here is the relevant instruction from the Suggestions for Preparation of Manuscripts Page, Journal of Mammalogy, Vol. 16, No. 1. (Feb., 1935), "3. Do not capitalize vernacular names of animals or plants. Examples: raccoon; song sparrow; red maple."

• Schmidt, Karl P. 1947. Review: Mammals of Eastern Asia by G. H. H. Tate, Science, New Series, Vol. 105, No. 2730., pp. 451-452. Quote: "A curious vagary of the typography is the capitalization of the most familiar animal group names, such as Bat, Cat, Wolf, etc., together with common names in general. This is entirely contrary to modern zoological practice, as may be seen by reference to the Journal of Mammalogy or Webster's Dictionary."
• Mammal Review, published by The Mammal Society. Read their table of contents and abstracts (and one free pdf) here

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Sciurus

The image captions should have the subspecies in the genus Ratufa. I made this change once, but it was reverted with a vague reference to historical usage. I can't imagine a reason why we would prefer an outdated synonym for our image captions over present usage. Any objections to changing them to Ratufa again? --Aranae 16:28, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I've fixed the problem. The reason for mentioning Sciurus is that the illustrations themselves mention only "Sciurus," so if our caption says only Ratufa, it gets confusing to the uninitiated reader. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I further changed the captions to remove the innaccurate subspecies name of Ratufa indicus malabaris (which doesn't exist). --Saukkomies ^talk 06:10, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Subspecies

Given that naming populations is always fraught with the usual problems of drawing lines, this section does not need to dwell on the four versus five subspecies treatments. It would be easier to mention the names used, their original geographic range demarcations (which I doubt were actually clear to the authors themselves) and the fact that the distinctions are unclear rather than using a table that gives an inaccurate depiction of "clearly defined treatments" ( apart from having redundant entries). Shyamal (talk) 06:33, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. Go for it! :) --Saukkomies ^talk 07:31, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Will try, need to unearth some of the literature first. Shyamal (talk) 07:56, 31 March 2010 (UTC)