Talk:Spinosauridae

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Maronaut.

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picture

is there any pic for spinosauridae? can we put reference from jurassic park 3 movie? i remember there's spinosaurus in that movie. HoneyBee 22:22, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Is this picture really the best choice? the one I'm viewing seems to be an artistic sculpt in some Asian museum, not an actual representation... the inaccuracies are appalling.Agwanier (talk) 01:01, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

We could always use one of the nearly equally artistic sculpts of Suchomimus... spinosaurids are a very poorly known group, any museum mount will have a lot of guesswork and sculpting involved. The only error here that I can see is the upper jaw is too robust, but I wonder how much individual variation could account for that, as many undescribed specimens seem to have more robust jaws than the dal Sasso skull. MMartyniuk (talk) 01:47, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

merging

Shouldn't this be merged with spinosaurid (spinosauridae is the plural of spinosaurid)? 20:33, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

other fish eaters

[1]

habitat

I created a new section talking bout this new 2010 study Amiot, R., Buffetaut, E., Lécuyer, C., Wang, X., Boudad, L., Ding, Z., Fourel, F., Hutt, S.,Martineau, F., Medeiros, A., Mo, J., Simon, L., Suteethorn. 2010. Oxygen isotope evidence for semi-aquatic habits among spinosaurid theropods. Geology, 38, 139-142. http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/38/2/139 Spinosaurids were semiaquatic —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brisio (talk • contribs) 20:38, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Saw that; I did some massaging of the text to add some detail and make it less just the end of the abstract. J. Spencer (talk) 03:53, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Asiamericane is definitively not a spinosaurid. It's probably more closely related to Richardoestesia (whatever the latter is) Mortimer pinted it out with some nice papers that should be mentioned here, imo http://home.comcast.net/~eoraptor/Dromaeosaurs.htm#Richardoestesiaasiatica —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brisio (talk • contribs) 16:16, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Campanian-Maastrichtian record

On another wiki page it states that their is a Spinosaurid fossil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maevarano_Formation#Dinosaurs. If it is true than we could extend the temporal range. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.242.105.47 (talk) 04:16, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Said "spinosaurid" fossil is indetermined and may or may not actually be a spinosaurid. The temporal range should not be adjusted until said fossil's identity as a spinosaurid is confirmed.--Mr Fink (talk) 04:59, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

New image?

Given the new Spinosaurus that's been published by Ibrahim et al., should the image of Spinosaurus here be changed to another image (e.g. another spinosaur, or Spinosaurus as it currently is on its own page)? Lythronaxargestes (talk) 05:37, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

The New One

The Sigilmassasaurus... So its well known subject now... Should we add the new spinosauroid to this page ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dredann (talk • contribs) 22:58, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Classification confusion

Ichthyovenator laosensis is listed in the classification diagram twice, in the subfamilies Baryonychinae and Spinosaurinae. I suppose only one of these can be correct.92.29.248.209 (talk) 16:54, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Well spotted! Reference added under Baryonychinæ; duplicate under Spinosaurinæ removed.—Odysseus1479 20:06, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Class Project edits

Hi, I have a class wikipedia assignment to edit this article. I'm adding a lot of stuff to a version of it in Word that I plan to post to the body of the article as soon as it's graded. Maronaut (talk) 07:59, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Possible Early Jurassic Spinosaurs

http://www.dinosaurhome.com/extending-the-temporal-range-of-the-spinosauridae-14490.html. I'm just going to add temporal range of possibly starting 170mya. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.68.87.67 (talk) 10:55, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

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Someone keeps recreating the Australian Spinosaurid article

It appears User:Bubblesorg does not want to let go of the article he created even though there was a consensus on it being merged with Spinosauridae, he keeps recreating the page and has even gone as far as to revert some of my edits on this article as some sort of 'comeback' and has started an edit war. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ (Contribs) 03:37, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Update: He looks to have stopped but someone might still want to notify him/her about this to keep them from doing something like it in the future. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ (Contribs) 07:38, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I have placed the redirect under extended confirmed protection in order to enforce the AfD result. I also left a note at Bubblesorg's user talk page. Mz7 (talk) 08:27, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Spinosauridae/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jens Lallensack (talk · contribs) 14:42, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm happy to see you doing some nice article work. Lets work on this one together.

• The lead needs a lot of expansion, should summarize the whole article.
• The description is much too short. Currently, it is more of an accumulation of sentences in random order rather than a readable text with a common thread. Remember that you are writing for people who do not know anything about the group. Best, you first give general information on the bauplan and work out how the group differs from other theropods, then how these features vary within the group. Also add information on body size. It might be good to have anatomical details in separate paragraphs after the more general info, so that it is easier for readers to jump over if they are not interested in that.
• You are extremely lucky that there are two relatively recent reviews on the group, but you used none of them, although both are freely accessible full-text via google scholar. Review articles are considered the best sources you can find for Wikipedia, you should make heavy use of them. Most information in the Hone and Holtz review should appear in the article, best assembled with additional information from the sources cited in that review.

• Bertin, 2010: A catalogue and material of Spinosauridae.
• Hone and Holtz, 2017: A Century of Spinosaurs - a review and revision of the Spinosauridae with comments on their ecology.

• Research history is lacking (for a start, see the Hone and Holtz review).
• Better group the paleobiology by biological topics ("Feeding", "Habitat", "Locomotion" etc.), not by anatomical ("Teeth", "Skull").
• Bone histology is not discussed.
• Neither is locomotion (quadrupedal or bipedal?), and probably others (see the Hone and Holtz review).
• This should keep you busy for some time. I will return with more precise comments once you are ready. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:42, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the review! And I gotta say I saw this coming, to be honest. I realized while doing research for expansions on the Oxalaia article, that the Spinosauridae one is very incomplete, a lot of crucial information is missing from various sources. Even though our knowledge of this dinosaur family is quite fragmentary, we definitely know more than this. It's gonna take me some time for sure, but I'll get it done. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ (Contribs) 15:15, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Great! Let me know if you need any sources, as I have most of it. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:33, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

• There is one more recent spinosaur review paper freely available here:[2] Also, most review papers are cited in the Baryonyx article, you could take a look at that one, since its featured. FunkMonk (talk) 01:23, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Also note that the species of Lepidotes mentioned as prey for Baryonyx here has since been assigned to the genus Scheenstia. It is probably good to double check the info here about Baryonyx with that in the featured article, because it is more up to date than many other older sources. FunkMonk (talk) 16:34, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

There seems to be a bit of an issue, I decided to start off by writing a more comprehensive Description section for the article, and I thought I'd begin with a paragraph on spinosaurid body size. I then realized after checking the articles for Spinosaurus,Suchomimus, and Baryonyx that the measurements in the size diagram are a bit shaky, the author of the original chart used before I made this one said the sizes were based off of Scott Hartman's skeletals. But they seem inconsistent with those mentioned in their respective articles, Baryonyx has estimates from 7.5 to 10m, in the diagram it is 10m. Suchomimus was initially estimated from 10.3 to 11m and then 9.5m in 2010 by Gregory S. Paul, the diagram once again goes with the more extreme of 11m. Also, which one should we choose for Spinosaurus? it varies from 12 to 18m but from what I've seen 15m is the most agreed upon length, whereas in the chart it's 14.5m. You guys can look at all this and tell me what you think, preferably we should go with the most reliable estimates, and if it isn't clear then maybe use an averaged out length as we do in those cases? (eg. if example estimate is between 4-6m we should go with 5 for the chart.) Overall, I'm not sure. Irritator looks fine though. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ (Contribs) 02:31, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Nevermind, I've found and checked multiple reliable sources and I think I got the body size issue straightened out, although I do need to change the diagram a bit. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ (Contribs) 00:21, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

• I'd also appreciate it if someone could find me a reference for the palaeoecology of Irritator's habitat? There is some very relevant information about its habitat in the respective section on the Irritator article but it lacks a citation. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ (Contribs) 04:52, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

There is information on that in the first description of Mirischia (Naish et al., 2004). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 05:42, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Oof, have I gone down a rabbit-hole. The more I look the more I keep finding a truck-load of lengthy papers on spinosaurids, this edit is gonna take a while, there's enough information to expand the article perhaps even twofold. I can't believe just how short it actually is. ▼PσlєοGєєкƧɊƲΔƦΣƉ▼ (Contribs) 01:49, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, its a big fish, this article. Take your time. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 05:39, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Archiving now, with approval of the author who needs a lot more time. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:31, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Baryonychinae

Why is not Baryonychinae mentioned in the taxobox? Is it no longer a valid taxon? I preferred not to add it and ask it since the article is under review. Super Ψ Dro 20:38, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

A paper last year questioned it as a natural group, so it's the safer bet to not show it and then mention it in the text. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 21:28, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Then should it be removed from the Megalosauroidea template? Super Ψ Dro 21:41, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Phylogenetic definition of Spinosauridae - Sereno et al., 1998?

The Taxonomy section contained the following passage:

'The first cladistic definition of Spinosauridae was provided by Paul Sereno in 1998 (as "All spinosaurids closer to Spinosaurus than to Torvosaurus").'

I saw this and initially noticed how the definition didn't make any sense; the group being defined (spinosaurids) was included in the definition, and Torvosaurus was implied to be a spinosaurid. So I changed 'all spinosaurids' to 'all spinosauroids', which makes sense. However, upon reading the actual article that was cited (Sereno et al., 1998), I noticed that not only was the sentence quoted here not present in the text, but that there was no cladistic definition of Spinosauridae present in the entire article.

I am therefore wondering if anyone can point out something that I've been blind to, or if perhaps this section needs altering further. Zigongosaurus1138 (talk) 16:54, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

This is an interesting case. Sereno in 2005 provided this definition in his TaxonSearch: http://taxonsearch.uchicago.edu/?tax_id=293&exe=display&ke=key&sort=none :"The most inclusive clade containing Spinosaurus aegyptiacus Stromer 1915 but not Torvosaurus tanneri Galton and Jensen 1979, Allosaurus fragilis Marsh 1877, Passer domesticus (Linnaeus 1758)".

As authority he referred to his 1998 paper. But, as you correctly noticed, this paper contains no such definition. Perhaps he was confused by the fact that it contains other definitions. Perhaps an earlier draft did contain it, but was removed in the published version, as Science papers have severe length constraints. Or perhaps he saw it as implied by the phrase "Phylogenetic analysis (21, 22) links spinosaurids with torvosaurids (23) and places this clade (Spinosauroidea) as the sister group to Neotetanurae", combined with the explaining cladogramme.--MWAK (talk) 07:48, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Rare or common?

The article states that juvenile spinosaurids are "exceedingly rare", but it might be worth mentioning that according to some sources they are locally common in the Kem Kem beds? 209.136.39.130 (talk) 14:23, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Ceratosuchopsini

There aren't enough spinosaurids to justify creating articles for minor subclades, as such, I propose the redirection of Ceratosuchopsini to Spinosauridae. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:11, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

As much as I love the article, I second this, there's just too little to bring a quality article. Sauriazoicillus (talk) 04:46, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Aw, thanks for the appreciation for it. And as the article creator, yes, I guess I can agree that it should be merged. I'll get to work on it. Maybe, in the next few years, there'll be substantial research on it to make an article again. Hiroizmeh (talk) 19:13, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Hopefully that's the case! Sauriazoicillus (talk) 01:14, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Merging is contrary to the WP:Summary Style policy. The number of animals belonging to a clade is irrelevant. Wikipedia is not a biology text book. It is an encyclopedia explaining concepts. If a reader encounters the concept Ceratosuchopini (to spell it correctly), he must be provided by us with a definition and explanation, not be directed to some larger article from which with great difficulty he might purify some understanding. And the quality of an article resides in its adequacy. --MWAK (talk) 05:37, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're getting at. We don't need to have articles for every minor clade with only a few taxa. I could see articles for the two subfamilies, but there's no reason for Ceratosuchopsini to exist when Baryonychinae doesn't. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:09, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

I think a case could be made for making a Baryonychinae article and redirecting Ceratosuchopsini there instead. And a Spinosaurinae article, for that matter, both names have been in use for a considerable time. FunkMonk (talk) 04:21, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Well, once the notability standards have been met and the two subjects are not identical, merging is in principle not allowed under WP:Merging: Merging should be avoided if: (...) The topics are discrete subjects warranting their own articles, with each meeting the General Notability Guidelines, even if short.

The "warranting their own articles" is a bit circular :o), but WP:Notability further explains this by giving criteria for when to create "stand-alone articles". In short, a subject should only be subsumed by a larger subject when the reader would be unable to gain any understanding of the subject without the larger context being explained to him. The subject in this case being the Ceratosuchopini, not "Spinosauridae" or "Dinosaur biology". So we are not allowed to judge this by the "needs" of the larger subject. We should not pretend to be the editors of some dinosaur text book. Decisions like "We don't need to have articles for every minor clade with only a few taxa", simply aren't ours to make. In this case we only have to decide whether the reader is more adequately informed about the Ceratosuchopini by a separate article or by some few lines hidden in a much larger article, likely without clade definition or synapomorphies. The answer is obvious.--MWAK (talk) 07:44, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

It's not unusual for us to have tribe-level articles for dinosaurs; Triceratopsini, Pachyrhinosaurini, and all the hadrosaur tribes have articles. Those are, granted, important clades which have been around for a long time and not a just-named small clade, but I don't the article's fate should be decided purely on the level of taxonomy we're looking at. Is there enough to say about the group to support its own article? I think it's an edge case. I'd probably say it'd fit best into a Baryonychinae article but I would oppose it being merged directly into Spinosauridae.LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 14:50, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

What you say sounds reasonable. However, it is simply contrary to policy. The mandatory system here is very easy. When wanting to delete, redirect or merge a subject you first have to ask yourself three questions:

1. Is the subject (not content) identical to another one?
2. Is the subject trivial?
3. Is the subject Original Research?

If the answer to all three questions is "no", then you may not delete, redirect or merge. If the content is sourced by a peer-reviewed scientific article, the subject is in principle neither trivial nor OR. So, you don't have to decide metaphysical questions about "importance" or the time the concept has been around. Obviously there should be enough content to normally structure the text but this is clearly present: etymology, naming authors, clade definition, synapomorphies, phylogeny, cladogram.--MWAK (talk) 08:53, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Clearly you have not participated in many AfD's, see for instance Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence_(2nd_nomination). The purpose of an article is to inform the reader, and whether or not an article exists is at editors discretion. I do not think this newly named clade adds much to the topic at this time and could be covered better elsewhere. Per your claims of "contrary to policy", see WP:IAR. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:37, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

That's one rule we may safely ignore :o). The example you give, seems to be a case of OR. Of course, in fact articles are sometimes deleted or merged contrary to policy. To prevent one such unhappy occasion, is precisely why we are having this discussion!--MWAK (talk) 08:57, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

With "I do not think this newly named clade adds much to the topic" do you mean the article does not meet the notability criteria? If it meets the criteria, it has to be considered a topic of its own? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:55, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

There's nothing in the current article than cannot be included in its entirety within Spinosauridae or potentially Baryonychinae when that's made live. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:21, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion on this, but providing lists of synapomorphies and definitions for multiple sup-groups is not stuff that we commonly would include in an article like Spinosauridae. From this perspective, I tend to agree with MWAK that separate articles for these taxa are better suited. On the other hand, it could also work well if merged with Baryonychinae. But I also see no harm in keeping the articles separate; it may indeed make things easier for the reader if there is simply one article per taxon. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:30, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

My main issue, is per the authors of the study "However, the results of the Templeton test (discussed below; see also SI) and poor nodal support reveal that the relationships of the spinosaurid in-group remain elusive and are hindered by the incompleteness of the sampled OTUs".This clade could easily be shown to be erroneous in later studies, as the remains it is based on are substantially incomplete. I am happy for Baryonychinae and Spinosaurinae, as these have a long history and have been discussed by numerous studies. Hemiauchenia (talk)

I agree. MWAK does have a point about general notability policy for Wikipedia, but within the paleontological 'community' here, it's just a little different, for the reasons you stated. Hiroizmeh (talk) 23:21, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

All science can be shown to be erroneous. No reason to delete its results beforehand :o). Remember that a clade, when its definition is logically consistent, can never be invalid. It can at worst be useless. The only strong argument for a merge would be provided by a scientific consensus that Ceratosuchops and Riparovenator are junior synonyms of Baryonyx after all. The doctrine of paleontological exceptionalism is a bit problematic. The real reason was that Dinoguy, who at the time almost single-handedly created the project, tried to reduce his enormous workload by making as many redirects as possible. This historical contingency should not prevent us from ultimately providing a full coverage of the scientific concepts.--MWAK (talk) 08:57, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

I think, though, that even being more editors than Dinoguy back in the day, we do ourselves a favour in being somewhat restrictive in what clade articles we have to maintain. In this case, the only genus that separates Baryonychinae from Ceratosuchopsini is Baryonyx, so practically, I don't see much reason why the two largely identical clades shouldn't be discussed in one comprehensive article. FunkMonk (talk) 03:50, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Well, in that case, anyone willing to assume the task of writing articles for Baryonychinae and/or Spinosaurinae? Hiroizmeh (talk) 00:00, 5 October 2021 (UTC) Here, I'll put them in draft namespace below, for whoever wants to help work on them:

Draft:Baryonychinae

Draft:Spinosaurinae

Hiroizmeh (talk) 00:15, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

So, there's just something I'm wondering about. What is the consensus of the merge proposal? I'm new to how that whole system works, so I'm not sure. The page Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs/Article alerts says it's been closed "as of 07:08, 5 October 2021", but I don't know where to find who closed it, since that edit was by a bot. Unless it happens automatically? Hiroizmeh (talk) 02:07, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

An IP removed the template from the article, but that does not mean anything, and should not affect the discussion here. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 07:13, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Update

@Hemiauchenia, Sauriazoicillus, MWAK, FunkMonk, LittleLazyLass, and Jens Lallensack: After a few days of work and solving some namespace issues, the article Baryonychinae is finally up. The discussion for the proposed merge can be concluded there. Pinging all people above involved. Hiroizmeh (talk) 23:18, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Spinosaurinae

Spinosaurinae is currently in the process of getting created and well, as for Ceratosuchopsini=merge into Baryonychinae, we'll think of that another time. Magnatyrannus (talk) 00:13, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Spinosauridae

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 Spinosauridae'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 "buffetaut2007":

• From Suchosaurus: Buffetaut, E. (2007). "The spinosaurid dinosaur Baryonyx (Saurischia, Theropoda) in the Early Cretaceous of Portugal." Geological Magazine, 144(6): 1021-1025. doi:10.1017/S0016756807003883
• From Iberospinus: Buffetaut, E. (2007). "The spinosaurid dinosaur Baryonyx (Saurischia, Theropoda) in the Early Cretaceous of Portugal" (PDF). Geological Magazine. 144 (6): 1021–1025. Bibcode:2007GeoM..144.1021B. doi:10.1017/S0016756807003883. S2CID 130212901.

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. Feel free to remove this comment after fixing the refs. AnomieBOT⚡ 20:43, 27 April 2023 (UTC)