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The sentence "Wild orcas are not considered a threat to humans, and no fatal attack on humans has ever been documented." doesn't read well for me. In particular I missed the "Wild" at the beginning which is key for correct understanding of the second half. Also the passive construction "are not considered" could be considered 'weasel words'. I think something like "Orcas are not usually a threat to humans, and no fatal attack has ever been documented in their natural habitat." would be an improvement. Thoughts? Eluchil404 (talk) 06:11, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The source at the end of the sentence supports the surfer part of the sentence too.[1]"There has never been a documented fatal killer whale attack on a human. The only relatively well-documented bite was one suffered by a surfer in California in the early 1970s"Schazjmd(talk)20:58, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Per Morin et al. (2024), Orcinus has been split. The existing Speciesbox image depicts the transient population, now Orcinus rectipinnus. I'm not entirely sure which image would be the best replacement, or if it needs to be replaced at all, but I thought it'd be a good idea to bring it up. Borophagus (talk) 14:55, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For mammals, we wait until secondary sources pick up the work of primary sources. Typically, this means waiting until the new species appears in ASM's MDD, so I'm going to revert your recent changes. - UtherSRG(talk)17:22, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ASM's MDD now has both O. ater and O. rectipinnus listed, though acknowledges that O. orca remains paraphyletic. Meanwhile, the Society for Marine Mammalogy (considered a taxonomic authority on marine mammals) recognizes them as subspecies until further research clarifies their status. Separate pages for resident and Bigg's types wouldn't be difficult, at least, but this page might need to be changed. It could be moved to Orcinus and discuss just the genus, which would require a separate O. orca page. Or it could remain as-is (with added information on these recent taxonomic proposals) until there's a clearer picture of what researchers are using. YellowstoneLimestone (talk) 04:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's only a matter of time that the paraphyly will get resolved once further research on the other types are done. If we split the two taxa off into their own articles, we could use the common names for the three subspecies SMM adopted but with "orca" instead of "killer whale." So "resident orca," "Bigg's orca," and "common orca." Macrophyseter | talk19:09, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It does seem that we are nearing the time to make a significant taxonomic update here. It would be good to have the paraphyly sorted out, but with MDD being updated, I have no strong objection left. I suggest making this page to be about both the genus and the paraphyly, while information about the two new species can be their own articles. Once the paraphyly is resolved, we can then erect appropriate new articles and make this one to be only about the genus. - UtherSRG(talk)19:43, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As for name, I actually think we should just use the scientific name for the species articles, and continue to use 'orca' for the genus article; the species' common names aren't that common. - UtherSRG(talk)19:47, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would disagree with the uncommonality of the common name. Both resident and Bigg's/transient (latter being rapidly replaced by the former) were exclusively used to describe the two groups by both scientists and laypeople familiar with them since they were recognized in the 70s. I was also curious regarding adopting full species status instead of subspecies; given that SMM accepted only subspecies status, and there's a good chance that other scientists are going to follow that lead for the time being.
If we used the common names for the articles, then it would grant flexibility for changing between species/subspecies in the taxobox. I suppose that "common orca" is indeed an invention of SMM, but I think a similar situation happened with common bottlenose dolphin and the article just accepted it anyways with a note? Alternatively, we could temporarily keep O. orca as "Orca" and Orcinus as is; I recall having seen a similar precedent of one species taking the base name without any adjectives, but am still trying to look for it again. Macrophyseter | talk23:25, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
level-4 vital article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
