Template talk:Infobox cattle breed

Proposed changes to template

• Rename template and document to Infobox cattle breed, instead of Infobox cow breed. Strictly, cattle is the correct term for this class of animal. Cow, while being commonly used to describe cattle, is a term that only refers to female adults. Cow is also used to describe female adults of a number of other large mammals. This point was debated on the Agriculture Talk Page.
• Add conditional statement that displays either:

Bos primigenius taurus,
more commonly bos taurus;
OR

Bos primigenius indicus,
more commonly bos indicus;
OR

Bos primigenius taurus/indicus hybrid,
more commonly bos taurus/indicus hybrid,

in the bottom cell of the Infobox immediately below Cattle. The reason is that there are two distinct types of cattle, namely bos (primigenius) taurus adapted to temperate climates, and bos (primigenius) indicus, which are generally humped and adapted to hot climates. Over the past few decades, taurus/indicus hybrids have been developed which combine key features of both cattle forms.

My initial attempt at inserting a conditional statement into the template failed, so will look at in slower time - as time permits.

Aussiefrank (talk) 06:29, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with your rationale for renaming; and have done so. I'm not convinced (knowing little about cattle other than how I like them cooked, I'm keeping an open mind) about the species names because our article on cattle, to which those other binomials currently redirect, has them as synonyms. Perhaps consensus on usage should be arrived at there, first? also, given that other species and hybrids exist, perhaps an editable parameter, with a default value of Bos primigenius, would be best? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:58, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

OK on the renaming of the cattle template - thanks Andy. I'll need to re-read and consult on the subject of naming taurus and indicus. Last year I spoke with an animal scientist who said that there was a proposal to have b.p. taurus and b.p. indicus declared (and presumably renamed) as different species! I'm not sure how, or if, this has been resolved, or what the rationale was. I won't do anything on this until it is resolved satisfactorily. Aussiefrank (talk) 00:25, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

There seems to be some consensus, and some inconsistencies!

1. Bos primigenius (http://www.uniprot.org/taxonomy/9909) does not appear to be a valid and consistent descriptor for cattle, but is valid when referring to the ancestor of modern cattle, namely Aurochs. It is not commonly used as a species' descriptor for cattle. Also see article on Bos which refers to usage of Bos primigenius for Aurochs, Bos taurus for cattle, and Bos indicus for Zebu. The Bos article contradicts the cattle article. The former restricts the term Bos taurus to cattle, while the latter refers to both Bos indicus and Bos taurus as cattle. I agree with the latter interpretation, which is common usage among Australian cattle breeders, and presumably other English speaking cattle breeders.

2. Analysis of Bos indicus, Bos taurus, and Aurochs DNA indicates that modern cattle are domesticated forms of two lines of Aurochs that diverged 1 - 2 million years ago; see for example article on analysis of mtDNA (http://www.cob.lu.se/phylogeny/AxelJanke/papers/54Hiendleder.pdf). Domestication that produced Bos indicus and Bos taurus cattle occurred independently 8,000 - 10,000 years ago. See article on Aurochs.

3. Bos indicus and Bos taurus are now generally considered to be subspecies, in particular because they can interbreed and produce fertile males and females. A proposal was made (http://www.cob.lu.se/phylogeny/AxelJanke/papers/54Hiendleder.pdf) to identify them respectively as Bos primigenius indicus and Bos primigenius taurus, which increasingly appears to be how they are referred to; see for example the article on cattle.

4. However, adoption of the names Bos primigenius indicus and Bos primigenius taurus does not yet appear to have been formally adopted. Following the convention described in the article on subspecies, the proposal is to refer to the different subspecies as Bos (primigenius) indicus and Bos (primigenius) taurus, where relevant a hybrid of the two, and to delete the current Infobox cattle template reference to Bos primigenius.

Aussiefrank (talk) 04:14, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Interesting stuff, but I meant consensus on Talk:Cattle. May I suggest you repost your findings there? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:05, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Height (withers)

I have added the specification 'Height (withers)' to the infobox and used it in the article Yakutian cattle.
The article Withers states that ″in horses and dogs it is the standard place to measure the animal's height (in contrast, cattle are normally measured to the top of the hips).″ I have never encountered such a measurement. A quick, statistically not significant survey of cattle breeds in en:WP revealed that most cattle articles to not give any height, but the ones I found that did (Belgian Red cattle, Jutland cattle, Limia Cattle, Pajuna, White Park) use height at withers/shoulder. Maybe this is used differently in the US (at hips) and Europe (at withers)?
If 'Height (hips)' is deemed necessary, it may be added independently as a further specification, and then either specification used as required. Roberta jr. (talk) 12:20, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikignoming?

It's my personal taste, but would anyone be terribly upset if we made the infobox border to go around the title instead of outside of it the way it is now? I'm thinking of the design used in {{Infobox horse breed}}. Montanabw^(talk) 06:27, 28 December 2014 (UTC)