Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Lemur evolutionary history/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 15:55, 4 May 2010 [1].

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Lemur evolutionary history

Lemur evolutionary history (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Nominator(s): – VisionHolder « talk » 23:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

• Featured article candidates/Lemur evolutionary history/archive1

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel it meets the FA criteria or will within short order once its shortcomings are exposed. – VisionHolder « talk » 23:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

For those not familiar with this article's story, it expands on the corresponding section of the new Lemur article. It is the first of up to 6 such articles. Once all 6 articles pass FAC, Lemur will be submitted for FAC. – VisionHolder « talk » 23:32, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

• Comment. No dab links or dead external links. Ucucha 23:23, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Restart, old nom. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:21, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support I commented and supported last time around, no change of opinion Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:04, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
• Support An impressive achievement and a great resource. (Note that I extensively edited the article and helped with sources.) Ucucha 22:38, 1 May 2010 (UTC) Comments from Ucucha
• I'm still not sure about this sentence: "Monkeys had evolved by the Oligocene, and it is commonly accepted that their intelligence, aggression, and deceptiveness gave them the advantage in exploiting the environment over the earlier lemur-like primates in Africa and Asia, ultimately driving these diurnal forms to extinction, leaving only the nocturnal lorisiformes." and specifically the part that contrasts diurnal and nocturnal strepsirrhines. I couldn't find that in Garbutt on Google Books. I don't have easy access to the other ref, but I don't think it is right to source a statement that says this is "commonly accepted" to a 1991 book that's not even paleontological in nature.
  • The claim has been weakened a little now, which is good, but I'm not convinced it reflects current knowledge: for example, Godinot (p. 447) says lemuriforms are a "nocturnal radiation". Now, his "lemuriforms" of course includes lorisoids, but I don't think his text supports the claims made in this sentence. Ucucha 22:36, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
• "The fossil record suggests that haplorrhines (tarsiers, monkeys, apes, and humans) and strepsirrhines diverged approximately 58 to 63 mya,"—from re-reading Godinot, it is not apparent to me that this estimate is based solely on the fossil record, and I think this sentence makes him sound more confident about the 58–63 Ma estimate than he is.
• You re-inserted Phaner because the section is now not only for recent changes. That is fine, but it means you should also include other genera—I think most lemurs in the 18th and 19th century were actually originally described in the genus Lemur. The Aye-aye was originally a Sciurus, incidentally (Groves 2005:121).
• Under family-level classification, there's room for some historical data: many of the currently recognized families weren't separated until somewhere during the 20th century. In general, I suggested this arrangement of the section to provide an opportunity to review not only the recent changes in lemur classification, but also those over the previous centuries. That doesn't need to be in much detail, but I do think the article needs some of that to be comprehensive.

Changes made per our Gmail chat. Thank you very much for the help with these old sources. I think this is as far was we can go without crossing the line of WP:OR. If someone publishes a paper or book on primate taxonomic history, maybe we can resolve this even better. For now, I think this article covers this history better than any available single source. – VisionHolder « talk » 00:30, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Ucucha 12:40, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

• Support - Per my previous rationale; this is an excellent, well-rounded article. ceranthor 19:03, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

• Comments. The article has evolved nicely. Some further observations:

"Not everyone in the scientific community supports these taxonomic changes, preferring instead an estimate of 50 living species."

I suggest "Not everyone in the scientific community supports these taxonomic changes, with some preferring instead an estimate of 50 living species." Otherwise, the people preferring in the second part of the sentence are the people specifically excluded from the first part of the sentence.

I'm not sure if I understand this one, but your recommendation sounded fine so I changed it. If anyone disagrees, they're welcome to revert me. – VisionHolder « talk » 15:23, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

"stem strepsirrhines evolved on the Afro-Arabian landmass, spreading to Madagascar once and more recently from Africa to Asia"

I suggest rewording this; it can be read as "once and more recently". Is the 'once necessary here?

Given the importance of the "single colonization" idea, it is important, but it has been covered in detail in the article. For that reason, I've dropped the word per your recommendation. – VisionHolder « talk » 15:23, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

The use of serial commas in this article is not consistent. compare:

"Old World monkeys, dogs, and cats"

"Suborder Haplorrhini: tarsiers, monkeys and apes"

This is a minor detail, but should be consistent throughout the article.

Thanks for catching this. I hope I have fixed this. If you catch any others, just let me know or feel free to fix. – VisionHolder « talk » 15:23, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

These are minor nitpicks, and I'm close to supporting. Firsfron of Ronchester 14:57, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Support. My remaining concerns have been addressed. The article is well-written and understandable to the lay reader. I couldn't catch any inconsistencies between the maps and the text, the sections seem complete, and the references I checked all checked out. Nice work on lemurs (again), VH. Firsfron of Ronchester 15:57, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.