Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree Of Life - Tree Of Life Animals

A few Wikipedians have come together to make some suggestions about how we might organize data in these articles. These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. But if you don't know what to write or where to begin, following the below guidelines may be helpful. Mainly, we just want you to write articles!

Scope and descendant projects

This WikiProject aims primarily to represent the taxonomy and relationships of living organisms, as well as their extinct relatives, in a tree structure. Since there are millions of species, not all will be included, but we aim to handle as many as information, time, and interest permit.

This WikiProject descends from WikiProject Biology. Various other WikiProjects may be based on it to better treat specific groups. Currently there are:

• WikiProject Animals
  • Molluscs:
    • WikiProject Bivalves
    • WikiProject Gastropods
    • WikiProject Cephalopods
  • WikiProject Arthropods
    • WikiProject Insects
      • WikiProject Lepidoptera
      • WikiProject Beetles
    • WikiProject Spiders
  • Vertebrates:
    • WikiProject Fishes
      • WikiProject Aquarium Fishes
      • WikiProject Sharks
    • WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles
      • WikiProject Dinosaurs
      • WikiProject Turtles
    • WikiProject Birds
      • Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Domestic pigeon task force
      • Wikipedia:WikiProject Poultry
    • WikiProject Mammals
      • WikiProject Monotremes and Marsupials
      • WikiProject Cetaceans
      • WikiProject Primates
      • WikiProject Rodents
        • See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Agriculture/Livestock task force (covers rabbit and guinea pig breeds)
      • WikiProject Cats
      • WikiProject Dogs
        • Dog breeds task force
      • WikiProject Equine
        • Horse breeds task force (shares parentage with WikiProject Agriculture)
      • See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Agriculture/Livestock task force (covers domestic cattle, goat, pig, and sheep breeds)
• WikiProject Plants
  • WikiProject Banksia
  • WikiProject Carnivorous plants
  • WikiProject Horticulture and Gardening
  • WikiProject Pteridophytes
  • See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Agriculture
• WikiProject Microbiology
  • WikiProject Prokaryotes and Protists
  • WikiProject Viruses
• WikiProject Fungi
• WikiProject Algae
• WikiProject Marine life
• WikiProject Palaeontology
• WikiProject Australian biota
• WikiProject Biota of Great Britain and Ireland

• Wikipedia:Taxobox task force

Article alerts

Redirects for discussion

• 21 Jan 2017 â€" Latin name (talk · edit · hist) â†'Binomial nomenclature was RfDed by Prisencolin (t · c); see discussion

Article titles

In cases where there is a formal common name (e.g. birds), or when common names are well-known and reasonably unique (e.g. "Cuvier's dwarf caiman"), they should be used for article titles. Scientific names should be used otherwise.

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora) for article titles for plant names and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna) for article titles for animal names.

Note the following guidelines in using scientific names:

• Names of genera are always italicized and capitalizedâ€"Homo, Rosa, Saccharomyces.
• Species epithets are always italicized and preceded by the name of the genus or an abbreviation of itâ€" Homo sapiens or H. sapiens, but never plain sapiens, since such identifiers need not be unique. They are never capitalized.
• Names of higher taxa are capitalized but not italicizedâ€" Hominidae, Mammalia, Animalia.
• Common (vernacular) names are not capitalised (except where proper names appear). See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Animals, plants, and other organisms.

In cases where a group only contains a single subgroup, the two should not be separated (unless the higher-ranked group has had multiple circumscriptions, and an article is written to cover them all). If there is no common name, the article should generally go under the scientific name that is most often used when discussing the group, or under the scientific name of lowest rank if there is no clear preference. However, for a genus that contains a single species, the genus name should be used since it is included in the binomial nomenclature, and the genus title is more concise than the binomial. For instance the order Amphionidacea, which has the single species Amphionides reynaudii, is discussed at Amphionides. In the event that the name of a monotypic genus is shared with another topic, it is usually more appropriate to use a binomial as a natural disambiguation rather than creating an article with a parenthetical disambiguating term for the genus. E.g., Alberta magna is a more natural search term than Alberta (plant genus).

Not all species need have separate articles. The simplest (and probably best) rule is to have no rule: if you have the time and energy to write up some particularly obscure subspecies that most people have never even heard of, go for it! As a general guideline, though, it's best to combine separate species into a single entry whenever it seems likely that there won't be enough text to make more than a short, unsatisfying stub otherwise. If the entry grows large enough to deserve splitting, that can always be done later.

A useful heuristic is to create articles in a "downwards" order, that is, family articles first, then genus, then species. If you find that information is getting thin, or the family/genus is small, leave the species information in the family or genus article. Don't try to force it down any further.

Taxoboxes

The full taxobox guide is located at Wikipedia:Taxobox usage.

Detailed taxonomic information, including notes on how taxa are defined and how they vary between different systems, belongs in the article proper. Where possible, however, a standard table will be provided to allow easier navigation between related groups and quick identification of what sort of organisms are being discussed. These are called taxoboxes. A typical taxobox is shown at right (it belongs on the top right of the page Cetacea).

There are three main sections to the taxobox:

• A header showing the name of the group, sometimes followed by a representative image.
• A table showing the placement of the group in a typical classification system.
• A footer, whose content varies, showing the binomial name or a species, or a list of subgroups for higher taxa.

Some items that are often included, but are not (necessarily) standardized, include:

• Breeding organizations' classifications (Dingo)
• Range map (see, for example, Orca)
• Synonyms (European lobster)

Position: The taxobox generally belongs at the top right corner of the article, unless it has been decided otherwise on the relevant talk page - for instance, if the article is not primarily about the biological group.

For cultivars â€" cultivated varieties of plants â€" don't use a taxobox; instead use a cultivar infobox as described at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Cultivar infobox.

For breeds of animals, don't use a taxobox; instead use the appropriate breed template; see for example Wikipedia:WikiProject Dog breeds and Wikipedia:WikiProject Horse breeds.

Talkpages

Tag talkpages with: {{WikiProject Tree of Life|class=|importance=}}

Categories

Major groups should be given their own categories. When possible, these should use the common name in the plural, except for plants, where WikiProject Plants uses scientific names by default (see WP:NCFLORA). In general, only articles about major subgroups should be added, and more specific articles should be included in subcategories. However, when there are only a few articles about members of the group, they can all go directly into the main category. Use your judgement on when to split, aiming for an approximate category size of 10-50 articles.

Note that in addition to taxa, categories may also contain informal subgroups. For instance Category:Primates may include an article or subcategory for monkeys, although they are not treated as a formal group. They may also include some other articles that pertain specifically to members of the group, although they are not about them.

Categories related to the biota of a region should be based on the common grouping of that region used by zoological, botanical, mycological etc. publications. For example, if it is common to separate a region based on political boundaries (as in parts of Europe), categories should be separated by countries. If it is common to separate regions based on geographic features (such as New Guinea), categories should be separated by geographic region.

References

Taxonomic resources

The taxonomy of many groups is in a state of flux as taxonomic experts strive to incorporate the findings of Molecular phylogenetics, so it is not always possible to find a single satisfactory classification, and we would be doing a great disservice by pretending otherwise. The best would be to try and find out what the current consensus is, if there is one, and make notes on variant systems. In this, the following resources may be helpful:

General taxonomy

• Catalogue of Life - The Catalogue of Life is the most comprehensive and authoritative global index of species currently available. It consists of a single integrated species checklist and taxonomic hierarchy. The Catalogue holds essential information on the names, relationships and distributions of over 1.5 million species. This figure continues to rise as information is compiled from diverse sources around the world. Results are explicit about their primary sources but may trail behind primary databases such as World Register of Marine Species.
• NCBI database âˆ' The Taxonomy Database is a curated classification and nomenclature for all of the organisms in the public sequence databases. This currently represents about 10% of the described species of life on the planet. It attempts to incorporate phylogenetic and taxonomic knowledge from a variety of sources.
• The Tree Of Life Web Project âˆ' phylogeny, but without ranks; becoming out of date due to lack of updates.
• UC Berkeley: History of life through time âˆ' phylogenetic cladograms; many well-summarized groups with illustrations; many pages "under construction"; links to other useful sites
• Mikko's Phylogeny Archive - A private archive of various phylogenetic trees.
• http://www.biosis.org Biosis Index to Organism Names - dead link
• Paleobiology Database : taxonomic and distributional information about the entire fossil record of plants and animals.
• Systema naturae âˆ' usually gives multiple breakdowns for groups, which is sometimes confusing but can be very useful.
• www.itis.gov âˆ' now part of Catalogue of Life an automated reference database of scientific and common names for species built within a working hierarchy. ITIS partners with Species 2000 to build the Catalogue of Life. Covers a lot of ground, but is often incomplete or idiosyncratic. ITIS pages older than a few years or with no review date should not be used, and in general ITIS cannot be considered a reliable source on its own. (Note domain used to be www.itis.usda.gov . Deleting the usda component may restore the link.
• Species 2000 âˆ' now part of Catalogue of Life a list of specific taxonomic (current) databases, covering contemporary and fossil organisms.
• Systax - a database system for systematics and taxometry based at the University of Ulm, Germany, which can be used as an alternative to the Itis system listed above.
• Kluge Principles of taxonomy
• Global Names Index - A repository of ~18 million names (species, genus + alternate names and attributions from author) from a multitude of source.

Marine organisms

World Register of Marine Species - an authoritative searchable database of marine organisms, from vertebrates to viruses. The taxonomic editors for each section are the experts in their group of organisms.

Animals

• Animal Diversity Web from the University of Michigan - Very informative
• Lepidoptera and other species (mostly related to Lepidoptera, such as popular butterfly plants, etc.). Info collected from other sources, not sure how accurate it all is. Interesting note: he has a (open source) perl script generating range maps automatically from distribution text.
• BugGuide.net--extensive resource on taxonomy and identification of North American arthropods. Experts in many fields visit and help with taxonomy.
• Diptera.info--extensive resource on taxonomy and identification of Diptera. Experts members help with taxonomy
• Hymis forum--extensive resource on taxonomy and identification of Hymenoptera. Experts members help with taxonomy
• Fauna Europaea - Database of all European land and freshwater animals.

Amphibians and Reptiles

• AMNH database - Preferred taxonomy used by WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles.
• ITIS, Reptilia - Preferred taxonomy used by WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles.

Birds

• Avibase - Database including all the world's bird species.
• IOC World Bird List - Preferred source of vernacular names used by WikiProject Birds

Bivalves (Mollusca)

Wikiproject Bivalves is using the taxonomy of Bieler, R., Carter, J.G. & Coan, E.V. (2010) Classification of Bivalve families. Pp. 113-133, in: Bouchet, P. & Rocroi, J.P. (2010), "Nomenclator of Bivalve Families with a Classification of Bivalve Families" Malacologia 52(2): 1-184, which can be found at: Philippe Bouchet & Jean-Pierre Rocroi, Rüdiger Bieler, Joseph G. Carter, & Eugene V. Coan. 2010: Nomenclator of bivalve families with a classification of bivalve families. Malacologia 52: 4-112.

Cephalopods (Mollusca)

• CephBase - Superb information about Cephalopod classification. Preferred taxonomy used by WikiProject Cephalopods.

Fish

• FishBase - Huge database giving basic info on thousands of fish. Preferred taxonomy used by WikiProject Fishes.

Gastropods (Mollusca)

Please use the taxonomy of Bouchet and Rocroi, for details see Taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005). This is the taxonomy we have updated to at WikiProject Gastropods. Please note that this taxonomy uses clades between the ranks of class and superfamily. For published updates to some parts of this taxonomy that have occurred since 2005, see Changes in the taxonomy of gastropods since 2005.

Mammals

• Mammal Species of the World, 3rd edition (MSW3) - Database of mammalian taxonomy. Preferred taxonomy used by WikiProject Mammals.
• Mesozoic mammals - Containing much information about Mesozoic mammals and relatives.

Platyhelminths (Turbellaria)

Baguñà, J.; Riutort, M. (2004). "Molecular phylogeny of the Platyhelminthes". Canadian Journal of Zoology. 82 (2): 168. doi:10.1139/z03-214. , reflected in "Turbellarian taxonomic database". 

Solenogastres (Mollusca)

• WP's taxonomy currently uses García-Álvarez, Ã"scar; v. Salvini-Plawen, Luitfried (2007). "Species and diagnosis of the Families and Genera of Solenogastres (Mollusca)" (PDF). Iberus. 25 (2): 73â€"143. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 July 2011. 

Spiders

• World Spider Catalog - Preferred taxonomy used by WikiProject Spiders

Plants

• The Plant List is the de facto standard used by WikiProject Plants at the genus and species levels in most cases. The Plant List aggregates information from other databases (some of which are listed below) which may be updated more frequently than The Plant List itself, so it may be desirable to cite the source database. Be aware that for some genera, synonymy is calculated algorithmically with no human review. In these cases, The Plant List should not be regarded as a reliable source. Genera with algorithimically computed synonymy can be identified by heavy reliance on Tropicos (TRO) as a source.
• Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (2003). An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants: APG II. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 141, 399-436. available here : Available online. Probably now authoritative source for flowering plants at family level and above but already out of date for some groups; see next reference for more up-to-date information based on research since 2003.
• Angiosperm Phylogeny Website : incorporates the latest taxonomic research; continuously updated.
• Accepted names and synonyms of taxa from volume 24 of the Flora of North America (Poaceae and relatives)
• The Missouri Botanical Garden is searchable by species, and where this is available, will give the accepted classification, and the degree to which it is accepted. Also lists authors, synonyms and homonyms. Far from complete.
• Vascular Plant Families - a systematic and alphabetical index of the non-flowering and the flowering plant families with the Cronquist system and the phylogenetic system of Judd et al. (2002) (i.e. APG)
• USDA/NRCS PLANTS Database - Not complete, but nice. Resource for some PD images, although not all are PD. Use Template:PLANTSDB to label images. Common names used are usually only common in the USA and may not be used worldwide.
• L. Watson and M.J. Dallwitz (1992 onwards). The families of flowering plants: descriptions, illustrations, identification, information retrieval. http://delta-intkey.com - Unique resource, updated to about 1998 (note that especially the lists of genera are outdated) - includes classifications of Cronquist; Dahlgren; Dahlgren, Clifford and Yeo; and APG (i.e. APG I, of 1998)
• Gymnosperm Database - very good coverage of gymnosperms
• HortiPlex Plant Database - Searchable by common or scientific name. Submitted by gardeners- may not be in line with current taxonomy.
• ILDIS A database of legume taxonomy, includes synonyms and accepted names, common names and detailed bibliographies for many species.

Likewise, the following sites can help find taxonomic authors and abbreviations:

• IPNI, authors search Note that the author database is separate from the plant name databases: the author database is authoritative. The plant name databases are "as is" and should be used as a search aid (invaluable as such) rather than as any kind of authority.

Fungi

• Index Fungorum - database of fungus species, genus and higher names, with all historical synonyms and indication of current name
• MycoBank - nomenclatural and taxonomical database, similar in purpose and coverage to Index Fungorum
• ITIS, which covers other kingdoms as well

Protists and Prokaryotes

• BIOS database of bacteria, archea and cyanobacteria names, with bibliography.
• List of Bacterial names with Standing in Nomenclature - Bacteria have a formal approved nomenclature, all approved names can be found here.
• List of Approved Bacterial Names - list provided by the American Society for Microbiology.
• AlgaeBase - database of algae species, very large but not complete

Viruses

• International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) - the de facto standard for Wikipedia virus articles to method. A good place to see this in action and get an idea of how it works can be found at Virus classification.
• Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) database ("MeSH Browser". ) also is a useful resource for virus taxonomy.

Requests

Requests for taxa

List of requested taxa

Photos

Requested photographs

If you wish to have a photo uploaded please add {{Image requested|animals}} on the talk page of the article. Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of animals lists these requests - if you can upload a photograph of any of these it would be appreciated.

Related WikiProjects

• WikiProject Animal rights
• WikiProject Evolutionary biology
• WikiProject Ecoregions
• WikiProject Forestry
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Makes Video/Parks
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Makes Video/Wildlife
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Global Names Index
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Paleontology

On other Wikimedia Foundation projects

• WikiProject Taxonomy on Wikidata
• WikiProject Tree of Life on Wikimedia Commons
• Wikispecies

Participants

Sample articles

A number of articles under this WikiProject and its descendants have been recognized for their excellence by the Wikipedia community as featured articles or featured lists, and may serve as good models. The articles are sorted by WikiProject:

• General: Bacteria, Archaea, Helicobacter pylori, Myxobolus cerebralis
• Amphibians and Reptiles: Australian green tree frog, Cane toad, Frog, Green and golden bell frog, Hawksbill sea turtle, List of snakes of Trinidad and Tobago, List of Testudines families, Marginated tortoise
• Arthropods: Antarctic krill, Cochineal, Coconut crab, Krill, List of Odonata species of Great Britain
• Birds: Albatross, American goldfinch, Arctic tern, Bald eagle, California condor, Common raven, Elfin woods warbler, Emu, Kakapo, List of birds of Florida, List of birds of Kansas, List of birds of Puerto Rico, List of birds of Vieques, Mourning dove, Procellariidae, Red-tailed black cockatoo, Seabird
• Dinosaurs: Albertosaurus, Archaeopteryx, Compsognathus, Diplodocus, Dinosaur, Iguanodon, List of dinosaur genera, Psittacosaurus, Stegosaurus, Styracosaurus, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor
• Fungi: Amanita muscaria, Amanita ocreata, Amanita phalloides, Cyathus, Gyromitra esculenta
• Mammals: Gray wolf, List of mammals of Korea,
  • Cats: Jaguar, Cougar
  • Cetaceans: Blue whale, Fin whale, Humpback whale, Killer whale, Right whale, Sei whale, Sperm whale, List of cetaceans
  • Dogs: Island fox
  • Monotremes and Marsupials: Platypus, Short-beaked echidna, Tasmanian devil, Thylacine
  • Primates: Ring-tailed lemur, Homo floresiensis
• Plants: List of basil cultivars, Saffron, Verbascum thapsus
  • Banksia: B. brownii, B. epica, B. ericifolia, B. integrifolia
  • Carnivorous plants: Pinguicula moranensis
• Sharks: Oceanic whitetip shark

To do

New articles

To browse Tree of Life subjects that require articles, see the Tree of Life list of requested articles. If adding to the list of requests, make sure to include scientific names, as it will make it easier for others to track down information. One-sentence stubs are discouraged: try to create a worthwhile start class article, with a taxobox, and sources properly cited. When adding weblinks, look for standard references first, such as the IUCN and its sub-commissions.

Specific request lists also include:

• Missing encyclopedic articles about animals.
• Missing encyclopedic articles about plants
• Requested articles about plants (botany)
• Fact-check new biology articles nominated for "Did you know ...?" here. The link is to all nominated articles, but binomial species names are easy to pick out. Successful candidates will be linked to from our Main Page, so let's make them look good!

Cleanup

Please add {{ToLCleanup}} to the talk page of ToL articles in need of cleanup. In addition to adding some text indicating the article needs some work, it will also add the article to Category:Wikipedia cleanup and Category:Tree of Life cleanup.

Please add {{missing-taxobox}} to the talk page of articles that need taxonomic information.

Articles needing taxoboxes

• Missing taxobox

Articles needing attention

• Biology pages needing attention (cleanup, expansion, wikification, expert needed, etc.)

Articles needing attention

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Articles without images
• Category:Taxonomic articles needing attention
• Plant articles needing attention
• Plant articles needing expert attention
• Plant articles needing images
• Unidentified plant images - Unidentified plants on Commons

Assessment

Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Assessment

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