Talk:Reptile

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Conservation section

While this is an article on a broad topic that has been around for a long time, there should probably be a section on "Conservation of reptiles". A few sentences from the Turtle#conservation status section could be a starter, while there are plenty of sources for organizations that focus on reptile conservation. Rauisuchian (talk) 07:56, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

OK; intro paragraph 2

Can someone please explain to me the difference between those two definitions? Because as far as I can tell, they're the same. Serendi^podous 03:19, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

My understanding is that one is a node-based definition (first common ancestor of A and B) and the other a stem-based definition (first ancestor that is not ancestor of C). They define the same living groups but may cover different fossil groups. There might be early diverging fossil reptiles that are covered by the latter (not mammals) but not the former. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:58, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Should we make that clear then? Also, shouldn't we make some kind of statement as to why this article, despite the alternative definitions, still goes by the Linnean definition? Serendi^podous 05:36, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Is this article about the clade Reptilia, or about the paraphyletic group "Reptiles"?

The article begins "Reptiles are tetrapod animals in the class or clade Reptilia". (my emphasis)

Well, if so, the article is about "Reptilia", not "Reptiles", which as popularly understood does not include birds.

The article includes a full taxonomy section and a taxobox, which says that the topic being covered is the Class Reptilia, and a phylogeny section, which says that the topic is the Clade Reptilia – which fortunately accords closely with the Class. What it does not accord with is the traditional, popular group "Reptiles", which is distinguished in people's minds from Fish, Amphibians, Birds, and Mammals.

The article's lead however also includes the paragraph (my emphasis in boldface):

"Modern non-bird reptiles inhabit all the continents except Antarctica. Several living subgroups are recognized: Testudines (turtles and tortoises), 361 species;[4][5] Rhynchocephalia (the tuatara from New Zealand), 1 species;[4][6] Squamata (lizards, snakes, and worm lizards), about 11,052 species;[4][5] and Crocodilia (crocodiles, gharials, caimans, and alligators), 27 species.[4][7]"

That seems to imply that the article is about "Reptiles, excluding birds", as it carefully details how many reptile species there are, omitting the thousands of bird species. That accords with the body of the article, which does not cover bird biology or bird relations with humans. Thus both the lead (though it contradicts itself) and the article body seem to be about the popular "Reptiles", not the clade "Reptilia".

Something is very wrong here.

The logical options are

1) to write about the Class/Clade, including Birds, and to rename the article "Reptilia". The lead section and article body then need to be rewritten to include full coverage of Birds, in at least as much detail as, say, the Crocodiles.

2) to accept the Common Name and to write about the paraphyletic "Reptiles", excluding Birds. This would mean rewriting the lead and removing the cladistics, and cutting the taxobox, taxonomy, and phylogeny, all of which apply only to the Class/Clade, not the paraphyletic group.

I guess another option (not sure if it's available) would be

3) to find a way of justifying the first sentence of the lead (quoted above), which effectively redefines "Reptiles" as "Reptilia", contrary to centuries of Common Name usage. The section Reptiles#Phylogenetics and modern definition however fails to do this; at the moment, the first sentence of the lead is therefore WP:OR – an uncited editorial opinion.

I'd say that (2) was a bit drastic, and we'd miss having proper coverage of Reptilia. We can't just say WP:COMMONNAME as that gives an inconsistent answer in this case. (3) would be attractive if possible, but common usage is persistent; people other than evolutionary biologists (and small boys in the museum's Dino gallery) do not think of birds as reptiles. If neither of those work, then (1) is what we have left, Dr. Watson, and we must rename the article to "Reptilia". Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:43, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

P.S. Serendipodous, Hemiauchenia - maybe you have thoughts on this. CC.

The opening sentence is correct that "reptiles are tetrapod animals in the class or clade Reptilia". They are members of the taxon, whether using reptile to exclude birds or not. It needs qualification, something like "birds also evolved from within this class, but are not considered reptiles in the widely understood use of the common name. This article is about reptiles to the exclusion of birds".

Specifically:

1. Including birds will lead to redundancy unless its a very short section with a hatnote linking the bird article. I think the lede needs to indicate that birds are not covered in some way.
2. The common name reptile can be used broadly to include birds as well as more widely understood meaning to the exclusion of birds. So reptile is still a valid common name for Reptilia. Even if reptiles was always to the exclusion of birds the taxobox is still necessary. The taxobox is just an infobox with information on the article topic and even if taken strictly to mean an infobox on a taxon, Reptilia is still a taxon even if it has a definition making it paraphyletic. Major systems of taxonomy still use paraphyletic taxa, even though most people would prefer otherwise.
3. This has to be the approach, but the problem is finding a way that doesn't add a distraction for those wanting to read about reptiles as usually understood. It's hard to be concise and precise as accurate descriptions tend to become wordy. This also becomes difficult within Wikipedia guidelines on the lede summarising the article unless there is a short section.

The lede also states Reptilia is a paraphyletic taxon. This is incorrect. Some definitions might make it paraphyletic, but there are certainly definitions inclusive of birds. My impression is most definitions of the taxon are, although my reading might be biased to cladistic sources.

In short I think the common name title is fine (within Wikipedia restraints) as it can apply to the clade or the more widely understood common name meaning. We just need to find away of concisely explaining the position of birds and why they are covered in a different article. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:51, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Um, in that case there is WP:WEASEL-talk in the lead section. The quoted first sentence will sound to 99.99% of readers as a definition, meaning "'Reptiles' is a clade and this article will cover it". Both halves of that reasonable deduction are false: Reptiles, defined as (Reptilia - Aves) is not a clade, and the article does not cover the clade either; but the article is going to elide Reptiles with Reptilia and provide full clade-article phylogeny as if the article were covering a clade. I think that's both confusing and dishonest.

Where I can agree with you is that the lead is self-contradictory and needs rewriting. The least we can do is clean that up, it's a disgrace. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:57, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

To do that we need to settle on a definition of "reptile", which this article as a whole appears to have done, ie, the old-fashioned Linnaean definition, which is fine. The problem is we can't in all honesty declare that "reptiles are" any one thing, becuase there is at present no fixed idea of what reptiles are. Serendi^podous 18:39, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Not sure I agree, but if you're right on that, then what you wrote above makes no sense, and we must immediately rename the article to Reptilia, which can at least be offered a time-series of successive definitions. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:44, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

You seem to be taking it as read that "reptile" means what most people think of when they think of "reptile." which as I said is fine. But we still need a source for that. And given the competing definitions of reptile among reliable sources, I don't see how we could arrive at a single definition of reptile. Serendi^podous 20:47, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

On the contrary, I'm taking your suggestion that that's the least painful route, in the spirit of compromise. If that's not all right then, for the third time of asking, we need to rename the article to Reptilia. Then we can say directly that the article is about the class, and then we go into the issue of what clade exactly that might mean. I think that's the only intellectually honest thing to do if we're going to keep all the clade stuff and phylogeny in the article, but you keep circling around it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:09, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't see how it will make any difference to change the name. If we are discussing the class reptilia than that is synonymous with the standard definition of reptile. I do not know where the idea of a reptilia clade even comes from. As far as I'm aware the cladistic name for this group is sauropsida and the idea of making a reptilia clade isn't actually established. Serendi^podous 21:15, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Well it will make a large difference to the article, and towards avoiding total confusion among our readership, if we give the article a defensible name rather than a non-clade that is or isn't a decent class, and which may or may not be covered in full in the article, or rather... etc etc. In short, it's a shambles as it is, and a solid, defensible name will make all the difference, as it'll give the article a definable scope, and we can then ensure that all parts of it match that scope. At the moment we have an article at war with itself.

Now, as to this new cladistic spanner you've just thrown in the works, I'd be happy with Sauropsida if that's the choice, but there actually seem to be several clades we could select in the cladogram, and Sauropsida isn't one of them, maybe you can explain why that is. The lead's facile class=clade Reptilia is simply mistaken (how long has that been there, no, don't tell me). It's plainly no good going for a class-name that doesn't work as a clade. I'm a bit astonished that we have "Reptilia" as not one but two clades in the cladogram (obviously that does sound like a bit of a problem), along with the promising-sounding "Eureptilia" (maybe we should use that...) and indeed we have the choice of Romeriida and Diapsida too. Perhaps getting the inconsistency in the cladogram sorted out would be a good start. Or if you are confident it's fine as it is (i.e. you're dropping the Sauropsida idea), then we just have to pick one of the clades in the tree to define the article's scope. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:33, 16 May 2021 (UTC)