Talk:Hypnomys

Merge proposal

Hypnomys was largely an anagenic lineage, that is to say, a succession of chronospecies (though not absolutely so). I don't see any reason to have the recently extinct species articles separate from the genus, as there is comparatively little to say about the fossil species. According to Dental Variation in the Endemic Dormouse Hypnomys Bate 1918 and its Implications for the Palaeogeographic Evolution of the Balearic Islands (Western Mediterranean) during the late Neogene-Quaternary the Menorcan species was probably just a recently diverged lineage of the Mallorcan species anyway, and I can't find much about it in the literature. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:59, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

That information is not in the article, or any where else I looked, such as Leithiinae. The associated articles are very short or non-existant, but a glance through current research indicates there is a lot of room for improvement. Facts added to species articles are sometimes removed as trivial in the context of genus articles, I believe redirecting a stub to another stub will constrain expansion of content. ~ cygnis insignis 15:47, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

It's from the large number of academic papers I have read on this topic, a search on scholar for "Hypnomys chronospecies" shows that my conclusion is correct. Most papers that discuss Hypnomys tend to discuss the lineage as a whole, rather than focusing on individual chronospecies, which are largely distinguished by minute differences in the morphology of the teeth that are of minimal interest to the general reader, and are better discussed as part of the broader set of changes that happened to the lineage as it evolved on the Balearics over the course of 5 million years. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:29, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

I cant say what general reader thinks but I reckon it very interesting, for all sorts of reasons. There was a mention somewhere about trails and tracks being described, I'll try to find it again. I'm leaning to support of the proposal, which would be unusual. ~ cygnis insignis 21:52, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

I've gone and made an effort to expand this article to cover the recent literature. Trails and tracks are mentioned in the 2010 PLoS One paper, which cites this 2009 paper which specifically discusses them (it's in spanish, but google translate has a translate to PDF tool that you can use). A lot of the 20th century literature discussing the Balearic trio (Nesiotites, Hypnomys, and Myotragus) is wholly in Spanish and relatively innaccessible. I can't find the original Dorothea Bate paper where she initially described Hypnomys , but if I had it I would write a history of discovery section. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:51, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

The abstract was in english, an astonishing find. I added the first description to the taxoboxen, unfortunately I am not in a position to extract the illustrations by the author. ~ cygnis insignis 13:15, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

I can't find any evidence that the paper is under a CC-BY license unfortunately, which means that we can't use the images. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:59, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

If that refers to Dorothea in the Proceedings for 1918, or any scan of a page published more than 95 years ago, it is public domain (in the US) so can be uploaded to commons with c:Template:PD-scan. ~ cygnis insignis 03:29, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

I thought you were referring to the footprint paper, my apologies for the confusion. I agree that Bates original description is in the public domain, the remains she was describing were very fragmentary though, there are likely better images cc by images out there. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:55, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

As an aside, I think this is a great idea. If you need articles in Spanish translated, send them my way. SuperTah (talk) 11:51, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

@SuperTah: do you have an opinion on whether the species articles should be merged to the genus? Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:11, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

My apologies, I should have been clearer. I meant that I thought the merge was a great idea- provided that all possible information is included of course, which is what seems to be happening! SuperTah (talk) 21:53, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

@Cygnis insignis: Given that we appear to have consensus to merge, would you mind if I went ahead and did the merge? Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:04, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia: No objection, the substantial expansion of this article supports the redirects from the recognised species names. ~ cygnis insignis 19:17, 9 February 2022 (UTC)