Talk:List of reptiles of Northern America
| This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the List of reptiles of Northern America article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
| Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
 | This article is rated List-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Inclusion of introduced species is misleading edit
The listing of the introduced species within the classification of native species is misleading, and may result in errors in research relying on this text as a source. The following list summarizes the main arguments for this. - This is a list of reptiles of North America, the introduced species are not of North america, the utility of such a list is likely to be used by readers interested in learning about species native to the region. The large number of introduced species being the result of the high levels of exotic reptiles kept as pets in the USA and being released/escaping (I'm assuming I don't need a reference for a truism such as this, but will look some up if requested). - When viewed alongside the other contextual info such as endangered species status, the asterisks do not stand out well. At the very least adoption of the phrases "non-native" or "introduced to ..." with the region of naturalised population as is found in several of the other reptile regional lists. - The similarly continental in scope "List of reptiles of Europe" does not include naturalised species (this is stated in the page description, with three noted exceptions). [[1]] - The use of this list as a reference is compromised, inflating diversity when comparing with other areas (just under 20% (67) of species on the list are non-native) - Entire families of reptiles not native to North America may lead to confusing the concepts of reptile biogeography. Again the inclusion of "non-native" beside these families might be useful. Listing the proportion of native/non-native species in taxon headings where there are mixed numbers rather than a combined total. - Having a separate list of introduced reptiles of North America and/or native reptiles of North America might be useful so the reader doesn't have to manually comb through the list to determine which belongs where. Beseekay (talk) 08:30, 23 May 2016 (UTC)Beseekay