Talk:Neovenator

Neovenator's toe

I've constantly seen MIWG 4199 mentioned in literature and articles about the dinosaur, yet there is nothing figured for this bone. Even the Dinosauria second edition only goes in to as much detail as: "isolated remains indicate individuals as long as 10 metres." In "THE OSTEOLOGY OF NEOVENATOR SALERII" the specimen is even referred to Theropoda indet. as it has nothing diagnosable to the genus. It's time to get rid of the section from the wiki page, or at least mention its dubious position. DaCaTaraptor (talk) 17:49, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

The latter option is of course the correct one.--MWAK (talk) 19:22, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

The "Megalosaurus" mount

Since images of these mounts keep getting removed because the museums labelled them "Megalosaurus", but MWAK brought up that they are supposed to depict Neovenator[1] back when it was still considered part of Megalosaurus, I tried to check different images online. This blog post[2] indicates there are both a mount of Megalosaurus, identical to the one we show in this article, and one of Neovenator, which looks slightly different, in the Dinosaur Isle Museum. So I'm not sure what to make of this? Are they both based on what became Neovenator? Dave Hone has another post about that Megalosaurus mount cast here:[3] FunkMonk (talk) 22:57, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, the "Megalosaurus" mount is a sculpture, while the Neovenator mount is based on real material. Hence the small differences. One could of course argue that, as a vague concept of how Megalosaurus was supposed to look like was used to fill in the gaps, the sculpture is also a mount of Megalosaurus ;o). In any case, the real Megalosaurus is fundamentally different and far more robust. It is after all a megalosaurid while Neovenator is now known to be a, well, neovenatorid. We may assume that Hone simply took the label in Dublin at face value. He never published on either group, I believe.--MWAK (talk) 06:09, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

After a bit of searching, I found some photos from Aathal Museum that seem to show the cast in this article labelled as Neovenator:[4] For what it's worth, the Dinosaur Isle museum lists it as Megalosaurus on their website:[5] So yeah, no wonder editors get confused, hehe... I also just noticed the Dinosaur Isle mount[6] is missing its cervical ribs, that's not so nice, is it? Maybe we should remove the photo from here because it is specifically used in the context of Owen's original dinosaurs? FunkMonk (talk) 10:26, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

It looks weird without the ribs. Then again, I don't have them either ;o). Indeed the context adds to the confusion, while this particular skeleton adds nothing to the information. It would be highly preferable if someone would take some pictures of the other mount and upload them here. So, Vectensians, this is your chance for palaeontological glory!--MWAK (talk) 17:48, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

I replaced the photo with a cast that is definitely labelled as Neovenator in its museum:[7][8] And it has the ribs! FunkMonk (talk) 18:56, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Well done. Of course, this doesn't release the Caulkheads from their obligation :o).--MWAK (talk) 20:52, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

They should get some photos of the actual fossils as well, unless they're somewhere else in the world? This photo was taken in Munich[9], with the Wikipedia restoration as background, funnily enough... FunkMonk (talk) 09:15, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

New paper on Neovenator salerii

A new open access paper has just been published on this species:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-03671-3

I'll leave it to editors with more expertise to add any appropriate new material to the article. A less technical discussion of it can be found at the blog of the second-listed author, Darren Naish, [Disclaimer: I am not Dr Naish, merely a lay acquaintence who follows his blog.] {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.217.208.38 (talk) 13:59, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

The license is also free, so we can use the images here. FunkMonk (talk) 14:13, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Excellent! Naish's blog also indicates that the Neovenator mount incorporates the authentic holotype material.--MWAK (talk) 06:04, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Neovenator's phylogeny

According to the most recent phylogenies, Neovenator is classified under Carcharodontosauridae as a basal member of the group (Novas et al., 2013 , Barker et al. etc.). Thus, I suggest that the taxobox should be changed accordingly, and the family for the genus changed to Carcharodontosauridae (specifically as recent studies have shown that Neovenatoridae is probably polyphyletic). Eotyrannu5 (talk) 16:54, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

The problem is that Carcharodontosauria and Carcharodontosauridae are often synonymized by some authors while kept separate by others. Carcharodontosauria is the group containing Neovenatorids and Carcharodontosaurids, while Carcharodontosauridae is used to exclude Neovenator whenever Carcharodontosauria is used. The studies you cite consider Carcharodontosauria to equal Carcharodontosauridae, thus incuding Neovenator within the family. Wikipedia generally seems to consider Carcharodontosauria as a different group than Carcharodontosauridae (although some cladograms do not), so therefore we will keep Neovenator separate from Carcharodontosauridae yet within Carcharodontosauria. Even if most "neovenatorids" are not actually part of the group (Megaraptora, Gualicho, Chilantaisaurus, etc.), at least two members are legitimate close relatives (Neovenator and Siats). Therefore, Neovenatoridae is monophyletic and valid if restricted to these two genera. Fanboyphilosopher (talk) 16:47, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

My recommendation it leaving definitive neovenatorids at Carcharodontosauria in the taxobox then exploring the issue at the text. Megaraptora does this already by leaving it at Avetheropoda, the group everyone agrees it's somewhere within. Gualicho, on the topic, should probably go with Averostra. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 19:33, 29 May 2018 (UTC)