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Please see the past featured article, White's Tree Frog for an example of how a taxobox is done. Also, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style: Common names and scientific names are both acceptable as long as a redirect is made, since people are more likely to search by common name, and Wikipedia's policy is to use the most common way something is referred to - ie, its not the Tree of Life project. Also I recommend Wikipedia:Guide to layout for preferred section ordering.

Thanks for your edits to the Viper articles, some of them really needed work. You might be interested in joining the Wikipedia:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles. Cheers. - Dawson 15:54, 19 April 2006 (UTC) reply

Although that sounds like a reasonable argument, I really beg to differ with you on this one. First of all, my opinion is that scientific nomenclature is "The Perfect Tool" for Wikipedia in this context. Redirect pages are fine for common names -- I'm all in favor of that! -- but if we want to avoid the confusion (different articles on the same species, etc.) that will inevitably follow once we have too many articles lying around that are mostly titled with common names, then we will have to adopt an overall naming strategy before it's too late. It's taken me over two weeks to get almost the entire viperid section sorted, but if there had been twice as many articles already in place, maybe I wouldn't have bothered to start. The application of strict scientific nomenclature -- with redirects for common names -- will allow anyone, from the average yokel looking up "Cottonmouth" to a professional herpetologist looking up some obscure African subspecies, to find what they want.

By making all those lists of species and subspecies, with links only for the scientific names, I'm hoping that people wanting to add new articles will use those links. This will avoid any kind of duplication and automatically add the new articles to the existing lists (even though the new articles don't immediately include all the right category links).

Second, you shouldn't underestimate how familiar snake enthusiasts around the world are with the scientific naming system. Back in the 80's, I had an sizeable private collection of snakes (over 80 at one point) myself and was an active member of the European Snake Society (ESS - snakesociety.nl). I was editor for their newsletter for a few years and I knew every member in the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, Belgium and Denmark that wanted to buy and/or sell snakes. I met all kinds of people, but if there was one thing we all had in common, it was that we all used scientific names *exclusively* when discussing our favorite animals. It makes communicating so much easier. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the information now being added to the viper pages is being added by this same breed of enthusiasts.

Actually, if Wikipedia hasn't been attracting enough attention from the kind of people I used to know through the ESS, it may be because they don't yet take Wikipedia seriously enough. That's one of the reasons I've been so busy: I happen to believe that "If we build it *properly*, they will come".

Regarding the taxobox in the White's Tree Frog article, perhaps it would be better to use a common name at the top of the taxobox (if there is one). But, although I've almost always formatted the species line like "species = L. caerulea", I don't think the L. has any business being there, even though it's the convention. In this case, L. is for the genus Litoria already mentioned on the previous line. If you think about it, the taxobox was probably not even designed to be used that way. It seems to me that the species line is just like the genus line or the subfamilia line: it's just meant to have the name of the species and nothing else. As for the addition font decorations, isn't it possible that if the designers had meant for the taxobox names to be formatted differently, they would have put that in there by default to make it easier for us?

Cheers - Jwinius Wed Apr 19 19:28:27 UTC 2006

I agree wholeheartedly on the scientific names issue, but I just meant to mention it as it has been a point of debate with no real consensus - sort of like the use of capitalization. Is it Eastern Hognose Snake or eastern hognose snake? No one ever agrees, so all methods are accepted, as long as each article is consistent within itself.

The taxobox issue is just a standardization one, we have thousands of articles which make use of the taxobox - the formatting has been generally agreed upon. While it may seem like it is repeating data by abbreviating the genus on the species line, I see it more as that the species name by itself really has no meaning without the genus qualifier. As for the italics, it again is a standard generally agreed upon formatting to always put genus, species, and subspecies in italics regardless of context.

Maybe these are things that could be brought up in the WikiProject, and have a more wide-spread discussion on it. - Dawson 20:33, 19 April 2006 (UTC) reply

I see from the above discussion that you have strong ideas on this issue. I also see that you have moved Speckled Rattlesnake back to Crotalus mitchellii. Although I have some sympathy for your position, the matter has been more or less resolved in favor of common names. Please see the following policies, guidelines and wikiproject statements:

• Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Use_common_names_of_persons_and_things
• Wikipedia:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Article_titles_and_common_names
• Wikipedia:WikiProject_Amphibians_and_Reptiles#Names_and_titles (which points to the below project).
• Wikipedia:WikiProject_Birds#Bird_names_and_article_titles

Thanks Dsmdgold 00:06, 27 April 2006 (UTC) reply

That's correct. Actually, I'd be happy to compromise if there was a way. For instance, maybe the Wikipedia system can be modified to accommodate dual page names or something: a way to give them a more visible common name title, but to organize them according to scientific nomenclature. They would have to be indexed according to both titles as well. But, I guess I'm not really surprised to learn that this naming issue has been raised before and settled in the way you describe. I see that, as you point out, Wikipedians before me have agreed to a set of standards that favor page names using common names in favor of scientific names. In my view, however, this is unfortunate since it's an approach that cannot be beneficial to Wikipedia in the long run.

To understand why, you need to think big. For instance, what happens if you want to eventually describe all species that exit? Nobody would ever expect to find that depth of information in a traditional encyclopedia, including the online Encyclopedia Britannica, but with Wikipedia this is a real possibility -- something we can and should aspire to. However, to allow for such a mammoth undertaking, you need to begin by establishing a firm structure as a base for all those thousands upon thousands of articles we're hoping for. For this you need a tree structure, and there is no better one that the naming system that science has been using for close to 300 years now. It's ideal, because it's systematic, precise and designed to avoid confusion; issues that are just as important today as they were in Linnaeus' day. It's great because it creates order in a world of gibberish that will always confuse a percentage of the readers except when the subject is one of the more common or well-known of species, such as the great white shark. As a bonus, sticking to Linnaeus' system would greatly enhance Wikipedia's research value.

For instance, many of the species known to science do not yet have common names, and may never have them because they are too obscure. So, do you make exceptions in such cases, or do you just make up a common name yourself? I'm sure there's a Wikipedia convention for this, but whatever it is, it can only be more confusing than the scientific naming system. With the latter, an obscure species without a common name will simply fit in and everyone would be able to find it with a systematic search starting at the base of the tree (or somewhere higher up if they're familiar with the structure). Or would we rather that such obscure species simply not be mentioned in Wikipedia?

Using common names is also confusing for people who are not as familiar with the English language, or learned their English in a different country, like India or South Africa: those people there often use very different common names for the same species. Also, don't underestimate the number of people that speak English as a second language and rely almost exclusively on their knowledge of scientific names to navigate this kind of information. In Europe for example, the unifying language is (becoming) English (even though the French are still resisting). Similarly, the unifying language among most reptile enthusiasts in Europe is... Latin.

If you search the Internet, you'll see that the vast majority of reptile sites are either based on or make heavy use of scientific names. These sites are often maintained by serious amateurs, such as myself. Wikipedia should be doing its best to attract the attention of these people by creating a well organized system in which to start new articles. However, my suspicion/fear is that most of those folks quickly move on and refrain from ever contributing anything, possibly because the jumble of articles currently available gives a disorganized impression. I was hoping to change that and create something in which I think those people would be more interested in.

The point is that common names are simply confusing. Snakes are a good example: the majority of species are pretty obscure to most people and there tends to be a lot more variation in their common names than for birds, for instance. Let's take a case that I know you're familiar with: I see that you changed the page name for Echis carinatus back to Saw-scaled Viper. This shows that you're unfamiliar with the fact that all members of the genus Echis are referred to as saw-scaled vipers. If you had know this, you would have renamed the Echis page to Saw-scaled Viper instead, and then used a more specific common name for the Echis carinatus page (I guess African Carpet Viper, but that name isn't used often and most Echis species are found in Africa anyway). So, you've definitely created more confusion here than there was before. Bottom line: if we encourage -- let alone enforce -- the use of common names in Wikipedia, there will be thousands more opportunities for people to make this same mistake. I can't believe that this is what Wikipedians are aiming for.

Jwinius, Fri Apr 28 23:42:29 UTC 2006

I have only just noticed that you are changing the names from common to scientific because you are starting to do the Australian snakes (all of which I am watching). You do have a good argument, although I do not fully agree. The problem is that you are not going about it the wrong way. Since it is policy, you should be first trying to change the policy before mass changes to the encyclopadia. The policies are there to create consistency. All you are doing now is making it more confusing. People expect to find the common names on Wikipedia, because that is the way it is done at the moment. Also, it seems you haven't read the Tree of Life guidelines properly. In it, it says that common names should be used where there are formal common names (such as birds) or there is a relatively unique common name. Otherwise use the scientific names. For example: White's Tree Frog is unique, and therefore the common name should be used. However, if you look at Litoria chloris, the common name cannot be used. Its common name, the Red-eyed Tree Frog has a disambigous page, explaining why that common cannot be used, and states that Red-eyed Tree Frog is not unique.

The entire issue is trying to account for the most amount of people. If someone wants information on a snake, writes its common name into the search box, and comes across an article with a strange latin name, they may be off-put and think they wrote the wrong name, and it redirected to the wrong place. Especially if the article did not have a photo. If a scientist wants to look at an article, and puts in the scientific name, and it is redirected to the common name, they will be aware of what the common name is. In fact, you will find that in most scientific papers, they will use the common name, stating the scientific name once in brackets so their is no ambiguity. A lot of articles use the scientific name because their is no common name. There is no other choice, and there is no problem with this.

Please, bring this up on WP:TOL talk page before changing any more articles. You cannot create consistency yourself, and all you are doing is making it worse. If policy is changed other people can help, and it is possible to get all the articles changed. Policy needs to be followed, otherwise the encyclopaedia becomes a jamble. Thankyou. -- liquidGhoul 00:20, 7 May 2006 (UTC) reply

Fine. Here are my arguments. We'll see what they say, although I'm not optimistic. I think the current majority opinion is to seriously underestimate the average person interested in these articles. To me, that's a sin. Besides, the average Joe is just as unlikely to look up Zhaoermia as he is Mangshan pit viper. The only snake he's likely to look up is king cobra, or maybe rattlesnake, so why should we stoop to his level and use common names for the other 3500+ snake articles? Just because he might decide to look a little further? 99% of the time, those articles will be accessed by snake people -- not by the average Joe -- and snake people prefer scientific names. -- Jwinius 15:38, 7 May 2006 (UTC) reply

I have taken a while to get back to you, and I see that others have already chimed in, but I'll try again. Wikipedia is not a reference work for specialists. It is a general knowledge encyclopedia. Because of that common names are used in all fields. I have an interest and some knowledge in medieval manuscripts. The equivilent of the scientific name in mahunscripts is the manuscripts shelfmark. However, whenever possible, I do not use the shelfmark for an article title, so that London, British Library, MS Royal I. D. V-VIII is a redirect to Codex Alexandrinus. I find it unlikely that that 99% of the people who access the article will be "snake people". I am a "bird person", and Wikipedia is the last place I look for information on North American birds. Why? Because I have many much better references on my bookshelf, the kind of references that are used as the sources for Wikipedia articles. I assume that most "snake people" have access to similar resources. I think you vastly underestimate that "average Joe". I recently visited a local zoo. My 8 year old daughter showed a great deal of interest in several of the snakes. It was much easier for her to remember "Eastern diamondback rattlesnake" than Crotalus adamanteus. This was especially true in some of the exhibits where the common name was used, but not the scientific name. (I practice I deplore.) We home-school and searching for additional information on things seen at zoos, gardens and museums is a vital part of our curriculum. I assume that normally curious and intelligent adults will also on occasion seek additional information on subjects, such as individual snake species, that they encounter in other places. However, for those people who are not aware of the details of scientific naming, or even that scientific naming exists, being redirected to a scientific name will be jarring in the least. However, anyone who knows a scientific name will be much less surprised to see an article come up under a common name. Even if the common name is not the one that they expect, they will be aware that species have common names and sometimes have more than one, and are much less likely to be taken aback.

Above,you talk about organization and the need for people who are not skilled in English to be able to find articles. It is of course crucial that apropriate redirects be made for every article. If a species has more than one common name used by English speakers, then redirects should be made. However this is the English wikipedia and redirects do not have to made from common names in other languages. (Thus Common Loon redirects to Great Northern Diver, as does Gavia immer, but Plongeon huard (the French name) does not. The scientific name should always redirect. Further organization is provided by the taxoboxes, which should be included for every organism. Of course is there is no common name, then the article should be under the scientific name.

The bottom line is that the consensus is to use common names. If you don't agree with the consensus, try to change the minds of enough people that the consensus changes, rather than declaring that compromise is not possible. In this case, I think that the place to do so would be the talk page of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna). I would anounce your proposal on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), and the talk pages of the oranism oriented Wikiprojects to make sure that the widest possible audience take part in the discussion. Until that time, you should respect the established consensus. Dsmdgold 04:00, 10 May 2006 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia as a general knowledge encyclopedia. Sure, but it's not like changing a page title from a common name to a scientific name is going to make it unreadable for most people. Using scientific names for page titles has more advantages than disadvantages. In case they're not familiar with scientific names, the first line in the page's introduction with the most common name in bold typeface should make it abundantly clear that they've come to the right place.

Scientific names are more than shelfmarks. By themselves, scientific names show how species are related to each other, while the system as a whole -- with genera, subfamilies, families, etc. -- attempts to reflect our current understanding of how they all evolved. In contrast, shelfmarks for medieval manuscripts seem like a great way to be specific and show where the originals are located, but not much more.

Scientists have been working to perfect the binomial system for over 250 years, so why should it be kept a secret from the general public? It would certainly us to order our articles, the number of which is already quite large and still growing. You know that this number will only increase until every species and subspecies is described or some limiting factor appears. My view is that scientific naming will not only help to bring order to what can otherwise become an awful mess, but that it can be seen as an educational tool for showing how all these different species are related.

As for the average Joe, I would say that it is you who are guilty of underestimating him. My apple pie remark may have seemed arrogant to some, but I was referring more to grade schoolers and the frivolous -- certainly not the average Wikipedia visitor. My hope is that Wikipedia will take itself a little more seriously than that. (Actually, much of Wikipedia already does: have you seen General relativity?). Once again, I am confident that anybody who can read and is actually looking for information will not be so offended by a title that they will not look any further. And even if a few do find the experience jarring, is that so bad? Why should Wikipedia be afraid to teach people something new? Really, we stand to gain more than to loose from using scientific names.

Redirects as a solution. Only if the common names are the redirects, because otherwise the scientific names don't get indexed. An index of common names is only useful if you know exactly what name you're looking for and an article exists by that name. With an index of scientific names, all the species in each genus are grouped together and you know nothing is missing.

It was pointed out to me recently that the best books on botany have indexes for both scientific names and common names. I really, really wish Wikipedia could do this, because then there would be no controversy and we wouldn't be having this argument. However, until that solution arrives, I really don't see how allowing scientific names to take a backseat to common names can add more value to the collection as a whole. Besides, redirects and disambiguation pages for the myriad of common names should still be plenty effective.

I'm very sorry, but the wisdom of this particular consensus continues to elude me. It's not based on logic, it lacks vision, and it's counter productive. However, I promise to pay a visit to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna) and Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) and see what they think of my ideas there. -- Jwinius 13:32, 13 May 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi, I won't enter into the common names vs. scientific names debate above, but I just came here to say that when you move an article, don't forget to watch out for (and remove) double redirects. Thanks! -- BillC 22:38, 9 May 2006 (UTC) reply

Thank you for your message. To look for double redirects, click on 'what links here'. You will see all the links that point to that page, including (single) redirects, and, indented, all the pages that link to that redirect page. If one of those pages is itself labelled as a redirect, then you have a double redirect. (You can also see any pages that are linked to the double redirect). In fact, this article has a double redirect; you might like to fix it. After you move a page, you're presented with a page saying 'check for double redirects'. If I recall correctly, there are two links on that page, one of which goes to a definition of a double redirect, the other takes you to 'what links here'. I hope this is useful, -- BillC 08:50, 13 May 2006 (UTC) reply

Great! Thanks for pointing that out for me. It seems like I learn something new every day. -- Jwinius 09:22, 13 May 2006 (UTC) reply

The whole reason I changed the links in Bitis was because Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) states that only the first instance of a link should be linked, so not every occurance of South Africa, etal, should be linked in the article. Unless it is a case where it could be misleading, like authority links where there are numerous "Smith" links, or a case where the original link is a significant distance in the article or different context than the first which would help clarify the information. - Dawson 21:30, 29 April 2006 (UTC) reply

Oops! Right you are. I thought I had missed something and was not even aware that you had done anything. I'll change it back.

Cheers - Jwinius Sat Apr 29 23:35:21 UTC 2006

I just happened to notice your edit to Bitis putting the common names in a list at the top of the article. That is really ugly, and does not meet the manual of style. The opening sentence should explain that info instead of just a general list. ie, "Bitis is a genus of venomous snakes commonly known as puff adders...". - Dawson 19:33, 12 May 2006 (UTC) reply

I guess you're right. I was just wondering how we might compromise somewhat in order to placate certain opposing voices in the scientific names v. common names debate. I was thinking that it might be an option to still use the scientific name for the title of the page, but to highlight the various common names at the beginning of the article. There really isn't a lot of room to maneuver between the manual of style and reverting to common names for all page titles (Yuk!). Got any better ideas? -- Jwinius 19:52, 12 May 2006 (UTC) reply

I've been doing it in other articles exactly as I mentioned above in the quotes. The first sentence covers both the scientific and any common names, and the common names aren't italicized. I'm not sure I can think of a cleaner way than that. If the common names have appropriate redirects, it shouldn't be too confusing to anyone finding the article that way. - Dawson 20:05, 12 May 2006 (UTC) reply

Good enough. Let's apply that to all the pages. However, I fear that nothing short of common names for the page titles will be good enough for the likes of liquidGhoul and Dsmdgold. The latter seems positively allergic to scientific naming. By the way, take a look at these pictures, which include some of Bitis parviocula: they're the first I've ever seen. What an impressive animal! You can see why it's considered a member of the Macrocerastes subgenus. The other photos on the page are nice as well. -- Jwinius 07:10, 13 May 2006 (UTC) reply

Hello. I just stopped by to say thank you for pointing out the mistakes in my map. I'll fix those ASAP. The WHO map I used as reference may be found here (PDF file). As you can see, it isn't very accurate (Sri Lanka, etc. have been left out). I don't know much about snakes, so when WHO says there's no land snakes in Chile I tend to believe them. Anyway, the WHO document, released in 1998 (should be accurate enough), has individual statistics which I can use to create a more accurate map.

I'm still not sure what to do with Chile; should I color it in? Also, I was aware of sea snakes, but the WHO map had no information on this I just left it out. What do you suggest I do? I can put it in the map but I'll need statistics on this and I'm not sure where I can find this sort of info. -- Every1blowz 19:17, 14 May 2006 (UTC) reply

Hello again. I updated the map with your suggestions and uploaded it. You can find it in the current snakebite article (might have to clear your cookies). Please tell me if I missed anything. -- Every1blowz 23:43, 14 May 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi, I see you've been "fixing" links to pit viper. You might be interested in WP:R#Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken. Cheers, Melchoir 19:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC) reply

You're right! Have I been wasting my time? Well, after having spent some 8 hours solid doing this, I hate to say that I wasted my time completely. :-) I did gain some new insight though. Thanks! -- Jwinius 19:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC) reply

Wow, after 8 hours it's amazing that you can take the news in good humor! A lot of folks would get all defensive if they were questioned on an edit that took 8 minutes. So, thanks for understanding! Melchoir 19:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC) reply

Yeah, well, I've kind of come to accept that I do stupid things every once in a while (no use pulling my hair out or whatever).  :-) It's also a learning process and I fixed a lot of other things along the way. And that insight: not only do I now have a better idea of how Wikipedia works, but how Wikipedians think. I'm not sure that I could have come across this in any other way. -- Jwinius 20:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC) reply

You'll have to explain to me what exactly the difference is with some authorities being in parentheses and some are without? I always figured it was just various authors information being compiled together, and didn't think it had any real significance? - Dawson 16:15, 26 July 2006 (UTC) reply

Apparently, they are significant. I didn't notice at first, but it's now obvious to me that it has to do with the name that was originally used to describe an animal, as opposed to the name for it that is currently considered valid. If those names are still the same, then no parentheses are used for the authority. Example, Bitis parviocula, Böhme, 1977, since Böhme described the animal with this same name in his 1977 publication.

On the other hand, if the name has changed since the animal was first described, then parentheses are used for the authority. Example, Bitis inornata, (Smith, 1838), since Smith first described this animal as Echidna inornata in his 1838 publication -- not as Bitis inornata.

This also means that if, for instance, the views of Lenk et al. (2001) are eventually accepted by ITIS (in other words, by Dr. Roy McDiarmid of the Smithsonian Institution) and Bitis is subsequently split into four different genera, we'll be changing the above reference to Calechidna parviocula, (Böhme, 1977).

I have to say that this concept is probably not very obvious unless you regularly browse through checklists (or have more knowledge of systematic zoology). An on-line example is the EMBL database, but if you want something really complete, get yourself a copy of Snake Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, vol. 1, by McDiarmid et al. (1999). One of the ITIS administrators, David Nicolson, suggested it to me (thanks, David!). It looked pretty boring at first, but it's what the snake information in ITIS is based on and I now consider it an invaluable resource (I can hardly wait for vol. 2 to be published!). Actually, for snakes it's been described as the most significant reference work since Boulenger's 1896 Catalogue of Snakes of the British Museum. Never leave home without a checklist! -- Jwinius 17:38, 26 July 2006 (UTC) reply

I guess it makes sense now that I think about it, but it sure isn't very intuitive to anyone who may not have studied taxonomy. :) - Dawson 17:45, 26 July 2006 (UTC) reply

True, but do you want to do things right, or what? This is a learning experience for me too, you know. Actually, do you remember that news item last month about Jimmy Wales saying that he receives some 10 emails a day from people who had quoted Wikipedia only to find that the information was inaccurate? Well, that really woke me up. No more assumptions for me -- no more bullshit! That's when I wrote Vipera ammodytes and I decided that I would not write any more articles for Wikipedia unless they are referenced so that other people can check up on what I write. I either do things right, or I don't at all. That way, people won't ever be able blame Wikipedia (or me) for factual errors, since they can make their own minds up about whether to trust the source I mentioned or not. Personally, I'd like nothing more than to hear a professional herpetologist, or at least a knowledgable amateur, mention some day that the snake articles in Wikipedia are well-written. We still have a long way to go, though. -- Jwinius 18:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC) reply

That is the whole reason I started writing on Wikipedia, because the reptile articles were so poorly written, and had so few good photos. I received Klauber's rattlesnakes two-volume set for my birthday. I'm working on mustering up the energy to start delving into those articles. :) - Dawson 18:38, 26 July 2006 (UTC) reply

Yup, writing articles for Wikipedia makes me feel like I'm doing something significant. Plus, I'm teaching myself how to write articles in a scientific manner -- just by not assuming anything, quoting without plagiarizing, rigorously citing my references and getting the taxonomy right. It's fun! And the more I do it, the easier it gets.

That Klauber set sounds like a gold mine of information to me! I'm tempted to buy a copy myself: $150.00 at Amazon for 1580 pages! But, there are so many other books I'd like. It reminds me of my copy of Handbook of Snakes by Wright & Wright (1957, 1985), 1105 pp; I used it last for distribution info for Sistrurus, but unfortunately it's not much good for viperines. I can well image, however, the depth of information in the Klauber set: most of it will not be interesting for Wikipedia at this point in time, so it's up to you to figure out what to pick out and what to ignore. Personally, what I find daunting is the biochemical information in books like True Vipers by Mallow et al. (2003): it's currently simply beyond my capabilities to accurately interpret and summarize that stuff. My sister (a veterinarian) says I'll have to bone up on cell biology first. She's got this huge book on the subject that she says I'm welcome to borrow... -- Jwinius 19:49, 26 July 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi Jwinius. A late response to your message on my talk page. I saw the page today and think that the alternate scientific names need to be reduced to just those that people are likely to bump into. Most modern reptile lists use Vipera russelii and now the reinstated genus name based on priority to Daboia russelii. Historically numerous authors may have used different names in their works and may have introduced errors ( Lapsus calami) or amendations in their works and it may not be useful to list them all. However it is very important to add links to the pages from the valid names. I just added a redirect from Vipera russelii. Also I feel that the common names list should go after the lead paragraph which gives the context of the article. cheers Shyamal 08:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC) reply

Synonyms list -- Who's "most people"? I don't think we should decide what "most people" are interested in. Rather, we should strive to educate and to be complete and accurate. Like most people here, I started out by just adding a few older scientific names that I knew of to this list, but I was always worried that my list was incomplete and that I didn't really know what a synonyms list was supposed to be. There are lists of synonyms on the EMBL as well, but what did they represent?

Then I took somebody's advice and bought a copy of Snake Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, vol. 1. by McDiarmid et al. (1999) and it all became clear. A synonyms list is a history of who said what and when about a certain species. It shows not only when the animal was first described, but how its classification has evolved over time. The names and dates that follow each synonym represent publications of books and papers that apparently all have something significant to say about the matter; these are essential to include, since the synonyms by themselves are almost meaningless.

By the way, McDiarmid's 1999 checklist is what ITIS uses for its classification of snakes. It's also been described as the most significant reference work since Boulenger's 1896 Catalogue of Snakes of the British Museum. It's about as authoritative as you can get these days -- certainly more so than the EMBL -- and it's perfect to use together with the ITIS database.

The list of synonyms included for Daboia (from McDiarmid) is longer than most, I'll admit, but it is exceptional. However, just because this particular list is longer than most does not give us the right to abbreviate it; the story it tells would otherwise be incomplete. Besides, you don't have to read it if you're not interested.

Vipera russelii redirect -- Oops! Guess I missed that one. A pretty important one, too. Thank's for adding it!

Common names list -- This one has been a bit of a headache for me. As I'm sure you know by now, I'm one of those dissenters who would rather use scientific names over common names for article titles. However, this approach does tend to emphasize a problem that the proponents of the current official policy would apparently rather ignore: what to do with animals that have more than one, perhaps many, common names. You can use a style like in Sistrurus catenatus, but this seems to give more import to one, while the others are buried elsewhere in the text. Then there's Agkistrodon taylori, but that's way too much bold type face for me, plus it's still like you're saying one common name is more important than the others when you use phrases like "also called." Finally, if you use only a separate common names section, but place it further on down in the article, people not familiar with the scientific name in the title may have to spend too much effort looking for it -- they might even have to scroll down before the common names section comes into view!

Therefore, unfortunate as it may seem, I decided to break with tradition and try something new. Well, actually I nicked the idea from one of my favorite reference books, True Vipers (Mallow et al., 2003), although this book is certainly not the first to use this format. Examples are indeed Daboia, but also Adenorhinos as an example of what I did when there are too many common names to fit on a single line (I'm still undecided as to whether the latter is a good idea or not).

I thought a lot about this. It certainly was not my intention to draw unnecessary criticism by resisting any more of the established style policies, but I can't escape the feeling that there is a logic and a certain efficiency -- even elegance -- to this solution. It solves all of the problems I mentioned: 1.) All of the common names now have the best chance of being found almost immediately by everyone -- especially those not familiar with the scientific name in the title. 2.) Even though this still places the common names in a certain order, it does so in a way that least emphasizes the first over the others. 3.) This format allows you to add additional common names without having to modify the flow of the existing text below. So, yes it's different, but it works well, so it's a step forwards in my view, whether you're a proponent of using scientific names for article tiles or not. -- Jwinius 14:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC) reply

I am ok with most things except the common names being at the beginning. I have more names including Mandaladha haavu in Kannada. In most of the biodiversity articles, the scientific names and the most popular common name for the wikipedia language, in this case English. Common names for snakes are rather non-standard especially for the more widespread species and here and for instance in most of the invertebrates I am for use of scientific names for the article pages. Common names and their actual meanings and origins in their native regions would preferably come later in the article and include other cultural references. Overall the article looks much better than it was. cheers Shyamal 03:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC) reply

I must say that I've always had a problem with Wikipedia's concept of the most popular common name. In many cases if not most, it's incredibly vague. If it wasn't for search engines like Google, it would be almost meaningless. As a matter of fact, it's for this very reason that biological nomenclature was invented.

There are exceptions, of course. "Russell's viper" is a very well established common name and the only true English one that I know of, despite the fact that this species is so widespread. I included the Hindi(?), Sinhala and Tamil names for it because these are often mentioned in English literature. This is to be expected on the Indian subcontinent, where several hundred million people speak English as a second language; such common names for this species (and others) were always bound to be introduced there. I don't think we should ignore that.

A species does not have to be so widespread to have many common names, however. Adenorhinos is a fine example: it's as if every other herpetologist to have described this animal came up with their own common name for it! And then there's Vipera ammodytes, which is much more widespread in and does indeed have many common names. So what do we do in these cases? Select one of them over the others just because Google said so? You know there's no real connection between that and the frequency with which any particular common name occurrs in literature. It also plays too much into the hands of the common name proponents for my taste. Therefore, I'd rather not give any one of these common names any more precedence over the others than I possibly can. Listing them in this manner is the best way that I can think of to achieve this. In addition, for people accessing these articles who are not familiar with the scientific names, it makes for a less "jarring" experience (as one common name proponent put it) if the common names (all of them) are this easy to find. -- Jwinius 14:01, 28 July 2006 (UTC) reply

Please see User:AshLin/Snake scales. Also please see my rewrite with images of Amphiesma stolata. I also think we are going to need a WikiProject Serpentes sooner rather than later. AshLin 04:07, 5 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Version 0.4 up with more material, additional image and footnoting. Comments please. AshLin 22:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Dear Jaap, I have uploaded the article as Snake scales. It is now open for cped. Thanks for the encouragement. AshLin 12:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Dear Jaap, Have amended Ocular (scale) to reflect both ocular scale and the circumorbitals. Thanks, I really dont have a modern work and have to derive much of my stuff from arbitrary references, as you can see. Regards, AshLin 18:11, 21 August 2006 (UTC). reply

Hi Jaap, Yes, also added some more articles, raw, need improvement, just stubs. Please see Temporal (scale), Internasal (scale) and Prefrontal (scale). Also corrected some wikilinks. Regards, AshLin 22:22, 3 October 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi Jwinius. Feel free to remove material you feel is outdated or incorrect. It is just that I don't have any newer reference. Unfortunately for the Indian region there are lots of species that have never been seen since. Let me know what particular entry you found that lacks reference and I can help you. In all probability it would be either Gunther's Reptiles and amphibians or Boulenger's work. cheers Shyamal 08:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Incidentally both works are available online, links are in their bio pages. Shyamal 08:42, 5 August 2006 (UTC) reply

I read your comments on Amphiesma stola...um..whatever. I agree with your view regarding annotation though I lament it because in my opinion it adds 'noise' for the vast majority who may not want such accuracy. Could you please point me to guidelines on creating those footnote markings. May I request comments on the snake scale article presently on my user page. Regards. AshLin 14:54, 5 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Your point about accuracy is absolutely correct, but I do feel that articles need to be well organised, written well and should feel good to read. This is a 'soft' issue which I feel is as important as accuracy. Incremental addition of info sometimes leads to cluttered up articles. Then I have the fun of reorganising and rewriting it.

BTW, I have met many young people in India who use the internet for communicating but do not have any brand recognition of wikipedia at all! I also know people who visited Wikipedia but were dissatisfied due to its lack of information on what they needed. Most of these were young budding naturalists so this is my impetus to spending time and effort here.

I do wish someone would come up with wikiproject Serpentes, but I am already unable to cope with Lepidoptera and the others. Thanks for the footnote links. Regards, AshLin 05:01, 6 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Please see version 0.2 of the article. Grateful for comments. Am slowly proceeding in the general direction you indicated. AshLin 16:43, 9 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Am upto version 0.5 of User:AshLin/Snake scales. Have incorporated material from govt websites (what I consider public domain). Have footnoted them too. Comments please on the talk pages of this effort of mine. Regards, AshLin 08:57, 13 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Easy. The first set of stub articles for all the Indian snakes were added from the EMBL reptile database, so if you see descriptive notes in the first versions, they came from there. The external link to the EMBL database was added to all those. They do not have specific book references, if that is what you need. cheers Shyamal 02:07, 6 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Hello. Thanks for clarifying the issue. I am not a biologist and have no scientific reference of Bitis gabonica living in Ethiopia but I have seen very interesting documentary about group of folks rafting down the Omo River in Ethiopia. They have met that snake, actually one guy was even biten by Bitis gabonica. If you can recognise that snake, I can take a screenshot and upload it. What do you think ? I respect scientific reports but Omo River was rafted down the full length only two times. Also Bitis gabonica appears in countries neighboring Ethiopia. - Darwinek 23:35, 6 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Hello. I have uploaded them at http://home.tiscali.cz/zadara/snake/ . It's not high quality cause it's done in motion. One of guys see the snake so he pick it up and snake bites him. He then say it's a baby Bitis gabonica. For a few hours he have been quite torpid and soulless but then he was OK again. Let me know when you'll see the pics. - Darwinek 08:09, 7 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Thanks for identifying that snake. Do you plan to start some new articles about snakes? I think most Bothrops species are only red links. My favorite is Bothrops insularis :). Also I would like to know if you think categorization "Fauna of xy" is useful. - Darwinek 10:54, 7 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi, thanks for your comments about my adding fauna of xy to things. I didn't realize that those two were not species. However, I think that in other cases it would be useful for now to add them. The classification system you suggested would be useful at some point, but there isn't really enough information to know which categories would be appropriate. What is your opinion on adding fauna of ___ to individual species? Aelfthrytha 22:25, 9 August 2006 (UTC) reply

I strongly disagree with you because the majority of those things which I tagged don't have such a distribution. If the categories for Fauna of Central Asian countries become too big, they can be split at a later date. Also, I would appreciate a little bit if you would soften your tone; I'm not sure if it's your intent, but you seem rather harsh. Aelfthrytha 23:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Thousands and thousands of articles doesn't sound so alarming to me; I've been resposnsible (sometimes solely) for stub-category splits along those lines. Check my history if you like. The basic problem I have with your response is this: my goal is to create somewhere where information about wildlife (as well as any other aspect) of Central Asian countries can be accessed from a central point linking the articles all together. My focus is the information about those countries rather than animals. Because of this, my knowledge of animals (or whatever) is probably not sufficient. However, I feel like your alternative which you describe really isn't an alternative because my knowledge (and stage in the project) won't allow me to use that plan. Would you be willing to use what you know to help me implement such a system? Otherwise I don't see how I can take your advice and accomplish anything related to my goal. You've already (almost entirely) convinced me; it's just a matter of practicality. Aelfthrytha 00:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi guys, I saw this conversation and thought I might throw in my two cents. The way I have been categorising things has been to split up the categories, but leave a central, broad category. My best example is Category:Frogs. I split that up quite a while ago, and now the frog category does not contain any taxonomy of the frog, just general information. The species, genera etc. are in the subcategories. As for how to do Fauna of XY categories, I cleaned up Category:Fauna of Australia quite a while back. The groups which weren't large enough to justify a split have remained in the main category until I can be bothered to further split them. I also only put species in, never genera, even if they are endemic.

I think the community needs to talk about how to split up the world to justify Fauna of XY articles and categories. I think it is silly to seperate two countries with the same fauna, based purely on political lines. I think New Guinea is the best example. It is owned by two different governments, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. I have recently created the Fauna of New Guinea article, ignoring the political line, and basing the distinction on geography and zoogeography. This is how I think things should be done, especially in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa. Maybe we should bring it up on WP:TOL.

Oh, and there probably isn't a need for a serpentines wikiproject, there is already WP:AAR. -- liquidGhoul 00:44, 10 August 2006 (UTC) reply

liquidGhoul! I was wondering when you'd pop up again. However, for once we can agree on something: I think Category:Frogs is a good example of how it should be done. With the snakes, I don't think Category:True vipers will ever need to be split, but Category:Vipers will. Category:Pit vipers will need to be as well -- there are just too many of them (certainly with all the subspecies). Perhaps dividing them into three regions -- for Asian, North American and Central/South America -- would be a good idea. Of course, that Category:Snakes should be split goes without saying; it's already too big! I can only image that that will be a lot of work, though. Or do you have some magic tool at your disposal?

Why no genera, though? I can only imagine that this attitude helps to reinforce the trend to ignore these articles. Most of them seem to be little more than lists of species based on various unknown taxonomies, which I find sad. Good descriptions of generic taxa help people to identify species they've never seen before. It can also help to cut down on duplicate (and often inconsistent) information in the related species articles.

Regarding "Fauna of xy" categories, why bother to create them in the first place, when you know in advance that they have the potential to become so large? You might as well create categories for things like Numbers between 1 and 1,000,000. Better to think first in order to avoid a lot of unnecessary work later on, if you ask me. -- Jwinius 18:39, 10 August 2006 (UTC) reply

I don't know much about snakes, so please ignore my ignorance. I am going to assume that vipers are a family of snakes. If the viper category gets too large, you can split the family category into genera categories. I don't have a special tool to do it, though I think there must be one out there, as all the Fauna of Papua New Guinea articles changed category recently, check out the history of Fauna of New Guinea.

If you create a fauna of XY category, I agree that it would be good to create the subcategories straight up. However, most of the Fauna of XY categories have been created, so we can't. Hindsight is a good thing :)...

I would like to bring this to WP:TOL, because it would be good to have useful fauna of XY categories. At the moment, most of them are a joke. -- liquidGhoul 00:02, 11 August 2006 (UTC) reply

As I was saying, it may be a good idea to split up Category:Vipers ( Viperidae), but this only has the potential to grow to a little over 400 articles. That may seem like a lot, but this is one of the advantages of using scientific names for the titles: in an list like Category:True vipers, the genera all group together to give you an orderly overview anyway. However, Category:Snakes is more urgent, since this has the potential to grow to some 3500 taxa or more (guesstimate); even if it uses all scientific names, that's way too long to be of any use. For Category:Snakes, I think an excellent solution would be for it to contain only snake family categories, like Category:Vipers, so that it would contain only 18 items. All we have to do is create the necessary family categories, add those to Category:Snakes and then edit all of the snake articles, swapping out the "Snakes" tags for the right "Family" tags.

However, to believe that it's possible to tackle the "Fauna of xy" categories problem in the same way is to fall into a trap. To split these up into subcategories like "Mammals of xy", "Birds of xy", "Snakes of xy", etc., and proceed from their on may seem like an obvious solution, but remember that there are potentially almost 250 country categories as opposed to only one for snakes. So, no matter how efficiently the "Fauna of xy" categories are split up to begin with, there will still be up to almost 250 subcategory tags available for any one fauna article. The result? Articles for certain widespread organisms, such as dust mites, soil bacteria, and certain fungi, may end up containing almost all of those tags. For a case in point, take a look at the number of countries Bitis arietans is found in: 46 (and the actual number is probably even higher). Would it be practical to add even that many "Snakes of xy" category tags to this one article? Certainly not. So, yes: this issue urgently needs to go to be discussed at WP:TOL before things really get out of hand. -- Jwinius 02:19, 11 August 2006 (UTC) reply

To interject myself, as I happen to have Jwinius' page on watch - looking at my shelf of field guides, the vast majority of them are based on political boundaries. At the very least they cover a single island or some other clearly definable area. I really think that as far as "what is to be commonly understood by the layman", using political boundaries is probably the easiest method of creating categories. Though "Fauna" may be too generic, and probably needs further sub-categorization. At the same point, I also believe we should categorize by taxonomy, as well to show relationships between species. - Dawson 03:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC) reply

If you mean sub-categorizing just "Fauna", that's fine, because then all the subcategories are unique, such as "Mites". However, if you actually mean "Fauna of xy", then that would still lead to almost 250 "Mites of xy" subcategories -- simply not practical. -- Jwinius 12:03, 11 August 2006 (UTC) reply

There is an experiment currently underway at Category:Banksia, this is the best way to categorise, and I think it should be adopted for all living things. -- liquidGhoul 06:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC) reply

That looks excellent to me. Big genus, though; not all are so large. The biggest one that I know of for venomous snakes is Micrurus (coral snakes) with over 60 species. However, those Banksia articles all use scientific names for their actual titles; I thought you were against that, wanting to follow the official policy instead. Have you had a change of heart? -- Jwinius 12:03, 11 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Common names just don't work for most plants, the common name tends to be the scientific name, and they never go down to the species level (look at Banksia). -- liquidGhoul 12:17, 11 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Ah! Okay, just checking. You had me worried there for a moment. ;-) -- Jwinius 15:52, 11 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Considering your love for snakes, I thought I would make you aware of this list. It is based on the same format as the two featured lists: List of Anuran families and List of Testudines families. It still needs some work to get to FL, but I am currently working on too many articles.

Oh, and sign up to WP:AAR, we need as many people as we can get! -- liquidGhoul 00:08, 11 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Aware of what list? That article doesn't exist yet. However, it looks like something I might want to navigate to using the taxobox, for instance. Actually, the higher reptile taxa were already on my To-Do list.

I've also signed up to WP:AAR. Seems like a good idea. I'll read more about it later. -- Jwinius 02:36, 11 August 2006 (UTC) reply

The list he meant to point to is List of Serpentes families. - Dawson 03:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Hehe, sorry about that, was in a rush. -- liquidGhoul 06:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Okay, thanks, Dawson. I've left a comment in Talk:List of Serpentes families. Looks like we're going to have to discuss taxonomy at one point, specifically: which taxonomy to follow. -- Jwinius 16:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Thanks for the kind words but they belong to Shyamal for placing them here. I only added his images. Regards, AshLin 10:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Oh no. The credit goes to my dear friend Saleem Hameed [1] [2] who contributed those amazing pictures. Shyamal 11:09, 29 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Well, thank you both, and thank Saleem Hameed for me as well! These pictures are of excellent quality and filled in a obvious gap. They make the articles look nicer too! -- Jwinius 11:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi Jwinius! Thanks for your message. Soon I will comment on "Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles#General taxonomy" In brief, I think that, (1) ammount of knowledge on the phylogeny of amphibians and reptiles is not the same, thus information sources and how good they are is highly variable. We know more on amphibians than for reptiles. FOR REPTILES: I personally use EMBL to track names, especially old ones, or to check for references. But, to get updated information about the nomenclature and taxonomy (reflecting various oppinions) I prefer to go directly to scientific publications, among them the authoritative McDiarmid et al. that you mentioned in the discussion, and to periodically check herpetological journals (try http://www.herplit.com/contents). FOR AMPHIBIANS: I trust 98% in Frost 2006 at the AMNH. Even though there is some controversy regarding some issues on amphibians phylogenetics as presented, it is the most authoritative work up to August 2006... Many issues are going to change in the near future. For example, Frost 2006 (and its main source Frost et al. 2006) considered Allophrynidae as part of Centrolenidae (Glassfrogs) - I do not agree, but, it will change only after someone presents scientific evidence. Meanwhile, Allophrynidae should either be placed under Centrolenidae or a comment regarding this possiblity should be placed instead. ITIS is of course a good database... however, in certain cases, where you have lots of controversies, it is better to go directly to the scientific papers.

About the second discussion "Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Nomen nudum, nomen conservandum, and other nomenclatural terms"... I am not really into nomenclature itself, but rather into taxonomy and systematics.

Cheers! -- DFCisneros 02:02, 3 September 2006 (UTC) reply

(By the way. If you are going to work on Neotropical pitvipers, the most trustable source is the book by Campbell and Lamar on the venemous snakes from the Western Hemisphere.

Hi Jaap, A rare treat for me, I caught a Banded Krait on 19 Sep 06 and left it today afternoon. Went haywire taking snaps of this uncommon venomous elapid, some of which are on Bungarus fasciatus. And of course, I completely rewrote the article. My first poisonous snake. Regards, AshLin 19:48, 20 September 2006 (UTC) reply

Whoa, cool! Congratulations! I am jealous! Way to go, dude! Excellent pictures, too. I think the only way you could have made better pictures, is if you had killed the snake first. Real herpetologists often do that (probably with an injection), although I find the thought somewhat distasteful.

I'm sure you know, however, that there was some risk involving in handling the snake the way you did (or was that somebody else?). From what I've read, B. fasciatus is not very aggressive or difficult to handle, but Bungarus species are exceedingly venomous: even with prompt hospital treatment, a bite would be an experience you'd not be likely to forget. We wouldn't want you to take any unnecessary risks just for the sake of a Wikipedia article. Still, your improvements to the current version are very welcome! But, promise me you won't try the same thing with Daboia russelii. ;-) -- Jwinius 20:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC) reply

Length 111cms, but forgot to weigh it. My query - how can one differentiate the sex w/o hurting the snake. How do I photograph the hemipenis or lack of it. Any other angles I should have photographed? Can/Should I attempt to photo the fangs/teeth? Cant promise not to do the same with D russelli, remember, its antivenom is available - so theoretically its safer to handle Russells than banded krait;) AshLin 13:47, 22 September 2006 (UTC) reply

Perhaps I need to expand the venom section of the D. russelii article a bit. You don't seem to appreciate how dangerous this snake is; it's one of the last species I would ever want to see someone suffer a bite from. Some victims say it's as if a hot coal is suddenly placed on your hand or foot -- and you can't shake it off! There's antivenin, sure, but even if you're bitten inside a hospital, you can bet that there will be plenty of pain suffering between the moment you're bitten and your supposedly quick recovery. And what happens if you're allergic to the venom, or the antivenin? Then you're in seriously deep trouble. Remember, it's for this same reason that more people die of bee stings every year than snake bites. In other words, it's better not to get bitten in the first place. And don't forget that D. russelii is notoriously difficult to handle -- ask anyone who milks them for a living. They often continue to struggle vigorously even after being grasped firmly behind the head.

As for sexing snakes in general, the easiest way to do this is by looking at the length of the tail and how it tapers off after the cloaca. Females have relatively short tails that taper off quickly, while the males have longer ones that start out a little thicker. This is because the two hemipenes are stored in an inverted position (outside-in) within the tail. They come out immediately after the cloaca. With neonates, it's possible to "pop" them with your thumb and forefinger: applying gentle pressure, you roll your thumb forwards up the tail and the the hemipenes usually pop out. However, this does not work on older snakes. In cases where it's difficult to judge the sex from the length and shape of the tail alone, it's sometimes necessary to use a probe. The probes I've used were always metal, less than 10 cm long, a few mm thick and with a blunt tip. You grease it down (with animal fat, not vegetable fat) and gently try to insert it into one of the inverted hemipenes. If a short length can be inserted without any difficulty, it's a male. If not, it's a female. -- Jwinius 23:50, 22 September 2006 (UTC) reply

Thanks, this useful info gets you a rewrite of Daboia and if you give me your email id on my user page (will delete later) images of how I caught and handled Bungarus. Regards, AshLin 13:26, 24 September 2006 (UTC) reply

Point noted. Saw this kind of usage somewhere. Please create redirects if you like or will do so later myself. Only a couple more scales to go. BTW I now have a Ptyas mucosus, one Amphiesma stolata & three Xenochrophis piscators of various sizes. AshLin 23:22, 3 October 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi, thanks for the welcome. Yes, I love venomous snakes and have worked with many species in my lifetime. The puff adder article is a great one, but I found the sentence "One of the most toxic of vipers" a little bit off. The snake is definitely venomous, but among the most venomous vipers? I can name a few vipers off the top of my head that are more venomous, including the saw-scaled viper and russell's viper. Now, I may be wrong as I am more versed in the elapids, particularily the mambas and cobras. Regarding the puff adder being responsible for more deaths in Africa -- I am pretty sure that this cannot be because the Egyptian cobra and saw-scaled viper are by far the most common snakes involved in fatalities in Africa. Do you have a source for the statement? I have sources claiming otherwise. Victims of Egyptian cobra bites and saw-scaled vipers have quite a high mortality rate, meanwhile puff adder bite victims rarely succumb. Jacky62 15:17, 7 October 2006 (UTC) reply

Jwinius, I must say that you have done a terrific job on both bitis arietans and bitis gabonica. They are definitely the most comprehensive and accurate snake articles on Wikipedia. I think you are right in regards to fatalities in Africa. If your reputable sources claim this, than I am all for it. My sources regarding the echis carinatus and naja haje are sketchy and aren't quite clear. However, the misconception that echis carinatus and naja haje are responsible for most deaths in Africa is quite persistent. It's "right" as far as percentages go (more people succumb to naja haje and echis carinatus for every 10 bites) -- naja haje and echis carinatus are relatively much more dangerous. If say naja haje or echis carinatus were responsible for as many bites as bitis arietans, than surely the fatalities attributed to naja haje and echis carinatus would be considerably more numerous. Then again, a much higher percentage of dendroaspis polylepis victims die as a result of a bite (as compared to echis carinatus or naja haje), but bites are exceptionally rare nowadays.

In regards to the venom potency, I will remain reserved on that.

I was looking at some of the elapid snake articles and they are just horrible. I plan on enlarging the dendroaspis polyepis and several other articles and follow your style of referencing and such. It's going to take some work, but elapids are what I know best. I'm not as good with vipers or pit-vipers, lol. Unfortunately, some of the elapids are poorly studied and remain a mystery. The cobras are the ones with the most research, so perhaps I will start there.

Yes, I have several snake books. Jacky62 16:12, 7 October 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi Jaap, we'll need annotated viper head image too to show the new scales that you have added to the glossary of Snake scales. Will you be doing that. Regards, AshLin 02:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC) reply

Sounds like a good idea. However, the problem will be finding one good enough to serve as a general example. The scales are small, so the image needs to be sharp. Also, and the specimen cannot be too darkly colored, or else it won't be easy to distinguish the individual scales, and the head has to be angled properly. Images like this are hard to find. Still, I'll try to find one like this for the Snake scales article, as well as examples for all of the individual scale articles. -- Jwinius 09:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi! I just read your message. Unfortunately I can not recommend a single book where you can find definitions for all kind of scales. However, all colubrids and elapids have a pretty standard set of scales that you will find for sure described in most books dealing with snakes in general (e.g., Reptiles of Central America by G. Kohler), pitvipers and the small worm-like snakes (and all the cilindrical snakes of the families Leptotyphlopidae, Anomalepididae and similars) have a different set of scales. I remember that there are some great monographies on African worm-like snakes published by the Paris Natural History Museum where you can find nice descriptions of the scales of those snakes. Whereas, for vipers and pitvipers I recomend you to check the books "Biology of the Vipers" and "Biology of the Pitvipers". Hope this helps a little.. Cheers! -- DFCisneros 01:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC) reply

Great, thanks! Even if they aren't exactly what I was hoping for, they do look like a couple of excellent books. I've been asking around and I'm starting to get the impression that a comprehensive checklist of snake/reptile scalation does not yet exist. What's more, Dr. Peter Eutz (of the EMBL) tells me that such diagnostic information exists for only about 300 species of snakes. Amazing! -- Jwinius 10:53, 20 October 2006 (UTC) reply

Dear Jwinius:

Why did you remove the mention I made to the common name for Bushmasters in Trinidad and remove the reference? I notice the reference you added gives Mapapire balsain for the Bushmaster and Mapapire zanana for the Fer-de-lance and I am happy with these but the Bushmaster is often simply called Mapapire or sometimes Mapapire grande (to distingush it from the Fer-de-lance which tends to be somewhat smaller). Furthermore, the reference I inserted gave an approximation of the Trinidad pronunciation which is not obvious from the spelling. This may help people with the identification. I am really pleased with the other changes you have made - but I would like to reinsert the pronunciation of Mapapire and give the reference again. Would you object to this? John Hill 02:22, 27 October 2006 (UTC) reply

My apologies if my unilateral action seemed arrogant. Since McDiarmid's distribution description for L. muta doesn't include Trinidad, I went looking for a confermation. The reference I've used was one of the first I found and, purely by coincidence, includes what is undoubtedly a more complete common name than the one you first provided. I guess mapapire is simply a general term for a venomous name. Anyway, having found a more complete name, it seemed a little silly to take so much trouble to explain how to pronounce only half of this name, leaving out the more specific part (which is arguably the more important). Now, if someone were to find a reference explaining how to pronounce the entire name, wouldn't that be a bit more useful? -- Jwinius 10:33, 27 October 2006 (UTC) reply

Hello Jwinius, you asked about the source of the map in commons. It's from

• Axel Kwet: Reptilien und Amphibien Europas. Franck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN  3-440-10237-8

I've written the german article of de:Aspisviper an made it for that. I hope it will help you. Greetings from Berlin, Achim Raschka

Excellent. I've added the distribution map with your reference to the English article on V. aspis. Thank you very much! -- Jwinius 12:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi, Jaap! My source for (I think) all the unfootnoted material in Bothrops asper was http://www.venomousreptiles.org/articles/133, the forum post that's cited in the article. Sorry not to be specific. I know that's not the best kind of source, but it looks reliable to me.

Synonymy—I'm impressed!

Can I suggest that even for a short encyclopedia article, complete sentences are preferable? That is, "The terciopelo is found in…" rather than just "Found in…" — JerryFriedman 00:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC) reply

(See my reply on your talk page. -- Jwinius 02:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC) ) reply

The problem is not at all with the quality of the videos, solely their copyright status. Unfortunately, we can't take quality into account. The page linked to gives no licensing information at all. We have no reason be able to believe this is self-made and owned. If you are in correspondence with the creator, please ask him to add a source and copyright status to the videos, and then the links can be readded. Dmcdevit· t 05:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC) reply

"It sounds to me like you're against linking to YouTube video material on principle, simply because few (if any) of these kind of videos include copywrite information." Yes, that's exactly right. We can't link to clips like this that don't give copyright information. Saying it's "obviously homemade" is no reason at all to believe that it's not a copyright infringement. Without a lisence, it can't be linked. Dmcdevit· t 17:35, 10 November 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi Jaap! Thanks for your detailed note on your concerns about my edits. It is good to see your concern for accuracy as it is certainly very true there is a lot of nonsense repeated about poisonous snakes. It is my object too to make the articles "as accurate, reliable and trustworthy as possible."

Actually, you have raised one of the main difficulties with the Wikipedia - because it can be edited by practically anyone, and because many writers are either pushing a particular line, or are poorly informed, it becomes more and more necessary to give good, reliable references. However, this approach also has its weaknesses as can be seen here in this discussion. Even scholarly, peer-reviewed works can contain mistakes and/or important omissions. Sometimes personal knowledge is more reliable.

You have based a column on the range of Lachesis muta in the Lachesis species table on a particular work by McDiarmid et al. (1999) who, for whatever reason, have omitted a portion of the well-known and well-established range of this species. I tried to rectify this omission by adding Trinidad to the range but neglected to notice that you had already given a reference for the information in the box.

I do believe Trinidad should be listed in this box - especially as it is a country off the mainland of South America and it is of interest to see that the Bushmaster has spread to Trinidad (though not to nearby Tobago or other West Indian islands). However, I agree I should have given an additional reference after I added Trinidad to the list. Under the circumstances, you were quite justified in removing Trinidad from that list - but I would like to add it again with reference(s).

Now, the presence of this species in Trinidad is referenced in several sources already given in the specific article on Lachesis muta. Should I just refer to that article or should I copy over some or all of the references from that article? I could easily find further references to the Bushmaster occurring in Trinidad if I was near a good library - but, unfortunately, I now live in the bush in northern Queensland, Australia, some 350 km from the nearest small city - so my access to books other than the ones in my personal collection is extremely limited.

About my comments that Bushmasters prefer upland forests (and, in the article on Fer de lances, that they prefer wet lowland forests): This is something that all of us who had to hunt and work with these snakes knew well. I clearly remember Dr. Wilbur Downs who was an internationally renowned naturalist and, the Director of the Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory as well as my boss and teacher at the time, remarking someone had reported that he had caught a "Mapapire" (often the locals would use this non-specific name when they were not certain which of the two large venomous snakes in Trinidad was involved) near the Caroni Swamp, that it must have been a Fer de lance and not a Bushmaster because it wasn't caught in the hills. On our return to the laboratory in Port of Spain, this was, of course, quickly confirmed, by a quick examination of the captured snake.

I was reminded of this recently when I was looking up birds I used to study and work with in the excellent, The Birds of Trinidad and Tobago by G. A. C. Herklots (1961). He makes a brief reference to this difference in the ranges of the two snakes in his introduction on page 10. I could make reference to this book - and perhaps I should, as I don't know anywhere else that this information has been published. However, I suspect that Herklots got this information originally either from Dr. Downs or Dr. William Beebe (who was the Director of the New York Zoological Society's Research Station at Simla in Trinidad at that time), or from local hunters who certainly knew where to look for each species.

In other words, I believe both Dr. Downs and Dr. Beebe probably knew as much or more about the range of these snakes than Dr. Herklots, having had more direct experience with them. I myself have had considerable experience both hunting for and working with both these species. I am quite happy to quote Dr. Herklots but I regard the knowledge of Drs. Down and Beebe plus my own experience of working with these snakes over some 7 years to be perhaps even more reliable than the brief written note of Dr. Herklots in the introduction to his book on the birds of the region.

What I am wondering is, in this case, should I just refer to Dr. Herklot's reference - or should I do that plus add an additional note in the Discussion page?

Any suggestions from you about how to handle these matters would be most welcome.

Cheers,

John Hill 07:21, 12 November 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi Jwinius, thanks for your comments re my edit to the pit viper page. I haven't got my head round how to add a citation yet hence there isn't one on re the sensitivity of the pit organs. The source is "Comparative Vertebrate Neuroanatomy" second edition by Ann B Butler and William Hodos (2005) No I'm not a herpetologist but have always been interested in snakes! regards Doctorpete 18:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC) reply

I should have said this earlier, but SmackBot has been making some irritating edits to the collection of over 150 articles under Category:Vipers. I've developed a rather unique style for the beginning of these articles that consists of a list of common names above the introduction. This list is separated from the introduction by two blank lines. Smackbot keeps deleting the second of these two blank lines and I'd like it to stop doing that. The latest example is Daboia. Thanks, -- Jwinius 13:02, 23 November 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi, I've put in a special rule to ensure two blank lines after the Common name line in members of rattlesnake, pit viper and true viper categories. I'm a bit uneasy about a set of pages with "special layout", certainly the common names should be in bold, perhaps the style used for redirects as at the top of Autopsy might be better. Rich Farmbrough, 09:28 24 November 2006 (GMT).

P.S. please let me know if this layout changes. Rich Farmbrough, 09:51 24 November 2006 (GMT).

Thanks for modifying your bot for me. I'm aware that my style is not that popular with the other editors, but it's not like I didn't give it any thought (see style). I am fundamentally opposed to Wikipedia's common name naming policy for article titles and by extension the popular introduction style. This solution works best for me, and let's not forget that the right to ignore the rules is also an official policy. In addition, I've been receiving encouragement from many non-editors, and a while back Bitis arietans and Bitis gabonica were given Good Article status despite being different, so the style I've developed must not be all that bad. Nevertheless, should anything change I'll let you know.-- Jwinius 12:57, 24 November 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi, sorry about that. You'll have had a busy time with many AWB edits I guess. I'm changeing all the articles to have non-breaking spaces on the blank lines, which will innoculate them against AWB's standard changes with the current version of the software. Rich Farmbrough, 21:35 15 December 2006 (GMT).

Is that better? Rich Farmbrough, 11:56 16 December 2006 (GMT).

Excellent! Thanks, -- Jwinius 12:31, 16 December 2006 (UTC) reply

I left what I felt to be a decent reference, though it isn't entirely focused on the proteolytic effects of rattlesnake venom; instead it focuses on certain mammals' tendency to resist these effects. It does, however, give information on the proteolytic venom found in rattlesnakes in the first paragraph (and loosely in subsequent paragraphs):

"In snake venoms that cause extensive hemorrhage, such as those of rattlesnakes and other vipers and pitvipers, the toxins responsible for hemorrhage have been identified as snake venom metalloproteases (SVMPs). These enzymatic toxins cause localized hemorrhage, either through damage to endothelial cells (Ownby et al. 1978; Ownby and Geren, 1987) or through gaps produced between endothelial cells as a result of damage to the basement membrane of blood vessels (Ohsaka, 1979; Markland, 1998). Hemorrhage produced by SVMPs can subsequently lead to edema, shock, tissue necrosis, and reduced ability to regenerate muscle tissue (Gutiérrez and Rucavado, 2000). Additionally, leakage of blood from affected vessels also helps spread other venom toxins to their target tissues."

So while hemotoxic hemorrhaging is the rattlesnake's predominant toxic effect, it's venom is not solely a hemotoxin. Perhaps I should have, or should, make that clear in the article.

aside from all that... I saw my first wild rattlesnake (eastern diamondback) down here in the sunshine state a couple weeks ago. It looked to be about 4 or 5 ft long and crossing a road near my house. I couldn't get it to rattle it's tail though... dang... -- the oreo 17:15, 2 December 2006 (UTC) reply

Hi, you must be one of the most alert editors on Wikipedia! Did you know that ISBN numbers are changing? You may know that they came from 9 digit SBN numbers in 1966-1974, well, due partly to running low in certain ranges, the book industry is moving to a 13 digit code. This is compatible with the bar code on modern books. The move started on 1 January 2005 and should be complete by 1 January 2007. For example, Amazon now supports the 13 digit format giving

• ISBN-10: 1893777014
• ISBN-13: 978-1893777019

for Mc Diarmid et al. Rich Farmbrough 12:10 23 December 2006 (UTC).

I had heard that a new 13-digit ISBN numbers were being introduced, and it's nice that Amazon now supports this new format, but is it really necessary for us to convert all of our existing references that have 10-digit ISBN numbers to 13-digit codes? None of the books I own have 13-digit ISBN numbers, so I'm in favor of leaving those references the way they are. You don't really expect us to convert all of the 10-digit codes, do you? If so, checking for mistakes is going to become that much more tedious. In my opinion, it would be better to do something else, like simply changing the labels for the old codes from "ISBN" to "ISBN-10" instead. -- Jwinius 17:34, 23 December 2006 (UTC) reply

I've put this conversion on hold for the time being, while alternatives are condsidered (including doing nothing). Most modern books will have the 13 digit code under a bar-code. Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 17:02 24 December 2006 (GMT).

An RfC has been filed against Nearly Headless Nick, and the You Tube link removals against policy are being addressed (towards the bottom): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Sir_Nicholas_de_Mimsy-Porpington Cindery 03:23, 30 December 2006 (UTC) reply