Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (fauna)

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Previous discussion of these issues may be found at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (biology), Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (flora and fauna), and Talk:Spinifex Hopping Mouse.

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(First post! :-) ). I think fish should never be capitalized. FishBase has nearly 200,000 common names, more than any source, and the only capitalizations I see are the German vernacular names, and the odd UK vernacular (which may just be database errors - hard to imagine how Apache trout, an endangered species found only in Arizona, would come to have a UK vernacular name of "Apache Trout" while UKers say "brook trout" like everybody else). Oh, and thanks for creating this page! Stan 06:09 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Stan, I'm in favour of capitalising fish:

• (a) becase it is the only way to resolve the ambiguity problem
• (b) because that's what all my fish field guides and references do, and
• (c) for the sake of consistency with other fauna articles

However, I'm not wedded to that as an article of faith. You seem to be the main man doing the hard yards on fish, and because of that I think your view should carry more weight than mine does. You'll notice that in my recent Short-finned eel article, I gritted my teeth and used lower case. I'll be doing more fish entries from time to time, and I can live with that if need be.

Yes, I would certainly prefer that we specify upper case across the board, and there is a great deal of rational support for that view, but in the end, I just want to get on with writing articles.

There is no way known that I'll put up with having the bird and mammal articles buggerised about the way they were recently. However, if it means a speedy and peaceful resolution, I'm prepared to sacrifice some technical accuracy in the fish entries to the cause of peace and quiet so we can all get on with what we do best - i.e., writing great content. Tannin 07:21 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Tannin, that there should not be different conventions for different animal classes. If we capitalise birds, it would be too confusing to set up another naming convention for fish. -- Cordyph 14:23 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

To quote from the Chicago Manual of Style (everybody wishing to lay down style conventions has a copy close at hand, right?):

7.104 Common names of plants and animals are capitalized in a bewildering variety of ways, even in lists and catalogs having professional status. It is often appropriate to follow the style of an 'official' list, and authors doing so should let their editors know what list they are following.

7.105 In the absence of such a list the University of Chicago Press prefers a down [sic] style for names of wild plants and animals, capitalizing only proper nouns and adjectives used with their original reference [list of examples follows]

So it's clearly wrong to assert that capitalization is a matter of "technical accuracy"; our chief style authority has no doubt been scarred in fighting with rabid cappers and downers :-), and has left it up completely up to authors and editors.

BTW, I don't like the idea that just because I've done more fish articles, that my view should somehow carry more weight. We should be trying to sniff out standard practices, irrespective of who does the typing. If someone can convince me there is an authoritative assertion that common names of fish, or of all fauna, must be capitalized (perhaps FishBase lowercases because of a database bug!), then I will go through all the fish articles and change them, no problem. But so far, outside of birds, the authorities I've seen quoted seem more interested in avoiding the issue. :-) Stan 16:15 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I realized I didn't answer Tannin's points directly.

• Distinguishing names by capitalization alone is not that great of a solution to ambiguity - it depends on Wikipedia only doing a certain kind of canonicalization, and even now breaks down in the case of one-word names, Hagfish for example, which is both a class and a species (try to top that! :-) ).

• Field guides are not usually authorities, they're simplified works intended for consumption by the general public. Capitalization there is undoubtedly a house rule, perhaps thought to make it more readable, perhaps as a sort of CamelCase to identify cross-references, or maybe just one or two eccentrics in influential positions at the publisher. Field guides are widespread, and are familiar to the Wikipedia audience, which is a point in their favor, but their style is not universally accepted, or we wouldn't be having a disagreement.

• Consistency is always a strong argument. But is it more important to be consistent internally, or externally? In the case of icthyologists, would they sneer at Wikipedia for using uppercase fish names? (Ironically, Kils' articles sometimes capitalize, sometimes not - see European eel and the ref to American Eel therein.)

This is not a final opinion, I'm just weighing the options. Stan 16:42 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Just one more thought that I didn't see mentioned above; a Commonwealth vs American usage? Or a recent developing trend among zoologists in general? Can anybody track down an article or passage, perhaps under library science, that talks about this directly? May require visiting a physical library... Stan 16:50 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Stan I remember reading a pair of articles in ... er .. I forget the journal, but I gather it was the fishy equivalent of Ibis or Emu - i.e., the US icthiologist's journal a little while ago. It was (you guessed it) a debate about capitalisation of common names of fish. Interesting reading.

There seems to be a sliding scale. Bar a few minor exceptions, everybody capitalises birds, almost everybody capitalises mammals, and as you descend the blood-temperature scale, you get progressively less capitalisation. When you get to fish, it seems to be pretty debatable.

I think that a large part of this is that the idea of a "common name" is not immutabe. In birds especially, and also in mammals, the various national and regional bodies have put their heads together and created a set of common names that are unique and unambiguous, that are as precise and exact as the binomial names - which is why people like me get shirty when they see this delightfully precise and exact system being messed about.

In other areas (as we descend the blood temperature scale) the common name system is less well-developed: names vary from place to place and conflict with one another. At this point (well, it's a line, not a point, and a very wide fuzzy line at that) the idea of a "common name" has changed substantially. It's no longer a precise, exact specification of a particular species, it's just something that a lot of people say when they quite often don't know what particular species or group of species they are refering to. And, as such, it becomes a lot harder to justify giving it a capital letter.

When you get to trees, the whole common name system breaks down. There are heaps of species that share the same common name, and regional variations just add spice to the mix. Indeed, I think that for flora, we should give serious consideraton to throwing the common names out the window and using the botanical names as the article titles - what are we to do with Mountain ash, for example? It is interesting to note that (at least among the people I know here in Oz) hardly anyone knows the binomial names of birds or mammals, and yet keen gardeners tend to be pretty full-bottle on their botanical names. Same with the field naturalists society I belong to - if you point and say "what's that?", most times someone will answer "Black Wallaby" if it's got blood, but Eucalyptus maculata if it's got sap. (Well, in reality, they'd say "another bloody maculata" because they are a NSW species that's been planted all over the place and is threatening to take over - but you know what I mean.)

And then we get down to the microscopic things, which usually don't have common names at all.

Changing tack to the ambiguity problem now, I don't think it's too much of an issue when it comes to article titles. It's much more prone to popping up in the middle of a slab of text, where the species name and the modifiers in the sentence cause ambiguities. And here, canonisation doesn't apply. "There is a large, black rat" and "there is a large Black Rat" mean two quite different things. This is where capitalisation, aside from making things easier to read more generally, makes a real difference to the sense of a sentence.

Commonwealth vs American? Well, some contributors are dismissing that as utter nonsense, and others are proclaiming it as Holy Writ. (Or is that supposed to be "holy writ"?) I take a middle view: yes, I think that down style is substantially more practiced in the States, and I only have to read the comments of US contributors and then glance at my own bookshelf to see strong evidence of that. Of all my fauna and flora books, I have (I think) just one that does not capitalise. (Oddly enough, it's English, and from OUP, what's more, and all my other Oxford fauna books capitalise species - work that puzzle out if you can - maybe they printed it with an eye to the US market or something.) But although it is clearly US publications that are least likely to capitalise, and International English publications that are most likely to, it's equally clearly not a 100% black and white thing.

Time I went to bed. Hoolie Doolie! I just looked at the clock for the fist time since about 10PM and it's a quarter to 4! Well and truly time! Tannin 17:46 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

PS: class and species - that's neat!

My cynical explanation is that people, especially birdwatchers, revere Birds, and fish, well, their main purpose is to be eaten. :-) As a sniff test, try capitalizing in sheep and goat; it would look a little eccentric, eh? The remark in Chicago about religious capitalization is what got me thinking about that.

FishBase's accumulated data is especially comical for common names like sardine and anchovy, unmodified; dozens of species with the same common name. (Linnaeus was right!) Plants' scientific names have entered common parlance to a surprising degree, in the western US everybody knows Eucalyptus but gum tree will get you a puzzled look. Scientific names for plant articles is an interesting idea, I wouldn't mind being saved from trying to pick the "most common" name for Cordia species! Stan 19:39 4 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Yup, capitalising "sheep" and "goat" would look eccentric - for the very good reason that it would be wrong! There are five different species called "sheep", and three different ones called "goat", and about 20 others that belong in the "generalised sheep and goats" category which, now that I look it up, seems to be called goat antelopes. And, seeing as I've looked it up, I might as well write it up .... :) Tannin

And here I thought Wikipedia was correct when it said that all sheep were Ovis aries - wotta pack of lies, I'll never believe Wikipedia again! Stan 03:29 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

All Domestic Sheep are. (That's what I love about Wikipedia - this time yesterday I didn't know that.) Assuming someone else doesn't get there first, I'll attend to that a little later on - no, I don't plan to make sheep an all-species-of-sheep page: when 99% of Western people think of a sheep they think of the thing you make woolly jumpers out of and roast with potatos and mint sauce, but an extra para mentioning the other sorts of sheep and linking to them is appropriate. Tannin

Some ambiguous thoughts:

• When I read Goat antelope, the capitalised species names immediately struck me as off.
• OTOH, remembering earlier discussions, this told me the useful info that we were now discussing individual species.
• OTOH, most readers won't have the benefit of having gone through those discussions.

-- Toby Bartels 11:08 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

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Having cranked up this debate when I made a few corrections, and having read through the matter, first in the mailing list then here, I still remain unconvinced about capitalizing the English species name.

1. I very much believe that the only official name for a species is the Latin binomial. I was on the losing side of that argument a little while ago when English vs. Latin name titles was up for argument, and if the matter ever came up again I would continue to support Latin names... but I don't seek to re-open that debate. That being said, I think that I can safely say that there is no such thing as an "official" English name for any species. The strongest case for such a list is from the ornithologists, where various ornithological unions have adopted what they call "official" lists complete with capitalization. From what I can determine, no other faunal interest group has adopted an official list, and some seem to carefully avoid the issue entirely. Thus, the only faunal group where the capitalizers are helped by an official list is the Aves.
2. The statement on the meta page that the lower case name should re-direct to the "correct" upper case name is an elegant piece of logical fallacy. It assumes that the subject of the entire argument has already been decided. "Correct" in that context is not "NPOV"
3. Putting the arguments in terms of American vs. British or Australian English usage only muddies the waters. It seems to me that the present argument cuts across both sides of that divide, and we should not be using such a distinction to support either side.
4. The argument to resolve ambiguity is not as strong as its proponents would maintain. It makes sense to have the distinction in certain sentences (such as this one) where the very distinction itself between a black rat and a Black Rat is at stake. In most instances the context will resolve the ambiguity. The Latin name is always available to be added parenthetically if necessary to clarify intentions. In article titles an article about the general concept of a black rat seems very unlikely.
5. Field guides and the general usage followed by certain individual works, authors and publishers are not definitive. If you have a subset of objects that all have a given characteristic, it is a logical fallacy to say that all such objects outside of that subset will have that characteristic.
6. I have noted three important comprehensive sources that use lower case, even for birds
   • Species 2000 http://www.usa.sp2000.org/AnnualChecklist.html
   • The NCBI taxonomy page http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi
   • The ITIS page http://www.itis.usda.gov/index.html
7. The fact that one contributor or a small group of contributors has made all or almost all of the recent contributions in a subject area has very little weight in the issue. We certainly thank them and appreciate their efforts, but that does not give them a monopoly of correctness.

☮ Eclecticology 18:56 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Contents 1 Tannin's 29 June 2004 edit 2 Why capitalized? 2.1 Ornithologists do it differently 3 General comments and insect hyphenation 4 Animal names should be lowercase, period 5 Capitalization of common name by source 6 Avoiding common names that need disambigs 7 Drosophila 8 Capitalisation

[edit] Tannin's 29 June 2004 edit

Tannin, Since June 18 I've left notes on your chat page asking for justification for similar changes you made on another page. Note that the capitalization wording here has remained mostly unchanged since 12 June, 2003. Mackerm 18:34, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Why capitalized?

I find the habit of capitalizing animal names very strange. Why should animals be different from any other article? --[[User:Eequor|ᓛᖁᑐ]] 00:55, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I completely agree with ???; it strikes me as a very odd practice. When I encountered the capitalizations in Bottlenose Dolphin, I almost changed them instantly to lower case, just as I would correct any error. I happened to be visiting the Tree of Life project, and discovered this "controversy"—I also left comments there. I have read a large amount of scientific literature, although no works specifically dealing with ornithology, and I find no usage of capital letters for vernacular names. It would be helpful, for instance, if someone could point to a scientific journal that wrote "...the Bottlenose Dolphin is known to..." instead of "...the bottlenose dolphin is known to..." I can't imagine anyone writing something like "They had three Horses, although the white Horse was Mike's favorite."—it's not a proper noun, nor a scientific term. I know the Chicago Manual of Style (admittedly, American English) was quoted above, but I'd like to requote it, from a newer (15th) edition (it would appear that in the interim, lowercasing has become more widely accepted?): "8.136 Common names. For the correct capitalization of common names of plants and animals, consult a dictionary or the authoritative guides to nomenclature, the ICBN and the ICZN, mentioned in 8.127. In any one work, a single source should be followed. In general, Chicago recommends capitalizing only proper nouns and adjectives, as in the following examples, which conform to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary" (the examples given are Dutchman's-breeches, mayapple, jack-in-the-pulpit, rhesus monkey, Rocky Mountain sheep, and Cooper's hawk). Unless the name contains proper nouns or adjectives, I don't believe capitazliation is warranted. Formal scientific names, like Mammalia should be capitalized of course, but capitalizing vernacular names is completely unneccessary, in my opinion. Furthermore, I think that it makes articles look unprofessional. What do others think? — [[User:Knowledge Seeker|Knowledge Seeker দ (talk)]] 07:15, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ornithologists do it differently

Technically the correct common usage for birds is to capitalize all common letters. Magnificent Frigatebird is correct, not magnificent frigatebird. For all other animals (that I know of), the correct format is how it's done in Wikipedia where only proper words are capitalized. It should be black rat, not Black Rat. The reason for this is that there are committees that determine common names for birds, and this capitalization ruling comes from them. Ornithologists have actually been known to use the technical common names as frequently as scientific names. For other animals there is no such rule and there is usually no consensus on the technically correct common name. Have you ever noticed how many mole rats or rock rats are in articles referring to completely different animals? It seems most appropriate in wikipedia if all caps was used for birds and the normal rule applies to everything else since it's technically correct. But common names aren't important anyway. It's only really important to make sure binomial names are in the proper format since they are the only thing that really counts. --Aranae 05:29, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

The problem is there is a difference between, for instance, a European Badger (Meles meles) and the other European badgers. Many animals named with a color have relatives that can bedescribed with their name. The lion tamarins species are denoted by their fur colorations. Two of them are gold. Only one is a Golden Lion Tamarin but two could be called gold lion tamarins. Capitalizing the common name of the species - at least in the context of talking about a species and not in any other context - gives the reader the easy distinction between a general category (European badgers) versus a species (European Badger). Many diffrent kinds of literature use different kind of naming conventions, including all caps or mixed large and small all caps, or no caps at all, etc. I believe that the ornithologists got it right. Their solution makes it easiest on the reader to understand what is being discussed. It's ok that there is disagreement among and within the various other zoological fields as to how to do naming. We can pick the one the ornithologists use and not feel constrained by the disagreement in the rest of the zoological world. - UtherSRG 15:47, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

1. In Britain, the only English-speaking part of Europe, there is only one native species of badger. It is called the badger. That is its name. No-one would ever write "I was walking through the woods late at night and I saw a Badger", even though they are talking about a single well-defined species. Instead, they would write "I saw a badger". "European Badger", no matter how often it is printed in field guides and other works, is still a description, rather than a formal taxon name, and as such should not be capitalised (the word "European", of course, should be, but for different reasons). "Badger" is not a proper noun. The only reason they appear in Wikipedia as European badger and American badger is to distinguish them for a global audience. In either continent, the single word "badger" is sufficient.

2. Any problems of ambiguity are the result of sloppy writing; there is a big difference between "a golden lion tamarin" (a general description) and "the golden lion tamarin" (also a description, but one describing a single species). The best method is probably to write something like "The golden lion tamarin has a long tail" when you want to be specific and "All the golden lion tamarins have long tails" or "Both species of golden lion tamarin have long tails" when being general.

3. I would also warn against the trend towards inventing "vernacular" names for taxa. Where no name exists in a language, the scientific (binomial) name should be used instead, rather than trying to translate it into English (or any other language). I wonder why we have a name "golden lion tamarin" at all; it does not live in an English-speaking area, so why should it have an English name? Various Brazilian languages may have words for Leontopithecus rosalia, but why should English? I'm not suggesting we try to get rid of it now we've got it, but there's no point in making new "vernacular" names up. With birds and mammals, it's a bit different, but with all other groups, you quickly find many species have no vernacular names and you have to use the scientific names instead. This is to be expected, and not fought. Stemonitis 08:31, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"English" vernacular names for tropical species typically derive either from English-speaking explorers, particular during the pre-Linnean era, or from English writers translating material from naturalists in other languages. OED is both useful and interesting in this connection. Also not unknown for scientists to invent vernacular names themselves - some of the family names in American Beetles strike me as being of recent invention by coleopterists. Perhaps not surprising, given that English is spreading into far corners of the world, while Latin is getting deader than ever. Stan 13:40, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it would be pretty odd to have to refer to panda as Ailuropoda all the time. And English speakers do go to these areas. in many cases they have adopted the local names (ie coypu and tuco-tuco), but often it makes more sense to just name it based on what you've already seen: Chinese ferret badger. I agree that the vernacular is often problematic, though standardization is happening in some areas such as the recent work on generating a common name for all mammal species (Don Wilson and someone else are the editors). That work is still problematic (the newly vernacularly named named Afghan mouse-like hamster, Calomyscus mystax, is not found in Afghanistan), but it's an attempt to make a start. As far as wikipedia goes, common usage would be the rule. Panda should be at panda, but obscure mice known by few except the professional, Mastomys hildebrandti and Calomyscus mystax, should be listed by scientific name. I think situations where the common names refer to several types of animals (mole rat), should also see scientific names used. I wouldn't object to using scientific names for all articles with redirects from the common name, but the system in place seems to work and is probable less intimidating for those with only a passing interest. --Aranae 15:16, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] General comments and insect hyphenation

Surely the naming conventions used in Wikipedia should reflect those used by the specialists in the individual fields; we should not try to make a single set of rules to cover all groups of organisms. If ornithologists capitalise common names (even if everyone else finds it odd), then that practice should be continued here. In most (all?) other groups, such capitalisation is unusual or just plain wrong.

Many invertebrate groups have the problem of common names implying false relationships. This happens in other groups, too, of course, but it seems to be commoner in invertebrates, where the animals are less familiar, so there are fewer basic common names to go around. It may be widely known that a hedgesparrow is not a sparrow but an accentor, or that the American Robin is a thrush, not a passerine bird like the European Robin, but who would know which were the real shrimps out of Brine shrimp, Whiteleg shrimp, Mantis shrimp and so on, or which are true crabs: King crab, Mole crab, Horseshoe crab, Hermit crab, Porcelain crab. (The answer incidentally, is none of them.)

So, now for an example of group-specific usage. In insects, all kinds of groups are called a something fly, even though they are not closely related, and some are true flies (Order Diptera) while others are not, and it cannot be predicted from the name (yet). To solve this problem, someone (I believe a Mr. Oldroyd) came up with a plan, whereby all true fly names would be hyphenated (blow-fly, house-fly, crane-fly) while other groups would be unhyphenated (dragonfly, alder fly). I suggest we follow this usage, even if it is against the prevailing trend discovered by search engine statistics - a distinctly dubious branch of mathematics. Then, when someone has learnt that pattern, they gain a vast amount of knowledge about insect affinities. Admittedly, they're unlikely to know until they've read, for example, the fly page, but isn't Wikipedia here to educate, after all? This wouldn't be a change made on a whim, or on the basis of dialects (British vs. American vs. Australian), but would increase the information content of the names. In fact, I suspect most people wouldn't notice the hyphens either way, and so wouldn't be upset by their addition or removal. But those who noticed would immediately be able to tell which "flies" were dipteran and which were not.

As regards capitalisation, I don't think the disambiguity argument holds much water. In a sentence like "There are many common tuna in Australia" (to choose a non-ornithological and probably false example), there are other ways of showing which meaning is correct: either "There are many common species of tuna in Australia", for the many-taxon example, or "The common tuna is abundant in Australia" or "Australia abounds in common tuna" for the one-taxon example. We shouldn't change names just because some people can't write unambiguous sentences.

Stemonitis 09:23, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Who is Oldroyd? I'm not into entomological literature, but I guess he's some authoritative scholar? --Menchi 09:49, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A quick web search reveals: Harold Oldroyd, born approx. 1914, an entomologist at the British Museum (i.e NHM), author of

• The Natural History of Flies.
• Collecting, preserving and studying insects.
• Elements of entomology; an introduction to the study of insects.
• The Ecology of Flies.
• Insects and their world.

and co-author of

• "Insects" by Chinery, Michael, and Oldroyd, Harold, and Whalley, Paul
• "The historical development of diptera" by Rohdendorf, B. B., and Hocking, Brian, and Oldroyd, Harold, and Ball, George E.
• "The insects in your garden : how to find out about them and start an insect zoo" by Oldroyd, Harold, and Halliwell, David
• "British Blood-Sucking Flies" by Edwards, FW, Oldroyd, H. and Smart, J.

I don't know how he is perceived in his field (or even if he's still alive), but he must have been a professional and capable entomologist.

Stemonitis 10:10, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Cool, enough material to start on Harold Oldroyd. :-) The convention of using a hyphen for semantic content is interesting (and worth mentioning at fly), but it's edging a little outside of our charter, which is to document things as they are, rather than as we might like them to be. It's an unfortunate consequence of the common name rule that sometimes they're not very logical, but then that's something to explain in the article. Sometimes, as in sardine, one has to throw up one's hands and make it a "switchboard" page saying to the reader, "pick one, we can't tell what's really meant". It's especially crazy-making for plants - we often stick with the Latin names because the "common" names are all regional. On the plus side, common names are not so subject to the changing fancies of the systematists - tiger doesn't move even if some cladist clearly proves its closest affinity is with the coconut crabs. :-) Stan 13:23, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree, Oldroyd's proposal, while it has evident merit, should not yet be followed by Wikipedia unless and until there's evidence that entomologists are actually switching over. Is there? AxelBoldt 19:30, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, entomologists are NOT using hyphenated or compounded common names for true flies (Diptera). True flies have the word "fly" as a separate word 100% of the time (house flies, stable flies, longlegged flies, crane flies, moth flies, sand flies, black flies, march flies, soldier flies, horse flies, deer flies, snipe flies, bee flies, robber flies, fruit flies, grass flies, flesh flies, tsetse flies, bot flies, blow flies, stiletto flies, dance flies, louse flies, humpbacked flies, rust flies, marsh flies, aphid flies, skipper flies, seaweed flies, beach flies, pomace flies, dung flies, small dung flies, shore flies, horn flies, face flies, catus flies, etc.). Other insects that have "fly" in their common name have it attached to the word (ex. dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies, whiteflies, snakeflies, dobsonflies, mantidflies, alderflies, fishflies, caddisflies, scorpionflies, hangingflies, earwigflies, mayflies, sawflies, owlflies, stoneflies, etc.) Every true fly page on Wikipedia needs to be updated to meet this standard. In addition, all content that is on those pages should meet that standard. Totipotent 23:40, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Animal names should be lowercase, period

I find this policy on capitalizing names of fauna to be extremely bizarre. Naming policies say 1) Do not capitalize after the first word, 2) use the most common name for names of articles if there is more than one name, 3) use spellings as dictionaries use them and not make up your own spelling... ALL of these policies point to mak,ing the article names lowercase. I don;t care is fome ornithologists decided they want to capitalize bird names to refer to a species, that's not how the rest of the world does it, it's not proper, and it looks ridiculous. Lots of professionals capitalize things in their own fields oddly, that doesn't mean that we have to copy them. All it means is the animal article titles are extremely screwed up compared to common usage, dictionary useage, and every other page in the encyclopedia.

Following some weird policy somebody came up by following what people in one minor subset of the sciences decided to do and applying it to all other animals on top of that is just ridiculous. This needs to be changed, and I'm shocked that it has been this way as long as it has. The only exceptions that should be made are those words that are normally capitalized in animal names for some other reason, like a country name inside of it or something. DreamGuy 19:17, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I concur. Neutrality^talk 01:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree as well. I've opened a discussion at Talk:Bottlenose Dolphin#Requested move. — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:43, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Before making changes, do please read all of the previous discussion on this topic. There is no concensus in the scientific community as to how best to format common names of organisms. Talk to the folks who participated in those discussions. I've given my perspective on talk:Bottlenose Dolphin. Perhaps ask on WP:CETA, the Wikiproject responsible for maintaining the cetacean articles. Ask the folks at WP:BIRD why they came to the conclusion, and why I and the others in these groups feel that this is the better policy for Wikipedia. Don't just dismiss the discussion and work as those of "a minor subset". - UtherSRG (talk) 00:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Who cares if the scientific community has consensus or not? Normal naming conventions are to not capitalize unless they are proper nouns, and also to follow the most common form of the names, not what some small subset of people who study birds decide they want to force on everything else. You may feel it's a better policy, but it violates the rest of our policies and makes no sense. You are the first one who has even tried to defend it so far, and you apparently just want to try to lend it official weight without defended it. It needs to change, and it is long, long overdue. Tell me how you can possibly justify it based upon normal naming conventions here... it just doesn't work. It's inconsistent, ill-considered, and, frankly, bird-brained to follow such a narow rule created by people with no say in the matter in the real world. DreamGuy 05:34, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

DreamGuy, while I agree with you that the names should be lowercased, this it probably not the best way to to do it. When proposing to change, we must also keep in mind that the articles have been under their current names for a long time. Let's see if we can't figure out how to establish more discussion on this. We should be able to discuss our position here calmly and courteously, sticking to debate of the position without insulting those who hold different positions. There are people who feel strongly about this both ways. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

"That's the way we've done it for a long time now" is not an argument in favor of doing something. The problem here is that some people want to just go on doing things the wrong way, and then they want to have "discussion" and draw it out for like months and years, when all they are doing is not discussing but repeating that that's the way they do it and it had reasons while forgetting the fact that it violates the other policies and common sense. AT this point it just needs to get done. Are we a bunch of people trying to work on a project of educational value, or are we a bunch of beauracrats holdin up the old order when it's something as silly as putting capital letter where the main policies and the English language say they should not be? We need a Wikiproject or some bots and just take care of this right away.DreamGuy 22:10, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

This has come up several times and I have already posted a few notes concerning my opinion. I think the rules are very taxon specific; birds are accepted as requiring capitalisation whereas most others do not. I would propose that we put together a list of primary scientific journals, particularly taxon-specific ones, and note their choice of format for this question. --Aranae 18:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Primary scientific journals are not necessarily the best resource for this... People within specific field often make up their own capitalization rules and other standards for the prupose of people in their group, as well as accepted abbreviations, jargon, and so forth. Wikipedia naming policy says to use the most common name and spelling, which can and (in some case probably does -- like with these birds) contradict what some professionals took it upon themselves to call things. If you want to figure out proper spellings, try a general reference, like, say, Webster's Dictionary. DreamGuy 22:10, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Where do you think Webster gets its information from? The professional manuals of style (Chicago, etc), say that "it's up to the author and editor to make a decision". The crux of the problem is that our "authorities" are already inconsistent with each other. Webster does not list every known species anyway, so it's of no help for the many that it omits. Stan 22:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm totally with you, DreamGuy... but I've given up. The Wikipedia software needs better controls Mackerm 20:55, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I am quite pleased that we are able to discuss this so rationally. My thoughts: DreamGuy brings up an important point, that those in a field may adopt unusual spelling styles and so forth. However, Mike also brings up an excellent point on Talk:Bottlenose Dolphin that dictionaries and such may not be sensitive to the needs of a field. In practice, I've found little variation between the two. I think using prominent scientific journals is a reasonable solution: they are likely to be written with good, up-to-date style. If it is difficult to select journals, then perhaps standard dictionaries (the OED and Merriam-Webster, maybe?) could be used, but I would prefer peer-reviewed journals. Stan is correct that Chicago recommends following author/editor preference, but this is a general recommendation. On the specific subject of animal and plant capitalization, the most recent edition of Chicago recommends consulting a dictionary or the ICBN and ICZN. In general, they recommend lowercasing all words which are not proper nouns. I quoted the relevant section at Talk:Bottlenose Dolphin. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:23, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization of common name by source

I know DreamGuy clearly disagrees with the notion of citing the biological literature in an attempt to deal with this problem, but I would still propose a list of sources and an overview of how they all treat the issue. I have organized them by primary vs. secondary literature. We should limit this to how these names are used within the text and not as entry titles. They may be employing distinct rules for capitalization of entry titles. I encourage others to add to this list. Again, I think things differ by taxon so I suggest splitting them. --Aranae 02:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your hard work, Aranae. I believe this confirms what others and I have previously suggested: that the common names of mammals are not usually capitalized in the literature. I also agree with the separation by taxon; overgeneralization will likely make it difficult to develop a broad rule. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:26, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

• Mammals
  • Primary literature:
    • Journal of Mammalogy: lowercase
    • Journal of Mammalian Evolution: lowercase
    • Mammalia: lowercase
    • Mammal Study: lowercase
    • The Canadian Field Naturalist: capital
  • Secondary sources considered to be standard-bearers
    • Mammal Species of the World, 3rd ed (2005): capital
    • Nowak's Wlaker's Mammals of the World: lowercase
    • Wilson and Cole's Common Names of Mammals: capital
  • Secondary:
    • Duff and Lawson's Mammals of the World A Checklist: capital (based on use in introduction)
    • Feldhammer et al.'s Mammlogy text: lowercase
    • Kingdon's Arabian Mammals: lowercase
    • Kingdon's Field Guide to African Mammals: lowercase
    • Kurta's Mammals of the Great Lakes Region: lowercase
    • McDonald's Encyclopedia of Mammals: lowercase
    • Roberts's Mammals of Pakistan: capital
    • Vaughan's Mammalogy text: lowercase
    • Whitaker and Hamilton's Mammals of the Eastern United States: lowercase
• MAMMAL TOTAL: capital=4, lowercase=12 (primary & SB 2ndary only: capital=2, lowercase=5)

• Birds
  • Primary literature
    • Auk: capital

In case this got lost in the verbiage above, check out [1] to see a bit of the ichthyologists' debate on the subject with respect to fish. You know you're in a difficult situation when your authorities are on the verge of calling each other bad names (or is that Bad Names? :-) ) over the point. Stan 15:18, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Ooh! Nice article, Stan. IT does indeed seem that capitalization is the direction professional societies ar emoving. The article you cite makes all of the points proponents of Wiki capitalization have made over the years. I'd like to see the above list of publications editted to include the publication year. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:29, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Nelson seems to have carried the day at Copeia (see [2]), but at the same time FishBase is strictly uncapitalized, and we use it as a source more often than the journal. I'm guessing that the experts are being too genteel to argue about it in public (like we do :-) ) - it can't be more than a couple hours of work to fix FishBase's database to capitalize all the common names they've recorded, and yet they don't do it. Stan 02:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

If you want academic authorities, stick with scholars of the English language. I'd trust a surgeon to perform rhinoplasty, but not to spell it. Mackerm 23:25, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

If you can find a recognized scholar of the language to issue a firm opinion, I would love to see the quote. My foray into the language section of the university library did not turn up anything unequivocal. Stan 02:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh, c'mon. I'm sure you can find something unequivocal... and dismiss it. Mackerm 03:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

What have I dismissed? Be fair, now. All I found was "some people capitalize, and others don't", not exactly a clear statement on what is supposed to be correct English. Stan 05:52, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Please, let's keep this discussion on-target. Mackerm, I agree with your ideas above; however, I am certain we can list our own unequivocal sources without asking others to find them for us. If I understand correctly, then, from the sources we have listed so far, a couple books and no peer-reviewed journals capitalize mammalian common names. Nor do the OED or Merriam-Webster. Nor does Chicago (anyone know what Fowler or any British English style guide recommend?). With this in mind, I would like to propose a modification to the capitalization text. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:14, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's talk a bit longer before we consider this solved and change all the articles. I personally think that usage of all caps in text looks pretty ridiculous and that comon names should be lowercase. That said, I think that the publication of Wilson and Cole's book on common names of mammals added a certain formality to the notion of a common name for mammals and much of the discussion may stem from that attempt to formalize mammal common names in the same sense as birds. If we were having this discussion 10 years ago, I think the story for mammals would be very straightforward: with the possible exception of primates and cetaceans, no one capitalizes. Wilson and Cole adopted the idea of capitalization and may be the origin for the argument that mammal common names should be capitalized. Wilson and Reeder's MSW presumably (according to UtherSRG - I don't have a copy yet) adopt this along with Duff and Lawson. This may be the first stages of a shift toward capitalization.

Incidentally, I've moved MSW to a different section (along with other highly cited secondary sources like Nowak, Wilson and Cole, presumably McKenna and Bell if they had used common names), because it does not constitute primary (peer-reviewed) literature. I think the important distinction is that scientific journals decide these things by committee and answer to a society of professional mammalogists. I can't track down the major Australian journal, but the Americans (Journal of Mammalogy and Journal of Mammalian Evolution), Europeans (Mammalia and J Mam Evol) and Japanese (Mammal Study) all use lowercase at present. Secondary sources are only subject to the decisions of the editor(s). My vote is still for lowercase for mammals until these journals start using capital letters. Birds, on the other hand are capitalized almost across the board (including in their most prestigious journal: Auk) and should be capitalized here. I'll try to start adding some dates. It's a good point made by UtherSRG. --Aranae 07:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sorry; I wasn't clear. I didn't intend to write a new policy yet; all I was going to do was clarify the statements about the case for mammals, to more or less summarize what you had found to be for and against capitalization. However, I will defer this clarification for now. — Knowledge Seeker দ 13:57, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

On of the pro-capitalisers’ arguments from the paper linked above is:

An even more compelling argument for capitalization of common names of fishes is that, when capitalized, the common name conveys recognition as a distinct, individual biological entity. Capitalization gives emphasis to the name and lets it stand out and be easier to spot in scientific publications, popular guides, aquarium and museum displays, and lecture slides, etc, while lower case names tend to disappear in the text and look, quite frankly, unimportant and common. Giving more prominence to common names, which are already used as proxies for scientific names in many journals, is a logical addition to assist readers in locating information in text. Further, the use of capitalized common names gives greater recognition (if not actual respect) for fishes from sport and commercial fishers, lawmakers, policy makers, resource managers, and the general public.

This strikes me as an agenda that does not mix with NPOV. Susvolans ⇔ 08:29, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

In the absence of any new comments, and given the preponderance of information here, I slightly revised the guidelines. Are there any comments? Please feel free to reword. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Avoiding common names that need disambigs

Gdr added this recently, but I don't see any prior discussion:

Fish in Sciaenidae are known as "drums", but drum is used for the musical instrument. (In cases like this, it's best to go straight to the scientific name, avoiding expedients like "drum (fish)".)

For general readers, such as anglers not versed in the latest debates of the systematists, this is not actually helpful. I'm reading Moyle's Inland Fishes of California right now, and for instance it's hitch, hitch, hitch, everywhere (they're a common species), with only one mention of Lavinia exilicauda. "hitch" + "fish" is still more meaningful than any systematic name, so while I see the logic in avoid the dreaded disambiguator, I don't think it serves our nontechnical readers. Stan 16:03, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. I removed the bit you objected to. Gdr 12:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drosophila

does have a common name, the fruit fly =S 203.218.86.162 12:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

No. Gdr 12:41, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Whoa there! Wikilink to Drosophila melanogaster. The article starts with the following intro:

Drosophila melanogaster (from the Greek for black-bellied dew-lover) is a two-winged insect that belongs to the Diptera, the order of the flies. The species is commonly known as the fruit fly, and is one of the most commonly used model organisms in biology, including studies in genetics, physiology and life-history evolution. Flies belonging to the Tephritidae are also called fruit flies, which can lead to confusion.

Given the above-mentioned [possible] confusion, surely the wiki thing to do would be to include a disambiguation? Can some really experienced wikipedian who also happens to be a biologist/genetician (?) please resolve this heated debate? Thanx. --Technopat 17:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Fruit fly is already a disambig that leads to Drosophilidae and Tephritidae, as well as Drosophila melanogaster. What needs to be cleared up? - UtherSRG (talk) 18:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The following statement: Drosophila melanogaster has no common name. (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna), the project page corresponding to this discussion page) seems to be too categorical (no pun intended). However, as I have no idea if it is technically (?) correct... . Regards, Technopat 09:40, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalisation

What's with the capitalisation mass-moves? This page seems to have no clear-cut guideline supporting this (either way). Whichever way they end up, let's not turn this into another "highways" arbcom case. Alai 20:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

They're incredibly annoying, are usually not cleaned up after by the person moving, and can only be reverted (the simplest way of fixing double redirects) by an admin. I'd say on average a page that's been titled based on its common name will stay at its current capitalisation title for about 8 months. Any ideas on how to stop the never-ending cycle? --Aranae 20:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, an unfixed double-redirect is how I noticed this. In the first instance, try to establish an actual consensus (however ad hoc) for the capitalisation, either across the board, or on a case by case basis, or using some sort of "actionable" rule of them. Then ask people moving them away from such to desist. Then ask for admin enforcement. Without an actual convention, though, moves to-and-fro are merely pointless (and possibly double-redirect-causing), not anything worse. Alai 00:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)