Talk:Jeholopterus

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This article may be too technical for a general audience. Please help improve this article by providing more context and better explanations of technical details to make it more accessible, without removing technical details.

[edit] Too technical

The article reads like a JVP publication. It needs to be wikified and completely re-written to be understood by general audiances. It also leans heavily towards the work of David Peters without giving proper context (much of this work, especially the ridiculous skeketal image, is accepted by only an extreme minority of pterosaur researchers--i.e., Peters himself, who wrote the present article).Dinoguy2 03:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of Paleo-stub

While I agree with Dinoguy2's estimating that the article is still too technical, I definately think this article has graduated beyond stub status, & have removed the template from the main article. Congratulations to everybody involved! --mordicai. 18:04, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:Jeholopterus's Edit

“

None of the features recognized by Peters have been recognized by other scientists because no one else has published on this taxon since 2003. The hairy tail, along with other soft tissues were noted in the original description and so are not 'bizarre'. Bennett's attempt at debunking has been arguably personal in nature [1], as is the author of the above defamatory paragraph who sought only one side of the story and did not consult the original author or examine those images. --User:Jeholopterus

”

I've moved this here as I don't feel it is appropriate or NPOV for the article itself but may have value for discussion. --mordicai. 19:03, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I would argue that the feature you describe are bizarre, Mr. Peters, just as I'd describe the strange features of the anglerfish as bizarre. If pterosaurs do indeed have the features you ascribe to them, they were without a doubt bizarre creatures. If everyone else disagrees with me and judges this usage to be POV, I won't mind if it's altered. However, it is inappropriate for you to amend an encyclopedia article from a virtually first-person perspective to defend your views. If you have published data to contrast with the published data presented in the article, please present it in an NPOV manner. Simply writing "Peters disagreed with Bennett's assessment (Peters, 2004). He argued that..." etc., would have sufficed. I, the author of the paragraph you call defamatory, was simply quoting a published source. If I were to have consulted you for your resopnse, I would be engaging in original research, which is not allowed on wikipedia. We report published findings here, we do not publish our own. Dinoguy2 21:43, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, here's the deal guys: The original authors of the Jeholopterus papers found all sorts of wonderful things in that fossil, including hairs, hairs that were on the tips of plumes that were originally compared in the popular press with feathers, and a hairy tail plume. Plus two long teeth. So when DinoGuy2 quotes Bennett or comments himself that what I 'see' in the fossil is 'bizarre' (i.e. beyond reality), I think it is okay to point out that these structures were described originally. Thus the bizarre attribute needs to be correctly stuck on the fossil, not on me or my methods. The comments by DinoGuy2 and the exclusion of published data on Jeholopterus do not follow Wikki mandates or policies and probably should be reported to the authorities. So, fellas, be nice. If you had studied the fossil even for an hour and come up with opposing conclusions, I would respect your right to publish them. I only ask for the same courtesy.

Jeholopterus 18:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

BTW, the skull in the illustration by Mike Hanson (the wings up one) is largely imaginary. No pterosaur has a wide flat parietal, no pterosaur has such a flimsy palate (and what bones are those anyway?) and no pterosaur has an orbit at mid skull. All anurognathids have a deep jugal, not the one Mike shows. Plus the two big teeth are missing! Even the original authors saw those! If you're going after guys who are making stuff up, why did you choose to let that illustration remain? If you guys can't speak with authority on this subject, why would you silence someone who can?

Jeholopterus 18:39, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm re-reading the paper, just to make sure I'm right about this. The authors do not note "two long teeth", only that "the teeth on the premaxilla are longer and more curved than those on the maxilla". Furthermore, they do note a hairy tail, but in contrast to your findings, they use the hair outline to argue for a short tail, as no cervical verts are preserved ("No caudal vertebrae are preserved, but the tail is probably short as in Anurognathus based on the preservation of the “hairs” presumably in the tail region"). They never describe it as plume-like or imply that it's longer than hair elsewhere on the body. It is disingenuous to imply that this in any way means the authors agree with your hypothesis of an unusually long soft tissue tail. Maybe I'm missing it--could you provide a direct quote from the paper so I can search it? Dinoguy2 02:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Dalla Vacchia (2002) casts doubts on Wang et al.s interpretation of the tail, noting that thir 'tail hairs' are not figured in any of the provided diagrams, and state that no conclusions can be drawn about it becasue "the tail is totally absent". Dinoguy2 02:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I've left some substantial modifications to the text, while not actually changing other comments, I've added a new section and have expanded the rest. I have also uploaded an image of the skeleton to underscore the crushed, partiality, and broken-ness of the type specimen. Qilong 20:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the input--I have removed the section explaining the differences in the restorations, as the captions already do a pretty good job of noting which theory, as discussed in the text, is being illustrated. It was also a bit too self-referential. If the article needs a mini-article explaining it, it's probably not very well written overall :P The image looks great, but it's been automatically marked for deletion since no copyright infomation was provided. Unortunately, unless it's a photo you took yourself, I don't think it's eligible for inclusion without special permission of the author. Dinoguy2 22:56, 16 January 2007 (UTC)