Talk:Reptile

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Contents

[edit] Split this article into separate pieces

This article is confusing as hell. What is the topic? Is it an attempt to describe various answers to the questions "What is a reptile?" Or is it a description of Sauropsids?

This should be TWO ARTICLES--at least. One article should be about the Sauropsids. The other should be about Reptiles and Reptilia and all the problems associated with it.

Does anyone agree with this? I feel like the ongoing issues with this article all stem from the fact that this article should be split to begin with.

Denn333 08:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Random Comments

The page states that reptiles do not have color vision. This is flat out wrong. Many reptiles, other than snakes, have better color vision than the few mammals with color vision.Gotham Spartan 14:03, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I think that this page must discuss the problems with classifying DNA :). The traditional classification of reptiles excluded birds; however the modern way of classifying animals depends on cladistics and DNA analysis. This newer information proves that external appearances can often be misleading; birds are just as closely related to other groups within reptiles as other reptiles are related to each other. As such, modern day classification is in the process of reclassifying these organisms. RK

What does "From this point of view, the reptiles are simply the basal amniotes, and so are not a valid group." mean? According to the article on amniotes, mammals and birds are also amniotes, so the amniotes are a monophyletic group, yes...? -- Oliver P. 11:44 31 May 2003 (UTC)

Amniotes are a valid group, but basal amniotes are not. I've altered the text to try reflecting this. Also, I've taken out the bit about how the classification changed because new discoveries suggested certain reptiles were closer to birds. This has been understood for a long time, the change is that paraphyletic groups have not been discouraged until recently. User:Josh Grosse

Thank you for clarifying that. Sorry, I think I must have ignored the word "basal" there because I wasn't sure what it meant. But I understand the article as it is now. -- Oliver P. 15:07 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

RK, your paragraph was good, but the problem isn't new ideas about relationships - birds and mammals have been considered descendants of reptiles for over a century. The problem is new ideas about classification (i.e. that paraphyly isn't monophyly). I've changed the text to reflect this. Josh

[edit] Plesiosauria

Should the order Plesiosauria be added to the list of orders of the class Reptilia? The Plesiosaur belongs to the order Plesiosauria. DarthVader 08:08, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dinosauria

We need a decision here on whether Dinosauria is a superorder under the class Archosauria or the class Reptilia. It is ridiculous because Saurischia says Reptilia and then Eoraptor says Archosauria. A decision either way is fine with me. DarthVader 08:45, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

I believe Archosauria (modern birds and ancient dinosaurs) are considered a reptiles, but not in class Reptilia. This is based on discoveries by Chinese scientists in the last 20 years or so which planted birds squarely in the dinosauria suborder, combined with the wish to differentiate modern 'reptiles' and modern 'birds' into different classes. If you look at the bird page it has been classified as in the class Archosauria, suporder Dinosauria. According to the Archosaur article the word is Greek for "ruling reptiles", so dinosaurs are still reptiles just not common reptiles. --Zenyu 12:26, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

No factual changes to the article. Some rewording; comments about metabolic heat, hatchling care, "warm-blooded" animals and speed. Made various words into links. And...

There was a terrible traffic accident. One tortoise had plowed into the side of another one at an intersection. In the flashing lights from an ambulance, a policeman came over to interview a bystander, a snail sitting on the curb.
"What happened?" asked the cop.
"I don't know. It all happened so fast... it was just a blur." David Shear 00:35, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Plea For Standardization

So far, looking through pages for various reptile lineages, I've found class Reptilia, class Sauropsida, class Archosauria, and class Aves. Various archosaurs are listed under each of these classes--birds obviously are aves, dinosaurs and pterosaurs are currently Archosauria, crocodiles are Reptilia, and the entyr for Archosauria itself is Class Sauropsida! This is needlessly confusing. Someone, maybe one of the WikiProjects, needs to take charge and find some kind of standardization for reptile taxonomy that won't result in an edit war. I know people who work in each of these areas like to have the class rank favor their critters, but until Wikipedia switches to cladistics (which I don't think it should, really), we need to find common ground. Personally, I think Class Saurposida for reptiles>mammals and class Synapsida for reptiles<mammals seems pretty fair. Maybe keep Class Mammalia for crown synapsids and Class Aves for crown dinosaurs. Dinoguy2 02:50, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life have given support to the use of Benton's taxonomy]. Unless there are any objections, I'm going to 'be bold' and start changing class Reptilia to Class Sauropsida. Dinoguy2 03:23, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A few reptile images

Image:Lacerta aigilis.jpg

  • Danish picture of a sand lizard (Lacerta Aigilis)

Danish viper

  • Danish picture of a viper.

Image:Black_Viper_Head.jpg

  • Head of a Black Viper.

Those are nice Images, and I'd like to see them in articles. However, I have little knowledge about reptiles, so I won't add them myself, sadly. vidarlo 14:03, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Paraphyletic vs. monophyletic

This might be easier to understand with a picture of the tree of vertebrates (or at least reptiles, birds and maybe mammals). The easiest way for me to understand the issue was to realize that crocodiles are in fact more closely related to birds than to turtles. Does anyone think this should somehow be integrated? Lukas 22:44, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, wikipedia needs a template that draws evolutionary trees, much like the timeline functionality. - Samsara contrib talk 02:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
This can sort of be done already, using an ascii cladogram like the one here [1], and would look like this:
Sauropsida 
 ├─Lepidosauria
 └───Archosauria
        ├─Crocodilia
        └───Aves
The problem is it's a real pain and kind of tedious to build from scratch like that, so yeah, a template would be fantastic.Dinoguy2 03:50, 28 February 2006 (UTC)h.u.m/p

[edit] Peer review of tuatara

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Dear All,

Since some of you may be interested in the subject, I would be delighted to hear your feedback on the current state of the tuatara article. Direct link. Many thanks.

Samsara contrib talk 02:54, 28 February 2006 (UTC)how does a tuatra reprduce

[edit] Digestive?

Can anyone make a section reptiles' digestive and/or circulatory system(s)? I'm not an expert, so i know i can't. Lbr123 04:16, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Add Smithsonian link?

Hello! I am a writer for the Smithsonian's Center for Education, which publishes Smithsonian in Your Classroom, a magazine for teachers. An online version of an issue titled "Reviled and Revered: Toads, Turtles, Snakes, and Salamanders" is available at this address:

http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/herps/start.html

If you think the audience would find this valuable, I wish to invite you to include it as an external link. We would be most grateful.

Thank you so much for your attention.

[edit] "Sauropsida" links to Reptilia?

Why do links to Sauropsida lead to the Reptilia page? They are different taxa. Sauropsida has always included birds, while Reptilia traditionally has not. Even in phylogenetic taxonomy, although they have similar content, Sauropsida is a stem-based clade which includes Reptilia, a node-based clade.

It doesn't link to Reptilia, it links to Reptile, which is a common name. Just as Aves links to Bird, which is not the name of any clade. Wikipedia guidelines say that article titles should be common name,s not scientific names, wherever possible. Also, the reptile and dinosaur wikiprojects follow Benton's taxonomy, in which Class Aves ("birds") is separated from Class Sauropsida ("reptiles"). Anyway, many (if not most) Sauropsida-Reptile redirects have been switched to just sauropsida by now, by people who disagree with my logic here. ;) Dinoguy2 13:45, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
But the verncaular term for Sauropsida is "sauropsid", not "reptile". Benton's scheme is not in common use and is in direct violation of the original (and still more popular) meaning of Sauropsida, anyway. If Wikipedia must use Linnaean ranks (which I disagree with, but that's another issue), they should use Classis Reptilia--it's a far, far more common practice.
I argued for this initially but there was some very vocal opposition that wanted the term reptile banned from use around here. You might want to bring this up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs, as it's a more active group and many members were involved in the original debate. I still prefer Class Reptilia over Sauropsida, for what it's worth. I think having seperate pages for Sauropsid and Reptile is redundant and confusing to the average reader. If anything, the term Sauropsid should be discussed in the taxonomy section of Reptile.Dinoguy2 20:17, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Classification References

I found an interesting one. Anyone with access to the journal care to add this info in?

Modesto, S.P.; J. S. Anderson (2003). "The Phylogenetic Definition of Reptilia". Systematic Biology 53 (5): 815-821. Society of Systematic Biologists. 

Shrumster 07:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of extinct reptiles?

I noticed that there is a list of reptiles, that includes living reptiles only. Would it be a good idea to also have a list of extinct reptiles, similar to how there are lists of extinct mammals and birds? 71.217.98.158 19:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sauropsida or Reptilia?

What's the deal with listing the class as "Sauropsida"? Doesn't that include birds? The basic fact is that it's entirely impossible to combine Linnaean classification with cladism with any consistency. Reptiles are a paraphyletic group, and the class name for them is "Reptilia." Whether this is a "valid" taxonomic group seems like the wrong question to ask - the traditional classifications just don't work if you insist on monophyletic groups, and trying to pretend it does just leads to confusion. If we are discussing Reptiles as a group excluding birds, which is exactly what we are doing in this article, we should call them "Reptilia." john k 05:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree, actually, but early on there was a lot of resistance to this--not sure if changing it back now would fly. Something to bring up at Wikiproject:Reptiles or Dinosaurs (which is probably more active). Also, we agreed quite a while back to follow Benton's taxonomy. He uses Sauropsida as a paraphyletic group that excludes birds, so as synonymous with the then-contentious Reptilia (and paraphyletic Class Synapsida for the stem mammals). If you can propose another, comprehensive Amniote classification that would work better, I'd be very open to having a look. Dinoguy2 05:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, my basic feeling on subjects like this is that Wikipedia is far too eager to embrace the newest trends, and that a staid reversion to traditional classifications, with some discussion of why newer literature casts doubt on them, is better than trying to incorporate the newest stuff into the way we actually organize things. Taxonomy is basically an artificial discipline, an attempt to impose classifications and discrete identities onto chaotic, continuous phenomena. As such, I'm not sure why there's any particular need for a "comprehensive Amniote classification." If I must provide one, I'd suggest that for every article on taxonomic groups that conveniently fit into Linnaean schemes, the table simply give the traditional Linnaean categories - Phylum Chordata, Class Mammalia, Reptilia or Aves, and then whatever Order...articles on other terms could explore the various groups used without attempting to impose a false consistency on them, or squeeze them into Linnaean taxon types when there is absolutely no general agreement as to what level they fall under. The basic fact of this issue is that there is no generally agreed upon scheme for classifying all of these various groups. There is a traditional Linnaean scheme that is generally agreed upon to be somewhat misleading, and then there are a variety of postulated schemes that not everybody really agrees on. As such, it seems to me that the best way to proceed is to stick with tradition as much as possible for the basic structuring of our coverage, and to deal with newer hypotheses in article text. john k 07:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reptile orders

Why are not dinosaurs included in the list of surviving reptile orders? They are part of sauropsida, and not extinct (birds).Narayanese 13:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

See my comment below. Scorpionman 01:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Birds are a type of reptile under some systems, but not in the system that uses ranks such as "order". In that system they are removed from dinosaurs as their own class. Dinoguy2 08:11, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BIRDS????

This article says that birds are reptiles! That is flat-out wrong! How on earth can you say such idiotic nonsense?? Scorpionman 01:28, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

In cladistic classification, birds are reptiles. In Linnean classification, they're not. The taxobox uses the Linnean classification system, so birds aren't listed. But the cladistic system is just as important and more widely used nowadays, so of course it should be discussed... Dinoguy2 08:09, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
How are they reptiles? Because they were supposed to have evolved from dinosaurs? Or is it because they have scales on their legs? In that case, cats are rodents because they have tails. Scorpionman 00:39, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
I suggest you read up on how phylogenetic taxonomy works, and how it's different from other kinds of taxonomy, especially Linnean biological taxonomy. Linnean classification seperates things into categories based on key features. Mammals are mammals because they have hair and milk. Reptiles are reptiles because they're cold blooded and have scales. Birds are birds because they fly and have feathers. Phylogenetic classification works absolutely nothing like this. It's a totally different system, based purely on evolutionary lineages. So, yes, birds are reptiles because they evolved from reptiles. Sparrows are birds because they evolved from birds. Humans are synapsids because we eolved from synapsids. It's a "russion nesting doll" model, rather than a model based on categories. Cats are not rodents because they did not evolve from rodents. Obviously, this does not work really well for actually describing categories, which is why I personally still prefer Linnean classification in some situations (like the taxobox). But almost all paleontologists and many scientists who study modern animals and plants have totally or partially abandoned Linnean in favor of phylogenetic, so it would be good to learn as much as you can about it! Dinoguy2 03:01, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Thism ight actually be a really simple way to think about it: Classification units ("taxa") in each system have different names. There are many names for units in Linnean (Kingdom, phylum, class, etc.), only one unit name in phylogenetics (clade). Birds are members of the CLADE Reptilia but not the CLASS Reptilia. Dinoguy2 03:03, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
I see. That's more understandable. Scorpionman 20:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I think should be two articles. One about reptilians as a paraphyletic group and the other about Sauropsida as a clade. The same done with Crustacea and Pancrustacea. Sobirà 12:14, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Pancrustacea and Crustacea are two different clades, not two names for the same clade. Neither are paraphyletic when using the cladistic system. Reptilia and Sauropsida describe the same group in cladistics, and Benton 2004 (which this article currently follows) treats them as synonyms in even a Linnean sense. Most groups can be described differnetly as a taxon or a clade, that's why many article have a systematics section divided into Classification or Taxonomy (describing the group in a Linnean sense) and a Phylogeny section (describing the group in a cladistic sense). No need for seperate articles. Dinoguy2 14:43, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
No need of paraphyly mark when cladistics sources use Sauropsida clade. Crustacea wich is paraphyletic with Hexapoda is a taxon, no a clade. Sobirà 18:23, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
But it's not a clade here, it's a Class. That's what it says in the taxobox. It it were a clade, it would say (unranked). The class Sauropsida is paraphyletic. If you want to not use it as class, it needs to be replaced with Reptilia on all reptile taxoboxes, and then a seperate page can be made for Sauropsida. Dinoguy2 01:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] sauropsida

Is this basically right?

The reptile group is not a clade, but it is a level of classification in the old system.

According to the new clade system, reptiles comprise four orders (listed here).

The common ancestor of these four orders is the same common ancestor that dinosaurs and birds have (the first sauropsid).

The amniote article says that sauropsidae are reptiles, dinosaurs, and birds. "The amniotes are a group of tetrapod vertebrates that include the Synapsida (mammals and mammal-like reptiles) and Sauropsida (reptiles and dinosaurs, including birds)." Thus sauropsida is not the same as reptile. Let's have a "sauropsida" page that explains that sauropsidae are reptiles, dinosaurs, and birds. Leadwind 01:32, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Theory

According to the University of California Museum of Paleontology, they say that turtles are a seprate class, while the other reptiles and birds shared the same class and common ancestors with the mammals and synapsids. Should we make the turtles a seprate class or keep them? Along with putting birds into the reptile (diapsids)? Also the UCMP classification is on the reptile page's history of classification if your curious people. More info on http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/tetrapods/tetrasy.html From 4444hhhh 00:52, 30 October 2007 (UTC)4444hhhh

Not a new theory, but a variant classification scheme, that I haven't seen before. Better leave it as it is, as it doesn't seem to be widely accepted. Dinoguy2 05:54, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Wait do you mean to keep the way it is or use this method? From 4444hhhh 20:57, 30 October 2007 (UTC)4444hhhh

Why is the part where the UMCP beleive they say that turtles are a seprate class, while the other reptiles and birds shared the same class and common ancestors with the mammals and synapsids?--4444hhhh (talk) 02:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

This is the parareptilia hypothesis, which is not widely accepted today. Dinoguy2 (talk) 02:40, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

'sides, see this (http://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2115/30315/1/CR13-6.pdf) paper. the scientific community has been back and forth on the relationship 'tween turtles and other reptiles/archosaurs. i believe the pre-genetic studies by wilson-sarich suggested that birds and turtles were relatively close. that seems to be what this study suggests (ie, that turtles are not primitive but highly derived as regards jaw structure). - Metanoid (talk, email) 03:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hemipenes

This article states that all reptiles except turtles/tortoises have hemipenes. Do crocodilians have hemipenes? All the male crocs I've seen have only ever had one phallus. Smacdonald (talk) 04:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Whoa, major error. I'll fix that. Mokele (talk) 06:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Problem With Tuatara

Tuatara contain only one living species and they are found exclusively on two islands in the Cook Strait in New Zealand. Adolph172 (talk) 22:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)adolph172

Actually, there's two, S. punctatus and S. guntheri, with the latter being even rarer than the former, and even more endangered. See the tuatara page. Mokele (talk) 00:35, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Linnaean versus cladistic

Hello friends,

I think there's a simple solution to resolve the problem of outdated taxa (like reptiles or fish) : introduce every outdated taxon with the phrase "In linnaean taxonomy x are y". For example :

In Linnaean taxonomy reptiles are air-breathing, cold-blooded vertebrates that have skin covered in scales as opposed to hair or feathers.

Another possibility:

Reptile is an outdated taxon commonly used in Linnaean taxonomy. Reptiles are air-breathing, cold-blooded vertebrates....

For now the profane reader doesn't discover the taxon is outdated until several paragraphs, and that's the case for several articles related to outdated taxa. If he just reads looking for a precise information or definition and stops reading before the paragraph explaining the taxon is outdated, he just leaves wikipedia happy... and still ignorant. An outdated taxon should be immediately identified by the wikipedia reader since the very beginning of the article. This way people will learn, step by step, why dinosaurs are not reptiles or why birds are dinosaurs, what is a classification and how it works, and the most important: what's the difference between Linnaean and cladistic.

What do you think ? Kisses from Paris !

343KKT Kintaro (talk) 15:53, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


Honestly, I don't support it. While the term "reptile" may not be PC (phylogenetically correct), it's actually a very valuable term for communication, and front-loading its paraphyletic nature will do nothing but confuse people. We should detail the issue classification section (as is already done), but I see no gain and lots of loss of clarity in starting the article with it. After all, this is an encyclopedia (and not even a pretentious one), not a scientific journal article. For example, look at the changes I made to the intro of snakes; by replacing the annoying list of apomorphies and defining features with something more common, I made it a LOT more readable, and structured the edit in such a way that accuracy was preserved. Mokele (talk) 03:33, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


In my opinion people are more confused if they continue thinking that reptiles are still an admitted taxon (as they usually do). But I don't insist, I perfectly understand your position even if it's not my own point of view. May be our efforts should be done more in schools than in wikipedia...
Good bye, and thanks for giving your opinion !
343KKT Kintaro (talk) 13:44, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reptiles

HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THIS AND WHERE DID YOU GET THE INFORMATION FROM? WHAT WEBSITES? JUST WANTED TO KNOW. THANKS FOR READING HONEY, anonymous. (bigfan) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.204.82.37 (talk) 01:44, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

On the article, look near to the bottom in the section called "References". The References list the places where the information came from.R00m c (talk) 04:58, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

SO LIKE I SAID BEFORE PLZ ANSWER MY ?S. SO MAYBE THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN WO ARTICLES INSTEAD OF HOW MANY YOU MADE. PLZ TAKE MY ADVUCE AD I LOVE THIS SITE PAGE. ANONYMOUS(ME FROM BEFORE) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.204.82.37 (talk) 01:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

You have to be patient. 3 min. is not enough time for people to read and respond to your questions. Also, no need to yell(caps lock), we read you just fine in normal text. What are "WO ARTICLES"? Its hard to take your advise as we have no clue what you are try to say. R00m c (talk) 04:58, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History of classification

The History of Classification section needs reorganising, so it follows chronological sequence. Sauropsida and associated comments (from my Sauropsida page, which has since been merged with the Reptile page) should come before Cladistics, because Cladistics is a recent development (1970s onwards). And at the start of the section there should be some comments on Linnaeus's definition (he included Amphibian and Reptile as one category, "Class Amphibia"). Linnaeus can be followed by brief summary of 18th and 19th naturalists. The following is one suggestion:

o Linnaeus definition - "Class Amphibia" includes amphians and reptiles
o Class Reptilia named by Laurenti 1768
o 19th century, "Reptilia" as conventionally defined (also includes the Victorians' "antedilevian monsters" and so on)
o Sauropsida etc
o Reptilia standard pre-cladistic definition (five subclasses, including Synapsida)
o Cladistic rejection of Reptilia as paraphyletic group

M Alan Kazlev (talk) 06:18, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Semi-protect

I took the liberty of semi-protecting this article. Recently there has been a high number of IPs vandalising this page. Hope this was okay. Mark t young (talk) 09:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Which has been bot-removed. However, I do believe that it should be retained. Mark t young (talk) 12:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] How come

Something I've noticed is that reptiles don't have a section / article on their intelligence. I am curious - why do mammals, birds and fish have one while reptiles don't? Elasmosaurus (talk) 04:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)