Talk:Xenocyon lycaonoides

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[edit] Existence?

I can't find any reference to this species – is it real? We need a reference and its scientific name. --Richard New Forest (talk) 21:55, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Scientific name, but still no reference. There seem to be several animals referred to by this name (Canis africanus). Does it have an authority, at least? --Richard New Forest (talk) 20:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Authority added. That may be the least of the problems here. C. africanus has been synonymized with Xenocyon lycaonoides, which belongs in Lycaon, Xenocyon, or Canis, depending on where you look. Either way, its the likely ancestor of the African Wild Dog, not the Ethiopian Wolf. The species is present in both Africa and Europe, so the common name probably isn't appropriate. For that matter, I can't find any evidence that either C. africanus or X. lycaonoides HAS a common name. --Helioseus (talk) 21:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Looks as if the text needs to be changed to reflect all that. Are there references for this info? --Richard New Forest (talk) 10:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure. The species-level synonymy was by Martínez-Navarro and Rook (2003), subsequently endorsed by Werdelin and Lewis (2005). If anyone's an authority on extinct African Carnivora, its Lars Werdelin, so it should be pretty reliable. The generic question is messier. Martínez-Navarro and Rook sunk Xenocyon into Lycaon because they viewed it as ancestral to only L. pictus. Werdelin and Lewis didn't disagree, but they sank Lycaon and Xenocyon into Canis in response to molecular studies placing Lycaon within Canis. Meanwhile, Moulle et al. (2006) maintained Xenocyon as a distinct genus because it may be ancestral to both Lycaon and Cuon. The moral of the story is that Pleistocene canid taxonomy is an absolute mess. My inclination would be to use Xenocyon lycaonoides until 1) generic taxonomy of living canines settles out and 2) fossil relationships are a bit more secure. Anyway, here's the three refs:

Martínez-Navarro, B., and L. Rook. 2003. Gradual evolution in the African hunting dog lineage: systematic implications. Comptes Rendus Palevol 2:695-702. doi:10.1016/j.crpv.2003.06.002
Moullé, P.-E., A. Eschassoux, and F. Lacombat. 2006. Taxonomie du grand canidé de la grotte du Vallonnet (Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, Alpes-Maritimes, France). L'anthropologie 110:832-836. doi:10.1016/j.anthro.2006.10.001
Werdelin, L., and M. E. Lewis. 2005. Plio-Pleistocene Carnivora of eastern Africa: species richness and turnover patterns. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 144:121-144. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.2005.00165.x

[edit] Title of article

The name of this article has just been changed from African wolf to African Wolf, without discussion. The normal Wiki convention for animal common names is without capital initials (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Animals, plants, and other organisms). Why the change, and why no discussion for a contentious change? --Richard New Forest (talk) 20:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Makes it consistent with other Canis articles. See Canis, Canidae, etc. - UtherSRG (talk) 20:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention that the MoS is disputed for mammals. - UtherSRG (talk) 20:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, disputed. All the more reason for discussion. --Richard New Forest (talk) 21:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Common Name a Possible Hoax

I've just overhauled the page to reflect current taxonomy. Unfortunately, it looks like a move will be needed. The common name seems to have been taken from List of Canis species and subspecies, where it was one of several common names added by the same anon IP (here [1] and here [2]). A couple of the other names seem to be invented. A google search for "Strand's wolf" turns up precisely 0 hits aside from the Wikipedia page. Chilean wolf is even more suspicious. Google Scholar and Google Books searches for Canis chiliensis make it pretty clear that the species is from China, not South America, so that common name is pretty unlikely. A search for "African Wolf" on Google Scholar turns up nothing associated with extinct wolves (the few hits are mainly wolf spiders). Given all of this, it looks like the common names, including African Wolf were made up by the anon. There's otherwise no indication that either Canis africanus or Xenocyon lycaonoides has an established common name. Accordingly, I'd like to move this page to Xenocyon lycaonoides, but I'll wait a bit for feedback. --Helioseus (talk) 21:03, 28 April 2008 (UTC)