Talk:Animal

Choanozoa, super-class between Filozoa and Animalia missing from info box

The class Choanozoa, which would fall between Filozoa and Animalia is not mentioned in this article's info box in the classification section, but is mentioned in other parts of the article, as well as being named as a subclass in the Filozoa article. Is there a reason for this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gonb (talk • contribs) 02:28, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

The taxobox gives a brief summary at some preset level of detail, naming just a few major clades like nested Russian dolls. There are nearly always more subdolls, as it were, invisible in between the visible ones. Chiswick Chap (talk) 03:12, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

I've changed the parent taxon for animals to Choanozoa, but unranked. It's unusual for taxoboxes not to show the immediate parent. I assume the reason is that the Choanozoa introduced by Cavalier-Smith was paraphyletic. Now it has been recircumscribed for the clade containing animals and choanoflagellates, it seems appropriate to include it. The Adl et al (2019) classification uses Choanomonada but this doesn't seem to be used widely[Correction: This is wrong. Choanomonada is their taxon for choanoflagelletes.]. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:10, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Good work! Many thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:17, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

I've corrected my comment on Adl et al (2019). They support the redefinition of Choanozoa as animals + choanoflgellates, attributing it to Brunet & King (2017) It was also used by Tikhonenkov et al (2020), which suggests the new usage has caught on. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:33, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

References

Wiki Education assignment: Earth 209 - Introduction to Geology

This article is currently the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 3 September 2024 and 6 December 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ngumli (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Ngumli (talk) 03:51, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

The ‘In human culture’ section

after reading this section and checking through the talk page, I notice that the domesticated honey bee is not mentioned at all, despite being quite important, to a lesser degree the silkworm could be justifiably put in the article.

P.S. what other important animals are missing from that section; if there are any. Legendarycool (talk) 03:38, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. The section here is in "summary style" with a "main" link to a subsidiary article, Animals in culture, which covers the topic in much more detail. Further, its many subsections *each* have "main" or "further" links, so the section is actually the root of a whole tree (hierarchy) of articles which elaborate on the many interesting details of this vast subject area. As to whether bees or silkworms should be mentioned here rather than elsewhere in the tree is a minor issue really; anyone who wants to read up on the subject will soon be browsing around the sources cited in the tree of articles involved. Perhaps this gives you a different perspective on the section: its job is not to say everything, but to give pointers to Wikipedia's wide coverage of its subject area, and through those articles to the rich literature on the subject. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 04:21, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I’m just say that I think that domesticated bees are quite important in human culture and could definitely warrant a place in even a short summary it’s important in agriculture and there own products. Legendarycool (talk) 05:20, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

That could be said. Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:59, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

@Legendarycool:, you are encountering the struggle between thoroughness and bloating that permeates Wikipedia. There may be good arguments for adding more information to an article, but too much information can make an article too long for most readers. Wikilinking allows us to move large sub-topics to their own article, leaving just a more or less short summary in the main article. You can be bold, and add whatever you think needs to be added, but other editors may disagree with you and revert the addition. Donald Albury 13:35, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Variety of photos

Can we change some of the main photos? There’s not a lot of representation for mammals and what not. 76.78.172.65 (talk) 13:53, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. Animals include many phyla, only one of which is the chordates; the mammals are just one class within that phylum. We might have multiple mammal images in Chordate; we do not need them here, not least because many folks confuse 'animal' and 'mammal'. Hope that is clear. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:18, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

The article says there were 1.5 million decribed animals in 2013 and its probably closer to 2 million now. Only 6-7000 are mammals. There are actually three pictures of mammals (Lamarck, the beef and the dog) so mammals are arguably over-represented.  —  Jts1882 | talk  15:05, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's a ratio of roughly 1 mammal to 250 other species. List of animal classes contains 107 classes, of which mammal is one, so if we had 321 images in the article, 3 would be fair representation by class. We actually have 60 (not all of animals-by-class) so mammals are getting about 6 times over-represented by that measure; or around 4 times by species measure. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:16, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Position of Ctenophora

What is the current consensus (if any) on the position of Ctenophora? I've read through a bunch of articles on wikipedia related to the subject, without much to go for it.

I recently found this paper (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05936-6 ), and the writers of the paper seem fairly confident that Ctenophora is a sister group to all other animals.

Are there any papers (since 2023) challenging this notion, or is there a consensus starting to form?

Many thanks. IvarTheBoneless123 (talk) 17:22, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd say that if the peer-reviewers of Nature think it's ok then we can safely go along with them. It's not guaranteed to be correct but it certainly looks that way. I'll tweak the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:47, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the issue is resolved. Ever since ctenophora-first was first proposed it seems to go in phases with porifera-first or ctenophora-first being recovered depending on the method, with the support usually said to be strong using the favoured methodology. That said, it's been a while since a new study favouring porifera-first, but I've yet to see a review saying it has been resolved to the satisfaction of both camps. I think the way the article currently presents the different theories is a balanced description of the current status and showing the topology of the most recent comprehensive study seems reasonable (an alternative would be to use a figure from a review showing them unresolved).  —  Jts1882 | talk  09:17, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. There are several points in the tree that remain contested. We've tried to steer a middle way through the multiple controversies, while presenting the beginning reader with a comprehensible introduction that's reasonably up-to-date. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:10, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree completely with @Jts1882. The Nature study is important, but I doubt consensus has been reached. cyclopia^speak! 11:57, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

In any case, I just found a phylogeny of Opisthokonta published in September that recovers too Ctenophora as the sister group of all other animals. [1] cyclopia^speak! 12:06, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

It seems we all violently agree. I'd be equally interested in people's thoughts about the shape of the article; I've rewritten the Characteristics and ensured the article is fully cited. Is there more that needs to be said? At the moment the article is quite heavily phylogenetic; we could say more about physiology or ecology, for instance, if people feel it's not balanced in some way. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:22, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

@Chiswick Chap I have a rearrangement in mind that goes something like this: 1) a wider Characteristics section, full of information on physiology, the methods of reproduction, perception, etc. all the basic general stuff covered in the introductions of zoology books; 2) an Ecology section delving into both the roles of animals (primary consumers, predators, parasites, etc.) and their habitat diversity; 3) a Diversity section delving into the current diversity, going through the different animal phyla in a shortened way and noting their species numbers (something in my opinion prettier than a table, although a summarizing table could still be useful); 4) an Evolution section, delving into the fossil record, the origins of animals, and the phylogenetic hypotheses; 5) perhaps a history of classification section, where the vertebrate-invertebrate and coelomate-acoelomate theories could be explained; and lastly 6) a section on the relationship with humans, such as culture, usage, etc. I have been trying to implement this structure in the Protist article and believe it's quite an improvement (still a work in progress, though, but the Diversity section is nearly complete). One big advantage I think this scheme has is that it divides diversity (which is more vast and palatable to the general public who just wants to learn on the different animals that exist) from pure phylogeny (which is more technical and delves into evolutionary theory). — Snoteleks (talk) 13:21, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Ah, we do have most of that split here, and the article is already rather long ... I thought I was editing Talk:Vertebrate which I've just been working on! Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:12, 1 December 2024 (UTC)