Talk:Apataelurus

Missing critical biostratigraphic and geological information

Hello any potential editors! I have tried my best to write this up, but I am unfortunately missing lots of information about how the Uinta Formation actually looked in the late middle Eocene (48-40 mya). This article is paywalled and I am unable to access it, but if anyone has permission to read it or use it, please feel free to add to the paleoecology section of this page. Thank you! Csarhelicopterfan (talk) 01:40, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

I sent you the paper to your wikimail. See also our Resources page. Thanks for the nice article! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 11:03, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you very much! I'll be expanding the paleoecology section greatly with this new information. Csarhelicopterfan (talk) 14:48, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

We made it to B-class!

Thank you to all other editors working on this project. This has been a joy to make! Independentgeoscience (talk) 22:35, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Lavalizard101, please explain the deletions you made to the page

You deleted several chunks of work with only the barest explanation. Please define your changes and explain why you'd like to make them. Thanks. Independentgeoscience (talk) 02:41, 6 June 2025 (UTC) Lavalizard101 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Independentgeoscience (talk • contribs) 02:45, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Apataelurus/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Independentgeoscience (talk · contribs) 20:30, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Jens Lallensack (talk · contribs) 23:21, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

Reviewing now!

Note. I agree that the "Temporal distribution within Oxyaenidae" is off-topic. Context is important, yes, but the article also has to stay focused on the topic (this is a GA criterion). The timeline could be a nice addition to the Oxyaenidae article, but not here. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 23:21, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

• extinct genus of saber-toothed hypercarnivorous placental mammals – we need to simplify this, it is throwing too much at the reader at once. The first sentence of the lead has to be particularly digestible, and should focus on the essential points only. Make a separate sentence. "Hypercarnivorous" needs a link or explanation if kept.

• paraconid, talonoid – link and/or explain these terms

• The ascending ramus featured a deep masseteric fossa – Again, try to explain a bit. The average reader won't understand. You are not writing for paleontologists here.

• The articular process, which ended below the dental plane, was also much smaller. – Smaller than what?

• The entire lower jaw reached a height of 1.8 cm (0.71 in). – The word "entire" does not make sense to me; delete?

• The mandible of A. kayi is less dorsoventrally buttressed (a bodily structure reinforced from the top to the bottom) – the explanation does not seem to mach what it is suppoed to explain ("dorsoventrally buttressed")

• Panthera pardus – Link? Also should be in italics (genus and species names are always in italics)

• interbedded sequence of silt, clay, and small amounts of gravel – also need a bunch of wikilinks here.

• Uinta A is post-Bridgerian – needs explanation

• Mammalian biostratigraphy – The section does not seem to have anything on "biostratigraphy". I suggest to just remove both subheadings; we don't usually use them for single paragraphs unless there are good reasons.

• faulted basin, again and similar terms: Please look through the article for terms that should be linked. For terms that the reader needs to know to at least roughly understand the sentence, it is recommended to explain them in-text.

• All taxa in the cladogram should be linked.

Sources review

• Zack (2019) is in the references list twice.

• paleobiodb.org is not a reliable source for a sentence like "This genus was defined by teeth that were well-adapted to a carnivorous diet". You also do not repeat in the body how the genus was "defined" (I am also not sure what you mean here. Autapomorphies?)

• "Apataelurus kayi: Type Specimen CMNH 11920". paleobiodb.org. – Again, not a good source, just cite the original publication.

• "New Paleocene insectivores and insectivore classification". digitallibrary.amnh.org." – We need author and journal, at least.

• SP, Zack (2022). "Project 4091: Diegoaelurus, a new machaeroidine (Oxyaenidae) from the Santiago Formation (late Uintan) of southern California and the relationships of Machaeroidinae, the oldest group of sabertooth mammals". morphobank.org. Retrieved 1 June 2025. – Did you really want to cite morphobank here or the PeerJ paper?

• Metering | MorphoBank". morphobank.org. Retrieved 2 June 2025. – Link does not work, and again, citing morphobank does not make sense

• "Ferae Linnaeus, 1758". www.gbif.org. Retrieved 1 June 2025. – Also a poor source and does not seem to support the content.

• One of the earliest sabre-toothed mammals discovered in the USA | Natural History Museum". www.nhm.ac.uk. – Where does this support the claim that Apataelurus was the size of a leopard?

• Make sure everything is sourced. There are sentences in "Hetaoyuan Formation" which are not sourced.

• Stopping here now, as there are too many issues with the sources. The issues above are only examples.

Overall assessment: The article is well-written, but needs more explanations of terms. However, we have a problem with the sources, and this aspects needs a lot of work. Often, source formatting is so messy that I cannot see what source is actually cited; sometimes the link points to the morphobank site rather than the paper, and so on. You cite a lot of news pages, which, wherever possible, are better replaced by scholarly literature (the peer-reviewed papers). Most importantly, I found a lot of information in this article that I cannot find in the sources cited. So, GA criterion 2 (verifiable) is not met. To move this article forward, the first step should be to get the sources right. Most importantly, make sure that source-text integrity is always warranted (the sources have to contain the information you are citing them for). Putting this "on hold" to give you some time to work on it. Will then need to take a second look. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:06, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

@Independentgeoscience: If you are stuck somewhere or need advise how to do things efficiently, let me know. For example, inserting references is easiest with the autocompletion feature of the editor (just copy/paste the DOI of the paper and it will give you the correct citation); you could also use Citer Tool. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:10, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

• Closing note: Procedual close; it is clear that the article needs more work, which might be better to do in your own time, without the tight time constraints of GAN. This should not affect you; I will still be available to help out, and I would be happy to pick-up the review again if renominated. Thanks, --Jens Lallensack (talk) 05:49, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

GA review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Apataelurus/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Independentgeoscience (talk · contribs) 23:36, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: Gasmasque (talk · contribs) 19:50, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

I've done some quick copyediting, and will try to get the rest of the review done tonight or tomorrow. Gasmasque (talk) 21:15, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Sounds great, thank you! Independentgeoscience (talk) 18:37, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Review

• Probably not necessary to specify that the genus is a placental in the first sentence of the lead.

• Citations are generally not needed in the lead section, since the information is already cited elsewhere in the article body.

• Since the date of description is specified for A. pishigouensis, it's probably better to also say when A. kayi was described in the lead for comparison.

• "... related to other Machaeroidinae" wouldn't it be "related to other members of Machaeroidinae" or "other macheroidines"? Also, the full genus name Diegoaelurus should be given to avoid ambiguity.

• The taxobox says the species was described in 1937, while the article body uses 1938. BHL lists volume 27 as being published in 1938, while various papers list Scott, 1937 or Scott, 1938. As far as I know the date of publication is used for attribution, so the Wiki article would use '38, but whichever you opt for it should be consistent throughout.

• Is there a reason that A Remarkable Sabretooth-Like Creodont From the Eocene of Utah is fully written out in the text, while the other cited papers are not?

• Propterodon seems to be a valid genus and should be red-linked for when an article on it is made. I had made this change myself, but I noticed you reverted it.

• "During the study, Zack noticed that "P. pishigouensis" had an anterior dentary flange, a feature not present in any found Hyaenodonta. However, similar flanges had been discovered in machaeroidines, to which A. kayi belonged to." This sentence flows a little awkwardly. Maybe something like "The shape of the species' dentary was unlike that of a hyaenodont and instead matched members of the subfamily Machaeroidinae such as A. kayi, leading to its reclassification as a member of Apataelurus."

• Academic in-text attribution like e.g. "Egi (2001)" might be unfamiliar to casual readers, something like "in a 2001 paper, researcher Naoki Egi estimated..." could be used for these instead.

• Talonid could be contextualised in-text by saying "The talonid portion of the molar in A. pishigouensis..." since it's a relatively unfamiliar term.

• "They protected the canine tooth when the jaw was closed." What does "they" refer to here? The lower jaw itself?

• "reduced in size compared to machaeroidines" should be "reduced in size compared to other machaeroidines"?

• What Pan-Carnivora/Ferae is should be better explained.

• Saying "less reinforced" would be easier to understand than "less buttressed".

• You can use the common name leopard instead of Panthera pardus.

• "From these mandibular properties, it can be assumed that Machaeroidinae delivered canine bites on prey that offered relatively less resistance than the prey of larger conical-toothed felids" sentence is tough to follow. Am I reading this right that machaeroidinins presumably hunted prey that was smaller or less powerful than the prey of saber-toothed cats? The term "conical-toothed felids" to refer to saber-toothed cats also seems overly jargony, like it was pulled uncritically right out of a paper, and they're referred to by their more common name elsewhere in the article.

• Quite a lot of Scholar hits for the Hetaoyuan Formation, it seems potentially notable and should be redlinked.

• "... oceanic cooling began around 50 million years ago, cooling about 11-15 degrees Fahrenheit in the middle-late Eocene and a loss of tropical environments in North America." Should be "cooling around 11-15 degrees in the middle-late Eocene, leading to a loss of tropical environments…" right?

• Are "Laramide uplift" and "Laramide orogeny" synonyms? Both terms are used separately but as far as I know refer to the same thing.

• The Lutetian stage of the Eocene isn't mentioned here, only the equivalent North American Bridgerian and Uintan. The lead uses Lutetian, and it should be clarified that these regional stages are equivalent to the Lutetian.

Images

• Taxobox image was published in the U.S. in 1938, so is in the public domain if its copyright was never renewed. This is common enough for scientific illustrations of the time that I will assume it is PD. Other images all look to be properly licensed.

• According to the image's source, "Apataelurus pishigouensis lower mandible" actually shows both A. pishigouensis' mandible fragment "a" and A. kayi's mandible "b". Please correct the text to clarify that both species are illustrated.

Source review

The specific instances brought up in the last review seem to be addressed, but I'm still seeing a number of source issues, including unreliable sources, misattributed text, close paraphrasing, and inconsistencies. There may be more that I've missed.

• Scott's description paper says the holotype was discovered by J. Leroy Kay. The fossil was described by Scott, but I don't think it's accurate to say he discovered it.

• Source 3 (Van Valen, 1967) says nothing about etymology or Scott's description, and only mentions that the genus is a member of Machaeroidini. Where is the etymology coming from?

• "Apataelurus kayi is noted to have been large among macheroidines. Egi (2001) estimated A. kayi was at least 50% larger than Limnocyon potens in dental dimensions, which is slightly larger than Machaeroides eothen" Source 9 looks good here, but source 10 doesn't seem to say anything about this genus directly outside the supplementary excel document stating the weight estimate. It should also be made more clear that the source 10 citation is for the supplementary dataset rather than the paper itself.

• Source 12 and its supplementary material don't support the passage it's cited to, this information is presumably coming from elsewhere.

• "The articular process and coronoid process were both significantly reduced in size compared to machaeroidines. Both the protrusion of the front segment of the mandible and the low position of the coronoid process were more pronounced in Apataelurus than in the closely related Machaeroides" does not seem to be in Zack (2019), I think this may actually come from Zack (2022)?

• "Three oxyaenid genera and four species have thus far been described: Machaeroides, with species M. simpsoni and M. eothen, Apataelurus, and Diegoaelurus" the source doesn't say this, and it's obviously false since there are two species of Apataelurus. Also, this refers only to Machaeroidinae, there are plenty of other oxyaenids in other subfamilies. What's going on here?

• "It likely hunted large prey, including uintatheres and brontotheriid perissodactyls. A. pishigouensis, which lived in now-China, likely hunted perissodactyls related to modern-day tapirs" the source says the genus was adapted to obligate/hypercarnivory and had adaptations associated with hunting large prey, but it does not mention your listed prey selection.

• "The relative mandibular force values of Machaeroides eothen and A. kayi are similar to those of conical-toothed felids ... From these mandibular properties, it can be assumed that Machaeroidinae delivered canine bites on prey that offered relatively less resistance than the prey of larger conical-toothed felids. As such, prey must have been held down before the saber-like canines were used to kill." is very closely paraphrased from the Therrien (2005) passage "The Zx/Zycanine values of M. eothen and A. kayi are similar to those of extant conical-toothed felids with special killing techniques. From these mandibular properties, it can be surmised that machaeroidines delivered canine bites on prey that offered relatively less resistance than those of extant, large, conical-toothed felids. Thus, prey must have been at least partially restrained before the sabre-like canines were used to kill.". Please make sure you are familiar with Close paraphrasing, it is a copyright violation.

• "At the carnassial, the bite force of A. kayi was 3 and a half times greater than that of the smaller M. eothen. A. kayi had 89% of the bite force of Panthera pardus, a contemporary predatory mammal with similar mandibular length. Studies showed that the mandible of Machaeroidinae is stronger at the canine teeth rather than the cheek teeth, indicating that they delivered powerful canine bites to kill their prey, like felids, rather than shallow bites like hyaenids." again, this is too close to ""At the carnassial (M1M2), the bite force of Apataelurus kayi was approximately 3.50 times greater than that of the smaller Machaeroides eothen. By comparing these results with those obtained for extant taxa, A. kayi was likely able to generate bite forces comparable to those of Panthera pardus, a felid of similar mandibular length ... The dorsoventral and labiolingual force profiles (Zx/ L and Zy/L, respectively) also indicate that the mandible of machaeroidines is stronger at the canine than at the cheek teeth, suggesting that they delivered powerful canine bites to kill their prey, like felids, rather than shallow bites like canids and hyaenids" in Therrien, 2005!

• Information is cited to the Mindat database, which is a mirror of PBDB and is generally not considered reliable.

• Source 25 seems to be a self-published lecture graphic made by Burger, so not necessarily reliable. It also says nothing about Apataelurus being an apex predator, and doesn't seem to discuss oxyaenids.

• "Depositional facies and environments of Eocene evaporites of the Hetaoyuan Formation (the Anpeng Deposits), Biyang Depression, Nanyang Basin, China" is just a conference abstract, which is not an appropriate source.

• "... establishing small islands for Eocene flora and fauna to travel between" doesn't seem to be supported by the source.

Please thoroughly review what sources are citing what text. Some of these may be simple mix-ups, but I'm seeing a concerning amount of improper citations here. This was an issue during this article's last review, too. Gasmasque (talk) 23:44, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Hi, thank you for the incredibly detailed review. I'm currently working to correct textual errors/weird phrasing. The main issue is that there isn't an enormous amount of sourcing, so I try to work with what I got. I'm going to be cleaning it up over the next couple days. Thank you so much! Independentgeoscience (talk) 23:09, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

I've put the review on-hold to give you some time to work, I'll look over everything again in a few days. I haven't checked through every source and I couldn't access a couple of them, but I would appreciate if you also double-checked passages that I didn't specifically point out, to make sure wording isn't closely paraphrased and that the correct sources are being used. Gasmasque (talk) 04:56, 1 October 2026 (UTC)