Talk:Shark/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Clade position

Currently, the clade box notes sharks as being equated with selachimorpha. Browsing through the overall listings of shark-related articles, it would be better described as elasmobranchii, minus batoidea. The current clade description excludes about half of all known sharks. Rhialto (talk) 15:16, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

The two classifications in Elasmobranchii use Selachii instead of Selachimorpha, so I think Selachii should be used in the taxobox and the cladogram. But I don't follow your objection. Which sharks are excluded from Selachii/Selachimorpha? Or which articles are showing a different classification, with shark orders excluded from Selachii?  —  Jts1882 | talk  16:56, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

As currently structured, Elasmobranchii splits into Euselachii > Neoselachii > Batoidea and Selachimorpha on one side, and Selachii > Galeomorphii > Carcharhiniformes and Lamniformes on the other. Selachi and its child clades is therefore excluded from the current definition of shark (=Selachimorpha). The Selachi clade includes hammerhead sharks, basking sharks, great white sharks, mako sharks, megamouth sharks, and sand tiger sharks, among others. I suppose it is possible that the clade tree structure itself is faulty. If that is the case, that is a much more complex fix, and well beyond my expertise. Rhialto (talk) 17:59, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Grammar

The last paragraph in Physiology > Thermoregulation has horrible grammar, please can someone who has the power fix it.

Thank you. Jellywank (talk) 03:06, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Try now. cyclopia^speak! 09:50, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Selachimorpha or Selachii?

Selachimorpha and Selachii are synonymous. While the shark page uses Selachimorpha, Galeomorphii and Squalomorphi pages use Selachii. But we should use only one. Which one should we use? I think we should use Selachii. Oh, by the way FotW5 uses Selachii. Jako96 (talk) 11:11, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Name

should we really make shark exclusively the selachii, hybodonts, cladoselache, stethacanthus, they have all been called sharks and are sometimes still are. Houcaris\Zhenghecaris|Talk 23:57, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Please read WP:COMMONNAME. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:15, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

I feel this situation is a bit different than e.g. the recent changes to crab and Brachyura, since the only informal shark taxa are comparatively obscure fossils rather than living groups. Also, some of these groups do still see brief mention in the "Evolutionary history" section and the lead, which I think is sufficient for the purposes of an article like this. A better solution would be to give each of these individual fossil not-sharks more comprehensive standalone articles which are linked to on the Chondrichthyes page, rather than heavily modifying the scope of a high-traffic article on famous living animals to account for obscure paleontology topics that are better covered elsewhere. Gasmasque (talk) 12:15, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Shark top speed citation wrong

The citation 89 for the 50 kph top speed does not mention the speed. SuspendByte (talk) 10:43, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

I've tagged it for a better source - I can't even access the link, getting a 504 gateway timeout instead. Chaheel Riens (talk) 11:10, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 February 2026

Change fishes to fish ~2026-90631-2 (talk) 05:16, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

 Not done "In English, the plural of "fish" is fish when referring to individuals and fishes when referring to species." Tbhotch^™ (CC BY-SA 4.0) 05:20, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

Preprint worth keeping an eye on

A preprint was put up on Biorxiv a few days ago that might affect the scope of this article. The authors find some genetic support for sharks being paraphyletic, and Hexanchiformes actually being a primitive Paleozoic relict group that diverged prior to the last common ancestor of other sharks and rays. It isn't through peer-review yet, and of course isn't currently usable as a source, but I think is worth linking here. I'm not sure how the article's scope should best be adjusted if this information is incorporated, since shark monophyly has been in a state of back-and-forth for the last several decades and these authors still find it to be plausible. Gasmasque (talk) 15:07, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, interesting. However I don't see how this would change things significantly for the scope of the article; from the phylogenetic tree I see in Fig.2 this would suggest that Hexanchiformes are the most basal group of Elasmobranchii and that Batomorphi are within the shark radiation. Sharks, in common parlance, would therefore be "Elasmobranchii without Batomorphi" - not monophyletic, but still well defined for our purposes. Plus, even if it gets published as a peer-reviewed paper, it would be interesting to include but before considering any rescoping I'd wait for this tree to have scientific consensus. cyclopia^speak! 16:26, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

Etymology Clean Up

I'd like to request that the section containing the etymology for the word shark be removed, or pared down. The last paragraph contains irrelevant details for the purposes of the Shark page. While its an interesting theory of how English borrowed this word from the Maya, primary source documents contradict this theory. I would advise removal of last paragraph because OMED date is a lone factoid without the inclusion of the Mayan theory. NuclearHarmonica (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2026 (UTC)