Talk:Dichobune

GA review

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

Nominator: PrimalMustelid (talk · contribs) 21:46, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: IJReid (talk · contribs) 02:19, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I'm going to attempt this as a comprehensive once-over and we will see how we get on from there. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 02:19, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

• Taxonomy
  • I think the first paragraphs are missing important details about provenance of the Cuvier species
    • I'm not sure how else I can expand it. Cuvier didn't really describe A. minus much, and I don't see the point in writing about Anoplotherium again when its own article covers what its taxonomic history was about anyways. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "that he designated to the newly named artiodactyl genus" why not rephrase along the lines of naming the new genus Anoplotherium to which he referred multiple new species including A. minus
    • Addressed. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "which he said was known" we know he was the one who said it so this can be cut to "which was known"
    • Changed.
  • "proving" bit strong of language, maybe "implying"?
    • Done. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "a jaw that he assigned to it" I would replace "it" with the "A. minus" since the topic could use some re-emphasizing
    • Replaced. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "hare-sized postcranial material" what material? Could be included in brackets
    • Done. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "redescribed a lower jaw and additional postcranial material assigned" either he re-described it (it was the same jaw), or it was additional material (new) so there's some confusion about the "and" and the qualtities (a second lower jaw? or "the" lower jaw?)
  • hare is not linked
    • Newly linked. PrimalMustelid (talk)
  • "same terrestrial gracility" would it just be gracility since the two comparative animals are both terrestrial?
    • Removed "terrestrial." PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "formerly A. medium" maybe move this into brackets with an explanation of the "formerly" (split the species, synonyms, what)
    • Put in parentheses. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "He said that its head is" should be "was" since the rest is past tense
    • Done. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "replacing the previous name A. minus." what justification for the replacement?
    • He never gave any, seemed to just have been personal preferences of his, which other taxonomists widely accepted since up to now. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "He assigned it to the just named" this is underplaying it a bit, and could be merged with the previous sentence as "and for A. leporinum, A. murinum and A. obliquum he named the new Anoplotherium subgenus Dichobune"
    • Rewrote and merged. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "also considering Cainotherium to be a subgenus of the former" the "also" feels out of place, perhaps "with the [Anoplotherium subgenus?/genus] Cainotherium [moved/reranked] as a subgenus of the former"
    • Addressed. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "another source written within the same time range" might as well just say "a second volume of the same study"
    • Fixed. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Verify that there is no single year given for the sections of his 1848-1852 publications that could be used instead
    • Rewrote to "It was later in an 1848–1852 work". PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "M. E. Robert who discovered it there;[11]" this feels like the end of a sentence, change the punctuation
    • Changed both. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • " implied questioning of the placement" how do you imply questioning?
    • Removed "implied". PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "latter genus established the subgenus Diplobune" the latter genus? he named the Dichobune subgenus Diplobune?
    • Emended sentence to be clearer. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "but did not go into verifying the validity" "did not discuss the validity"?
    • Changed as requested. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "erected the species D. langii and D. pygmaea" for what material from where?
    • Specified that they were erected based on dental material from Egerkingen. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "reconfirmed the validities and placements" reconfirmed is an odd word to choose given the previous discussion about each species being questioned at some point
    • Changed to "validated" and edited the sentence. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "but did not refute the validities" again, if he doesn't talk about the other species we can't imply he had opinions on them or no opinion on them
    • Removed. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "to dental fossils from the French phosphorite" did he "add" the name "to" the dental fossils or did he "name" a variety "for" dental fossils
    • Rewrote sentence. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "D" langi is missing the period
    • Fixed. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "designated Cebochoerus siullus within the subgenus" designated within is an odd phrasing, maybe designated as or classified within
    • Chose the latter option. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "assigned the same provisional name as well" the "as well" is redundant, but also an sp. declaration is not a provisional name it is a generic attribution with no species attribution
    • Removed "provisional" and "as well". PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Link paraphyletic
    • Linked. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "(although not all researchers agree that the Raoellidae is a dichobunoid family)" what is the citation for this?
    • Abhay Rautela & Sunil Bajpai, 2023 (added their names to the main text). PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "some of whom may even be polyphyletic" this implies that some of the paraphyletic families may be polyphyletic, which is not possible. I would suggest rewording the entire sentence
    • Rewrote a bit. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "species classified to Diacodexis " more like referred than "classified" to
    • Changed. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "in both continents" we have already specified both NA and Europe, cut
    • Cut. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • I do think the entire paragraph on the earliest dichobunoids can be cut, there is no mention or relevance to the genus
    • I can see your concern, but the paragraph provides some necessary background evolutionary context as to what the Dichobunoidea is. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "Members of both Europe and Asia" members from?
    • Changed. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "and those of other dichobunid genera like" change to "and of" since the rest is redundant
    • Changed. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "created a phylogenetic tree of the basal artiodactyls" reconstructed is the better word for "created"
    • Done. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "As seen in the above phylogeny" I would move this up to be part of the same paragraph to space out the cladograms, and cut this sentence opener
    • Merged and edited. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "defined as the plesiomorphic species" it was identified as, there is no definition of the species forcing it to be plesiomorphic
    • Changed. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "named D. aff. robertiana had even more" the aff. means it is not named as such, but is a specimen with potential affinities to the species. "even" is a weasel word that should be cut
    • Removed. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

• Description
  • "In terms of cranial features, the" just "The" is fine here
    • Done. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "Several skull specimens" why not just "Several skulls"
    • Changed. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "is a tympanic wing" what is ?
    • Fixed the sentencing to make it clearer. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "evident by front foot bone evidence" redundancy
    • Removed. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "been illustrated by Georges Cuvier as noted by the German palaeontologist Max Schlosser in 1886" I assume this is relevant because the bones themselves are now lost? If so, add that in
    • Unfortunately, yes. Added. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • There is lots of use of "small-sized" or "large-sized" why not just "smaller" and "larger"?
    • Changed a few instances. My main concern there is that "[x]-sized" is meant to communicate size ranges, and "smaller" or "larger" doesn't inherently communicate the same thing. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

• Palaeobiology
  • "morphology type" a morphology is a type, remove "type"
    • Removed "type". PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Nothing available other than feeding? Some comments on cursiorality?
    • I searched deeply for sources on both, but couldn't find anything specific for Dichobune that isn't already incorporated in text. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
• Palaeoecology
  • "arrived in western" in western Europe?
    • Added. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • There is a lot of information here on general trends, which I like, but not as much about anything other than mammals
    • I think that's something I'll figure in the future when it comes to these mammal articles: how other other animal classes should be discussed. I'll figure this out likely after this review. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

• Lede
  • Link artiodactyl
    • Linked. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "Its existence in the" perhaps "Its survival into the"
    • Replaced. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • "a dichobunid that lasted up to the Late Oligocene and briefly coexisted with it." maybe swap so its chronological "that briefly coexisted with it and survived up to the Late Oligocene"
    • Swapped. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

• Images and References
  • I'm not sure of the utility of mentioning years of illustration
    • Well, it was requested in previous GA reviews of similar mammals, so that's just what I've done from there on out for consistency. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • If specimen numbers or institutions are available these would be great
    • The lead image's fossil does have the specimen ID "GY653" on it, but I don't know the others. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Could be some more images moved to the left side of the article?
    • Shifted. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)
  • Reference spot check of 19: matches content with suggested rewordings above
  • Reference spot check of 34: matches content

@IJReid Had a relatively busy month, but just got to everything by now. If there's anything I still to correct, just let me know. PrimalMustelid (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

I see nothing holding this article back from promotion. Future things like consistent changes across the palaeoecology sections can be done, and things like where early specimens came from (I assume A. minus (now a synonym of Dichobune, so relevant) etc are from France but cannot confirm), but those are relatively minor and can be addressed prior to further review. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 16:17, 30 March 2026 (UTC)