Talk:Khirtharia

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.

---

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

Nominator: Mongoliensis123 (talk · contribs) 06:20, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Jens Lallensack (talk · contribs) 23:10, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

I will review this now. Comments follow soon. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 23:10, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Main issues:

• I am unsure if GA criterion "Broad in its coverage" is met.

• The article seems to be lacking in its "Discovery" section; any information on the circumstances of the discovery of the specimens, especially the type specimen, would help. For example, you do not even mention where it was discovered (you mention the "Upper Subathu Group" in the lead but this is never repeated in the main text).
  • Mentioned where K. dayi was found
• An "Paleoenvironment" section is missing. Stratigraphic context? What was the habitat? Other species it coexisted with? Etc.
• You focus heavily on the species, but there is no information on how the genus itself is distinguished. Any diagnosis for the genus available? Any information that applies to the genus in general? Anything on body size?
  • Unfortunately, the article describing Khirtharia is behind a paywall, so all of the articles I can see are just on individual species. I could try to find references to the appearance of Khirtharia from a bunch of other articles referencing khirtharia when talking about something else though Mongoliensis123 (talk) 19:52, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
    • See here. You could ask in the Discord server, or at the WP resource exchange, if someone could send you this. If you have problems getting the paper, let me know. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:12, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• Is a cladogram published that could be added?

• Only for external phylogeny, but shouldn't that just go in the Raoellidae article?

• If this cladogram shows Khirtharia itself, it is definitely worth adding it. If you need help with creating the cladogram, go here.

• The grammar is good, but work has to be done to meet WP:MTAU. Examples:

• "The first molar is very transverse" – I don't know what you mean.
• The orbits are open posteriorly and there is no postorbital bar, showing that Khirtharia was likely omnivorous. – Try to add context: Why does this feature indicate omnivory?
• Terms important for understanding the sentence should be explained at first mention; (e.g., bunodont (low with rounded cusps).
• More wikilinks needs to be added. Everything linked in the lead should be linked in the main text again. For example, for technical terms such as "cingulum", "morph" (to Polymorphism (biology)?), preorbital, incisor, and many more.
• Your writing style is quite technical. Notations like "Thewissen et al. (1978)" are unfamiliar and confusing for laypeople. We therefore usually write like this: In 1978, Thewissen and colleagues …". Also, try to provide the full name of a person at first mention.

Other comments:

• which was synonymized with Khirtharia as K. inflata – by whom?
  • I mentioned that in the classification section, would it be better in discovery? I thought that since that was a more niche detail about the changing of names and stuff it was better in classification. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mongoliensis123 (talk • contribs) 11:35, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

• Section "Internal classification" – this is all information that should go to the "Discovery" section (actually, it partly repeats information that is already in that section). Merge both? IF you have information on interrelationships of the species (a cladogram), that could go in an "internal systematics" section.
  • Oh. I do not have a cladogram for species. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mongoliensis123 (talk • contribs) 11:46, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

• In the "Khirtharia dayi" section, I would provide the skull and mandible information first, followed by the dentition, because it is more general (place the more basic, easier-to-understand information first is a principle of WP:MTAU).
  • Fixed

• That same section also seems a bit fragmented to me (too many subheadings). I personally would combine the two paragraphs of "Lower dentition", and remove those subheadings altogether (Lower dentition, upper dentition, skull, mandible); I think that looks cleaner. Mandible is part of the skull anyways, no? Alternatively, you could also organize by body part instead of by species; e.g., have two major sections ("skull" and "dentition"), where you describe the type species, followed by how other species might differ; I see, though, that this might be difficult if the sources tend to discuss the species separately. These are suggestions and optional.
  • Fixed

• Ranga Rao postulated that – but you are citing Robert West for this?
  • Yes, because Ranga Rao's publication is paywalled, so I could only find that information from Robert West mentioning it.

Sources:

• I see no issues with close paraphrasing, OK here.

• I do not see how source 18 (animaldiversity.org) is supporting the sentence it is supposed to support. This is a low-quality source we should avoid here in any case.

• "PBDB References". paleobiodb.org. – Also a source to avoid, and the link does not lead to any information.

• Some papers you cited lack the jounal. The journal is important (along with volume and issue). ResearchGate is not a journal, that is only a place to upload papers.

• Therefore, Khirtharia was probably an omnivorous semi-aquatic chevrotain-like creature. – lacks a source.
  • I didn't think it would need a source because I was just summarizing the rest of the paragraph.
    • If you repeat information here, just repeat the respective refs too that you used for the paragraph. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:12, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

• Optional: You do not have to provide citations in the lead per WP:LEADCITE, and we rarely if ever do this. All information in the lead is supposed to be repeated in the article. Abstracts in papers also do not have references.

Let me know if you have any questions. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:41, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Drop-by comments

• I'm not really sure that the Raoellidae is considered to be within the Whippomorpha contrary to the infobox. The general consensus is that it is nested within the paraphyletic Dichobunoidea (though not everyone agrees to this, something that might be worth noting) and that Raoellidae may be sister taxa to but is likely not solidly nested within the Whippomorpha. PrimalMustelid (talk) 17:28, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
  • I would, in some form, talk about what the Raoellidae is at the classification and/or description sections. The Evolution of Artiodactyls (2007) might be your friend for that kind of thing, along with the brief diagnosis of Khirtharia. PrimalMustelid (talk) 17:28, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
    • Agreed, we need some general information about Raoellidae for context. This is one impotant step to make the article readable for a non-expert audience. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:56, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
    • So you want me to explain what Raoellidae is? And in the classification section, right?
      • In the "Classification", you could begin with Raoellidae as a taxon; how it is placed within artiodactyls and what the relationship to whales is. In the "Description", you could start with some general information on Raoellids (e.g., "As other raoellids, Khirtharia would have been …"), to give the reader a general idea about what kind of animal this was. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:12, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• I would recommend against using paleoart restorations for the infobox images due to their speculative natures.

PrimalMustelid (talk) 17:36, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

• • Its not ideal but it is all there is that is public use
    • To adress PM's comment, you could move it down to the "Description" section. But maybe the first description has a free illustration of the holotype fossil we could use for the infobox? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:12, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
• Since Pilgrim, the original author behind Khirtharia, has been deceased for more than 70 years, you can perhaps pull out the illustration of a maxilla of it into Wikimedia Commons so that you can use it here. PrimalMustelid (talk) 17:36, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
  • The article is paywalled by the Zoological Society of London. I can only access the abstract.
• I would recommend greatly expanding the taxonomy section (renaming the discovery section), touching upon the taxonomic statuses of the individual species of the genus more. Probably merge the classification section as a subsection of it, too. PrimalMustelid (talk) 17:40, 29 May 2025 (UTC)
  • Does this mean that I should merge the discovery and classification sections?
    • I would say, merge the "Internal classification" with the "Description", because both are only about taxonomic history. In the "Classification" section, you talk about how this genus is related to other Raoellids (and, as advised above, some general information on the placement of Raoellidae itself for context).
• As Jens noted, where's the paleoecology section? It would be useful to understand the paleoenvironmental contexts as well as contemporary faunas and how the faunal and climatic ranges differed by species. PrimalMustelid (talk) 17:40, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

Note

@Mongoliensis123: Where are we standing with this? It has been a week now. The issues are quite substantial, but if you want to fix them within the next days I am happy to give you the time. Otherwise, I am inclined to archive this, to give you time to fix the problems in your own time. I would suggest that you try to fix what you can can, and then submit the article for PeerReview (ideally the Palaeo Article Workshop) to get help with preparing it for another run at GAN. Thanks, --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:45, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Have to fail now due to inactivity; see advice above. Thanks! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:44, 6 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.

Time

Hello, I was unable to fix the article in a week because it was the one week I had a bunch of homework in school. I have fixed all of the issues mentioned (I think). However, I still do not have much time. Can I try to nominate it again? Mongoliensis123 (talk) 23:51, 11 October 2025 (UTC)