User Talk: SlvrHwk

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Re: Structure of "(year) in reptile paleontology"

The structure of these articles isn't really fixed, and in fact varied a bit throughout the years, so of course improvements to it are welcome. The current structure that does not include lepidosauromorph and archosauromorph sections does sidestep the issue of whether we should commit to one of the phylogenetic hypotheses on the placement of sauropterygians etc. or not. But I guess if we move them to an "incertae sedis" section or something like that then what you propose can be done, and would in fact be a significant improvement. Regards--Macrochelys (talk) 08:49, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

:Now implemented, let me know if anything looks amiss! -SlvrHwk (talk) 23:55, 20 December 2025 (UTC)
::Looks fine to me. --Macrochelys (talk) 16:06, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

{| style="background-color: var(--background-color-success-subtle, #fdffe7); border: 1px solid var(--border-color-success, #fceb92); color: var(--color-base, #202122);"
|rowspan="2" style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 5px;" | 100px ↗
|style="font-size: x-large; padding: 3px 3px 0 3px; height: 1.5em;" | '''The Writer's Barnstar'''
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|style="vertical-align: middle; padding: 3px;" | I appreciate your effort in creating new articles about dinosaur discoveries, your work provides reliable paleontology knowledge. Thanks Pasados (talk) 16:34, 23 December 2025 (UTC)
|}
:Thank you, I appreciate it! -SlvrHwk (talk) 07:45, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

{| style="border: 1px solid gray; background-color: #fdffe7;"
|rowspan="2" style="vertical-align:middle;" | 100px|The Fossilized Barnstar ↗
|rowspan="2" |
|style="font-size: x-large; padding: 0; vertical-align: middle; height: 1.1em;" | '''The Fossilized Barnstar'''
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|style="vertical-align: middle; border-top: 1px solid gray;" | Thank you so much for all the high-quality graphics you provide and all of the work you've done over the years! Your effort and dedication do not go unnoticed!!! :) Sauriazoicillus (talk) 10:33, 26 December 2025 (UTC)
|}
:Aw, thank you so much {{small|(and glad this barnstar is getting put to good use again)}}! -SlvrHwk (talk) 07:45, 27 December 2025 (UTC)
::Yes, thanks for all the nice comparison charts! Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 00:17, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

kodzhukal

hi,sorry if my edits on the khodzhukal formation are error filled. my kitten was in front of my face and I couldn't see the keyboard. its kind of a stub and I didn't have the energy to overhaul the format. Themanguything (talk) 03:21, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Mr. SlvrHwk. I hope you continue to bless Wikipedia with your amazing size comparisons and skeletal displays. Thank you. I hope you spend more years helping out the wiki like this. Also, I think it's a bit of a shame your Tyrannosaurus mcraeensis size comparison isn't on the wiki. A.atokensis (talk) 14:47, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

I have sent you a note about a page you started

Hi SlvrHwk. Thank you for your work on Yeneen ↗. Another editor, Ingratis, has reviewed it as part of new pages patrol ↗ and left the following comment:

{{Bq|1=Thank you for this article.}}

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with {{code|<nowiki>{{Re|</nowiki>Ingratis<nowiki>}}</nowiki>}}. (Message delivered via the Page Curation ↗ tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

Ingratis (talk) 08:51, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

I have sent you a note about a page you started

Hi SlvrHwk. Thank you for your work on Lacosteaster ↗. Another editor, Miminity, has reviewed it as part of new pages patrol ↗ and left the following comment:

{{Bq|1=Good work in the article, I suggest submitting a interesting fun fact to WP:DYK ↗ about this article. Side note, the image body violated WP:SANDWICH ↗}}

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with {{code|<nowiki>{{Re|</nowiki>Miminity<nowiki>}}</nowiki>}}. (Message delivered via the Page Curation ↗ tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

'''''Warm Regards''''', Miminity (Talk?) (me contribs ↗) 15:05, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Nanxiong formation

hello I came here to talk about a huge discrepancy about the information on the nanxiong formation Wikipedia page versus what's in the actual literature.

You see most of the links on the page in regards to stratigraphy and paleoclimate and all of that are applicable to the nanxiong basin which is the equivalent of the formation itself.

The issue comes with the fact is that virtually all the vertebrates from the "nanxiong formation"don't actually come from that formation technically. The nanxiong basin and therefore the nanxiong formation based off the definition of all the sources on the page is located in Guangdong province China.

But if you look at literally all the papers describing the dinosaurs from the nanxiong formation, you will notice the maps in the papers are instead portraying jiangxi province.

Apparently what happened is that the dinosaurs actually came from a basin in nearby jiangxi province, this basin is referred to as the ganzhou basin.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364813436

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ae6f/81ecae1e0f6d6efd319a826031d9be0e6453.pdf#:~:text=The nest and associated traces reported here,the Guifeng Group (He et al.%2C 2017).

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/13/2/252253/480039/A-new-polyglyphanodontian-lizard-from-the-Upper

In reality all the dinosaurs of the "nanxiong formation"do not actually belong to that formation and instead based off the papers I've linked they belong to the ganzhou basin,specifically the hekou formation.

The paper about the polyglyphanodontian is in particular the most damning because it says the ganzhou basin has produced a multitude of dinosaur remains and over a dozen links are provided and almost every single link talks about dinosaurs that are from the "nanxiong formation".

Apparently someone on Reddit informed me that the dinosaurs around ganzhou city were originally thought to belong to the nanxiong formation but more recent studies have instead linked the dinosaurs around that City to the guifeng group and hekou formation, as evidenced by the paper I linked.

As a result I think there needs to be major changes to that page like it's got to be completely redone. Because the dinosaurs on the page come from a completely different basin. Dinodev123 (talk) 07:03, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

Temujiniidae

At the Temujinia RfD ↗ I asked about Temujiniidae ↗. I do not know enough about it to nominate it. Should it be deleted as well? Jay 💬 04:24, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

Relating to a poorly written paragraph

So I made an edit to the Bruhathkayosaurus article but it was kinda bad considering I’m not that good of a writer and I’m new to Wikipedia. Would you, if you please, write what I was trying to communicate in a Wikipedia-acceptable format?

Sincerely, DinosaurFan81 DinosaurFan81 (talk) 06:32, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

:Hi, thanks for reaching out. First I'd recommend checking out Wikipedia's policies on reliable sources ↗ and synthesis/original research ↗. All statements included on Wikipedia need to be explicitly backed up by reliable sources, and can not include speculation or personal interpretations of them. The additions I removed partially fell into these categories: (1) redundant with content elsewhere on the page (listing all of the fossil material); (2) not supported by the linked paper / misinterpretations of available research ("likely" theropod affinities); and (3) unhelpful "trivia" (nicknames). Given the fact that the ''Bruhathkayosaurus'' fossils don't even exist anymore, it's important to have a conservative approach for covering this taxon on Wikipedia. Hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions. -SlvrHwk (talk) 05:23, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
::Thanks for the help! I’ll have to look into those later, but I think I should stick to minor additions to Wikipedia pages until I become as experienced as users like you. DinosaurFan81 (talk) 20:50, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

Importance of Spinosaurus?

I don't agree with the Low importance -- but it's a defensible argument. And you are a professional.

Incidentally, I just sent N. Myrvold an email asking if we could get a couple of his beautiful illos as PD for Wiki use. Hope it works. Lovely new paper!

Cheers -- Pete Tillman Pete Tillman (talk) 00:15, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

:For fossil taxa, importance should be determined over time based on proven significance to the field of paleontology. A single species named from fragmentary remains only ~a day ago shouldn't be regarded as any higher than low importance, at least for now. The ''genus'', on the other hand, is clearly of some importance.
:Looking through the current list of mid-importance dinosaur pages ↗, I think a fair few of them should be reassessed... -SlvrHwk (talk) 05:14, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Speedy deletion ↗ of :Gongshuilong ↗

48px|left|alt=Warning icon|link= ↗
The page :Gongshuilong ↗ has been speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This was done under section R2 of the criteria for speedy deletion ↗, because it was a redirect from the article namespace ↗ to a different namespace ↗ except the Category ↗, Template ↗, Wikipedia ↗, Help ↗, or Portal ↗ namespaces.

Please do not recreate the material without addressing these concerns, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines ↗. If you think this page should not have been deleted for this reason, you may contact the {{Querylink|Special:Log|qs=type=delete&page=Gongshuilong|deleting administrator}}, or if you have already done so, you may open a discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion review ↗.  '''''L'''''iz '''''Read!''''' ↗ '''''Talk!''''' 13:27, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

Guifeng group

why did you delete my research on the hekou,tangbian and lianhe formations? the papers I linked clearly stated they were interpreted as being deposited coevally. Themanguything (talk) 19:26, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

:the papers stated the guifeng groups constituent formations are coevally deposited and that's what I put in. your revert is unreasonable Themanguything (talk) 00:15, 30 April 2026 (UTC)
::The major issue is that a consensus regarding the classification/hierarchy of these formations does not seem to exist. If anything, the prevailing usage seems to treat them as separate, successive units. Ignoring the grammatical and formatting errors your edits introduced, it seemed many of the changes were based on misinterpretations or overgeneralizations of the sources. These ↗ sources ↗ you used treat the formations as distinct and don't seem to comment on whether they were deposited coevally. They cite Li et al. (2019) ↗, but these authors don't make a direct argument about this situation either; they cite Xie (2001), a paper I have not tracked down but that seems to be the primary instigator of this argument. This source ↗ you used (which is not geology- or stratigraphy-focused, and as such should not be used to make such arguments) even contradicts your own claims: "More recent research that considers lithostratigraphy and sedimentary facies...considered the [formations to be successive ages]." -SlvrHwk (talk) 02:04, 30 April 2026 (UTC)
:::(source is not geology or stratigraphy focused should not be used) isn<nowiki>'t reasonable because often times information from the ''</nowiki>geologic settings" of descriptions are the only information avaliable. plus they tend to source their descriptions of the site geology.
:::the <nowiki>''</nowiki>more recent research" was papers from 2017 and 2019, but the paper by cao which stated the 3 formations were coevally deposited came out in 2023,after those aforementioned papers. so the idea of them being coeval still hasn't been settled. additionally there's clues that possibly support the coeval model. All 3 formations have evidence of being Maastricht. in age. the hekou formation has the presence of yubataar, a MAASTRICHTIAN mammal. the whole guifeng group has been paleomagnetically dated to 71-65 mya.(of importance to note the 86-88 mya ages and other old ages come from detritus zircons or basalt isotopes,both of which can 10s of millions of years older than the formations they get deposited in.) the tangbian formation has S.pinglingensis,an egg taxon only found in the late campanian-maaastricthian and the recent huanansaurus paper dated it to campanian-maastrichtian. the lianhe formation has palynology dating it to the maastrichtiaN. this seems to indicate they might not been deposited over such broad period of time. theirs also been intercalations and interbedding reported from within the formations,a possible sign of interfingering. and these formations have fluvial and lacustrine settings amongst aeolian backdrop,the perfect conditions to create interfingering.
:::the information about them being coeval is to important to leave out. but you're right in that there is no consensus just yet. In that regard can the information be included so long as the ongoing debate is acknowledged. "the classification is the guifeng group is complex and disputed. Some authors have argued for a successive model of depostion. Others contend that the formations were deposited coevally." Themanguything (talk) 19:02, 1 May 2026 (UTC)
::::1) Please provide links to your sources (as I did) so I can confirm your claims. 2) Who has made an actual argument since 2001 based on novel data that these formations are coeval? -SlvrHwk (talk) 19:53, 1 May 2026 (UTC)
:::::1.https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/201862/1/Cao%20et%20al%202023%20Sedimentology.pdf page 40 states the 3 formations are coevally deposited. I checked the published peer reviewed version and the same thing is there.
:::::2.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4615031 https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs10914-022-09636-2 descriptions of yubataar from the hekou formation. it was originally known from the qiupa formation, a MAASTRICHTIAN unit (it keeps capping Maastricht. so I just have to get used to it.) according to a personal communication with a friend of mine who's a paleontology student,mammals are useful as biostratigraphic indicators because they evolve rapidly.
:::::3.https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9088101/ mentions and provides sources for the Paleomagnetic study I mentioned.
:::::4.https://www.cell.com/iscience/abstract/S2589-0042(21)01487-5 here's this that mentions the 2001 paper. also you seem willing to ignore the argument from the 2001 paper,which isn't right. it should not be ignored simply because you cant find it.
:::::5. 10.1080/08912963.2025.2581783 ↗ this paper mentions the discovery of s. pinglingensis in tangbian and its restricted temporal distribution.
:::::once again even if the coeval model isn't mentioned much,its still important information that should be mentioned,albeit mentioned as part of the bigger debate of the guifeng groups dispute of classification. Themanguything (talk) 20:26, 1 May 2026 (UTC)
::::::First off, I am certainly not "willing to ignore...the 2001 paper...simply because [I couldn't] find it." I'm not personally opposed to the possibility that the formations were deposited coevally, but this publication seems to be where people are getting that idea, and from what I can tell, it hasn't actually received any support since. If that's the case, then bringing up this hypothesis as a point of contention is rather silly, as perhaps some consensus has emerged in the last 20+ years? Next, I want to point out that original research ↗ and synthesis ↗ are unacceptable on Wikipedia. Please review these policies, as much of your reasoning seems contingent on combining information from different sources to create a novel claim (not problematic in general, but not allowed on Wikipedia) while ignoring some of their other arguments. For example, you are insistent on mentioning that the formations might be coeval, but also that they date to the latest Cretaceous. Li et al. (2019)—and seemingly Xie (2001)—suggest these two hypotheses are mutually exclusive. Regardless, let's get into your sources:
::::::* Cao et al. (2023) ↗, which you've mentioned a couple times now, never states that the formations were deposited coevally. You're looking at a figure caption reporting on the results of another paper (Li et al., 2019), which itself does not strictly make this claim (or support it via new data) as it just cites Xie (2001).
::::::*''Yubaatar ↗'' is rather irrelevant here. The type species isn't even from the Guifeng Group and the genus can be a pretty ineffective, subjective unit if you're trying to do biostratigraphy. {{small|(who knows, going off the phylogeny in Jin et al., 2023 ↗, maybe ''Y. qianzhouensis'' isn't even in ''Yubaatar''...)}}
::::::*Sure, we can look at palaeomagnetic work from the 1990s and disregard zircons, but that's beyond this conversation. You don't need to convince me of their age; I really don't care. The three formations can all be Maastrichtian, while still being successive units. Xing et al. (2022)a ↗ don't make an argument for or in favor of the coeval deposition of the units of the Guifeng Group, which is what I am asking for.
::::::*Yes, Xing et al. (2022)b ↗ do mention Xie (2001) in passing, only to devote the rest of that paragraph to contradicting that paper based on more recent work. Again, no argument ''in favor of'' the coeval deposition of the Guifeng units.
::::::*Qiu et al. (2025) ↗: yet another argument in favor of a Campanian–Maastrichtian age of a Guifeng formation (not what I'm debating or asking for). They make no argument suggesting coeval deposition of the formations in question—in fact, they explicitly support their successive deposition ("the...Guifeng Group...consists of the Hekou, Tangbian, and Lianhe formations in ascending order.").
::::::*Finally, Hao & Xu (2026) ↗, which you mentioned earlier but did not provide a link to. Unsurprisingly, no new data is provided regarding age or stratigraphy, but the authors do support the successive, rather than coeval, deposition of the formations: "...the Guifeng Group containing the Hekou Formation, the Tangbian Formation, and the Lianhe Formation, from bottom to top."
::::::I want it to be clear that I'm not trying to pick an argument with you, per se. Maybe there's still debate and uncertainty. But for Wikipedia purposes, where we favor neutrality and consistency with the scientifically published consensus, your arguments do not seem to be supported. Given that none of the Wiki pages for the three formations in question have a devoted "History of study" (or adjacent) section, I don't see why we need to mention an out-of-date hypothesis to which no formal support has been given since its proposal. -SlvrHwk (talk) 06:56, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

The Nick Longrich edit on Dueling Dinosaurs

Nick Longrich has a Ph.D. in vertebrate paleontology. He has published 29 articles on dinosaur paleontology in peer-reviewed journals. Your characterization of his commentary as an "unreliable source" is not a fair characterization, and publishing comments from professional paleontologists on a Wikipedia page about an extinct species is a normal and widespread practice on this corner of Wikipedia. Including when they are not part of a formal peer-reviewed study. I have seen experts quoted based on interviews from pop sci articles.

My edit included the context that the argument was made informally. He presents evidence. Please refrain from removing my edit -- it adds context on legitimate academic discourse about the fossil. ~2026-30729-01 ↗ (talk) 21:27, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

:Thank you for the explanation. I do not doubt Longrich's qualifications as a researcher and am familiar with his body of published work. WP:SPS ↗ allows for the use of self-published sources (if published by a SME), but provides the caveat that "any exceptional claim would require exceptional sources" (see also WP:REDFLAG ↗: "warnings that should prompt extra caution include...claims contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions..."). If the argument has only been made informally, and on his personal blog/YouTube channel (not "legitimate academic discourse"), ''and'' contradicts the published literature dedicated to this subject (https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fs41586-025-09801-6 ↗, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0328861 ↗), why is it so important to include? It's a rather minor and off-topic addition where "context" is unneeded.
:If we really want to be pedantic, "et al." should only be used for >2 authors, "tyrannosaurid" should not be capitalized, and Longrich...doesn't seem to support a tyrannosaurid position for the taxon in the first place (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-38600-w ↗)? -SlvrHwk (talk) 22:06, 23 May 2026 (UTC)
::Issues are corrected, and there are more than one peer-reviewed publications supporting the classification.
::Even if the argument were made exclusively on Longrich's personal blogs, I reject the notion that it would be "fringe" or an "exceptional claim." It's recent research; there is not much time for a consensus to have been formed. There are not many publications on the fossil at all -- one recent study does not constitute a "consensus" to contradict. I would argue it's fair to say that the result that the Tyrannousauroid is an adult is consensus due to the methods used and the general well-received nature of the article, but taxonomic details such as this are routinely disagreed upon in the community, so it takes more to claim that a taxonomy is "consensus" to begin with I'd argue.
::But the point is moot. ~2026-30729-01 ↗ (talk) 23:05, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

June 2026 GAN Backlog Drive

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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:59, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Utetitan

hello why was my edit to the utetitan page reverted? You provided no explanation. My edit was to make clear of a fallacy Paul had in his paper. He claimed that the ojo Alamo formation and therefore alamosaurus was older than utetitan. All I was doing was making clear how that was incorrect and my assertion was sourced. Dinodev123 (talk) 01:36, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

:I did provide an explanation; that edit seemed to be a pretty clear case of WP:SYNTH ↗ (combining multiple sources to come to an original conclusion not stated explicitly by any of them). I'm not saying your logic is wrong or that I disagree with your conclusion, just that this kind of reasoning is not permitted on Wikipedia. Hope that makes sense. -SlvrHwk (talk) 01:52, 28 May 2026 (UTC)
::in other words if I want to make the edit I can't come to my own conclusion I have to individually state each element.
::"Paul suggested the ojo Alamo formation was early maastrichtian in age and thus Alamosaurus was older than utetitan. This however is incorrect,The ojo Alamo formation is is dated to the latest Maastrichtian.(Insert source) Additionally the titanosaur bearing strata of the Javelina formation have also been dated to the latest Maastrichtian.(Insert source) Therefore chronological differences cannot be used as a differing trait between the two genuses."
::Because I want this information to be known. that part of Greg Paul's paper bothered me enormously. Maximum depositional age zircons already dispelled the "early maastrichtian"age of the ojo Alamo several years ago and even more precise dating recently has only reaffirmed this. so for him to publish that kind of misinformation just gives people a false impression. Dinodev123 (talk) 02:01, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

About the Spinosaurus study

I added the part because the paper did said it is competable with either ecological model. They also mentioned that in the official research. Additionally they also did say Quote : ''' The more haline preference inferred from the SSG (Chiu et al., Citation2024) does not necessarily equate to the acquisition of a fully aquatic lifestyle (e.g. Babonis & Brischoux, Citation2012; Gutiérrez et al., Citation2012). Accordingly, the presence of the SSGs in Spinosaurinae is compatible with either ecological model discussed for that clade (Hone & Holtz, Citation2021). ''' — Preceding unsigned ↗ comment added by ParthanogenesisQuantumExplorer77 (talk • contribs ↗) 13:27, 1 June 2026 (UTC)
: Sure, but the additions were effectively restating what was already stated immediately prior. No need to include such redundancies. -SlvrHwk (talk) 05:12, 3 June 2026 (UTC)
::already stated immediately prior ? The construction of the page doesn't stand as such. Also why did you delete the earlier study ? Doesn't make sense is not a very clear statement as the study itself explains their results. You can access the other study here; they did found out spinosauridae were frequented both coastal and inland environments.
::https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4734717/ ParthanogenesisQuantumExplorer77 (talk) 12:01, 3 June 2026 (UTC)
::Also it seems more redundant to immediately delete a study that is done about the page's main subject. They provide both visual and literal proof about their results. Treating it either like a reduntant debacle or forgery seems like openly ignoring it ParthanogenesisQuantumExplorer77 (talk) 13:30, 3 June 2026 (UTC)