Talk:Golden Toad

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[edit] Random comments

Toads are ampibians!!! It's my newest discovery!!! Bye.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.1.189.6 (talk • contribs)

This is not exstinct... http://www.ranadorada.org/declines.htm—Preceding unsigned comment added by Brianboulder (talk • contribs)

That website is talking about the "Panamanian Golden Frog". If it means Bufo periglenes instead, it is getting both the name and its status wrong. The more likely explanation is that the website is discussing a different species. Jkelly 19:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, the species may not be (but probably is) extinct. On the talk page for baiji, another endangered creature that has not been seen in recent years, somebody brought up the fact that a species may only be considered extinct until 50 years after the last sighting. This, if true, means there is still time left to look for golden toads (ditto gastric brooding frogs). Is it all right if I change the template to "possibly extinct"? Belgium EO 23:44, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can't understand what this means

Sorry if I'm being very stupid. I know absolutely nothing about toads, and was just drawn to read the article from the lovely picture. I'm struggling to understand this sentence:

From their discovery in 1966 for about 17 years, and from April to July in 1987, over 1500 adult toads were seen.

Does that mean that from 1966 to about 1983 (about seventeen years) over 1,500 toads were seen, and that from April 1987 to July 1987, another 1,500 toads were seen, totalling over 3,000 toads between 1966 and 1987, with an unexplained gap in counting between (around) 1983 and April 1987? Or does it refer simply to a total of something more than 1,500 toads that were seen between 1966 and 1987, again with an unexplained gap between (around) 1983 and April 1987?

I don't know if this is some previously unnoticed mistake that was made when the information was being added, or whether this is something that's quite obvious but that I'm too dense to follow! ElinorD (talk) 23:47, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I didn't write that particular sentence, but I read it as population tracking by herpetologists -- for the periods of observation given, the population observed was greater than 1,500. I can go through the references I was using when writing this article and see if I'm right about that. Jkelly 00:05, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I saw you had reverted vandalism recently, but I didn't realise you had added so much of the content. It's a very nice article. If the sentence means more than 1,500 for the first observation period, and also more than 1,500 for the second period, I think it should say "and again from April to July" (or something like that). It seems odd that only 1,500 would be seen over seventeen years, and then the same number in a period of just a few months. But to report a number over an observation period that has a completely unexplained gap in it would seem odder. ElinorD (talk) 00:32, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Golden Toads or golden toads?

One other thing. I know that there are some rules about capital letters in articles about animals; editors at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mammals told me that stubs I was creating should be called Typical Striped Grass Mouse but Striped grass mouse. They directed me to some explanation, but I can't remember where it was. This article has "Golden Toad(s)" all the way through except for one occurrence of "golden toad" in the "Biology" section (second sentence, looking a bit odd after the upper case letters in the first sentence) and one occurrence in Footnote 7, which gives the title of an article from an academic journal, and is presumably accurate. I don't want to tamper with something I don't understand (and don't waste time giving me a long explanation, because I'll just forget it later!), but if the "golden toad" in the "Biology" section is meant to be "Golden Toad", perhaps someone could fix it? ElinorD (talk) 19:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I doubt that I was paying any attention to any style guide when I was working on this article. If we can find the Mammal MoS (is there an Amphibian MoS?), we should just fix it to comply. Jkelly 20:09, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I'll see if I can find out. I think the WikiProject Mammals people directed me to something about birds to find out about capitalisation. I'll look up the reference. ElinorD (talk) 20:19, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I've looked at the MOS, which directed me to WikiProject Tree of Life and Naming conventions (fauna). The latter says that:

  • Birds are always capitalized.
  • Mammals are mostly capitalized.
  • Fishes are mostly in lower case.
  • Reptiles and amphibians are a mixture.
  • Arthropods are mostly in lower case, except that Lepidoptera and Odonata are often capitalised.

More information is at

Based on that, especially the Mammals WikiProject, I would say that the second sentence in the "Biology" section should be upper case. But if someone with expertise told me I was wrong, they'd find it quite easy to convince me. ElinorD (talk) 21:23, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The section on common names in Naming conventions (fauna) is probably the bit you are interested in here. I guess it may have changed since you checked, but now it says "in general, common (vernacular) names of flora and fauna should be written in lower case". I am guessing that the conventions that you saw were for higher taxon names (like Odonata - dragonflies). So mostly in wikipedia one would write 'golden toads'. There really is no hard and fast rule - we have arguments about this at work every now and then.

cheers, Flit (talk) 23:21, 24 February 2008 (UTC)