Talk:Ursus (mammal)
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Unsourced material[edit]
The following unsourced statement has been moved to this page for discussion:
"Golden Bear, Ursus arctos californicus (extinct)"
I am unaware of any official reference to a North American (or California) "Golden Bear" or a subspecies entitled "Ursus arctos californicus" which is officially referred to as a "Golden Bear." If you have a reputable source for this information, please post it here.NorCalHistory 07:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The official "State Animal" is the "California Grizzly Bear." The following is the quote from the official State of California website about the State Animal:
"The California grizzly bear (Ursus californicus) was designated official State Animal in 1953. Before dying out in California, this largest and most powerful of carnivores thrived in the great valleys and low mountains of the state, probably in greater numbers than anywhere else in the United States. As humans began to populate California, the grizzly stood its ground, refusing to retreat in the face of advancing civilization. It killed livestock and interfered with settlers. Less than 75 years after the discovery of gold, every grizzly bear in California had been tracked down and killed. The last one was killed in Tulare County in August 1922, more than 20 years before the authority to regulate the take of fish and wildlife was delegated to the California Fish and Game Commission by the State Legislature." (Emphasis supplied.)
In addition, the following is the quote from the official State of California website about the California state flag:
"On June 14, 1846, a small band of settlers marched on the Mexican garrison at Sonoma and took the commandant, Mariano Vallejo, prisoner, They issued a proclamation which declared California to be a Republic independent of Mexico. This uprising became known as the Bear Flag Revolt after the hastily designed flag depicting a grizzly bear and a five pointed star over a red bar and the words "California Republic." The grizzly bear was a symbol of great strength while the lone star made reference to the lone Star of Texas. The flag only flew until July 9, 1846 when it was learned that Mexico and the United States were already at war. Soon after, the Bear Flag was replaced with the American flag. It was adopted as the State Flag by the State Legislature in 1911." (Emphasis supplied.)
American Black Bear Subspecies[edit]
There are more American Black Bear subspecies than the two listed under "Species and subspecies of Ursus ". Gatorgirl7563 (talk) 21:49, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
Capitals[edit]
Currently, the names of the species are fully captailise, e.g. "Brown Bear" rather than "Brown bear" - whereas on the pages for individual species, some are fully capitalised and some aren't. The Manual of Style makes it clear that pages for mammals should follow sentence case, so unless anyone has any objections, I'm going to spend some time going through and standardising. This will probably take a while as I'll have to go through the individual pages, including links from other pages. If anyone wants to dive in and help, please feel free :o) ~dom Kaos~ (talk) 21:41, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
Readers of this article want to know...[edit]
...where did they evolve, in N. America, or in Eurasia? Or somewhere else? Chrisrus (talk) 21:39, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
Concerning the changes in an edit[edit]
I am concerned about the changes User:Cs california made in this edit. I think they are a bit misleading and are more confusing than the older version of the article. Each entry shows an image of the bear concerned under 'image and scientific name' column whereas the images are of a subspecies of a bear and are not generic to all of the subspecies of a species. Moreover, I found no reason to list them in tabular format as, to me, it doesn't look confusing in bullets.
I might be wrong on this approach but I haven't seen subspecies listed in tabular format; for a reference, see Pika and Equus (genus). I'd appreciate an explanation to the changes, if possible. Thanks. :) Simranpreet singh (talk) 09:53, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
- That is just the generic image as an example you can change it if you want. It is less confusing because there is an image associated with each species and a description of the distribution which makes it easier to differentiate the species for a reader. The subspecies is in tabular Coyote#Subspecies, Red fox#Subspecies, Leopard, Giraffe, Common ostrich, Boa constrictor, Lion several of which were featured wikipedia articles. It is also listed for several genus including Pelican, Python (genus), Lilium to name a few. Tabular format also organizes the images so that there are less staggering on the side of the page as thumbnails as pictures of example species. --Cs california (talk) 00:18, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
- I wasn't exactly sure if tabular format can be used or not and frankly I don't actually find a need of including it. I think to remove ambiguity in the table columns associated with it should be improved and are made the way it is in the other mentioned species in your comment. I would still stick to my point of calling image as not a necessity and a bit misleading; as it can be seen from all of the mentioned species that each image is associated with its subspecies and not the species. I'd use Python (genus) as a reference as in the species column where Python sebae is concerned, an image relating to both of the subspecies has been added. I hope I am clear enough to present my point. Thanks! Simranpreet singh (talk) 13:51, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
- Pinging User:Cs california. Simranpreet singh (talk) 10:57, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
- Pinging User:Cs california again, looks like the last one was missed. :)Simranpreet singh (talk) 18:24, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
- That is just the generic image as an example you can change it if you want. It is less confusing because there is an image associated with each species and a description of the distribution which makes it easier to differentiate the species for a reader. The subspecies is in tabular Coyote#Subspecies, Red fox#Subspecies, Leopard, Giraffe, Common ostrich, Boa constrictor, Lion several of which were featured wikipedia articles. It is also listed for several genus including Pelican, Python (genus), Lilium to name a few. Tabular format also organizes the images so that there are less staggering on the side of the page as thumbnails as pictures of example species. --Cs california (talk) 00:18, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
- I quite like the table listings as they present the information well. A problem is when they get squashed by the taxobox and images. If it is to be used, I think the taxobox should be restricted to one image and the table preceded by a {{clear}}.
- Some of the tables hide the subspecies with the {{show}} when there are a lot of them, which helps see the species listing better. Example added for demonstration purposes. Please feel free to revert. Jts1882 | talk 17:34, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
- Agreed with above, if the current format is maintained, then it would be better if the subspecies were in a collapsible list (what immediately came to mind is the excellent format of List of fruit bats). Otherwise, the subspecies stretch out the table too much. Enwebb (talk) 17:41, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
I've rearranged the table, reduced the image size and added the collapsible lists for the large subspecies lists. There are a few issues though.
- The images duplicate those in the taxobox. The taxobox only needs one image. If the others are considered necessary they could be moved below.
- The table is squeezed by the taxobox. This can be fixed with {{clear}} but with such a large taxobox there would be a large white space. Some additional text describing the history of the subspecies might help. The fossil species list could be moved above but that would be a strange order.
One solution might be to move the subspecies in collapsible form to the name column so there are only three columns. Thoughts? Jts1882 | talk 08:35, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
- As for the images, I think it would be fine to just have one Ursus picture in the taxobox. And I would support and assist in adding more content to the beginning of the article for the sake of higher article quality and also to push the table down further past the taxobox. Enwebb (talk) 15:14, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
Adding a extinct species to the Fossils section[edit]
Can someone please add Ursus savini to this section? I don't know how to put in the cross symbol for extinct animals. It's the only extinct species that's missing here, I think.Malcolmlucascollins (talk) 18:26, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
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