Talk:Mustelidae

Terms

It seems very ironic that this page does not avoid weasel terms! Phrases in the first two sentences -- "are regarded by some" and "are maligned by humans" are prime offenders. I'd fix it myself but I don't know how to even begin to track down actual references and primary sources to these "facts" -- and I suspect they have value, so I don't want to just delete them. - User:Cayzle

That's hilarious! Mustelidae are the weasliest of families. JamesHoadley 02:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

There is a rule that if a higher taxon is named for a genus, it must contain that genus. How then, if Mustela is moved from Mustelidae to Mephitidae, can Mustelidae still be named Mustelidae? -phma

Mustela (weasels) haven't been moved to Mephitidae. Only skunks have been moved, which includes the genera Mephitis, Spilogale and Conepatus. --JRawle 00:04, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Since skunks and their close relatives were formerly included in this group, shouldn't that at least be mentioned somewhere on this page with a link to the skunk page for more information? DeadpoolRP (talk) 07:22, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I added a mention that skunks were formerly included in the group, and copied a citation over from the article on skunks. 184.36.83.96 (talk) 09:57, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

There should be one reference to skunks/ Mephitidae. there's no need to add their existence and relationship in other paragraphs. S C Cheese (talk) 09:24, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Sea Otters being driver to extinction by oil spills?

I'm not denying that oil spills are an terrible medium-term environmental disasters, but I don't think sea otters are being oil spilt to death! Just a thought. It's just that if otters were really wide-spread, they would often be affected by oil spils, but if they shrunk to just one or two colonies, then they'd hardly be hit.

I guess if they were right on the extinction limit (~100 members left) and an oil spill hit the colony, it might kill them. JamesHoadley 02:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

The "nasty cat" interpolation

Looking at the history, it's clear that this fails the NPOV and formal-language standards. I'll add the common names "nasty cat" and "skunk bear" in a more appropriate place. This is the first time I've reverted page vandalism when I couldn't just revert to the last good version without losing subsequent good edits... weird. The Jack 00:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

If sea otters are being killed by oil spills the government should do something about it. Sea otters are really cool and awesome creatures, I mean I like very few animals and this is one of the them. The sea otters have my respect and I hope the earn others' as well.

Peace Out Man,

The Draken —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.122.7.253 (talk) 00:07, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

New Wikiproject

I wanted to make a wikiproject about ferrets and weasels but it became to small a range so i have made a bigger wikiprojects including all animals in the Musteloidea super family which include both ferrets and weasels and much similar animals. Support would be appreceated.

you can find it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Weasels

i also made a little template for the project,

This article is within the scope of the Weasel WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of articles relating to Ferrets, Weasels, and other Weasel like friends. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.

I hope you like it.

This wikiproject is for the superfamily of Musteloidea which currently and surprisingly does not have an article yet. This superfamily includes ferrets and weasels and all of our other furry little weasel like friends. Please put your name on it so this article could have it's very own wikiproject outside of wikiproject animals.

Teh Ferret 19:55, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

subcategorize?

I'd like to see subcategorized into Category:Otters, Category:Badgers, and Category:Weasels. Any taxonomic or other reason why that wouldn't be OK?--Mike Selinker 18:55, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Partial Reference

I've just changed one of the references to inline format... and realised that whoever originally posted it hadn't known the name of the article, and as I don't have access to JMammal, I don't know, either! I'm loath to remove the reference altogether, but if anyone can find out the title, could they put it in? Thanks! Anaxial 14:19, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• Heh - it's properly referenced over at skunk. I've corrected it here now. Ignore me, nothing to see here, move along...Anaxial 14:32, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Subfamilies, etc

The list of subfamilies & genera here seems to miss out quite a few extinct cases: using paleodb, I find:

Acheronictis, Ailurictis, Anatolictis, Arikarictis, Brachyprotoma, Circamustela, Conepatus, Enhydrictis, Enhydriodon, Galictis, Grisoninae, Hadrictis, Hydrictis, Ictonychini, Ictonyx, Ischyrictis, Kinometaxia, Laphyctis, Leptarctinae, Luogale, Lutrina, Lutrinae, Lyncodon, Marcetia, Matanomictis, Melidellavus, Melinae, Mellivora, Mellivorinae, Mephitina, Mesomephitis, Miomephitis, Miomustela, Mustelavinae, Mustelina, Mustelinae, Mustellinae, Oligobuninae, Osmotherium, Palaeomeles, Pannonictis, Paragale, Paralutra, Parataxidea, Perunium, Plesictis, Plesiogale, Plesiomeles, Poecilictis, Prepoecilogale, Presictis, Promellivora, Promephitis, Proputorius, Protarctos, Sabadellictis, Sinictis, Sivalictis, Sivaonyx, Stipanicicia, Taxidiinae, Taxodon, Tisisthenes, Trocharion, Trochictis, Trochotherium, Vishnuonyx, Viverrina, Xenictis

Most of these aren't listed here at all, or in the cited source given for our classification. Any thoughts? Shimgray | talk | 22:40, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Should be a separate level 3 heading under "Family", I'd have said. It's useful information, in my opinion, but doesn't really fit with the list of extant species (especially as that refers to a classification scheme that only considers such species - presumably because it uses genetic and/or biochemical data). Anaxial (talk) 22:55, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Mmm. (I was just wondering where to put Megalictis...) It gets confusing because we do list some extinct genera here, and it's unclear what was concluded for extinct genera assigned to the "merged" subfamilies. Shimgray | talk | 23:53, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I've split them out to a general list of "extinct genera" for the time being, pending better classification. (The paleontological subfamilies are in a bit of flux anyway, it seems...) Shimgray | talk | 23:58, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Gentlemen, I think it's time to update. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/6/10 --Draco ignoramus sophomoricus (talk) 13:46, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Article was a mess. Needs lots of attention.

Just posted a revision with the aim of making the article internally consistent. Article was poorly researched, ineptly organized, self contradictory. If I missed some mistakes during my edit, I'm not to blame. Seems like previous contributors didn't graduate from high school. Hurmata (talk) 08:48, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Which is correct?

• Mustelidae -- "the giant otter can measure up to 2.4 m (7.9 ft) in length "

• Giant otter -- "is the longest member of the Mustelidae...reaching up to 1.7m (5.6 ft)"

Moriori (talk) 06:30, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I bet it's the common problem of one being the absolute longest observed and the other is the largest they typically achieve throwing out the freaks of nature. I see it in articles a lot. Perhaps each just need more appropriate writing to reflect the truth of the matter. Dancindazed (talk) 20:06, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Evolution

"The direct ancestors of the modern mustelids first appeared about 15 million years ago." What does this mean? Is there a standard way of expressing it?

Image map

Can we put an image map on the first image, or at least label the pictures? I don't know how to make an image map, and I also don't know which animal is which, or I'd do it myself.

Thanks, Rosefeather of WindClan (talk) 14:08, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

@Rosefeather of WindClan:  Done. Do you want to double check I've linked the right articles? —  Jts1882 | talk  14:59, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

@Jts1882: Nah, that's okay.

Thanks, Rosefeather of WindClan (talk)

Subfamily Naquinae?

Does anyone have references for the subfamily Naquinae? It was added to the article on November 6 2021 along with seven member species, but I can't find anything in the existing references (Mammal Diversity Database/Lineage Diversity and Size Disparity in Musteloidea/Britannica), or even by straight Googling. There's nothing on this subfamily that I can find anywhere online except this Wikipedia page. Even the common names provided ("capecat") doesn't seem to exist anywhere. And honestly, the genus name Kalamarilupus sounds more like a Pokemon than a real animal. Tordoc (talk) 21:53, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

The entry has been removed. Thank you! 🙂 Tordoc (talk) 11:58, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Classification

This section is mostly animals that aren't mustelids! S C Cheese (talk) 19:59, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Section title changed to "Animals of similar appearance". S C Cheese (talk) 23:17, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Questionable edits?

Removing appropriate taxonomic categories such as Caniformia from the taxonomy…?

Also, my "good faith" edit was simply to make the links consistent. The source was the link itself - to the polyphyletic family in question's existing wikipedia page. Reverting that edit without cross checking my given reason for the edit reflects poorly. As things were before my edit, the families were listed inconsistently.

(Yes, I am aware that another wikipedia article is not a sufficient source of new information. The information, however, was not new. It was merely reorganized.)

Edits to the page since then have both improved consistency & removed information entirely, ultimately leading to - in my opinion - a net loss.

Should an article not have as much (consistent) information as is available, in relation to other articles(all of which properly citing quality outside sources)? There exists another, simpler version of Wikipedia for easier reading already. We shouldn't have to snip articles down quite so much just for having thorough lists. Zephyrump (talk) 03:11, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

If you're referring to my revert back in January requesting a citation for the Melinae subfamily being polyphyletic, neither any of the sources in this article, nor in the one linked to support that claim (I checked both articles at the time, and did so again just now). You may, perhaps, be misreading the badger article and thinking that its statement that "badgers" are polyphyletic means that Melinae must be too - but it doesn't say that. Having said all that, if you do have a reliable source external to Wikipedia that states Melinae is polyphyletic, as I requested at the time, by all means add it. Anaxial (talk) 12:37, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Cars

How can you write a whole article about this little fella without even mentioning their relationship with cars once. I think there should be a section about this: That they do damage to cars, why, what is done to prevent it, etc.

I'm sorry if this is not the way to add a comment / suggestion for improvement, I'm not familiar how this process works. So feel free to remove / modify this, I just had to mention this surprising fact :) Kitsudōte (talk) 00:29, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

carnivoran or carnivorous?

sorry for my messy edit message. 'carnivorous' refers to an animal's diet, whereas 'carnivoran' refers specifically to a mammal of the order Carnivora, which tend to be (but are not necessarily) carnivorous. can someone more familiar with mustelids weigh in on whether they should be referred to as 'carnivorous' or 'carnivoran' in the lede? (if the former, the link should also be fixed to point away from Carnivora)

thanks!! Apoco 05:54, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, they're mostly both, but I think "carnivoran", as at present, is preferable as some of them are at least partially omnivorous.Anaxial (talk) 06:23, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Agree, both are reasonable as I think nearly all are carnivorous to some extent (I don't think there are any that eat like pandas), but when referring to the family it's best to place them in the taxonomic group.  —  Jts1882 | talk  08:08, 25 July 2024 (UTC)