Talk:Fennec fox

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:Fennec fox/GA3. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Wolverine X-eye (talk · contribs) 13:03, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 12:12, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Previous review

I note the acrimonious GA2 review. The reviewer mentioned the following issues. I've checked them and inserted my responses below. Where an issue is no longer of concern I have struck it.

• Stability
  • I see no sign of edit-warring.
• Article too short (breadth, coverage of sources)
  • Breadth has been increased, is now sufficient for "the main points". ** Coverage of all existing research is outwith the GA criteria.
• Vulpes material in 'Taxonomy' not related (this'd be WP:SYNTH if true)
  • Synthesis or not, all of the 2nd paragraph except the first sentence is basically off-topic for this article, so please remove it.
• IUCN described as not a WP:RS, insufficient for Distribution, Habitat
  • IUCN is a reliable secondary source. Its use in the article is within reasonable limits.
• Misplaced images
  • Image placement now seems fine. (The 'In culture' issue (below) is not part of this, it's about formatting.)

Comments

• I've inserted a 'clear' to keep the image from disturbing the reflist; it could be moved, placed with |center (or in a gallery tag), or the 'In culture' section could be beefed up, which would be desirable.

• 'Taxonomy': Serge Lariviere 2002 states that Zimmerman 1780 named the species Canis zerda.]This should be both in the section and in the infobox under 'Synonyms'.
  • Has been done.

• Synonyms/Taxonomy: Lariviere 2002 lists numerous synonyms given by Gmelin 1788, Meyer 1793, Desmarest 1804 and 1820, Illiger 1811, Lesson 1827, Boitard 1842, Gray (and Leuck.) 1843, before Corbet finally named 'Vulpes zerda' in 1978. This all needs to be explained in 'Taxonomy'. The authors need their full names and wikilinks. Ref [2] Wozencraft has a useful list of synonyms, btw.
  • Has been done.

• All of They are two of eight "desert fox" species, which is a group of Vulpes that share comparable ecologies. The other members include the corsac fox, pale fox, kit fox, Tibetan fox, Ruppell’s fox and cape fox. All eight species evolved to survive in desert environments, developing several traits such as sandy colored coats, large ears, pigmented eyes, and specialized kidneys.[4] is irrelevant to the 'Taxonomy' section. It should be deleted from there, but see next item.

• Some of the Vulpes material (item above) could go in a 'Phylogeny' section which would have to present the phylogenomics of part of Vulpes with a cladogram showing V. zerda in context with its nearest neighbours, using a fresh source. It is not clear from any of the existing text in 'Taxonomy' which those nearest neighbours are, so the current Vulpes text (in either paragraph) is not germane to this article.

• 'Description': locating vertebrates: I think you mean "locating prey" here, which includes insects and birds.

• I've made one or two very minor copy-edits.

• 'Distribution and habitat' is ok.

• 'Behaviour': family groups consisting of several members - don't family groups always do this? Suggest we lose the last 4 words.

• 'Diseases': suggest we gloss each of the 3 parasites mentioned, and rename the section 'Parasites and diseases'.

• I'd actually go one step further and merge the 'Diseases' and 'Predators' section so we have a single section on upwards-facing ecological interactions (i.e. all but prey), named 'Predators, parasites, and diseases'.

• 'Threats' is fine.

• 'Conservation': suggest demote it as a subsection of 'Threats'.

• 'In captivity' conflates two subjects. One is conservation: that material should be merged into the section above. The rest is about keeping fennec foxes as pets and their captive behaviour; I'd suggest this 'In captivity' material belongs in 'Interaction with humans' as a subsection alongside 'In culture'. If you put the 'In culture' bit first then the image won't run into the refs, btw.

• 'In culture' seems too thin, as mentioned earlier. How did Gustav Mützel come to do that fine drawing (not a "sketch", by the way)? He must have seen groups live somewhere in Africa.

• Additional material for 'In culture':
  • Antoine de Saint-Exupéry has a desert fox in his 1943 novella The Little Prince. Many sources including [1] say this is a fennec. (There are images of his fox on Commons, e.g. File:Исполнители_главных_ролей_в_шоу_Маленький_принц.jpg if you want to say it's appeared in theatre.)
  • [2] mentions US law on keeping in captivity.
  • [3] mentions the fennec as one of "the faces of Ranger Rick magazine for the year 2000". National Wildlife Federation publication with "full-color cover shots".
  • [4] tells us that " my boyfriend (or mate within the Furry community) Woolf is a fennec fox. He intentionally chose the name 'Woolf' because of its normative nature (a true rarity in the Furry community) but it is also funny because he is not a wolf." You read it here first. I guess fennecs as cute, cuddly and furry is a theme somewhere.
  • Wikipedia's own "Foxes in popular culture" needs a "see also" link in this section. It mentions "Aggretsuko – Fenneko" and "Beastars – Voss (a Fennec Fox)". Should be worth investigating, citing, and mentioning.
  • All of this is only scratching the surface of 'Fennec foxes in culture' as I'm certain there are folktales from Africa about them.

Images

• All the images are relevant and plausibly licensed.

Sources

Spotchecks:

• [1] ok. [7] ok if we're using it. [9] ok for both desc and distrib. [29] ok.

Summary

• This article is taking shape well but still needs work especially 'In culture' and 'Taxonomy'/'Phylogeny'. A bit of reorganisation is needed to make sense of 'In captivity'. I don't see any serious show-stoppers once the breadth and focus have been addressed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:37, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

  I completed everything except the In Culture part which will need more digging and searching. I think I'll go give my local library a visit to inspect any books/novels they may have on this species. It should take me about two to three hours to fully analyze the library's literature, which is quite large. ✿ WolveríneX-eye ✿ 11:13, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

  @Chiswick Chap: That's all I could find. My library only had books discussing Japanese/Chinese and European fox tales, legends and folklores. I couldn't locate any lengthy literature review of this species. Also, I failed to track down a reliable source describing Voss or any character for that matter as the animal they resemble. All I found was a bunch of fancruft. ✿ WolveríneX-eye ✿ 13:37, 6 January 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.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by reviewer, closed by RoySmith talk 03:05, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that the ear to body ratio of the fennec fox is the greatest in the canid family and likely helps in dissipating heat and locating prey?

• Source: [5]

[6]

• • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Stride (bus rapid transit)

Improved to Good Article status by Wolverine X-eye (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 5 past nominations.

Wolverine X-eye (talk) 17:35, 9 January 2025 (UTC).

• A superbly written and referenced article that is chock-full of interesting factoids. Would be most happy to pass this once QPQ has been done. Cheers, --KINGofLETTUCE 👑 🥬 06:14, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

@Kingoflettuce: Completed QPQ. Wolverine X-eye (talk) 19:12, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

• Comment – The nominator was blocked recently and the GA approval of this article was challenged. Relevant discussion is here. Yue🌙 05:12, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

  Discussion was closed, but the GA seems to have stood for now, and it was passed by an experienced reviewer. CMD (talk) 08:53, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm going to close this per WP:BMB. @Extraordinary Writ:. RoySmith (talk) 03:04, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Use of source 38 is inaccurate

In the source, the phrasing does not appear to actually be stating that fennec foxes are considered normative in the furry community; instead, it seems to state that the name "Woolf" is normative. Wolves are very common in the furry community, to the point of a stereotype, so this statement makes sense. Unless someone has another source for fennec foxes being normative in said community, the sentence "Moreover, within the furry community, the fennec fox is said to be normative in nature, which in the contexts of the community, is a rather rare attribute." is inaccurate and should be removed and possibly replaced with other information about this animal's appearances in the furry community. Fireburst520 (talk) 05:29, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

GA status

Hi @Chiswick Chap: please could you re-close your GA review of this article as a fail? The OP has been community banned at [7] for poor conduct on this article and others, and there's a general sentiment that the Fennec fox article doesn't meet the GA requirements. Larrayal made several objections at Talk:Fennec fox/GA2 that haven't been addressed, and I think it's a big stretch to say this meets the GA criteria. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:46, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

I read the GA2 comments, and noted in GA3 that the earlier review had been "acrimonious". I note that nom has been banned but would observe that that is not in itself a reason for revisiting a GAN. I considered the GA2 comments independently and consciously took a different view. The taxonomy section, necessary for a species article, has been greatly improved. The phylogeny is covered briefly but reasonably for a single species. The description is accurate and appropriately cited, as is the distribution and habitat section. The behaviour and ecology are obviously of interest and are covered reliably and in detail. Threats to the species are covered appropriately. The article concludes with a much extended discussion of the species' interaction with humans, with a discussion of its appearance in culture, and its use as a pet and in captivity. These sections are conventional for a species article, and the sources used are both numerous and of a suitable range of types, from scientific articles to literature. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:59, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Hello. I did the acrimonious GA2.

From a quick lookup :

The taxonomy section includes barely any sources, specially not the ones related to species descriptions, which are findable online. It's usually better to find the primary source of such claims, in peer-reviewed journals, than in a wide-public book. In the absence of those sources in databases available, they can be replaced by in-passing citations of more recent papers, but this is not such case. This article probably needs Zimmermann, 1780 ; Gmelin, 1788 ; Meyer, 1793 ; Desmarest, 1804 ; Illiger, 1811 and 1820 ; Lesson, 1827 ; Boitard, 1842 ; Gray, 1843 ; Corbet, 1978 ; and the ill-defined "following molecular analysis" which is probably the most important part of the information there. These lacks are also unclear : a species is not given synonyms. Synonyms are first described, then lumped, they are not something to be described and given in the same paper. So, did Boitard, Lesson and Gray described new species, or did they lump them ? If they only described them, when were they lumped, and by whom ? What do the paragraph means by "type locality" ? A type locality is a special place where the founding specimen has been found, usually very localized, sometimes at worst at the region-level if the provenance is not well understood. If Larivière, 2002 suggest that type localities wide as countries have been given, I do highly doubt this claim, and would like to see the term used by the previous authors. It seems to me from some cues that they did not declare a type locality, but rather a repartition, and that Larivière, 2002 is assuming unstated localities, which kinda puts in doubt its utility as a source for this section, and moreover as the only source for almost the entirety of the history section.

The phylogeny section isn't worth anything, and is implying that the fennec fox is closely related with the seven other species of "desert foxes", which is unsupported by present litterature, and is a direct consequence of using only vague, non-academic sources : see Basuony et al., 2023, Lindblad-Toh et al., 2005 and Koepfli, 2015 for currently understood, DNA-based and not feel-based fox phylogeny. The statements included in this section are all covered in the Description section. Similarily, the etymology of the term has nothing to do there.

I do agree that the three last sections, where the bulk of the citations are, have been improved a lot since I looked over them and are now probably worth considering for Good Article. But the taxonomy and particularly the phylogeny sections clearly show a lack of research in the history of the species and its relationships. I think this is probably a B article, but sadly the Taxonomy section is basically unsourced and the Phylogeny section is for all intents and purposes a single line. Admittedly, one could merge them, it's usually done in that kind of case, but you still have to put some work into a phylogenetical tree and a bit more bulk to explain why they came to such conclusions. Larrayal (talk) 17:37, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

Many thanks for the agreement and praise for the improvements. If you feel the short sections should be merged, that's fine, I have done that now. I'd remind you that this is GA not FA, and the key criterion is coverage of "the main points". I'm confident that the article does that. As for improvements, the nominator is obviously not able to respond; without wishing to boast, it's clear that the latest GAN round was at least somewhat productive, given a notably difficult nominator. On "type locality", this is a standard term of art meaning the place where the type specimen used to define the taxon was taken. If a research paper author has used the term somewhat loosely, and should have used a still more specialized term, you may well be right about that; I note only that nom was certainly giving the taxonomy their best efforts so as to improve the article. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:49, 29 January 2025 (UTC)