Talk:Wildcat

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"North American wildcat"[edit]

The North American wildcat is not mentioned, either in terms of existence or range? North America and Central America have an animal by this name, as well as, of course, lynxes, pumas, and panthers.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Geogre (talk • contribs) 15:55, 3 June 2004‎

Those other felines are not in the genus Felis. see this link. The subspecies are generally reckoned to be three, not two. The first domestication of F. s. catus comes after the development of agricultur of course, a point that should be mentioned, as it's more important than an actual date, like the fanciful 8000 BCE mentioned in the entry. --Wetman 10:32, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Articles[edit]

Shouldn't the Silvestris and Lybica have deffrent articles?Sitenl 16:28, 5 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

silvestris and lybica are genrally considered a single species, hence a single article. Note: Some clasifications of the genus Felis group silvestris and lybica as separate species, and group ornata as a sub-species of lybica. Most seem to consider them a single species of Felis silvestris containing several subspecies groups, i.e. silvestris, lybica, ornata and catus. Some examples of these conflicting classifications can be seen at The Cyber Zoomobile,[dead link] Felis and Linnean Classification of the Order Carnivora --Sonelle 13:53, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the silvestris and lybica are the same species, though they look different -- George cowie


Article needs to be moved[edit]

This article needs to be moved to Wildcat (animal) or some such, and the spelling changed throughout. The current name of the article violates Wikipedia conventions by capitalizing the second word. And it shouldn't be two words, but one. "Wild cat" means "any species of cat that is wild, other than the great cats"; "wildcat" refers specifically to the animals in this article. E.g.: "The Asian leopard cat is a wild cat" is a correct statement, while "the Asian leopard cat is a wildcat" is an incorrect one. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] - 05:44, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Would also be a good time to fix redirects. It is not that much work, shall we do it immediatly? --KimvdLinde 05:48, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


"African wildcat"[edit]

It is incorrect to say an extant species is the ancestor of another extant species. So it should read that they share a common ancestor. --LGao 3:38, 26 May, 2006

Well, not exactly, as for example in the case of parapatric speciation, which could be seen as the way domestication has occured. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 19:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Neither the African wildcat nor the domestic cat is a species. Both are subspecies of Felis silvestris. 75.76.213.106 (talk) 03:32, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]



not easily mistaken?[edit]

The article says that wild cats would not normally be mistaken for domesitic cats. Yet all three pictures in the article look just like house cats to me. Perhaps they are not a good selection of pictures? Strait 01:35, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't comment about European wild cats, never having seen one, but growing up I had a house cat that looked exactly like the African wild cat I photographed. --Sonelle [[User_talk:Sonelle|(talk)]] 17:39, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Its difficult to tell the difference sometimes expecially if there is nothing to measure the size against. Also there is a lot of interbreeding with feral cats going on (in Scotland) so there are fewer true wildcats around. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.206.163.179 (talk) 14:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect there is some cultural bias going on in this article. Wildcats are wild animals and should not be considered domesticatable, but domestic housecats are indistinguishable from these animals, as many have already mentioned. I'm sorry, but this differentiation doesn't sound very scientific to me.Jarhed (talk) 03:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

'Wildcats are wild animals and should not be considered domesticatable.' They are domesticatable, and some of them had already been domesticated, they are now most numerous carnivorans in the world. cat — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.123.130.53 (talk) 11:48, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

domestic/wild interbreeding as "threat" to wild populations[edit]

In the setion on european wild cats, the interbreeding of wild and domestic cats is mentioned in a couple of places as a potential threat to wild populations, but the nature of this threat is not discussed. If anything, I'd think the wild populations might benefit from a wider gene pool. Genes from domestics that impact positively on survival could be expected to proliferate in the wild population, and those with a detrimental effect would presumably remain rare.

If it's only the "purity" of the wild population that's threatened and not the survival of the cats themselves, maybe the problem has more to do with our way of thinking about the cats than with it has to do with the actual cats themselves. If someone has an alternate theory, I'm interested to hear it. --Eloil 09:52 & :57, 10:09 & :35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Given that domestic cats and European wildcats are the same species, I don't see how interbreeding can be considered a "threat". Felis silvestris is still Felis silvestris, regardless of the subspecies. It's normal for animals of different subspecies to interbreed when they come into contact; the main thing that causes subspecies to develop is simple physical separation. Remove that and the fact that they're still all the same species will come into play. 75.76.213.106 (talk) 03:56, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One clear case of it being detrimental to the wild population is in bringing in genes that code for characteristics that have a negative impact on survivability. For example, it's easy to imagine that if a persian cat was to breed with a wild one the offsprings would risk having hair that mat easily, a face that make eating difficult and colours that do not blend well in it's environment. In general, a domesticated specie diverge genetically from it's wild cousin on many characteristics that make it unfit to live in the wild. Domestic/wild breeding is especially a threat if the wild population has low numbers in comparison with it's domesticated relative because there is a risk of having most litters being miss-adapted to the environmental conditions.Myric (talk) 15:14, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Survivability? Cats, especially when partially domesticated, have extremely adaptable, and healthy cats, except for a few breeds, hunt as well as "wild" wildcats. Editor abcdef (talk) 10:59, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Upper case vs. lower case[edit]

Suggestion: rather than reverting each others' edits repeatedly, a discussion here on the talk page would be a better choice. Mmm (talk) 20:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion is on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mammals. - UtherSRG (talk) 20:51, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
See also Talk:Bobcat#Capitalization_again. Beyazid (talk) 17:58, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Self-domesticating[edit]

I read the reference, and it says nothing about "self-domesticating", as well it should not. Let's take the 9500 years ago figure for domestication of felids as a given. Imagine yourself back then living on a farm or ranch in the Near East, working to provide for your family and your community. There are desert cats all around, and they find it beneficial to move into your barn where the rats live. You are an animal husbantry expert, and you have children that you know would love a kitten. So instead of you, the wildlife expert of your era, trapping and domesticating a desert cat, the cat domesticates you. Come on, "self-domesticating"? Would someone please provide a more authoritative link? Either that, or rid this article of this intellectual BS?? Have a great day!!!Jarhed (talk) 03:56, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You should check out Scientific American [June 2009]. It has an excellent article about the evolution of the domestic cat. It pretty much explains why humans had little to do with their domestication and also why cats are still cats and were never bred into something else (e.g. Pekinese vs wolf). It seems cats found an easy way to get three squares a day and a roof over their heads without having to work for it. It's nice to think that humans have the cats under control but Douglas Adams words might be considered "The fact that once again man completely misinterpreted this relationship was entirely according to these creatures' plans." NSapollo (talk) 18:06, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Of the 2 following unsigned contribs,
  1. the earlier stood for about 40 months (in which extensive substantive discussion of various topics drew edits to the page), was not (auto- or otherwise) signed until this edit by me, and was a bit less on-topic than the end of the July 2009 contrib just above it. IMO, it was not sufficiently off-topic to justify removal (and it is reasonable to construe a durable, if tacit, consensus that it could stand);
  2. the later one (placed below the earlier)
* stood for less than a month (in which talk-page activity involved only anon vandalism, auto-signing, and reversions of those),
* was at best cryptic as to its relevance, mentioning toxoplasmosis -- a disease primarily of felids but transmissible to humans via felid feces -- but failing to make clear the supposed chain of causation, and
* compounded the impression of incoherence by being left to offer the impression that the light (if potentially valuable) servant/master point was a single discussant's preliminary to the second point, about toxoplasmosis.
Both contribs were removed at 02:12, 6 January 2012‎ by a clearly well-meaning colleague who likely thot they were a single, recent BJAODN. I see every reason to believe the removing colleague was the victim of a series of preceding sub-optimum edits and lack of timely corrections, and if i am mistaken, i argue that my restoration at worst makes feasible adequate consideration of what turns out to be a non-trivial decision on removal of discussion.
--Jerzy•t 08:59, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And as they say, "Dogs have masters. Cats have servants".
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.50.177.101 (talk) 08:22, 22 September 2009‎
This discussion completely ignores the role of toxoplasmosis in domesticating humans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.71.2.189 (talk) 23:53, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The two immediately preceding contribs were restored by me, per reasoning appearing in italics and above my sig, immediately before the two restored 1-line-each contribs.
Jerzy•t 08:59, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Asserting only 5 subspecies is questionable[edit]

The claim that there are only 5 subspecies is a questionable one that does not appear to be supported by the cited reference. This reference only lists the 5 subspecies from which the samples of the wild population were drawn for comparison to the domestic cat and does not appear to make any direct claims about other populations.

Other articles refer to 5 clades to which all populations belong and identify these as covering the same geographical areas as the subspecies referred to in this article. I suggest that the author has erred in assuming that these clades are represented by a single subspecies.

Until such time as as each population is identified as belonging to a definite subspecies I suggest that that they be listed as putative subspecies.--Daffodillman (talk) 12:54, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

National Cancer Institute[edit]

Why would the National Cancer Institute do a study on cats? Seems like vandalism to me.--Shanoman (talk) 21:04, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They do studies on animals, as diseases in other animals can be used as a model for human disease. Here is the website for the project in case you are interested [1]. Calathan (talk) 20:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Species list contradiction[edit]

should we update this article to reflect the consensus in Felidae/Felinae, i.e., with the domestic cat as Felis catus instead of F. sylvestris catus, and the Chinese mountain cat as Felis bieti instead of F. s. bieti? i know that, despite genetic evidence of their close relation, these are separated out due to cladistic concerns. what say ye? Μετανοιδ (talk, email) 17:30, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What are the current thoughts from science? I know that we had originally set things up to be consistent with MSW3. - UtherSRG (talk) 04:12, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

all i was concerned about was reflecting scientific consensus, i guess. it's just, from a genetic point of view, F. bieti falls squarely into the Wildcat clade. but then, what to do with the Domestic cat, which descends directly from the African Wildcat? the present article isn't inaccurate, per se, it's just out of agreement with MSW3/Felida/Felinae et al. Μετανοιδ (talk, email) 16:19, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Taxon name for (western) house cat[edit]

   Refs are given for both the names Felis catus and Felis silvestris catus, but not for what is implied, that there is one taxon (whether species or sub-species).
   (In fact, the cladistic discussion suggests to me that the two names actually reflect f. catus being a mis-conceived [non-]taxon, since western house cats and f.lyb. are more closely related to each other than either is to the Tibetan domesticated cats.)
   My impression (contrary i guess to Metanoid's) is that we need

  1. separate articles on
    1. f.sylv., and
    2. the largest taxon that includes Tibetan house cats and excludes f.sylv.,
  2. an article Cat discussing the practice and/or phenomenon of domestication of felids, and any behavior differences between those two taxa.

It sounds as if a significant aspect has been botched, by leaving some serious bio-science to ignoramuses twd the same end of the scale that i live near.
--Jerzy•t 09:35, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, Handbook of the Mammals of the World volume 1 (Wilson & Mittermeier 2009) supports the claim that domestic cats are a distinct taxon, adding that recent phylogenetic analysis suggests that F. s. catus is the "sister group" to F. s. libyca. That's only one source, and it's not immediately clear to me what primary research they are referring to, but it is, nonetheless a source. On the other hand, Driscoll et al. 2007 (cited in the article) implies that F. s. catus is paraphyletic within a monophyletic Near Eastern wildcat/domestic cat clade. It seems, from an internet search, that F. catus is still in wide use, however, even within the technical literature, although F. s. catus is also common. It may be worth noting that, even if domestic cats are rejected as a taxonomic unit (which they don't seem to be), the correct name for the lybica/catus clade would still be F. s. catus, since that has taxonomic priority. Anaxial (talk) 10:39, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of Heptner page numbers[edit]

I must say, I am puzzled by the sudden modification of the "Mammals of the Soviet Union" source. I can honestly say I do not see any point or improvement in such a move for the following reasons:

  1. The previous one included page numbers.
  2. The previous one included a link to an online version which, combined with the page numbers, could be instantly verifiable.
  3. Seeing as a large chunk of this article stems from "Mammals...", I find it odd that such a source should be removed from the bibliography and simply lumped into the same category as the secondary sources.

I was tempted to just revert everything (on this specific topic), but I thought I'd hear the editors out first. Cheers. Mariomassone (talk) 19:12, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see the reason for it myself either, and note that page numbers have been removed from a number of other sources as well. This all strikes me as somewhat counter-productive, although I'm sure it's being done in good faith. Hopefully the editor concerned can explain his reasoning, and we can come to a consensus. Anaxial (talk) 20:12, 26 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Dear both: first of all, I was impressed by the wealth of info added to this article since beginning of May!

I highly appreciate Mammals of the Soviet Union. You may have noticed that I have used this valuable source in other cat-related articles as well. So I trust that those wikipedia authors who use this source, cite the info correctly. The more so as citing from this source is more tedious and time consuming than just copying text from "second-hand" sources such as journalistic articles and websites. Note that I did not delete the link to the online version, but merely changed it to the chapter about wildcats, i.e. to page 398.
Just like you, I prefer using "first-hand" sources. At the same time, I find the method of citing specific page numbers more complicated than using the "ref name=/" tag throughout an article; whereas the first requires grappling with the template beforehand (and thus is an obstacle), the latter tag can easily be used again by other authors who are not familiar with this template. So I did certainly not intend to be counter-productive, but to facilitate using this source. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 12:42, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First off, thank you for your timely and civil reply. That the edits were done in good faith is now above doubt. However, I'm afraid the logic behind the changes still doesn't convince me, as it seems to have been undertaken primarily for the benefit of inexperienced users unfamiliar with more advanced citation methods.
At the risk of sounding calous to the more inexperienced users, their ignorance is their own problem. The fact of the matter remains that the original citation method, heavy as it was, could be verified at a keystroke, whereas now, curious readers have to make do with browsing the entire book. Surely this in itself is far more time consuming and inconvenient than knowing the exact page number beforehand? I shall await further response from other parties before making any decisions. Mariomassone (talk) 18:30, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I use <ref name> tags myself for most citations, so I certainly wouldn't blame someone for doing that. The alternative method is more complicated to implement, but, in this case, the hard work had already been done by someone else, so I can't really see the grounds for undoing all their effort. Doubly so when the result, albeit easier from the coding perspective, makes it more difficult for those reading and seeking to verify the article. Sure, I wouldn't insist that someone use this method for citing sources in a new article, because I wouldn't do it myself, but when it's already there, why undo it? I also note that WP:CITEVAR says "Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference" and that editors should avoid "removing citation templates from an article that uses them consistently." It seems to me that these two clauses apply here, at least absent an expressed consensus to the contrary. Anaxial (talk) 19:17, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Communication[edit]

Does the communication table just seem plain outlandish to anyone else? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.57.94.61 (talk) 22:54, 9 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   Oh, the table in Wildcat#Communication. Not to me. Maybe to no one else -- but 3 weeks is but a moment in the eye of Many Eyes.
--Jerzy•t 01:46, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It seems rather silly and Cat-Fancyish to me. It also seems excessively subjective, depending as it largely does on one writer's descriptions and interpretations. Do we have corresponding sections about the noises and bodily gestures that, say, goats, otters, or iguanas make? I have tagged the section with a "One Source" template. If wildcat communication has been reliably studied, as, e.g., wolf communication apparently has, perhaps somebody will add some depth by citing other sources. J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 20:29, 18 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Pre-anal vs. preanal[edit]

   None of my dicts have either spelling. (That would usually mean "all 3", but just for laughs i included Dorland's this time; yup, looks like you would need a veterinary dict: the word is not needed to describe my or your anatomy.
   Wiktionary recognizes both spellings, but at a glance, looks to me like the hyphenated one was an afterthot. Google test is way off-scale numerically for the hyphen, but the first ten hits searching for either are in the same ballpark for each, so that may be a search-spec artifact. Among WP titles, there are only a singular and plural Rdr each for Pre-anal sucker; internal search gives only some lower bounds on "pre-anal" but "Results 1–69 of 69 for Preanal" actually includes both spellings, which at a glance suggest the no-hyphen version predominates somewhat in our articles.
   I regard "pre-anal" as far more suitable for WP:

  1. Everything that anyone understands from "preanal" will also be understood from "pre-anal", while preanal will sometimes (often?) be read as 2 syllables preen'l, and for some may get tangled up with "pineal".
  2. The evident rarity of the word in dictionaries suggests it deserves some kind of special-case treatment. It's not directly comparable to epicene for several reasons, but nevertheless, know that it's an article that started out as a dict def 3.5 years after WP's start, and is now clearly an article whose topic is the word. Does preanal present a similar case? Well, i asked my language informant, "What about epicene as another example of an obscure but valuable word?" Informant: "'Effeminate', right?" Me: "I think so." M-W Collegiate: That's the second general-purpose (non-technical) sense; the first is "having characteristics of both sexes". (Extra credit: i think there was at least one more sense even beyond a grammatical one, what fun!)

Anyway, for now i'm using the hyphen for clarity on the part of users, and not trying to start for that purpose a word article, nor a preanal anatomies or preanal gland one (which i'd bet somebody smart could write, covering in part why secretion of scents occurs in proximity to organs of excretion).
--Jerzy•t 00:46, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Body length[edit]

   At Wildcat#Build, in the second sent, we have

The tail is long, and usually slightly exceeds one-half of the animal's body length.

My impulse is to read "body length" as "tip of nose to tip of tail", but i'm not confident that the as-yet-unidentified editor meant than, and i am sure some readers will take it to mean "base of neck to base of tail" -- which i would describe as the "trunk" of a human, tho i do not know without research whether, shall we say, an elephant has two trunks or, instead, most quadrupeds have none, and tho i am sure some people would write "all their extremities were ripped from their body". We should get clear whether tail length is 50-some % of total length, or more like, say, 29% (leaving, say, 57% for collar-to-anus, and 14% for head and neck). Then we should say it in a way that leaves no doubt in the minds of the hurried or young what we mean by what we (so far) call "body length".
   I was about to tag {{vague}} because of that, but i see that the stats later in the section are likely to suffice to clarify the intent. That clarifying calc should be done (along w/ more research if the result is ambiguous), and clearer wording chosen on that basis, so that users need not do the numbers to learn what we mean by our current "body length" wording. (And a prudent editor will probably display their reasoning in this talk section.)
--Jerzy•t 02:56, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The cool norths[edit]

   OK, i came to the accompanying article bcz a recent edit dropped a preposition in adding info, but among other things, i found that the same edit may have butchered the syntax. The relevant phrase

in areas of Europe and Middle Asia.

became

in cool, Northern areas of Europe such as Scotland or Scandinavia and areas of Middle Asia such as Mongolia, Manchuria and Siberia.

The degree of parallelism suggests (as IMO geography does) the intention for "cool, Northern" to modify both "areas of Europe ..." and areas of Middle Asia ...", but the repetition of "areas" (if not inconsistent with that intention) at least creates subliminal confusion: It asks (probably demands) to be read

in
cool, Northern areas of Europe ...
and
[nondescript] areas of Middle Asia ....

but one suspects the editor was trying for something in the same direction as

in cool, Northern areas of
Europe ...
and
areas of Middle Asia ....

or

in cool, Northern areas
of Europe ...
and
areas of Middle Asia ....

I'm editing with that assumption, tho the colleague, who will know his intentions better than i can, may find reason to undo my next edit (and perhaps show us something i've failed to spot about their intentions).
--Jerzy•t 05:55, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

   Oh, kept my attention on syntax above, ignoring the erroneous upcasing of "northern" which i fixed in the article. And then i carelessly referred to "The cool norths", in titling this section, yet may have been implying "the North of Asia and the North of Europe"; hmm, i may need to consult a reference to straighten out my reasoning.[blush]
--Jerzy•t 06:22, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indigenous names[edit]

Why do we have a long list of indigenous names for this animal? I don't see anything similar on most other articles, and it doesn't appear to be conveying any encyclopaedic (rather than dictionary) information. If it said something like "the name in language X means 'little tiger' and reflects belief Y about the animal", than that would be useful, but all we have now is effectively an ever-growing list of trivia. What's the point of it? Anaxial (talk) 21:10, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the list of "indigenous names" is trivial and pointless, not to mention its being of doubtful accuracy and virtually impossible for any one editor to check. I have accordingly deleted it. J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 19:16, 18 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Names[edit]

I am German. Wilde Katze not means wildcat. It's only a description for cats which, lives in the wild (domestic cats, which lives in the wild or wildcats, tigers, lions, ...). It's the same with Graue Katze, what means a cat, which is grey, (can be a feral cat, a wildcat, a Palla's cat, ...). Baumritter is only poetic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.187.106.137 (talk) 10:22, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Domestic cats[edit]

Should the domestic cat be added in the subspecies section of the page, or at least include a mention of the domestication of felis silvestris lybica in the subspecies section? The domestic cat is sometimes referred to as felis silvestris catus, and several other languages of Wikipedia do include a mention on the Wildcat page. --Schvass (talk) 01:14, 14 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

European wildcat photo.[edit]

The photograph of the European wildcat used in this article's info box http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat#mediaviewer/File:Felis_silvestris_silvestris_Luc_Viatour.jpg is excellent. Has it ever been nominated as a featured photograph? If not, it should be. Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 22:24, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Yes, it is a featured photograph, and was also Picture of the Day for 14th August this year, and a nominee for Picture of the Year in 2013. Anaxial (talk) 22:57, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Good! And thank you, Wordreader (talk) 01:16, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The hiss.[edit]

Under Communication, the "hiss" is included in the list of sounds produced by these animals, but it's meaning isn't given. I know what it means when my domestic short hairs hiss - 'warning! extreme defensive or offensive action is imminent and claws will be involved!' - but does it mean the same with these guys? (The image is a good addition and captures the action well.) Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 01:15, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Subspecies[edit]

Should we use Mammal Species of the World, which uses old sources, or a recent up to date phylogeographical analysis by IUCN, in my opinion the latter is by far more reliable than the former, and should catus be listed as a subspecies? As lybica is closer to catus than to other subspecies, which means if catus isn't a wildcat, lybica isn't. Editor abcdef (talk) 12:00, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Use newer sources, of equal or better weight, of course. We have a problem, however, that the modern reclassifications (mostly by way of merger) are controversial. We can't simply delete the info that's already present, since people are going to come here asking "what is F. s. grampia?", etc. The solution is going to be to group the old-system names into clusters under the new-system ones.

But taxonomic names mostly have worked – historically anyway – on a basis of precedent, not what is "more wild", or what the genetically parent population is. This is why so many in the field want to make the species name catus, as the senior synonym. But zoologists don't seem to be as hard-core about that as botanists, so there's a lot of push-back from others who want the naming system to better reflect relationships between populations. Unless something just changed when I wasn't looking, the European wildcat is F. s. silvestris, and the African is F. s. lybica, with the domestic being F. s. catus, and known to descend primarily from F. s. lybica. There are always arguments that the domestic could just be classified as a non-subspecies clade within F. s. lybica (which re-opens the synonym seniority question again). Some alleged subspecies like F. s. grampia for the Scottish population were merged back into F. s. silvestris, and so on.

In the much longer term, "post-modern taxonomy" will be mostly about haplogroups, and these subspecies names won't matter much. I think this may be the undoing of lot of fine but arbitrary, confusing, and less-and-less-supportable infraspecific classifications in botany, eventually, as well, since so many of them are based on non-genetic description. Anyway, however F. s. catus is classified today and tomorrow won't have any impact on whether F. s. lybica, as presently defined (the African wildcat) "is a wildcat".
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:02, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

TheFeralCat[edit]

Should European wildcat be merged into this article?[edit]

The European wildcat article seems to substantially overlap with this one (Wildcat). Both appear to be discussing the same subject. Would it make sense to merge them? The Parson's Cat (talk) 08:22, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think European wildcat actually stands well on its own, focusing more on local conservation issues and subspecies distinction, but could do with quite a bit more linking to Wildcat, to make sure the reader is aware that there's more and wider material there.-- Elmidae (talk) 08:31, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep it separate. If anything, it could eventually split further, since there is more and more information about the Scottish and the "giant" Iberian populations all the time, but very little else of note coming up about other populations. Given the amount of verbiage we devote to domestic breeds, and to rather random populations of animals that are not actually very distinct, e.g. the Kiger mustang, itself just a subtopic of mustang horse, in turn a subtopic of the domestic horse and of feral horse, we can afford to develop wild felid articles more, not mash them together and blur over natural and cultural distinctions.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:30, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the 2 should be linked, so that the user knows that there is more information at hand.50.159.100.251 (talk) 23:24, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The European wildcat itself is a strong site, and I don't we should mash it up. But we should add more links, and give a brief summary in the Wildcat page, it will have more people coming, and help gain more information and European wildcat, and Wildcat; will grow — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.159.100.251 (talk) 23:29, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • It should definitely NOT be merged! The articles do not discuss the same subject. The person who suggested merging did apparently not understand this. Above argument -- info overlapping with article on wildcat -- speaks more for carving out the differences. Since to date, no other contributor agreed to merging, I suggest to delete the "merge from" templates in both articles. BhagyaMani (talk) 09:20, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Agree.-- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:35, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Agree - it's perfectly appropriate to have separate articles for the species and the subspecies. In the same way, we presently have separate articles for chimpanzee and Western chimpanzee. 86.20.106.10 (talk) 10:24, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also agree that there is no need to merge, and since it's been seven months, with six editors all saying the same thing and only one (the proposer) against, I have removed the Merge templates on the grounds that consensus has surely been reached. Anaxial (talk) 12:57, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Scottish Wildcat[edit]

The Scottish Wildcat is the object of conservation efforts in the British Isles, however, if not only in name, but in historical research there is much confusion. Not least whether there is any genuine difference between the wildcat in Scotland, and the European Wildcat. There also appears a desire to promote one view without scholarly references, instead relying on promotional (and so political in this context) material. There is a good case for the history of wild felines of all species in the British Isles, and could do with a fair write up. A useful properly referenced scholarly resource is this ; http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2008/04/21/european-cats-part-iii/ An example of a lobbyist brochure can be found here : http://www.snh.org.uk/pdfs/publications/naturallyscottish/wildcats.pdf (which among other problems confuses the history of Lynx with that of the European Wildcat). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.153.196.167 (talk) 20:23, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Toxoplasma gondii[edit]

The section Wildcat#Diseases and parasites does not mention the T. gondii. Now this parasite has been rather noted for causing toxoplasmosis in human and other animals, and the possibility to get it from the domestic cat is discussed now and then. I therefore should find it interesting to know to what extent it is or is not present in wildcat populations. Does anybody know if anything is known about this? If it indeed has been found more than rather occasionally infecting wildcats, then I think this information should be added to this section. JoergenB (talk) 05:44, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned references in Wildcat[edit]

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Wildcat's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "MSW3":

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 02:31, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Found and corrected the orphan. It was neither of above, but id=14000057. Although you are 'just a simple computer program', do you understand compliments? If not, pass them to your writer! -- BhagyaMani (talk) 09:53, 14 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Typo in paraphyletic group[edit]

Maybe a small thing to nitpick, but "Binomial name" on the page is spelt as "bionomial," which is not a word. I might be overlooking something but I can't find any place to fix the error within editing. Wizardmeat (talk) 00:27, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. @Jts1882: Looks like there's a typo in {{paraphyletic group}} or something deeper. It's beyond my knowledge of where to fix it, or I would. If you can show me how, I'd do it. :) - UtherSRG (talk) 11:13, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. That error has been there for years. I can't believe I missed it. —  Jts1882 | talk  11:22, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No worries about missing it. Thanks for the fix! Much appreciated. Wizardmeat (talk) 18:34, 31 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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