Talk:Sciuridae

message: I think is a bad article.
The classification is a bad one. Current classification includes the Petauristinae among the Sciurinae and instead uses the subfamilies Sciurillinae, Ratufinae, Xerinae and Callosciurinae. Ucucha See Mammal Taxonomy 16:07, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  2005 comment 

message: *Squirrel - general information on the family Sciuridae, with the hatnote I mentioned above.
*Tree squirrel - general information on squirrels that live in trees, including much of the stuff currently at squirrel.
*Sciurini - separate article on a taxonomic group (our article currently equates it with "tree squirrel", but goes against sources such as Britannica with that)
Ucucha 03:23, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: This sounds like a good compromise to me Ucucha. --Saukkomies talk  03:35, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Arrangement

message: :What Chrisrus or anyone else thinks about the looks of anomalurids should have little bearing on Wikipedia articles; instead we should look at what reliable sources do. I found a few. McKenna and Bell (1997, Classification of Mammals, p. 121) use "Squirrels" as the common name for Sciuridae as a whole. Emmons and Feer (1997, Neotropical Rainforest Mammals, p. 184) do the same (though they cover an area where the only squirrels are tree squirrels). Duff and Lawson (2004, Mammals of the World) do the same (though this is not the best of sources). Whitaker and Hamilton (1998, Mammals of the Eastern United States, ) give "squirrels and woodchucks" in a section header, but use "squirrels" in the text for Sciuridae. Smithers' Mammals of South Africa (2004) appears to use "squirrels" for Sciuridae as a whole (though the Google Books preview is a bit limited; I don't have my copy of the book now). Stuart (2001, Field Guide to the Mammals of Southern Africa, ) gives "squirrels" as the common name for Sciuridae (both of those don't cover marmots or chipmunks, of course). Burt and Grossenheider (A Field Guide to the Mammals: North America North of Mexico, ) do the same. Reid (1998, A Field Guide to the Mammals of Central America and Southeast Mexico) does the same (but does not cover marmots or chipmunks). The Kaufman Field Guide to the Mammals of North America refers to "the squirrel family (Sciuridae)". The Field Guide to the Cascades & Olympics uses the same wording. Adirondack Wildlife has the section header "Chipmunks and squirrels", but proceeds to tell us Squirrel" is a common term primarily used for chipmunks and tree squirrels, but woodchucks, flying squirrels, and western prairie dogs are all squirrels belonging to the family Sciuridae.' (Note that I did not cherrypick these sources in any way: they are the books I have here that have information pertinent to this, and books I found somewhat randomly at Google Books; the last few were found with this search query.) Also see Google Scholar, which does contain a few sources stating things like "squirrels and allies (Sciuridae)".
:I think the sources I cited make it clear that reliable sources mostly equate "squirrel" with "Sciuridae". So should we. Ucucha 22:39, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: What does not, then? —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 23:50, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm just saying that this evidence presented here doesn't show that sources agree that the two terms are synonyms.  It seems to me to say that some sources think of sciurids as "Squirrels and allies" or other words to the effect of "Squirrels and their close relatives".  It does prove that some do, however, equate the words.  Chrisrus (talk) 23:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging: What sources do and don't do =

message: Since this merge request has been up for more than a year and there has been no strong opposition, I am now working on executing it. I created a separate page for the Sciurini and am now re-writing tree squirrel to handle much of the material currently at squirrel. After that, I will merge the contents of this page into squirrel. Ucucha 03:56, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: All done now. Ucucha 05:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm late to this discussion, but I thought I'd weigh in with my support to the actions that have been taken as noted immediately above.  --Aranae (talk) 03:57, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Hear, hear! I agree. --Saukkomies talk  11:13, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Doing