Talk:Cuvier's beaked whale

message: Why does searching "Water Owl" redirect me to this page? There's no explanation in the article. Robin Chen (talk) 06:52, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I changed it. How would an obscure species of whale only scientifically described in the 19th century have anything to do with a mythical sea creature from the middle ages exactly?? OM2003 (talk) 19:43, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed mention of the "Water Owl" bit seeing as it is a bit of frivolous trivia about a mythological creature that doesn't exist on wiki backed by a lower-quality source. This article still has a lot of work to do, though. --TangoFett (talk) 03:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question

message: December 26th, 2020: I object to the text box talking about multiple issues.( Lack of respect or politeness!)  Can someone get in contact about this? There's a lot of research in this, nothing loose-goosey or suppositional and the sources are cited, and listed.Watkins-Jorgensen (talk) 01:39, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I've reinserted the maintenance templates that were previously applied. Please don't take them personally; they intend no disrespect for you or the article you've invested in, but they each are still applicable to the current state of the article. Take a look at WP:MTR for more info. Retswerb (talk) 07:29, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm really delighted to see this WP entry on Cuvier's beaked whale -- I think it's a great start. I'm happy to help a bit with the copyediting. As a first suggestion, I'd like to move the taxonomy section to the top &  merge it with the section labelled 'Discovery'. I followed links to some of the other beaked whales entries & several of them have done it that way. Thoughts? Redwidgeon (talk) 20:11, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with Redwidgeon. A review of good cetacean articles reveals a trend of following lead summary first with a "Taxonomy" section, with a "Description" section after that. azwaldo (talk) 16:06, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Maintenance Templates

message: The article notes that the genus name Ziphius originates from the greek xiphos (ξίφος) which may be ultimately true, but according to the citation (Cuvier, ref 12): "le nom de ZIPHIUS [sic] employé par quelques auteurs du moyen âge (voyez Gesner [sic], I, p. 209) pour un cétacé qu'ils n'ont point déterminé, et je nommerai cette espèce ziphius cavirostris [sic]". If you looking for the Gessner citation, I can find it on page 209-210 of the 2nd edition of Historia animalium in liber 4 not 1. FWIW, the illustration in Gessner's entry is a reproduction of a section of Olaus' Carta Marina with a figure labeled Ziphius and I think it is likely this is just a mis-transliteration of ξίφιος (xiphios, swordfish and yes obviously related to the word ξίφος). Anyway what I actually propose is removing the reference to ξίφος/xiphos "sword" as the origin of the genus name, since that's not the stated reason from Cuvier for choosing the name?
Similarly the explanation of cavirostris is misleading in the introduction. Cuvier (ref 12) is referring to a bony structure (cavity) anterior of the nares (the bones of the nose). It isn't really visible as far as I know externally. This structure is now know as the prenarial basin and is only very distinct on adult males. The mention under Taxonomy section is a bit more precise.
I didn't make a direct edit, because I see this often repeated even in at least one field guide so wanted to seek feedback first maybe someone else knows more? Xarzin (talk) 18:17, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: * Hi , I was adding missing citations to the page and saw your note here.  Your points seem both reasonable and supported by sources, so I have made changes to reflect them.  Feel free to improve my phrasing as you wish. MaryMO (AR) (talk) 15:03, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  name origin