Talk:Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis

"Merck's rhinoceros"

I changed the verbiage in the lead from commonly called to occasionally called based on the much lower use of "Merck's rhinoceros" in the literature in the past 7 years. A few Russian authors "championed" the vernacular, but it hasn't caught on as shown by google scholar results for 2015-2022: Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis has ~348 hits, "Merck's rhinoceros" has ~50. That is a clear use preference in the research for not using the vernacular.--Kevmin § 19:13, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

How many of those papers are actually focus on S. kirchbergensis specifically, rather than say, listing the species in a table in a paper about a locality? From my reading of the literature (I wrote all of this article and Stephanorhinus). The term seems to be frequently mentioned in papers that actually focus on this taxon, though the name "forest rhinoceros" should probably also be mentioned. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:22, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Frequency of use isn't only focused on papers of Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis alone though, but on all mentions of a taxon in literature, which is why we should be at Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis and not "Merck's rhinoceros". Additionally the name is problematic in general, being derived from a jr synonym.--Kevmin § 19:35, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

I have not made any attempt to move the name back, but the name is prominent enough that it should be mentioned in the lead. I don't see why having a common name of a taxon being based on a junior synonym is problematic. You should probably also move Narrow-nosed rhinoceros if this bugs you. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:40, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

I was planning on it, as Wp:naming states we should be using the most frequently used term, taxonomic or otherwise for article titles. Additionally consistency of article titles within extinct mammals would also leand pressure to the use of taxonomic names over uncommonly used vernaculars.--Kevmin § 19:48, 3 January 2022 (UTC)