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Portal:Dinosaurs

This WikiProject, WikiProject Dinosaurs, aims to organise and coordinate efforts to create, expand and improve the content of Wikipedia's coverage of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are significant as the main group of prehistoric animals in the public eye. Proper and accurate coverage of these pages can have an influence on the general perception of these animals.

The main goal of WikiProject Dinosaurs is to create and gather better information to improve articles on dinosaurs. Important tasks always include expanding, cleaning up and rewriting articles, adding taxoboxes and images, and standardising article formatting. It could also be a good idea to check parent projects (see infobox) to discuss topics that involve more than just dinosaurs, as localized discussions do not get as much coverage or comments. For suggestions for improving this page feel free to comment on the talk page, any improvements are very welcome.

The guidelines brought up here are to help get you focused and assist you, but are not strict rules. We are here to help make the dinosaur articles better, not to have arguments over formatting or content. If you don't know where to begin or what to write on, these suggestions may be helpful. Some good pages undergoing updates can be seen directly below in our local Hot Articles table. Our first and only priority is improving and writing articles!

Hot articles
16 edits Atrociraptor
6 edits Theropoda
4 edits Kuru kulla
4 edits Stegosauria
4 edits Duriavenator
4 edits Origin of birds
3 edits Dueling Dinosaurs
3 edits Dryptosaurus
3 edits Rahiolisaurus
3 edits Brontosaurus
These are the articles that have been edited the most within the last three days. Last updated 17 November 2024 by HotArticlesBot.

Project scope

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WikiProject Dinosaurs covers articles about scientific aspects of dinosaurs, including individual taxa, as well as more general articles about for example physiology, behaviour, history, geological formations, researchers, and museums. The project covers all taxa grouped in the clade Dinosauria, as well as members of the more inclusive group Dinosauromorpha. Birds are theropod dinosaurs, but since modern birds have a dedicated Birds WikiProject, the dinosaur project is restricted to covering Mesozoic birds. In addition, taxa that have historically been considered members of Dinosauria, but are not currently recognized as such (like Teratosaurus), are also covered by this project.

This project does not cover non-dinosaurian prehistoric animals such as pterosaurs and mammoths, which are instead covered by WikiProject Palaeontology. Articles about pop-cultural phenomena that are only trivially associated with dinosaurs (which should be tagged with WikiProject Animals in media) are not covered by this project; coverage is restricted to cultural subjects that are significant to how dinosaurs have been generally perceived and that treat them scientifically, such as for example the Jurassic Park or Walking With Dinosaurs franchises. Since there is already a dedicated palaeontology project, only dinosaur articles that are important to the subject of palaeontology in general should be tagged by that project, since all dinosaur articles are already palaeontology articles by default.

Article alerts and statistics

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Dinosaurs articles by quality and importance
Quality Importance
Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total
FA 3 17 26 26 72
FL 1 1
GA 8 18 33 59
B 10 55 159 224
C 1 6 57 296 360
Start 2 48 749 1 800
Stub 13 878 3 894
List 2 8 17 29 56
Category 319 319
Disambig 8 8
File 14 14
Portal 1 1
Project 84 84
Redirect 15 194 244 453
Template 2,231 2,231
Other 4 4
Assessed 7 51 249 2,364 2,905 4 5,580
Total 7 51 249 2,364 2,905 4 5,580
WikiWork factors (?) ω = 11,594 Ω = 4.81

Articles to be merged

Articles to be split

High quality content

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Good articles
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Which articles should be created

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As a general rule, dinosaur articles should not be created for ranks more specific than genus-level. Individual species should be discussed in their respective genus articles, but in some cases (eg. Hypsibema missouriensis) species which are known to possibly belong to different genera than the one they are currently assigned to may be kept separate, to make it easier to move information once such a revision happens.

Dubious genera warrant separate articles and should not be redirected. Dubious species and species that have been incorrectly placed in a specific genus should be redirected to the closest higher level taxon it can be assigned to.

Articles should not be created for any specimens or taxa that have not been assigned a valid scientific name. Such cases should instead be placed in the list of informally named dinosaurs.

Higher-order groups

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Higher order groups (clades, families, orders etc) should get their own article in most cases. If the status of the group is not in question, and the group includes at least two separate genera, then an article is acceptable. However, if the group only has a single subgroup (eg. a superfamily only contains a single family) then only a single article should be present, for the two combined groups. The same also occurs when a group only contains a single genus. For guidelines on combined articles see below:

  • When a combined article includes a genus, the article should be named after the genus and focus on the genus (use the genus)
  • When a combined article includes a family and higher-ranked group, use the family
  • When a combined article includes any group higher than a family and not any of the above circumstances follow, use the highest-rank group
  • When a combined article includes a clade and a linnaean group, use the linnaean group
  • When a combined article includes two clades, use the more inclusive group

If you have further questions read through WikiProject Birds structure that is recommended or ask on the talk page.

Dinosaur taxa naming conventions

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Article titles

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The titles of all articles about single genera should be composed simply of the scientific genus name. If the genus name is already in use for an alternate article on Wikipedia, then an alternate form of disambiguation should be used. If the scientific genus is preoccupied, and the genus only includes a single species (ie. is monotypic) then the article title should be the full scientific binomial of the taxon (eg. Balaur bondoc is the article title for the taxon, the genus name is preoccupied by a Romanian mythological creature.). This follows the guidelines recommended on Wikipedia naming conventions. If the preoccupied genus includes more than one species, or lacks a species name (as in informal names) it is best to disambiguate using the name of the clade the taxon is in in brackets (eg. Futabasaurus (dinosaur), genus name Futabasaurus is a plesiosaur).

Article titles of higher-order groups should be composed simply of the entire scientific name for the group. Redirects should also be made for the informal name, so that articles can have grammatically correct articles without redlinks or excess syntax (eg. Tyrannosauridae is the article title, with a redirect from tyrannosaurid). Very popular names however, should be the opposite, with a common name as the article title and a scientific name redirecting to it (eg. Dinosaur is the article title, Dinosauria redirects to it).

Taxa

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When a species is mentioned (on its own page or another), the scientific binomial name should at least be mentioned once. After this, the genus name should be used. It is recommended to not use informal names often for species or genera, because of their informal, amateurish look. If you use them, realize that they could have conflicting meanings, being either for the genus, or for a clade whose name ends with -ia (eg. informal "ankylosaur" can refer to Ankylosaurus or Ankylosauria). Even more informally it could refer to any other group, which is why it is best to avoid informal uses when referring to the taxon. Wiki-linking can help when using informal names. Formatting examples:

  • Common names: begin lowercase (e.g. tyrannosaur or tyrannosaurus [tyrannosaur is recommended])
  • Scientific names:
  • Genus: begin Uppercase, whole name italicised (Deinonychus; Microraptor)
  • Species: begin lowercase, whole name italicised (antirrhopus; gui)

When using species names, it is preferred if they are following either the full genus name or genus initial:

  • Scientific:
  • Binomial names: Deinonychus antirrhopus; Microraptor gui
  • Abbreviated names: D. antirrhopus; M. gui

Plurals

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Common names for genera can be pluralized in English, although common names are not recommended (see above). Proper pluralization must be adding the 's' onto the end of the common name (tyrannosaurs), never the full name (tyrannosauruses).

There is, however, no way to pluralize the scientific Latin names of taxa in any English way. The Latin name Tyrannosaurus is already both singular and plural, such as with "Moose". Thus, it would be proper to write both "There was a group of Tyrannosaurus" as well as "A single Tyrannosaurus". The same follows when using binomials instead of genera "A group of Tyrannosaurus rex". The only other proper form of pluralization is to replace the end of the name with -i, as in "Stegosauri". However, this refers to a group of multiple species and individuals of the genus, such that "A group of Stegosaurus stenops and armatus" would be the same as saying "A group of Stegosauri". This cannot work with binomials. Don't use binomials unless you want to imply that the identification of the species is very important (i.e.: if there are multiple species in the genus, such as in Velociraptor). Generic names are used for monotypic genera, specific names for genera with more than one species, should you feel the desire to name an animal past genus.

Microformat

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Please be aware of the proposed Species Microformat [4], particularly in relation to taxoboxes. Comments welcome on the wiki at that link.

Higher order taxa

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The scientific names of all groupings higher than genus are capitalized and never italicized. For proper grammar, in most situations common names are preferred. These are always in lowercase, without italics. Examples of proper grammar with both forms of group names includes:

  • "Tyrannosaurus is a genus of tyrannosaurid" (informal group name); and
  • "Tyrannosaurus is a genus in the family Tyrannosauridae" (scientific group name).

It is important to note that the different ranks of taxa have different naming conventions:

  • Tyrannosaurus is the genus and any species within it, such as rex.
  • A tyrannosaurin belongs to the tribe Tyrannosaurini.
  • A tyrannosaurine belongs to the subfamily Tyrannosaurinae.
  • A tyrannosaurid belongs to the family Tyrannosauridae.
  • A tyrannosauroid belongs to the superfamily Tyrannosauroidea.
  • A tyrannosaur would hypothetically belong to the clade Tyrannosauria.
  • A tyrannosauriform would hypothetically belong to the clade Tyrannosauriformes.
  • A tyrannosauromorph would hypothetically belong to the clade Tyrannosauromorpha.

The use of informal names is recommended in the "name" parameter of higher level taxon boxes (eg. Dromaosaurids instead of Dromaeosauridae).

Article sections

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It is important to note that the spelling of the sections should also follow that of the main article text, such that using Canadian or British text should be coupled with spelling Palaeobiology or Palaeoecology with the additional 'a' present.

Taxa

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While not a steadfast guide, nor necessary for editors to follow, below are the recommended sections and content for articles:

  • Discovery/History/History of discovery: A detailed summary of the original ideas about the classification and appearance of the taxon, with information on the known material, locations of fossil remains, museums holding remains, and the etymology and history of the scientific name and its synonyms. Should be before Classification. In cases where there have been significant changes in outward appearance over time (eg. Deinocheirus, Spinosaurus) historic descriptions should be in this section. It is optional whether description or discovery sections are first.
  • Description: A review of the sizes, features and skeletal characteristics of the fossil material. Can also include information on integument (scales/skin/feathers) and other anatomical features. Can have subsections on the skull, postcranial skeleton, and soft tissue. Section should be before Classification. It is optional whether description or discovery sections are first.
  • Classification/Phylogeny: section detailing close relatives, modern ideas on phylogeny, cladograms, classification and biogeography. Can have subsections on evolution and paleogeography. Should follow Discovery and Description directly.
  • Paleobiology: multiple subsections of details on diet, lifestyle, behaviour, senses, movement, and pathologies. Can also include information on footprints, eggs and coprolites. Should be before Paleoecology.
  • Paleoecology/Paleoenvironment: synopsis of the taxa found alongside the taxon, possible interactions with other species, sediment information, age and location. Should be the last section when there is no culture section. Paleoecology can also be used as a subsection of Paleobiology, when there is a paleobiology section. Taphonomy and paleogeography can be subsections.
  • Cultural significance/Popular culture: optional section detailing the influences of the taxon in public media: books, films, television, etc. Should only be present in articles with a strong public foundation (eg. Tyrannosaurus and Brontosaurus, but not for example Leptoceratops). Addition of WP:trivial media appearances ("spot-the-dinosaur") are discouraged.

Clades

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The sections recommended for clade articles differ slightly in their content due to the nature of a clade, encompassing multiple taxa and thus requiring more generalized discussions:

  • Classification: The most important section for any clade article, should be the first if the clade is used in a modern cladistic context. First information given should designate the clades phylogenetic definition and included taxa, followed by discussions on historic classifications, and then evolution and phylogeny in a modern context. Characters shared by the group can be included here.
  • Biology: a review of all major physical aspects with subsections of diet, integument, mobility, senses and pathologies shared among multiple of the subgroups and taxa. Can also include compare and contrast physical features with other related groups. Biogeography should be included as a subsection here if there is information on it.

In major groups (eg. Dinosauria) multiple more sections can be added similar to those present in taxon articles, simply to cover discussions of the differences/similarities of subgroups and compare and contrast points of interest.

Categories

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Click on "►" below to display subcategories:
Dinosaurs

Categories have been created for location, age, and taxonomic status, along with a few special interest categories (feathered dinosaurs, fictional dinosaurs, etc.). Please visit the "Dinosaur" category page (see category tree) and use these pre-existing categories rather than creating new ones without running them by the Project talk page first. All dinosaur articles and stubs should include the location, age, and taxonomic categories.

For taxonomic categories, the Project prefers not to get too specific, and most groups will not get their own category. Few family-level taxa are represented except for those that are very large (hadrosaurids, titanosaurs) and/or very notable (dromaeosaurs, tyrannosaurs). In order to keep the category navigation streamlined, please use only the most specific possible existing category for taxonomy. Multiple location and age categories may be used if applicable.

Here is the hierarchy reached by general consensus on the talk page. Please discuss changes or additions there first!

  • Dinosaurs - would include any genera that cannot be determined to belong to either order
    • Saurischians - would include any saurischians that do not belong to either suborder
      • Theropods - would include any theropods that do not belong to any group listed below:
        • Ceratosaurs
        • Carnosaurs
        • Coelurosaurs
          • Tyrannosaurs
          • Ornithomimosaurs
          • Therizinosaurs
          • Oviraptorosaurs
          • Dromaeosaurs
          • Troodonts
      • Prosauropods
      • Sauropods - would include any sauropods that are not included in Titanosauria or Diplodocoidea
        • Diplodocoids
        • Titanosaurs
    • Ornithischians - would include any ornithischians that do not belong to any particular suborder
      • Thyreophorans - would include any thyreophorans that do not belong to either infraorder
        • Stegosaurs
        • Ankylosaurs
      • Ornithopods - would include any ornithopods outside of Iguanodontia
        • Iguanodonts - would include any iguanodonts outside of Hadrosauridae
          • Hadrosaurs
      • Ceratopsians
      • Pachycephalosaurs

Be advised that these categories have not shifted to follow controversial proposals such as Ornithoscelida, which has not been supported strongly at this point.

Image guidelines

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  • Please consider submitting new images for peer review at the WikiProject Dinosaurs Image Review
  • See Guidelines for dinosaur restorations for minimum requirements for anatomical accuracy in dinosaur restorations used in articles. User created images are not considered original research, per WP:OI and WP:PERTINENCE[a], but it is appreciated if sources used are listed in file descriptions.
  • Images of fossils, reconstructed skeletons, and skeletal diagrams are preferred over life restorations for use as the lead taxobox image, since these are less hypothetical and more verifiable.
  • If available, and if an article can contain them, images that show fossils, reconstructed skeletons, skeletal diagrams, life restorations, size comparisons, and location maps should be included in articles about taxa.
  1. ^ Per following policy discussions:[1][2][3]

Open tasks

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Below is a list of open tasks that the project is currently working on. If you feel like you could help with the task, place your name below it by typing [[User:yourname|yourname]] at the bottom of the list of names. Also, if you would like to post a task for others to look at, post it below or on the project talk page. If you feel a request has been fixed, please scratch it off the list, but do not delete it, although these tasks will probably outlive the people here. Do not feel urged to place your name under every open task.

All members and non-members are also encouraged to elaborate on any existing article or stub, so long as the information provided is correct and current, with appropriate sources provided. If you are in doubt about your information, post it on the project talk page for it to be read over.

Tasks

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Please add new tasks to the bottom

Adding citations to articles
  1. User:Firsfron
  2. Cas Liber
  3. Ayrton Prost
  4. Lusotitan
  5. PaleoNeolitic
  6. JurassicClassic767
 Maintaining the List of dinosaurs
  1. User:Agentsoo
  2. User:Firsfron
  3. Science
  4. Lusotitan
  5. rusty1111
  6. SlvrHwk
 Adding taxoboxes to taxon pages
  1. Dinoguy2
  2. Cas Liber
  3. Raptormimus456
  4. Lusotitan
  5. Ozword
  6. Turbo-Dino Rex
  7. JurassicClassic767
 Creating categories for articles
  1. User:Firsfron
  2. IJReid
  3. Turbo-Dino Rex
  4. Ankylosaurus123
  5. JurassicClassic767
Creating project templates and adding them to pages
  1. User:Firsfron
  2. IJReid
 Creating articles for dinosaur paleontologists
  1. Dinoguy2 - adding to category:Paleontologists to help get this started
 Creating articles for dinosaur-bearing formations
  1. Greygirlbeast
  2. Dysmorodrepanis
  3. Devotchka
  4. Secret Squïrrel
  5. Dgrootmyers
 Uploading and adding dinosaur images to articles
  1. Dudo2
  2. The Unknown Horror
  3. Greygirlbeast
  4. Cas Liber
  5. FunkMonk
  6. IJReid
  7. PaleoGeekSquared
  8. Slate Weasel
  9. Morosaurus shinyae
  10. Turbo-Dino Rex
  11. Audrey.m.horn
  12. KoprX
  13. JurassicClassic767 - Mostly from CC lincensed papers rather than own work
  14. Kingmeatballs
  15. Sauriazoicillus
  16. Augustios_Paleo
Creating pages for new taxa
  1. Dgrootmyers
  2. Lusotitan
  3. Lythronaxargestes
  4. IJReid
  5. SlvrHwk
  6. JurassicClassic767
  7. Hiroizmeh
 Adding IPA style pronunciations
  1. --Kjoonlee
  2. Lusotitan - I'm not particularly versed in it but I can stitch stuff together.
  3. IJReid
  4. Sauriazoicillus - I will also check the accuracy of the pronouncations already provided to make sure they use the original languages pronounciation.
 Copy-editing article text
  1. Dendodge
  2. Utahraptor ostrommaysi
  3. Ayrton Prost
  4. Crw21
  5. Evangelos Giakoumatos
  6. Raptormimus456
  7. Lusotitan
  8. Dantheanimator
  9. PaleoGeekSquared
  10. JurassicClassic767
 Rating articles
  1. Lusotitan
  2. IJReid
  3. PaleoGeekSquared
  4. JurassicClassic767
Adding cladistic templates requested
  1. Raptormimus456
  2. Lythronaxargestes
  3. IJReid
  4. Lusotitan
  5. JurassicClassic767
  6. Hiroizmeh
  7. A Cynical Idealist
 Improving articles to GA/FA status
  1. FunkMonk
  2. Lusotitan
  3. IJReid
  4. Lythronaxargestes
  5. PaleoGeekSquared
  6. JurassicClassic767
  7. Augustios_Paleo
 Reviewing life restorations
  1. IJReid
  2. Lusotitan
  3. Lythronaxargestes
  4. FunkMonk
  5. PaleoGeekSquared
  6. A Cynical Idealist
 Translating from other languages
  1. Lusotitan - I know french, so I could help with that specifically.
  2. IJReid - Anatomical terms in any latin-based language
  3. Turbo-Dino Rex - I also know spanish, so I can translate some missing info from spanish pages and transfer them to English pages
  4. TimTheDragonRider - I know Dutch, so I can translate any missing info from Dutch to English pages
Maintaining older FAs/GAs
  1. FunkMonk
  2. Lusotitan
 Updating lists of recognised content
  1. FunkMonk
 Maintaining Portal:Dinosaurs Patrolling for vandals, sock puppets, and hoaxes
  1. FunkMonk
  2. JurassicClassic767

Resources

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Primary sources

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The best source for accurate information on dinosaurs is primary literature, where original scientific research is published. After you develop a basic understanding of terminology, it becomes possible to learn information by reaching research articles and trying to piece together that the authors are saying. The biggest problem, however, is accessing these research articles. Finding a physical copy of a journal can be difficult or expensive, and many major journals don't provide free PDFs of their articles to the general consumer. Subscriptions are normally extremely expensive because these journals have limited circulation. If you live near a university or public library it is not a bad idea to find out what journals they subscribe to and then spend some time downloading the PDFs for your own use; it's a lot cheaper than making copies. However, because many journals and articles and issues can be found online, below are a few of the best places to go looking for free research articles.

Open access journals

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Gold open access journals are those that provide free online copies of research papers immediately after publication. Green OA is when a publisher will freely archive them, often after a few months of being paywalled. Those are a great source of easy information for expanding articles here, and often can also come with Creative Commons licenses that can allow for images from them to be uploaded here.

CC-BY
  • PLoS ONE [5] Everything on PLoS can be used on Wikipedia under acceptable CC licenses.
  • Acta Palaeontologica Polonica [6] also provides free PDF access to all issues dating back to 1997 on their website. Although the journal is Polish, all articles are in English. These are CC licensed and acceptable here unless otherwise stated in the article.
  • PeerJ [7] is a fully Open Access journal with acceptable CC licensing for Wikipedia. It has many categories, such as the Paleontology section, where many dinosaur or related papers are available.
  • Nature Communications [8] Nature Publishing open access journal, all papers are under CC licenses, but only some are under CC-BY 4.0 or 3.0, and only those can have images and data used directly on the wiki.
  • Royal Society Open Science [9] Royal Society journal fully Open Access, papers are published under CC-BY 4.0 and thus figures and data is usable on Wikipedia.
  • ZooKeys [10] fully Open Access journal published by Pensoft. All papers are CC licensed (CC-BY 4.0), so their images and text can be used directly on Wikipedia.
Other open access
  • Vertebrata PalAsiatica [11] provides free PDFs of all its articles, going back to its creation in 1957. Articles can be in both english or chinese with an english abstract, so translating might be needed.
  • American Museum Novitates [12] The American Museum of Natural History Digital Library provides free PDF copies of all four of their major publications. They are working to have every single issue from beginning to end. Many new dinosaurs have been reported in American Museum Novitates in particular.
  • Biological Communications [13] Rebranded version of the journal «Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Series 3. Biology», along with rebranding reclassified itself to being Open Access, as of Volume 63 Issue 1 being fully Open, with PDFs downloadable from the journal website.
  • Geodiversitas [14] is a French journal that commonly publishes paleontology articles. The website provides free PDF copies of all articles back to the beginning of 2000.
  • PNAS [15] is a journal published by the United States federal government, so all articles are freely available as PDFs on their website (better be since it's paid for by tax dollars!).

Other sites

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In many cases you can get the "nuggets" from the abstracts of journal articles, which are generally free. Instead of abstracts, some subscription sites present the first pages of articles as free samples, and these usually contain the abstract and the first few paragraphs. Notable examples are journals published by Springer and the archive of pre-electronic articles at JSTOR [16].

  • Palaeontology [17] is a British journal with PDFs available from 1957 to 2000 (1999 and 2000 send you to Synergy, but it's still free).
  • Science [18] perhaps the most prestigious American science journal, now allows free web access to all research articles more than 12 months old, to anyone who registers on their website (and is willing to receive a few emails). Articles are in PDF format and date back to 1997.
  • Google Scholar [19] is one of the easiest ways to locate articles, as free PDFs will appear on the right side beside other research articles and pages of importance.
  • Royal Society of London [20] is a scientific organisation that publishes several journals. All articles in all journals are made freely available online in PDF format twelve months after publication. Of these journals, dinosaur articles are most commonly published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
  • Oxford Journals ([21]) life sciences articles are sometimes free to be found on their website.
  • Internet Archive [22] is an open website that contains many historic papers and documents. Searching for taxa or authors can reveal a large amount of sources that can be useful, and if published before 1923 in the US their images can also be used (see Public Domain for more information on copyrights).
  • Biodiversity Heritage Library [23] is similar to Internet Archive, but is more specific to nature, making it a little easier to locate items by searching through it.
  • Jstor [24] it a relatively easy way to find papers, and anything that is Public Domain can be viewed in full PDF form. In addition some members of the project (User:IJReid) have access to Jstor through the Wikipedia Library, so they can get you PDFs of even the newer papers.
  • Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences [25] is a Canadian journal which isn't truly OA. Abstracts can be found, like any other journal publisher. However, anyone in Canada (User:IJReid, User:Lythronaxargestes, User:Lusotitan) can access full PDFs of any papers published after approximately 2 months of being behind a paywall, so they can be contacted to provide documents.
  • Academia.edu [26] is a hosting site for papers of authors, where they can upload their PDFs to make them freely available.
  • Researchgate [27] is a hosting site for papers of authors, where they can upload their PDFs to make them freely available.
  • Polyglot Paleontologist [28] can be very useful to English speakers, providing free online English translations of many papers originally written in Spanish, Chinese, Russian and French are available, many in PDF format. However, sometimes there are no images, and because they are not the original copy, you can't reference the original page numbers.
  • Vertebrate Paleontology Journal Links [29] links to publishers' sites for various journals, which may have free access to a few volumes.

There are a few other sites that papers can be found/accessed through, for example SciHub and LibGen, but because of legal reasons we are not supposed to support you using those, so it's your decision what to use, not ours. And remember, any links to these two specific sites posted in articles will not be allowed, because the websites are blacklisted.

Please add additional sources to the appropriate sections above, as long as they are legal. Google searches [30] or searching for "pdf" on the Archives of the Dinosaur Mailing List [31] might also nab you some more. In the U.S., scientific documents published before 1923 can be found in full via Google (often Google Books), the Internet Archive, the Biodiversity Heritage Library, HathiTrust [32], and probably other archives. Sometimes they have the same versions, but in other cases there are multiple copies, often with differing qualities of image scans (some lack plates altogether, for example). Some state geological surveys have free downloads of publications, and most U.S. Geological Survey publications (often useful for general geological information) can be downloaded as pdfs from the Publications Warehouse [33]; open-file reports are hit-and-miss, but the bulletins and professional papers appear to be mostly there.

Researchers

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Many researchers tend to provide free PDFs of their papers online on their websites or other hosting sites. Emailing authors can also be a last resort for locating papers you need.

  • Phil Currie [34] has many of his papers from 2004 and before on his site.
  • Jerry Harris [35][36] has free PDFs of a number of his papers on his site, as well as the entire Proceedings of the Goseong International Dinosaur Symposium.
  • Othniel Marsh [37] has had many of his historic papers compiled onto a site by Matt Wedel, Randy Irmis and Mike Taylor. All of these are in the Public Domain.
  • Robert Sullivan [38] has many of the papers he authored or co-authored available on his website.
  • Jeffrey Wilson [39] has some of his papers on his website as free PDFs.
  • Lawrence Witmer [40] Archived 2013-09-09 at the Wayback Machine has a list of his publications on his faculty page, some are available in PDF.
  • Gregory S. Paul [41] has many of his PDFs free on his website. Do not use his skeletals.
  • Octávio Mateus [42] has all of his papers and presentations for free on his website as PDFs.
  • Christophe Hendrickx [43] has some of his papers, theses and presentations available as PDFs.
  • Mike P. Taylor [44] has all his papers and figures (and additional photos) available on his website.
  • Matt J. Wedel [45] has all of his papers available on his website (as PDFs or Open Access links).

Non-primary technical sites

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The following sites provide some scholarly information on dinosaurs, but are not primary sources. Most are actually tertiary sources, so information may or may not always be complete, current, and/or accurate.

  • Dinosaur Mailing List Archives [46]: emails of published paleontologists or random people discussing taxa
  • Theropod Database [47]: written and updated by Mickey Mortimer
  • Theropod Database Blog [48]: Mickey Mortimer's blog about theropods (and other dinosaurs)
  • Dinosaur Genera List [49] Archived 2011-07-15 at the Wayback Machine: written and updated by George Olshevsky
  • Palaeos Vertebrates [50]: provides taxon overviews and references
  • Dinodata.de [51]: German website with taxon details and references (sometimes free CC-BY images too)
  • TetZoo [52]: Darren Naish's blog detailing on tetrapods. Plenty of references
  • Theropoda [53]: Andrea Cau's blog about theropods (and some other dinosaurs)
  • SVPOW [54]: Blog about sauropods, other dinosaurs and Open Access written by Matt Wedel, Mike Taylor and Darren Naish (any original photographs/drawings there are CC-BY 3.0 and can be on Wikipedia)
  • Markwitton.com Blog [55]: Mark Witton's blog about anatomy and pterosaurs

Tools

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A list of articles needing cleanup associated with this project is available. See also the tool's wiki page and the index of WikiProjects.

Main tool page: toolserver.org


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