Talk:Deltadromeus/GA1

GA review

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Nominator: Augustios Paleo (talk · contribs) 00:41, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: IJReid (talk · contribs) 03:52, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

I am going to give this a big one-shot review covering everything and then we can see how it goes from there for successive revisions. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 03:52, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

All suggestions implemented but the thesis one. It is mentioned throughout recent literature and will be out soon. AFH (talk) 14:28, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

I am unable to find Kellermann's thesis to verify what is stated about it in Delcourt et al. (2025), and therefore I would still advise its removal. I would also advocate for the removal of the ornithomimosaur cladogram because it adds very little and increases due to the utter lack of resolution both page length, clutter, and bias towards an outlying result; the text already says as much as the phylogeny does. Other sources for an ornithomimosaur placement can all be traced back to Kellermann, including an abstract that may be more appropriate to include. It is the same analysis after all, just with improvements from iterative use. IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 17:32, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Fixed AFH (talk) 18:17, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

• Discovery and Naming
  • I would link Gara Sbaa Formation here rather than in the lede
  • I don't see much need to separate the citations of paragraph 2 sentence 1 instead of just having both at the end of the sentence
  • I think the proper plural is "pedes"
  • "The distal (away from body) end of the ischium, a part of the pelvis, was unearthed and misidentified as being the distal part of the pubis.[1][5] This has been corrected." I would flip these sentences to say something like "A bone initially identified by Sereno and colleagues as the end of a pubis was later reidentified as the end of an ischium, another pelvic bone, by [authorship]" or something similar
  • "discovery of rostral teeth of the sawskate Onchopristis and crocodyliform teeth, two aquatic taxa, near the skeleton" feels cleaner as "discovery of rostral of the sawskate Onchopristis and teeth of a crocodyliform, both aquatic taxa"
  • It is stated that Delta is both "change" and reference to the deltaic facies, so either one is wrong or it should say "Delta is also ..."
  • Some duplicate links (eg. pubis) that require more manual checking because they are alternative pluralizations
  • I don't think "proximal (towards the end of the body)" is very helpful because of how it breaks up the flow, specifying which end of the tibia is preserved is not super important
  • The citation [1] at the end of the list of material is redundant with the citation [1] at the end of the sentence
  • Standard is for citations to be numbered in order so [1][6][8] instead of [8][1][6]
  • ", and finally Deltadromeus by Sereno and colleagues." reads better as ", before being referred to Deltadromeus ..."
  • "All of the fossils known of Bahariasaurus, including those Sereno and colleagues referred to Deltadromeus, were destroyed in the Bombing of Munich during World War II, leaving the nature of Bahariasaurus mysterious." most of this is not relevant to Deltadromeus (until the next paragraph) so I would cut it down to "All of the fossils found by Stromer, including those referred to both Bahariasaurus and eventually Deltadromeus, were destroyed in the Bombing of Munich during World War II."
  • "confidently referable to Deltadromeus" might be better as "for which the name Deltadromeus can be unambiguously used."
  • "Deltadromeus'" genus names are both singular and plural so the apostrophe is not needed IMO

• Description
  • "In 2001, Australian researcher Frank Seebacher" I would reframe this to talk about the "holotype individual", the topic of the article, before the australian researcher
  • "These referred specimens, if legitimate," the specimens are legitimate, it is the referral which is questionable, so "These specimens, if the referral to Deltadromeus is validated,"
  • "approximately the size of" should be length, since size can also mean mass
  • Is a "Postcrania" subsection worth it since there is nothing else?
  • "as reduced in other genera like Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus" Allosaurus is already mentioned so "as reduced as in that genus or others like Tyrannosaurus"
  • "relatively proximodistally (towards-away body) short deltopectoral crest that only spans 1/4 of the total length of the humerus" since comparison to the length of the humerus is made I would consider specifying "proximodistally" unnecessary since it disrupts flow
  • Gualicho hasn't been mentioned up til now so maybe say that its a potential relative
  • The acromion process really isn't part of the "shoulder joint" aka glenoid so I would just remove those brackets, it is linked
  • Some typos (eg. acormion)
  • "but these blades are straight in many" we are comparing tapering to straightness which are different metrics?
  • "dorsoventrally (top-bottom) compressed" another situation where brackets don't help, since top and bottom are both relative directions
  • "As for the femur," I don't like this sentence introduction
  • Another instance of what I consider unnecessary pluralization of the genus name
  • "as in noasaurids" surely they don't also have the exact same number?
  • Gualicho should be linked at first mention and only then

• Classification
  • Why not just say "in 1996" instead of bracketing the year
  • Nothing between 1996 and 2016?
  • Why not say "In their 2016 description of Gualicho ..."
  • "Since then, Gualicho has repeatedly been found to be a member of Coelurosauria,[21] whereas most phylogenetic analyses find Deltadromeus in Ceratosauria.[6]" this is problematic since it synthesizes sources that probably don't say Delta is not a relative of Gualicho. Saying "some studies find Delta as a ceratosaur, but didn't assess Gualicho" is less problematic.
  • Is Bahariasauridae not linked or redirected to anything?
  • I don't love using small illustrations in cladograms when they aren't all aligned and in the same lateral view, it may give an issue at FA for sourcing
  • The year of Delcourt and colleagues has already been mentioned, remove the bracketed repeat
  • "as an unpublished masters thesis" I don't think this is a great source to include, I would just let the discussion given by Delcourt form the whole paragraph
  • Is it worth including a third cladogram when all it does is what the text says (Deltadromeus as an ornithomimosaur) and everything is unresolved?
  • Breaking it up into ceratosaur and avetheropod subsections is messing with the chronological flow of understanding what happened, I would rearrange it all to just be chronological (there is not much similar between being a neovenatorid and an ornithomimosaur anyways)
  • "without explanation" this is original synthesis
  • "incorrectly recognized as a indeterminate theropod pubis by Stromer" I would remove "incorrectly" as the reidentification is about reinterpretation not disproving

• Paleoenvironment
  • "fossil formations" not a formation, more of a "geologic unit"
  • "If the material assigned to Deltadromeus by Sereno and colleagues (1995) is from Deltadromeus,[1] its range would include Bahariya Formation. This would indicate that the distribution of Deltadromeus is similar to that of Spinosaurus,[34][35] though Spinosaurus' taxonomy and distribution too is debated.[36][19][37]" quite a lot of synthesis here, why is the range comparison to Spinosaurus even relevant?
  • "which despite suggestions that this is due to ecological, preservation, or other biases,[34][41] is supported by the fossil record.[6]" should be a comma after "which" and might be more neutral to say "can be supported"
  • "indicates that there was" again for neutrality "could have been"
  • "this, which found greater quantities of sizable, terrestrial animals" probably "this as there were greater ..."
  • "Deltadromeus/Bahariasaurus" can just use "and" since them being abelisauroids is not really dependent on their synonymy
  • "This is based on the herbivorous/omnivorous nature of Limusaurus and Berthasaura,[44][45][46]" I assume the herbivorous nature is also cited in the citation at the end of the sentence so all of these could just be moved to the end to avoid the appearance of synthesis
  • "and more" it feels neater to just say "and sandbars" since the "including" qualifier is already there

• Lede (doing this last since its meant to compile other sections)
  • Be sure the etymology reflects the article contents after the outcome of my suggestion above
  • "the holotype (name-bearing) specimen" specimen is redundant and brackets are not elegant, both can be removed
  • Why is it Kem Kem Group here but "beds" everywhere else?
  • Again, "longest" is not the same as "largest"; it should be the former
  • The wording can be simplified to just be "tail" etc rather than "caudal (tail)"
  • "a similar theropod with debated affinities," I'm not sure what this is in reference to
  • "The most mainstream idea is that it is a ceratosaur of some kind," mainstream is a difficult word to justify here, I would remove any presumption of correctness entirely
  • "have stated" it feels more neutral to say "have suggested"
  • "lived around the same interval as Deltadromeus." might be easier to say "time and region" rather than "interval"
  • "This hypothesis is also under discussion." remove
  • Phylogenetic bracketing hasn't been used elsewhere, either remove the reference or incorporate it into the main body

• Images and sources
  • I have no issues with any of the images used or arrangement, beyond the cladogram ones mentioned above
  • "size of a lost femur (B)" has a specimen number been used for this femur in the text so it can be easier to match with the writing?
  • Some spot checking of common issues:
    • Etymology and content of Sereno et al (1996) lines up
    • Use of Bahariasauridae and content of Motta et al (2016) lines up (something I thought may have been missing)
    • Herbivory and interpretations of Cau and Paterna (2025) match, though "phylogenetic bracketing" is not used (suggested to remove above already)

Flyby comment: three sets of references are duplicates. These are 1 and 34, 2 and 29, and 6 and 19. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 19:04, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Finished this fix, any other notes? AFH (talk) 18:24, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

I believe it is good to pass IJReid ^{{{T - C - D - R}}} 17:09, 7 March 2026 (UTC)