Talk:Reindeer

Temperature Error in 'Evolution'

'Around this time, northern Greenland was 11–19 °C warmer than the Holocene...' This is, of course, preposterously inaccurate. RobotBoy66 (talk) 10:57, 3 June 2023 (UTC) RobotBoy66 (talk) 10:58, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

No description in description???

Just popping in to point out this oddity: The section called "description" is almost entirely dedicated to distribution and habitat. Only the first and last paragraphs - which are also the smallest paragraphs - offer any descriptive information at all, and the descriptive info that it does offer is very cursory. I would expect to see detailed information about size, weight, coloration, differences between sexes, antler size and appearance, descriptions of juveniles, etc. Not 3 nomenclature-heavy paragraphs about where all the subspecies live.

Could it be that an editor perhaps misread "description" as "distribution"? 108.28.66.195 (talk) 22:22, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

The quote in introduction is problematic - have altered, may need more attention

"Wild reindeer "may well be the species of single greatest importance in the entire anthropological literature on hunting.""

This seems a rather extraordinary statement given the comparative ranges of reindeer and humans: most human hunters live in places without reindeer. Certainly it would seem to need a lot more justification.

I have altered it to much closer to what the reference of the statement says where it comes up on mouse-over, i.e. "Wild reindeer have long been an important resource for people inhabiting the same range."

However, I haven't got access to the article referenced - someone who has might well be able to do better :-)

FloweringOctopus (talk) 09:09, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I add, upon reading through - the paragraph now suffers from bad repetition and definitely needs altering further. FloweringOctopus (talk) 09:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Fortunately, the relevant section is available on JStor, although the full paper is not. Here's the quote:

In North America and Eurasia the species had long been an important resource - in many areas the most important resource - for peoples inhabiting the northern boreal forests and tundra regions. ... The caribou/wild reindeer is thus an animal that has been a major resource for humans throughout a tremendous geographic area and across a time span of tens of thousands of years. It may well be the species of single greatest importance in the entire anthropological literature on hunting.

There is no further justification for this statement on the opening page and, judging from the topic of the paper, probably not elsewhere within it; it's just the preamble. Anaxial (talk) 13:09, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I could only get the abstract up.

It has to be admitted that it is technically a correct and relevant quote from a scientific paper.

However, it still seems to me to be an extraordinary claim to make without any sort of justification or reference, and I agree that the subject of the paper does suggest that it is a random preamble statement rather than one that the paper justifies at length.

Moreover, while the statement that the reindeer is an important resource matters to the subject of the article, the statement that it is the single most important species in anthropological literature on hunting is hardly a necessary one.

Unless someone with access to the full paper or, preferably, to a paper actually on the relative importance of different species in the entire anthropological literature objects, or unless someone has some other argument for restating it, I'd suggest that the quote remains removed, and I have tidied up the repetition in the relevant paragraph on this basis.

FloweringOctopus (talk) 17:35, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Link request

Hi,

I am currently working on trying to de-orphan the article, Lichenase, and the enzyme appears in the article in the section "Ecology", subsection "Diet", first paragraph. Please link the term to the page. I am unable to do this because I have 451 edits (49 to go!), and can only edit the article once I reach 500 edits. Please do this soon.

Best,

Avi

@Avishai11

Avishai11 (talk) 19:59, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

 Done Anaxial (talk) 20:32, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 26 May 2024

Change rein to hreinn in the last sentence of 'naming' section. Rein is an Icelandic word but does not mean reindeer. 31.209.148.106 (talk) 09:38, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. UtherSRG (talk) 13:54, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Error in subspecies (one misidentified resulting in a duplication)

Hello!

While perusing for subspecies present in Greenland, I noticed an issue: two subspecies are listed across three separate entries due to a couple of information errors.

(14th listed, presently.) The "Western Greenlandic Caribou or reindeer" ("R. groenlandicus or R. t. groenlandicus (Borowsky, 1780)") is not linked to its article: Barren-ground caribou. However, I recommend removing this listing entirely, as the barren-ground caribou is listed elsewhere:

(1st listed, presently.) The "barren-ground caribou" is incorrectly described as the trinomial "R. t. arcticus or R. a. articus (Richardson, 1829)", when in actuality it is (and links to the correct article for) "R. groenlandicus or R. t. groenlandicus (Borowsky, 1780)".

(2nd listed, presently.) For clarity, the "porcupine caribou" appears to be correctly ascribed the trinomial "R. t. arcticus or R. a. articus (Richardson, 1829)" which is currently also misattributed to the barren-ground caribou.

Thank you for your time! HarmoniousHum (talk) 01:44, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

This issue continues to persist as of March 7, 2025. I do not know how to flag the issue for review, so if you do as a reader, please do feel free to. HarmoniousHum (talk) 06:43, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 20 April 2025

Please make the following change:

−

in [[Lapland (Finland)|Finnish Sápmi]], is protected

+

in [[Lapland (Finland)|Finnish Lapland]], is protected

Reason: While Sápmi is more correct than Lapland as a name for Sámi homeland, here Finnish Lapland refers to an administrative region which is not known as Sápmi. The name Lapland is also used in ref [217] and in official descriptions: . Reference [218] seems to be permanently dead. 82.203.166.98 (talk) 06:41, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

 Done. About reference 218, it is not dead, and I don't know if what is shown is not what it should show. So I don't know what to do with it. Friendly, Lova Falk (talk) 09:11, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Naming

From the article: The use of the terms reindeer and caribou for essentially the same animal can cause confusion, but the ICUN clearly delineates the issue: "Reindeer is the European name for the species of Rangifer, while in North America, Rangifer species are known as Caribou."

This is actually in error. This is not a moose/elk situation where North Americans and Europeans disagree about what to call the species. In this case, everyone uses both of the two names for this species, in different contexts. The name caribou is applied when it is found in the wild in North America, and reindeer when it is found in Eurasia and/or domesticated. This should be clarified in the article. 2600:1702:6D0:5160:6569:F858:DA54:4128 (talk) 23:31, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Error in Genetic, molecular, and archaeological evidence

I can't edit it cos it's protected, but there's a link that was meant to be in that section under Taxonomy:

Biological specificity#conspecific|conspecific 123.255.47.249 (talk) 07:48, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Good catch.  Done -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:36, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 6 December 2025

Change lead image to https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reno_(Rangifer_tarandus),_Honningsv%C3%A5g,_Noruega,_2019-09-03,_DD_15.jpg Dedennedillo (talk) 20:30, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Not done. I object to this suggestion and propose this be discussed here. If a consensus emerges to change the image, then let it happen. Since we are discussing the lead image, I have created a gallery and added a third option. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:06, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

• 
  1. Current image
• 
  2. Proposed image
• 
  3. A third option

• Keep existing image. Although the proposed image has a slightly higher resolution than the existing, it suffers from a messy background which makes it less good for our purposes. The third image is over-processed. MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:42, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Useless main page or informative .pdf file?

This reversion of my improvement by UtherSRG creates a problem. That main page is pretty useless and does not back up the content in the article, but it does contain a link to the actual .pdf article that does contain that information. It documents what we need. Without it, a {{cn}} tag should be used, and I'll add it now. Verifiability is a policy. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:06, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Ok, then split the usage. Use the standard IUCN ref for what it can verify, and use the PDF for the parts it can't. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:47, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

As I added the "cn" tags, I checked that, and I didn't notice any of them that could be verified on that main landing page. It's a mess. That info is all contained in the actual article, which is a .pdf file. I'm not saying I couldn't have missed something, but that was my impression from searching for certain words on the landing page. A search for different words could obviously produce a different result. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:07, 24 December 2025 (UTC)