Hello All, thanks for your assistance with the move of Canis variabilis to this new home. For your information, there is currently a major project coordinated by G. Larson that is about to release a report on where the dog came from, which you will read about soon: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/science/the-big-search-to-find-out-where-dogs-come-from.html?_r=0 Of interest, the article refers to another project: "Other large collaborative efforts are brewing, as well. Dr. Wayne, at U.C.L.A., said that a group in China was forming with the goal of sequencing 10,000 dog genomes. He and Dr. Larson are part of that group." I understand that this team will be looking at the wide genetic diversity of dogs from across China and which wolves have added to it, including both living and long-extinct wolves. It may be that C. variabilis is in the mix for at least some of them. Regards, William Harris • talk • 09:14, 22 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why not we move this to Zhoukoudian wolf on WP:COMMONNAME grounds?

This article says that this referent is commonly known as the Zhoukoudian wolf.

WP:COMMONNAME says in such cases, the title should be the common name.

It says that, for example, the article should be Lion, not Felis leo.

So, unless there's some serious reason to break with that in this case,

Let's please move this article to Zhoukaudian wolf.

Chrisrus (talk) 05:57, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Chris, you do get around the Canis pages. When I first wrote this article back in January 2015, there was little info available apart from Pei and a couple of other sources that I had to track down. At that time, Zhoukoudian wolf sounded reasonable because it had only been found in the Zhoukoudian site in China. Since that time, it has been found across Central to Eastern Asia and up into North-East Russia, so Zhoukoudian wolf might now be a misnomer. There have been a number of articles that have included it as C. variabilis, to the point where I would suggest that this may be now its common name, and the article might need changing in relation to this. Let us see if others have a point of view. Regards,  William Harris |talk  08:17, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Okso let's edit this article so it says maybe "also known as" rather than "commonly known as".

Otherwise WP:COMMONNAME supports the move.

One or the other, as I see it.

Oh and also, if you would, if you think of it and would like to, please add any/all such "wolves" that you might meet or be aware of to this list housed here: Wolf_(disambiguation)#Canids.

That's where we keep all the "wolves". Chrisrus (talk) 14:24, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I shall change it so "sometimes known as" which should do it. I will look at the wolf list. Regards,  William Harris |talk  19:56, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello All. The recent work of Jiangzuo 2018 supports the earlier proposal of Tedford 2009 - that C. variabilis is the same species as C. mosbachensis. Further, Jiangzuo 2018 proposes that C. variabilis is an eastern Eurasian subspecies of C. mosbachensis - i.e. C. m. variabilis. In the light of this finding, I intend to create an article on C. mosbachensis that will include C. variabilis as its subspecies. The Canis variabilis article will become a simple redirect, with its material relocated into the new article. If anyone has concerns please let me know. William Harris • (talk) • 08:29, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The article Canis mosbachensis has been created, and this article changed into a redirect. William Harris • (talk) • 21:59, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]