Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of mammals of North America north of Mexico

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Apologies to the article creator, who has brought a very extensive argument for why this article should be Kept, but it hasn't been persuasive to the editors who have participated in this discussion who, almost unanimously, believe that this article is a duplication and should be Deleted. Liz Read! Talk! 05:57, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

List of mammals of North America north of Mexico[edit]

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List of mammals of North America north of Mexico (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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We have List of mammals of Canada, List of mammals of the United States, and List of mammals of North America. I don't think this division / grouping adds anything useful. Fram (talk) 08:17, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The main biomes in the world.
  • Keep This is recreating the original concept of the site "List of mammals of North America" listing species only north of Mexico. In the past, mammals of North America were divided into 2 very useful lists:
But some time ago someone spoiled first of these pages page by extending its geographical scope to south. That decision did not add anything useful, because pages listing mammals of Mexico and other southern areas already existed separately. Moreover number of species of the entire North America is enormously large, especially in tropics. Lumping so diverse species into one sack is not good idea. And this is the real reason of reduction of its scope to north.
North America is an artificial entity. It covers areas from Arctic to tropics, very different. Most of guides of mammals and other animals or plants treat North America north of Mexico as a whole. For example:
  • Kays, Roland W.; Wilson, Don E.. Mammals of North America
  • Burt, William Henry et al. A Field Guide to the Mammals. North America north of Mexico. Peterson Field Guides
  • National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America
  • Chandler S. Robins et al, A guide to field identification, Birds of North America
  • The Sibley Guide to Birds
All these books are about USA+Canada. And webpages, articles (see google)
Moreover borders between USA and Canada and Greenland are easier to pass then border between USA and Mexico.
List of mammals of North America (as a whole) is almost useless from a practical point of view. Far too many irrelevant species. And vice versa, numbers of species of separated USA and Canada are too low, they don't cover an entire area of interest. Darekk2 (talk) 12:25, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • And here are examples of actually quite similar pages:
Darekk2 (talk) 15:15, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I appreciate your intent, but unfortunately this is rather misguided. From a biogeographical point of view, there is no valid reason to separate Mexico and Central America from wider North America.
a) Central America is a valid subdivision as it is part of the Neotropical realm, but is still a key portion of the North American continent.
b) The Nearctic realm bisects deep into Mexico, forming an indivisible, integral extension of the biogeographical region which covers most of the US and Canada. This explicitly extends to biota as well (birds, bears, felids, ungulates etc.). A political border such as that of Mexico and the US being does not stop the exact same environments and animals being native far beyond either side, never mind that they can still migrate across it.
Why do many English speakers feel differently? There's a key cultural connection between both countries, and also an Anglo-centric desire to separate English-speaking America from Latin America. A simple reason why these books only cover the US and Canada is because they're published in English and therefore interested in English speaking markets, and those countries are the best known members of the Nearctic realm in their respective countries. Additionally, if they decide to cover Mexico to include another huge swathe of the Neactic realm, they are also forced to include tropical North American species, which are just as inherently North American as anything you'll find in New Jersey. That does not change the fact that the continent of North America inherently includes Central America and the Caribbean, and Nearctic North America will always include Mexico.
Also, I don't think these articles fit your argument.
Possible solution- if you're interested in keeping an antiquated view on North America alive despite the evidence, just combine the US and Canadian lists together. Ultimately, the key cause of most of this confusion is that eastern Mexico includes the confluence of both the Neotropical and Neartic realms, which makes separating them difficult. People don't seem to have a problem squishing all the biota of other continents together though, nor would this new list also not encounter issues with, as @Fram so dexterously put it, "(m)ixing the Arctic with Death Valley and the Everglades...". Same goes for the recently moved List of reptiles of North America north of Mexico and List of amphibians of North America north of Mexico articles. SuperTah (talk) 15:55, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Number of mammal species living in an entire North America is very approximately twice larger than north of Mexico. The same is with other animals. That makes things much more complicated. Those areas you refer to are political or other entities, but they are parts of continents. Southern Asia and Southern Africa are not so bad examples. However South and Western Australia are states of Australia, very well defined really. Darekk2 (talk) 17:20, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Here's perhaps where we get to the heart of the matter- by saying "entire North America", do you mean the US and Canada, or the entire continent of North America? Also, I am also wondering whether you are talking about northern Mexico as per Wikipedia's definition, as the same biogeographic region which includes the US, Canada and northern Mexico continues into central Mexico & the Valley of Mexico, up to the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt. Out of curiosity, what complications do you see? As a side note, you'd expect that two countries' worth of species would outnumber that of a region of a single country, right?
  • Which brings us back to the articles- the US and Canada are not a singular political entity, which separates that potential listicle from the states and country faunal lists above. Southern Asia and Southern Africa are great examples of biogeographic regions, but as mentioned, the US and Canada are also not a singular biogeographic region- both are constituent pieces of the Nearctic biogeographic realm, which again, Mexico is inherently a significant part of. SuperTah (talk) 01:24, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is good question what is "North America" or for example "Europe". These terms obviously are defined more or less accurate, but saying "entire North America" I mean such school definition - appropriate geological plate - the geological North American plate in this case, without eastern Siberia, perhaps + Caribbean Plate + eastern part of Pacific Plate (Hawaii). Azores are on the verge of Europe and North America, I would treat them as Europe. Iceland is partially in North America, but this is European country. Greenland is politically in Europe, but geologically North America. Moreover it is similar to northern Canada and Alaska. But that all is off topic. North America north of Mexico is the same (whatever it is), but north of Mexico.
Regarding "complicated" - it is difficult to deal with such large number of species, in case of book to draw them all, add descriptions. And most of all, important species are hidden in such crowd of irrelevant species from tropics. Darekk2 (talk) 09:07, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reasoning based on geologic plates is valid (iffy on Hawaii), but the reason why I asked was to better understand the 'approximate number of species in North America vs northern Mexico' comment. I'd like to address two comments here~
a) Yes "north of Mexico" is definitive, but as per the Nearctic realm, it's like creating a list of mammals of the Brazilian Amazon instead a list for the whole Amazon, or a list for mammals from the Alps without France or Switzerland. From a geographic and biota point of view, the US and Canada are incomplete without Mexico.
b) There are a large number of species, so I understand the apprehension. However, I found "important species are hidden in such crowd of irrelevant species from tropics" quite telling. Tropical North America is more valid to the millions of people living there than temperate North America. If we're acknowledging the diversity of geologic plates, then there shouldn't be any dispute about which species are more North American than others, nor should we have lists dividing biogeographic zones based on convenience or cultural/political history.
I've looked into the precedents for continent faunal lists, and we have a bit of a mixed bag. There are lists for mammals of South America and Australia, which are completely dominated the Neotropical and Australasian realms respectively. Oceania (one realm) and Africa (1100 species, two realms) are served by categories, whereas Eurasia (three realms) has a mix of lists and categories. Personally, I think we should own the diversity of the continent, and not do unnecessary duplication. One potential solution is partitioning the Nearctic and Neotropical fauna within the article itself. Some mammals like coyotes, raccoons, jaguars and pumas are examples of fauna which overlap both biogeographic realms- this is likely to expand due to the Florida Everglades being part of the Neotropical realm. This should be expected, as it is a single continent after all. However, I see this as the most parsimonious solution to what is a somewhat long list- a list with four sections a) pan continental b) Nearctic c) Neotropical d) Extinct (which is probably unnecessary frankly, seeing as Quaternary Extinction Event exists). SuperTah (talk) 13:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Irrelevant from the point of view of people living in America north of Mexico or visiting that area. They want to know what is living there but not somewhere thousands kilometers or miles away. Such large list looks like useless chaos for them. Darekk2 (talk) 14:15, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Out of curiosity, wouldn't that be the purpose of the US and Canada mammal lists? The southern boundaries of Nearctic Mexico is as close to Denver as San Francisco, and is just as biologically related at that. I do think that reorganizing this list is in the original articles' best interest, and I'm willing to help you do that- I'll take the sections (revised to a) Transitional b) Nearctic c) Neotropical d) Introduced) to discuss over to that talk page.
    Regarding this article, biogeographically it doesn't work. This is a de-facto US/Canada mammal list, so those lists will have to be merged into this one to make this work and avoid the duplication of content. SuperTah (talk) 03:23, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Additional note: the List of birds of North America article is pan-continental, and provides a good precedent on how a many species from a diverse range of fauna can be formatted nicely in the same article. SuperTah (talk) 04:28, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • A content fork is not the solution to such situations. An RfC on the talk page of List of mammals of North America to decide on the scope of that page is the way to go, not creating more pages. Fram (talk) 14:19, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Useless as a list. We already have lists for Canada and the USA, which is all there is north of Mexico (other than St. Pierre and Miquelon) in North America. I could understand keeping this if it was a large area with hundreds of countries, but it's not. Oaktree b (talk) 14:21, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Darekk2 (talk) 15:22, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Darekk2 (talk) 14:34, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's not ideal IMO, but also fixable if desired, and anyway not a big issue given that each species is linked to its article under its common name. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:41, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is totally spoiled webpage. The list was destroyed by someone who knows nothing about anything.
Darekk2 (talk) 16:20, 19 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Contrived arbitrary region not generally recognised for this purpose. It is not a political region like US, Canada, or California, nor a geographical region like North America, Greenland, or the Great Lakes, nor a recognised ecological region, nor a demarcated protected area. About as logical as "Mammals of the world excepting Mexico" · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 06:05, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • You are lying. It is generally recognized in book guides, journal articles and webpages (see information above). And few more examples with North America north of Mexico
And not except but north of Mexico (you are lying again). Mixing Arctic with Caribbean is not natural, nonsense. I don't understand, why one more, very practical list, bothers so much.
Darekk2 (talk) 06:27, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mixing the Arctic with Death Valley and the Everglades is not "natural" either, these are man-made divisions and groupings, not natural ones. Fram (talk) 09:01, 20 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Few more examples (About 371,000 results in Google)
Maps:
Other examples:
Darekk2 (talk) 14:41, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is not exactly true. It includes Greenland etc and does not duplicate existing topic as a whole, because it covers only part of North America. Moreover it restores the original scope of the article List of mammals of North America, which was only about North America north of Mexico once. Actually, List of mammals of North America should be reverted and renamed to List of mammals of North America north of Mexico, and List of mammals of North America created as a new article.
I don't know how this artice (List of mammals of North America north of Mexico) could be created using {{extract}}. This template looks like having something with dates. This article was created manually, by manual deleting all species not occuring north of Mexico and some of references, also adding few species and references. It took me half a day or longer (many hundreds species to review).
And by the way - someone added a lot species to the List of mammals of North America without any references, probably copying simply parts of List of mammals of Mexico and other articles about North American mammals. I think that such species should be speedy deleted. Moreover someone deleted some referenced species taken from MDD, I added some time ago. I don't uderstand that. I restored at least some of them yesterday.
And very sorry for deleting your comment. I did this somehow by mistake during edition and don't know how this could happen. That is very strange. Probably somehow during editing code and moving my own large comment using cut and paste options and repairing format. Darekk2 (talk) 17:35, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • But in this case it is impossible, because species are mixed, not ordered in blocks. Darekk2 (talk) 23:10, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This is a notable subject and the article is well written and well researched. Serratra (talk) 19:16, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete – per SuperTah's reasoning in particular, and because this is in fact a duplication/content fork of existing articles. --bonadea contributions talk 21:13, 22 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. My Google Books search indicates that the topic meets WP:NLIST. North America north of Mexico is Northern America and thus also rename! gidonb (talk) 13:40, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I looked it up myself, and not only is "Northern America" weakly sourced, it often includes Mexico in its coverage. Renaming to Northern America won't solve the issues pertaining to biogeography and duplication. SuperTah (talk) 14:00, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
SuperTah, "pertaining to biogeography and duplication": definitely! Animals do not stop at borders! So this problem exists. It's a good comment for the intro and not clearly there. Thank you for pointing this out and for your other contributions to this discussion! Pertaining to the sourcing, "North America, north of Mexico" was included in my search. Together, the body of books is strong. gidonb (talk) 14:30, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies for the harshness of my original comment. I should have been more nuanced, and acknowledged that there is indeed a precedent of books covering this scope! SuperTah (talk) 03:32, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It was a logical reaction! I pointed out that "North America, north of Mexico" is an incorrect term for the title. As an inferior synonym, I included it in my sourcing anyway. Thank you for allowing me to clarify! gidonb (talk) 11:51, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Greenland-related deletion discussions. gidonb (talk) 15:05, 23 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Could people stop obsessing about whether the specific list title, or combination of geographic areas, is used in other places? The point is that we already have articles covering this material, this is a content fork, and we don't need that. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:07, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes and no- the content fork issue is fairly straightforward enough. However, the discussion turned essentially whether this de-facto US/Canada mammal list was WP:NOTE (i.e. if the grouping is valid both in literature and reasoning). Getting into the details of why that may or may not be was not only one of the arguments from the article creator, it's also helpful is deciding both whether this article should exist, and how to solve the original article's issues. Seems like the issue is settled anyway. SuperTah (talk) 13:27, 25 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Linguist111 (talk) 05:57, 26 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete. The list looks very much the same as the original article at List of mammals of North America, only difference here is that the title is called List of mammals of North America north of Mexico. We don’t need another article that looks like a duplicate of the article that I said before. --Vaco98 (talk) 15:22, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is not duplicate at all, but smaller area and much smaller number of species. A list similar to the List of mammals of North America in in years 2007-2020. Actually everything in that list from 2020 above is duplicate.Darekk2 (talk) 15:28, 27 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • We usually maintain these lists at three different resolutions (at least): country, subcontinent, and continent. These are recognized and recognizable geographies. In cases like this, lists (and articles - very common just as well!) can absolutely have some repetition. A huge advantage of this system is that we can provide different levels of detail depending on the position in the geographical ladder. gidonb (talk) 15:16, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • This is level intermediate between country and continent. Something like a subcontinent. Darekk2 (talk) 16:07, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not just "something like a subcontinent." This article is PRECISELY on the subcontinent of Northern America. The article is great. The name is VERY bad. It's a factor in the instability of the article. gidonb (talk) 18:57, 29 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Clearly the existence of this article is not motivated by geography or biology, but simply by the perennial refusal to accept that Mexico is part of North America. It merely duplicates content already covered elsewhere, without being more useful or convenient. Tercer (talk) 08:50, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • You are lying. All field guides and thousands of sources are about North America north of Mexico. Darekk2 (talk) 09:28, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • Tercer, all countries and territories from Panama, Aruba, Curacoa, Bonaire, and Trinidad & Tobago in the south to the northern edges of Greenland, Canada, and Alaska are in NORTH AMERICA. In other words, Mexico is centrally located in North America! Still, I see Mexicans sometimes express doubt about whether they are North Americans or not. It's a bit like Austrians who would be unsure whether they are Europeans. Really odd! After raising the concern, can you perhaps also explain its sources? gidonb (talk) 23:48, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • And this is why this webpage is entitled "List of mammals of North America NORTH OF MEXICO". There is another list for entire North America - "List of mammals of North America". And Trinidad & Tobago, Aruba, Curacoa, and Bonaire are located on South American shelf and tectonic plate. Darekk2 (talk) 00:03, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Aruba, Curacoa, Bonaire, and Trinidad & Tobago are on the South American plate. The continents and subcontinents are primarily a taxonomy in HUMAN geography with only sources in plate tectonics, climatology, and -as an intermediate- topography. gidonb (talk) 00:19, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Because of the proximity to South America, this makes sense. Covered in my statement "primarily a taxonomy in HUMAN geography". In such a case, you write in the intro that specific countries and territories are covered under mammals (or whatever) of South America, even though they belong to North America (because "continents and subcontinents are primarily a taxonomy in HUMAN geography") with the sources, one of them you just cited! Don't lose in the process that humans are mammals too and that these articles are written for human consumption. gidonb (talk) 12:19, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To your other point, the idea that North America could start north of Mexico further feeds into fears that Mexicans sometimes express. As I warned, the name is a factor in the instability of the article. North America consists of three subcontinents: the Caribbean, Central America, and Northern America. ALL THREE ARE 100% NORTH AMERICA. Regardless of plates, climate, and other considerations. For Mexicans, being North American can be very important. We should respect that. gidonb (talk) 02:23, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
            • Nobody has said that North America starts north of Mexico. You're creating fiction all the time. Darekk2 (talk) 08:51, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I said that NORTH AMERICA STARTS ON THE SOUTHERN BORDER OF PANAMA AND ON THE CONTINENTAL SHELF OF SOUTH AMERICA. My message was that we should be sensitive to other humans when they express fears. I expressed proven concerns about the stability of this article. It's a valid and important article. I supported keeping it under a more stable name. As it seems, to no avail. gidonb (talk) 12:19, 1 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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