Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Macacalbius

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 Speedy delete. Hoaxes are vandalism. The article was about a mutated leech with crustacean legs. The macacalbius was discovered in the Argentinian Pampa plains in the year 1957, by the zoologist Juan Carlos Ciappina, who assumed it was a mutation of the Hirudinea Medicinalis, provoqued by an asteroid with a high radon content. I got a chuckle out of it, anyways. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:26, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Macacalbius

This seems to be a hoax. It first appeared on Spanish Wikipedia on 6 Feb; what is essentially the present text, in Spanish, was input by their user "Esteban Ruquet". The same evening Ppi755 (talk · contribs) translated it into English, input it here, and added links between the two versions. On 8 Feb, Ppi755 added the image to both versions.

Ppi755 (who has no other contributions either on :es or here) says that the image is his own work. It is entitled "Picture of a macacalbius on a weasel`s back." If the macacalbius is 30 cm. long, that must be a very large weasel.

But if Ppi755 is a hoaxer, there are also problems with Esteban Ruquet's text: it is not clear in his final version whether the binomial species name is Hirudo macacalbis or Hybris macacalbi, but Google Scholar knows nothing of either, nor of the zoologists Juan Carlos Ciappina or Pepe Songoltea. In the taxobox the binomial name is attributed to "Linnaeus, 1770", though the species is supposed to have been discovered in 1957. Also, I doubt that any professional zoologist could seriously propose that a newly discovered species was a mutation caused by "an asteroid with a high radon content," and I think that to talk of a species being "in evolutionary terms... three hundred years old at the most" is nonsense. These are not translation errors : they are in the Spanish text.

PROD removed, and "hoax" tag removed twice, by an IP.

Conclusion: at least partially a hoax, certainly unverifiable. Delete. JohnCD (talk) 22:26, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. JohnCD, after commendable research, has stated eloquently what I originally stated bluntly, before my PROD tag was removed: The article is a hoax: fake-looking image, "hides his face", annelids have no legs, "montun" (non-existent victim), Ciappina is not a known scientist, Pepe Songoltea is utterly unknown, "asteroid with a high radon content"

Need we go on? Chris the speller (talk) 03:40, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete No sources = OR. Ddawkins73 (talk) 08:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Falsifiable/blatantly untrue. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:24, 11 February 2009 (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.