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 merge to Transitional fossil#Prominent examples. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:49, 10 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

List of transitional fossils[edit]

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This is a WP:INDISCRIMINATE list. The phrase "transitional fossil" has almost no weight in modern paleontology. Almost any fossil could be considered a transitional fossil between some group or another, as almost all fossils show a selection of both primitive and derived traits, as detailed in our cladistics article. While some of this list is sourced some of these sources don't even use the phrase, "transitional fossil", and the vast majority is completely unsourced. The section Transitional_fossil#Prominent_examples in the main article is more than enough to list the most historically famous examples like Archaeopteryx Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:58, 4 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Science, Organisms, and Lists. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:58, 4 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I would support a merge to Transitional fossil#Prominent examples. I fail to see why this list can't be prose. The existing section is perfectly serviceable, making the list somewhat of a content fork, but could use expansion with examples from the list. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 02:03, 4 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Merge - per above. FunkMonk (talk) 12:23, 4 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Merge per above reasoning. I disagree that the term has almost no weight in modern paleontology - it is rather that it is now generally relativized by specifying at what level, or even to what characteristic, it is considered to apply. However, that makes a list of all of these qualified cases far too large and unwieldy to maintain. As noted, the existing text sections do a fine job of discussing important examples. Expand that a little with high-profile/high-importance material from the current list and we should be good. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:59, 4 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Merge per above. Orientls (talk) 18:49, 4 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Merge per above. Also what about Category:Transitional fossils? Yeah all the fossils can be said as transitional fossils, in addition genera that normally aren't considered as famous transitional fossils such as Archimylacris and Minicrania have this category. Ta-tea-two-te-to (talk) 00:23, 10 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[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.