Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/taxobox usage (multi-template)

This guide explains how to build a taxobox, a table setting out the taxonomy of a group of living things, using the multiple template method. An equivalent guide to the new single template taxoboxes is at /taxobox usage.

Overview

 * 1) Select the appropriate structure for the taxobox (from if appropriate; otherwise assemble your own by following ) . Copy and paste the appropriate templates into the article.
 * 2) Choose the header color according to the kingdom; see.
 * 3) Determine its conservation status, if possible; see.
 * 4) Fill in the templates, deleting those that you don't use, except for:
 * 5) Leave the image template in, with "invisibility tags" when no image is added; then when adding an image, delete the tags.

Taxobox for an animal species
See for choosing a color.

See for alternative footer (trinomials etc)

The name parameter to Taxobox begin should be the common name (if any) and should usually match the article title.

Taxobox for a higher plant group
subgroup 1

subgroup 2

...

Taxobox for a higher animal group
subgroup 1

subgroup 2

...

The taxon described by the article should be in bold. See below.

The plural_taxon parameter to Taxobox section subdivision should describe what rank the subdivisions are at, for instance Phyla, Classes, Orders. On occasions where ranks have not yet stabilized, it may be better to say Subgroups or Taxa. The list of subgroups should be separated with &lt;br/&gt; tags.

In cases where the list is so long the taxobox would be longer than the article, or where the classification is complex, unclear, or disputed, so that a brief summary is impossible, the list should be replaced with a comment like (see text) or the subdivision box may be omitted entirely. When there are more than about 20 entries, they should go in the article; when there are over a hundred or so, they should be given a separate article.

Sometimes it is convenient to represent more than one level of classification in the list. In that case the lower level groups are moved over to the right by prefixing them with &amp;nbsp; characters &mdash; usually three for the first level of indentation, and then one to three more for each subsequent level. Major grades may also be represented by bolded headers: see plant or heterokont. Remember, though, these should mainly be done when the intermediate rank subgroups are not worthy of separate articles. Taxoboxes are too cramped to include too much duplicate information.

Extinct subgroups should be indicated with a dagger &#x2020; (&amp;#x2020;) or the word (extinct).

Bold/italic markup
In and , emphasis is handled automatically. In the individual taxon entries, however, the author must make this decision. Here are the guidelines.


 * The genus, species, and subspecies should be italicized whenever used, as is the biological standard. See for instance Pan. Higher taxa like families should never be italicized.
 * In plants, it is essential to state the rank of taxa below species, and the rank is NOT italicised: Genus species subsp. thingy var. whatsit.
 * The final taxon is bold, due to it being the subject of the article, and any higher taxa that only include the final taxon are bolded as well. See for instance green sulfur bacteria or Ginkgo.  (Note that the genus is currently bolded on many species articles, although it is not monotypic; this is based on a previous standard. Please put the genus in plain text unless there's only one living species in the genus.)
 * In a species' article, the binomial or trinomial name is italicized but should not be bold unless it is the title of the article:
 * Critter (Creepius crawlius) is a beastie that lives in habitat.
 * Snagotoothius unkillabilus is a horrible foot-puncturing weed that nobody ever bothered to name.

Complete classification
This taxobox contains a complete list of taxobox templates. Do not use this complete list: instead cut out all ranks except for the seven major ranks (regnum, phylum, classis, ordo, familia, genus, species) and the particular other ranks that are important to the taxon being described. The fine details of classification between (say) regnum and phylum are obscure, not directly relevant to an article on a species, and moreover are subject to dispute and change as conventions evolve and more discoveries are made.

For unranked groups use

Color
Choose a color according to the kingdom. Make sure to spell "lightgrey" with an E and both "darkgray" and "gray" with an A, since some browsers will not accept alternate spellings. This color goes in every taxobox template color parameter.

Kingdoms

Higher-level groups

Conservation status
Just after the opening, the conservation status may be included. It should be added to the end of that line, like this:

...

You can search the IUCN's database of threatened species for the conservation status of many organisms.

Choose one of the following templates (see also the same table with the columns reversed: Template messages/Infoboxes):

Just after the conservation status (or in its place), the stratigraphic range for fossils may also be added. For instance, for a group that occurs from the Cambrian to the Silurian period, use:

Fossil Range: Cambrian - Silurian

...

For groups that still exist or only went extinct recently, the second period should be given as "Recent" and other status tags may be used.

Authority
The authority section documents the earliest description of a species or other group (e.g., subspecies). It contains the author (or authors) and the year of description.

Different authority templates are chosen based on:


 * Whether the author is known
 * Whether the author's original classification stands, or has been modified (for example, a species has been moved to another genus)
 * To which kingdom the taxon belongs

Authority abbreviations
Authorities in scientific names are abbreviated according to two different standards for plant versus animal species. To decipher standard abbreviations, see
 * List of botanists by author abbreviation
 * List of zoologists by author abbreviation

or consult the International Plant Names Index. For more information refer to the article on binomial nomenclature.

Authority templates
{| border=1 cellpadding=3 cellspacing=0 width=100% ! Rank ! Kingdom, status ! Template and fields ! Example ! width=200px | Appearance {| {|
 * rowspan=2 valign=top | Higher rank
 * animals
 * taxobox authority author, date
 * Ursus
 * Ursus
 * - style="text-align:center;"
 * everything else
 * taxobox authority new authority
 * Digitalis
 * taxobox authority new authority
 * Digitalis
 * - style="text-align:center;"


 * valign=top rowspan=8 | Species
 * author unknown
 * taxobox section binomial simple color, binomial_name
 * None
 * animals
 * taxobox section binomial color, binomial_name, author, date
 * Bonobo
 * animals
 * taxobox section binomial color, binomial_name, author, date
 * Bonobo


 * animals, reclassified
 * taxobox section binomial parens color, binomial_name, author, date
 * Common Chimpanzee
 * animals, extra
 * taxobox section binomial part binomial_name, author, date
 * Humpback dolphin
 * animals, extra
 * taxobox section binomial part binomial_name, author, date
 * Humpback dolphin


 * animals, extra, reclassified
 * taxobox section binomial parens part binomial_name, author, date
 * Freshwater angelfish
 * plants, fungi, etc; author known
 * taxobox section binomial botany color, binomial_name, author
 * Southern magnolia
 * plants, fungi, etc; author known
 * taxobox section binomial botany color, binomial_name, author
 * Southern magnolia


 * plants, fungi, etc; extra
 * Taxobox section binomial extra color, binomial_name, author
 * Hummingbird sage
 * bacterium candidatus
 * taxobox section binomial candidatus color, binomial_name, author, date
 * Pelagibacter ubique
 * bacterium candidatus
 * taxobox section binomial candidatus color, binomial_name, author, date
 * Pelagibacter ubique


 * rowspan=4 valign=top | Subspecies
 * author unknown
 * taxobox section trinomial simple color, trinomial_name
 * None
 * animals
 * taxobox section trinomial color, trinomial_name, author, date
 * Siberian Tiger
 * animals
 * taxobox section trinomial color, trinomial_name, author, date
 * Siberian Tiger


 * animals, reclassified
 * taxobox section trinomial parens color, trinomial_name, author, date
 * California Bighorn Sheep
 * plants, fungi, etc.
 * taxobox section trinomial botany color, trinomial_name, author
 * Bergamot orange
 * plants, fungi, etc.
 * taxobox section trinomial botany color, trinomial_name, author
 * Bergamot orange


 * }

Below are some examples that illustrate the different conventions for names, dates, and punctuation in the different kingdoms.


 * Animalia
 * Original name valid: Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758
 * Organism reclassified: Pan troglodytes (Linnaeus, 1758)
 * Plantae
 * Original name valid: Magnolia virginiana L.
 * Organism reclassified: Anacamptis pyramidalis (L.) Rich.
 * Bacteria
 * Original name valid: Vibrio cholerae R. Koch 1883
 * Organism reclassified: Streptococcus pneumoniae (Klein 1884) Chester 1901
 * Old name revived: Salmonella enterica (ex Kauffmann & Edwards 1952) Le Minor & Popoff 1987

Detailed structure
The taxobox consists of three main sections: a header, a placement section, and a footer. The header gives the name of the group and sometimes its conservation status and an image, and the placement section gives its phylogenetic position. There are different footers for different purposes.

Header
The general form of the header looks like this (with an optional conservation status; see above):

The name is the common name where possible, and a generally accepted scientific name where not. In general it will be the same as the name of the corresponding article. The conservation and image templates are optional.

There is no need to give a caption in species articles if the image is a straightforward picture of a typical individual of the species. In articles about higher taxa, the caption should give the common name (if any) and scientific name of the species illustrated.

The image should be around 200px–250px in width, and not excessively tall. Do not use thumbnail or framed style, but do give alternative text.

Placement
The general form of the placement section is:

...

Each entry tag corresponds to a containing group, except for the last, which should be the group under consideration. Guidelines for linking and bolding taxa are as written above. Note the entry tags use the Latin name of the rank, in order to make porting between different languages easier. The major ranks are:


 * Kingdom: use
 * Phylum or division: use or
 * Class: use
 * Order: use
 * Family: use
 * Genus: use
 * Species: use

The full list of classifications is found in the section above, but in general only the seven major ranks need to be listed. Intermediate ranks like suborders and superclasses should only be added when they are well-recognised and provide some insight into the nature of the taxon in question.

For instance, consider the taxobox shown at right. For most readers, just including the major ranks would be more than enough information, but the subfamily and tribe may provide some insight to those interested in the relationships between different ants. On the other hand, adding things like domain Eukaryota, subkingdom Protostomia, subphylum Hexapoda, and so forth is mostly useless since they tend to be unstable and, depending on how much biology the reader has seen, will either be completely obvious or completely obscure.

A good rule to follow is to omit intermediate ranks above major ranks that have separate articles where the information is already provided. In cases where the classification is totally uncertain, it may even be worth omitting major ranks. On the other hand, in some cases intermediate ranks are better-known than the others. Use your discretion.

Note that species and subspecies should be given using the abbreviated forms of their name - e.g. H. sapiens, H. s. sapiens. Currently many pages give the species and subspecies epithets by themselves; this is left over from an earlier standard.

Footer
For species and subspecies, the footer gives the binomial name or trinomial name. There are six different templates to do this, depending on whether the authority is included. For taxa of higher rank, the footer usually gives its subdivision.

In some cases additional material may be added to the footer; these are still under discussion. Most notably, range maps should probably be added by using a second tag just before Taxobox end.

Subdivision footer
subgroup 1

subgroup 2

...

Footer, binomial name, with authority in parentheses
Use this closing or the next one when the type author's original assignment for the species has been changed. For instance, it was originally named Genus1 species1, and later someone shows that it should have been Genus2 species1.

Footer, binomial name, botanical authority
Use this closing for botanical taxoboxes, which show the author but not the date.

Footer, trinomial name, botanical authority
Use this closing for botanical taxoboxes, which show the author but not the date.

Synonyms footer
See Spilanthes acmella for an example.

List of templates
See [ list of templates].

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