Talk:Cattle

File:Kibegwa 2023 rumen microbiome.png

:File:Kibegwa 2023 rumen microbiome.png is displayed in section {{Section link|Cattle#Digestive system}}. The source of the image is "Fig 1. Phylogenetic classification of the rumen microbiome as revealed by metagenomic analysis." from paper [https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274371# "Diversity and functional analysis of rumen and fecal microbial communities associated with dietary changes in crossbreed dairy cattle" by Kibegwa et al].

In bottom center of the image (labeled "a", captioned {{tq|a. Pie chart for microbial classification at the domain level. Averages are from all fecal and rumen liquor samples.}}), a small pie chart is split into three parts. Arrows from these slices point to three corresponding bar charts. The arrow from the blue (Archaea) slice points to a bar chart (labeled "e", captioned {{tq|e. Stacked bar plot of relative abundance of the dominant phyla in the Eukaryota domain.}}) with six items:

• Arthropoda
• Streptophyta
• Chordata
• Ascomycota
• Other Eukaryota
• unclassified (Eukaryota)

Arrow from the grey (Eukaryota) slice points to a bar chart with:

• Other archaea
• Crenarchaeota
• Euryarchaeota

It seems that there is a mix-up both in the original paper and in the file on Commons. Either the blue and grey parts are mixed up, or the arrows from pie chart to bar charts are wrong. I couldn't find errata for this paper.

Pinging User:InformationToKnowledge, the original uploader of the image, who also added it in Special:Diff/1211775813. —⁠andrybak (talk) 19:03, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

:Best would be a bit of rearranging using a raster graphics editor. Chiswick Chap (talk) 04:07, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

::Well since nobody seems to be trampling everyone to death rushing to fix the image, I've fixed it myself. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:56, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

{{edit semi-protected|Cattle|answered=yes}}

Young male cattle are called bull calves, once they are castrated they are called steers for the first 12 months then they are bullocks or oxen. 58.179.75.144 (talk) 20:36, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

: Not done: leaving aside that Wikipedia isn't a dictionary, we can't insert text without citing a reliable source; nor is it obvious where this might go in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chiswick Chap (talk • contribs) 20:43, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

:The sentence "Young female cattle are called heifers, young male cattle are oxen or bullocks, and castrated male cattle are known as steers." is arguably misleading (or plain wrong).

:Refering to any intact (not castrated) young bull as an "ox" needs a citation/reliable source, in the first place.

:cf. Bull 185.11.136.59 (talk) 08:25, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

It may not be correct that "Cattle have the largest biomass of any animal species on Earth, at roughly 400 million tonnes." According to the graphic at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)#/media/File:Terrestrial_biomass.svg, all livestock (including pigs, goats, horses, and mules as well as cattle) only account for 100 million tonnes of biomass. The graphic at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)#/media/File:Distribution-of-earths-mammals.png seems to indicate cattle only account for 61 million tonnes of biomass. Even the original article cited as evidence for the figure of 400 million tonnes on the wikipedia page seems to say that all livestock (again including more than just cattle) make up only 100 million tonnes of biomass. See Fig. 1 and Table 1 at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6016768/.

Clearly, cattle have the largest biomass of any mammal species. It is likely true that Cattle have the largest biomass of any terrestrial vertebrate species. It's possibly true that they have the largest biomass of any terrestrial animal species, but this needs to be checked against the biomass of ant and termite species. It's also possibly true that they have the largest biomass of any vertebrate species, but this needs to be checked against the biomass of various fish species.

I would recommend editing the 1st sentence of the second paragraph under population to say:

Cattle have the largest biomass of any mammal species on Earth, at roughly 61 million tonnes, followed closely by humans at 60 million tonnes.

I am not an expert on biology or biomass estimates, so there may be some nuance I'm missing, like the difference between million tonnes of carbon and million tonnes of biomass. Aelwyn1964 (talk) 17:00, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

:Thanks. Yes, there is a major difference between a tonne of carbon and a tonne of biomass. For example, for a carbohydrate like sugar with the general formula CH₂O, carbon makes up about 12/30 of the mass, so every tonne of carbon would mean 2.5 tonnes of sugar. An cow is made up of around 70% water, so carbon is a far smaller fraction of the animal's total mass. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:17, 23 June 2025 (UTC)