It was birds *and* mammals, Toby. Run your eye back over the lengthy discussions two months ago. Just about any post titled "A plea for sanity ..." and signed by me will do as a starting point, but there are lots of others. Or simply recall that the entire discussion began when I'd just spent two full days researching and writing entries on the hopping mice, only to have them buggerised about by people who, despite meaning only the best, had made no contribution to them at all.
See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spinifex_Hopping_Mouse for details.
By the way, the agreed convention is actually nice and simple. Indeed, it simply follows the same convention that applies to everything else. (Everything? Everything I can think of, at any rate.)
If the phrase is normally capitalised, then it is always capitalised. For example:
King George: page title = "King George" in-text = "King George".
(OK, we have some arcane naming convention on kings and queens that I don't fully understand, so it winds up as "George of the United Kingdon" or something, but I'll look that up if and when I need to know it, or just ask someone who works on kings and queens all the time - but you get what I mean: we simply preserve the normal capitalisation)
Spinifex Hopping Mouse: Page title = "Spinifex Hopping Mouse" in-text = Spinifex Hopping Mouse"
Ford Mustang: page title = "Ford Mustang" in-text = "Ford Mustang"
equally, if the phrase is normally NOT capitalised, then it is always lower case (bar at the start of a sentence, of course):
corn grower: page title = "corn grower" (actually rendered as "Corn grower" by the software, but that can't be helped) in-text = "corn grower"
New Zealand wrens (not a particular species, a group of six different species): page title = "New Zealand wren" in-text = New Zealand wrens:
sports cars: page title = "sports car" in-text = "sports cars"
The executive summary: simply use the correct capitalisation whenever you use the phrase and you will rarely go wrong.
Tony
(Tannin)