Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Emu

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[edit] Emu

A big Australian bird, text rewritten and fact-checked by me, copyedited by Tony1 and some helpful anons. I should add that imperial conversions are provided in the body of the text, but were mostly left out of the lead for the sake of brevity and clarity.--Peta 04:45, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Excellent. Well-written, well-referenced, and a fascinating read. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

• Oh, and great photographs, especially the three toes. :-) SlimVirgin ^(talk) 04:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support brilliantly written, excellently sourced article for a curious critter.--cj | talk 05:42, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support excellent prose, beautiful presentation of the subject. Gnangarra 05:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support 'for sake of brevity and clarity' is important and to be noted. Well done what is needed is in there. SatuSuro 05:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support Exceptionally written (short and sharp) and very interesting. Excellent work. michael ^talk 06:17, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support. The baby emu picture has a deprecated image tag, though. Jeronimo 06:45, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Fixed.--Peta 06:48, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
• Object. It needs a good copyedit, grammar and spell check. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 11:45, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Mabye you could point out some problems, I can't find any spelling issues and it has been copyedited by at least 2 other editors today.--Peta 12:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
    • The pair mate every day or two - grammar

source of food by Indigenous Australians - capitalisation

a unsuccessful

Aside from those, I would support. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 22:25, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Fixed.--Peta 11:10, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

No it isn't. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 23:24, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Now it is. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

• Conditional support. The above "copyedit and spell check" complaint seems to be obligatory for every FAC these days, regardless of necessity. However there are a few things that need refining:
  • Why is "emu" frequently written with a capital E? It's not even a genus name.
  • Third para of "physical description" needs a source.
  • Mating delay claim needs a source (as the article itself acknowledges in an HTML comment.)
  • Second para of "reproduction"; last sentence needs source.
  • Same for third para.
  • Same for first para of "Ecology and Behaviour".
  • In cultural references, what is "NSW"?
  • From the same section: "thus, incidentally,"; surely this is a contradiction?
  • The last sentence of the article is somewhat clumsy. It's not terrible but it's nice to finish an article on a good note, I think.

Solve these and you have my support for a fine and interesting article. Soo 12:22, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

• • • The convention on Wikipedia is to use capitalisation for the species common name for birds and mammals. The capitalisation is consistent thoughout the article . I got rid of the delayed breeding thing- it was from an old version of the article and I have never been able to confirm where it came from. All the other things you mention have been addressed, additional inlines have not been added where there is already one in that paragraph and the information is from the same source, too many inlines make the text harder to read, and if anyone goes to the effort to check the source they will find the extra detail there anyway.--Peta 13:22, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support It's good to see a well-written article that doesn't have prose bloat. Reimelt 14:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support Comment A few nitpicks:
  • Per WP:MOSNUM, units of measurement should be preceded by a non-breaking space ( ).
  • "The resultant heat is prevented from flowing to the skin by the insulation provided by the coat,[5] which allows the bird to be active during the heat of the day." Is the word "the" before "insulation" necessary? Is it the insulation or the coat that allows the bird to be active? The current grammar suggests it's the coat; I don't think that's what you mean. How about "allowing"?
  • "The first demonstrated occurrence of genetically identical avian twins was demonstrated in the Emu." It's time for Tony's favorite game: spot the redundant word!
  • "Emus are largely solitary; they roam the continent searching for the best feeding areas, and while they can form enormous flocks, this is atypical social behaviour that arises from a common need to move towards food sources." Would this be better as two or even three separate sentences?
  • "their wanderings are more random." Does randomness admit of degree?
  • "Emus are also able to swim should they need to." Awkward; ends with a preposition. How about "when necessary"?
  • "Emus may serve as an important agent for the dispersal of large viable seeds, which may contribute to the maintenance of floral biodiversity in some areas." Do they or don't they? How about "Emus help disperse large viable seeds, contributing to floral biodiversity." If the areas are significant, identify them.
    • It would be nice to conculde that, but the reference does not support that it just proposes that they might and says more research need to be done.
  • "Europeans killed Ems for food and to eradicate them." Nonparallel structure and a typo.
    • I think I fixed this.
      • Not quite, but no matter. I fixed the typo and rewrote the clauses so they're parallel (see below). Feel free to revert to the nonparallel structure if you don't think my edit works. Peirigill 07:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
  • "Threats to small populations include the clearing and fragmentation of areas of habitat, deliberate killing, predation of the young and eggs by foxes, feral and domestic dogs and feral pigs, and being struck by vehicles." Nonparallel construction. Also, if the predation is by "foxes, feral and domestic dogs and feral pigs," then this series of threats should be separated by semicolons, not commas: "clearing...of habitat; deliberate killing; predation...by foxes, feral...dogs and domestic pigs;" etc.
  • "The isolated Emu population of the New South Wales North Coast Bioregion and Port Stephens is listed as endangered by the NSW Government." Why is "New South Wales" both not abbreviated and abbreviated in the same sentence? Do you need to specify "NSW Government," or will "state government" or even simply "government" suffice?
  • "They are typically fed on grain supplemented by pasture." This flows awkwardly for me, since "pasture" can mean either grass for grazing or the land it grows on. My first mental image was of emus chewing clods of soil. Maybe it's a difference between Australian and American English, in which case I'll defer, but I'd prefer to see "supplemented by grazing" or specific grasses named instead of simply "pasture."
    • Pasture is the plants.
  • "Emu leather has a distinctive patterned surface, due to a raised area around the hair follicles in the skin; it is used in such small items as wallets and shoes." Does "it" refer to leather, surface, area, or skin? I know it's obvious, but hey, if Tony won't let me get away with pronouns whose antecedents are remote...
  • "The Emu is popularly but unofficially considered as a faunal emblem—the national bird of Australia.[21] It appears prominently on the Coat of Arms of Australia and thus, appears on the Australian 50 cent coin." This seems contradictory; surely, the Coat of Arms constitutes an "official" emblem? As a non-Australian, I don't know why prominent appearance on the Coat of arms "thus" implies appearance on the coin. Is the Coat of Arms reproduced on the coin? This should be made clearer.
  • "and other groups in NSW...including a pre-federation New South Wales 100th Anniversary issue." Again, the state is both abbreviated and not abbreviated in the same section.
  • "There are 613 gazetted places." "Gazetted" is not a familiar term in my American English, but I assume it means "published in a gazette." I'm not sure why this is significant. If this is simply normal Australian English, that's fine, but I'm stumbling over it.
    • Its like the Federal Register in the US, it is spefically mentioned to indicate that they are official names.
  • "for example in Western Australia Emu branded beer has been produced." This could really use a couple of commas.
• Pathetically minor objections, but I had to find something wrong with something Tony copyedited. ;-) I had my editing phaser set on "kill." It's generally an excellent, interesting article. Peirigill 23:20, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Done.--Peta 01:27, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
    • I fixed one lingering typo. In a separate post, I suggested some rewording in parallel structure. Nonparallelism probably isn't so dire that it violates 2a, so feel free to revert it with my blessing if you don't like the result. Peirigill 07:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
• Now I see that the good reviewers have come out of the woodwork; I'm afraid that I was only one of several copy-editors at various times. Thanks for you comments. "Gazzette" as a verb is standard English. Tony 04:02, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Now that's high praise indeed. Thanks, Tony. Plus, I learn a new word in the bargain. Peirigill 07:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose because someone removed the Simpsons reference. Just kidding. Support. I'm particularly impressed by the quality of the references and the very neat, concise structure of the article. In the long run it would be nice to have a couple of videos or soundfiles directly embedded into the article, though the links should do for now. But: Someone liked semicolons a little too much. I removed quite a few of them.--Eloquence* 05:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment The account of the 1932 "Emu War" in Western Australia given here differs from the one given in Handbook of the Birds of the World, which says that the army's attempt to kill the Emus was basically a failure, with one report saying that only twelve were killed in a month. As told in HBW it is a fascinating story.Rhion 07:09, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
  • You're right, I've fixed the article.--Peta 07:13, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak object
    • "***"In the wild, Emus live for about 10 years, while captive birds can live for more than twice that period." I need a ref to this.
    • "The pair mate every day or two, and every second or third day the female lays an average of 11 (and as many as 20) very large, thick-shelled, dark-green eggs" 20 dark-green eggs?! wow. A picture of the egg(s) would be really nice.
    • the "Physical description" has paragraphs that seem choppy, carelessly taken from a book, and it seems that this bird doesn't have a beak. ---Pedro 18:38, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
      • Fixed point 1, I have not been able to get an egg pic so far, on point three I'm not sure what you are getting at - the section covers some interesting and unusual points about emu anatomy, it wasn't copied from anywhere - of course they have a beak, mentioning it is about as interesting as sayng a cow has four legs.--Peta 11:09, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
        • Peta remember that not everyone had a close encounter of the third kind with that bird, so we need the bird's anotomy more or less well covered. See Parrot article for beak: All members of the order have a characteristic curved beak shape with the upper mandible having slight mobility in the joint with the skull... What about emus? Beaks are different from bird to bird. --Pedro 22:57, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
          • I alos haven't come across a single description of the emu beak. I'm not about to just make one up.--Peta 00:38, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support -- very good work, great use of images, easy to read and informative. Jkelly 19:02, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support Excellent article. Well written, detailed but not excessive. Nuff said.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.237.252.122 (talk • contribs) 14:41, 29 July 2006.
• Support Well written article.--ppm 20:44, 30 July 2006 (UTC)