Talk:Animal colouration

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, now in the public domain.


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To-do list for Animal colouration: edit · history · watch · refresh

Here are some tasks you can do:
  • Other:
    • Write a more general coloration article (on all organisms) from scratch, then decide what to do with this.
    • Write an article on colour changes in animals (whole books on this topic exist)
Priority 5  

Contents

[edit] Kallima

This isn't a butterfly article. We're illustrating a butterfly that looks like a leaf when hiding. If people have to look hard at the original photo to see the butterfly, well, they are supposed to. The dual image does not serve this purpose and takes up a disproportionate amount of space. If people want to know more about a Kallima butterfly, they can click on the Kallima article (coming to a wikipedia near you). As it is, they can click on the original photo which is cross linked to the second image. In the meantime, we should find more images which illustrate the other critters mentioned in the article. Anybody got a zebra-in-the-moonlight photo? Rklawton 06:56, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

The dual image does not serve this purpose and takes up a disproportionate amount of space. I completely disagree. The duality in coloring is stunning. Many camouflaging animals don't show this duality. --Janke | Talk 07:25, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
True, but this isn't an article about the Kallima's duality. It's an article that includes a discussion on "invisibility" and uses the Kallima as an example. The single, original image illustrates "invisibility". The dual image illustrates how stunning Kallimas are. Save "stunning" duality for the Kallima article where it fits. Rklawton 07:33, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Janke - when I first saw the image I thought it was an image of a leaf, and a casual glance from a reader will get the same reaction. I think you need the dual image to tell people what they are looking at. |→ Spaully°τ 10:22, 12 March 2006 (GMT)
How 'bout a better caption? Rklawton 03:52, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

This article is a copy from EB. It sure looks like it. The whole article needs a cleanup, removal of references to images not shown here, etc. --Janke | Talk 07:22, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

If it's a copyright violation, then we must remove it. Is it? Otherwise, I agree about needing cleanup. It doesn't reference images, but it makes animal references which bear illustrating. I think we should leave those in - even without the illustrations - or the article would make little sense. At least I know what a zebra looks like, even if it doesn't have a zebra-in-the-moonlight illustration. It sure looks a lot like some old prof's lecture notes to me. Rklawton 07:39, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
It's NOT a copyvio if it's from the 1911 Enc. Britannica - that has lapsed into the public domain. However, a heavy cleanup is necessary, but I'll leave that to the experts on the subject. --Janke | Talk 14:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

PS: Perhaps:

This page is a candidate to be copied to Wikisource.
If the page can be edited into an encyclopedic article, rather than merely a copy of the source text, please do so and remove this message. Otherwise, you can help by formatting it per the Wikisource guidelines in preparation for the move.

As this is not the exact text from EB 1911 it should not be moved to wikisource.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 21:15, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Would be nice if we had the material at source - I can't seem to find it there. Richard001 04:29, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I've gone through and fixed the obvious mistakes ('cuntry' was one of the more concerning typos) and updated some clearly outdated statements (such as A.R. Wallace being no longer alive) and theoretical issues (e.g. 'being advantage to the species'). The material is still much in need of updating and further revision, but it's a small start. Richard001 06:26, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spelling and lack of a broader article

Do we have a more general article about the colors of organisms? This is the only one I can find, and it only covers one kingdom. Is there need for a more separate article on animals? Encyclopedia Britannica for example currently has just a single article, coloration, which is around 60 pages.

For the time being I'm moving it to animal coloration, which seems a more logical name.

Actually, I changed it to animal colouration to match the spelling used, but since we use color in every other article about the subject it should probably be changed back. Richard001 04:23, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we should aim to move this to coloration and attempt to broaden the scope. The main themes aren't that different in the other kingdoms, but there is a lot of material that isn't covered in the article, and it would need examples from throughout the tree of life before a move would be appropriate. Either that or we could start a new article on coloration from scratch, though that may render this one redundant. Richard001 02:16, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Too stuffy

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition No wonder it is so suffocating stuffy. Jidanni (talk) 01:49, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

The idea is to write a new one for colouration in general, then think about what to do with this one. I think taxa specific articles on colouration wouldn't be that bad an idea, but would demand even more work, and we haven't even had a single person step forward to write this one in well over six months (I'd like to, but I haven't even managed to read the Britannica article on the subject yet). Richard001 (talk) 01:58, 29 March 2008 (UTC)