Talk:Procellariidae

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Contents

[edit] Splitting out species list

This article is going to be too long once I have finished it to keep the species list attached. Splitting the species list would also allow annotations about the confused taxonomy of the family and in fact allow different taxonomies to be presented without overburdening this article. Could a friendly admin deal with this? Sabine's Sunbird talk 13:17, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The list should be linked in the taxobox. Joelito 15:17, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Huh?

"The family Procellariidae , or procellariids, are a group of seabirds in the bird order Procellariiformes, which also includes the albatross family Diomedeidae, the storm-petrels Hydrobatidae, and the diving petrels Pelecanoididae. While there is widespread disagreement over the number of species and genera in the family, they are conventionally considered to form four natural groups, the fulmarine petrels, the gadfly petrels, the prions and the shearwaters."

What a baffling array of terms to throw into an opening paragraph. And then follow it up with a sentence saying well, maybe those terms aren't even right, but here are some more terms.

For someone who doesn't know anything about seabirds, this is scary and useless information.

[edit] questions and comments

Lots of good stuff here. However, I have some questions:

1.Does "medium nasal septum" mean it's "medium-sized" or "medial"?

2.The link to "offal" defines it as what we Americans call organ meats. I don't think this is what is meant. Maybe waste from fishing?

3.I didn't think it was a good idea to use "large" twice in the same sentence to mean both "having a lot of species" (Puffinus) and "physically large" (Procellaria).

4.I sort of guessed at the meaning of the following sentence, a victim of the editing blender: "These heavier wing loadings than the other surface-feeding procellariids shearwaters which allows them to achieve considerable depths (below 70 m in the case of the Short-tailed Shearwater)." It now begins "Their heavier wing loadings"—someone should check whether I got it right. Incidentally, I don't understand why high wing loading should help a bird dive deeper. A denser body would, but what does the wing area have to do with it?

5.The account of the four families in "Distribution and range at sea" repeats what's said above in the descriptions of the families and could probably be deleted.

6.In the sentence on hydroplaning, I changed "propels itself" to the more specific (and shorter) "swims" because the article says that prions don't feed in flight. I hope I got that right.

7.I can't follow the part about nocturnal nest attendance. If the purpose is to avoid predation, why do the shearwaters that can defend themselves attend their nests at night?

8."Preening" is repeated in the discussion of courting behavior, but I didn't take it out because of a suspicion that "cackling, preening, head waving nibbling and preening" could mean "cackling, preening, head waving, head nibbling, and head preening" (in which case I inserted a comma that shouldn't be there).

I hope that helps! —JerryFriedman 00:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

  • I numbered your points to help address them. Lets see..
1. No idea, I'm afraid. That is one of the few senetences left over from the original article I started with a few month back. I'll need to figure out what it means or remove it I guess. Comparative bird anatomy isn't my strongest suit.
2.Yes, it means fishing discards. I'll clarify it.
3. Yes, plenty of room for confusion there. I'll deal with it.
4. Yeah, it seems odd. I may have mistaken cause and effect. They have a heavy wing loading and dive, but the heaviness of the wing loading may not be what helps them dive. I'll have to go back to the books.
5. Maybe I'll strip it out of the taxonomy and evolution section instead
6. I don't think swim quite deals with it. It uses it's wings to move forward on the water's surface. Swimming suggests what a duck does (with feet) or a auk (with wings)
7. Kleptoparasitism is still a problem. Also many species return at night after fishing during the day. And many species also attend during the day. I'll look at the section again. Second reply - the crucial statement I think is of those that burrow to avoid predation - species unbothered by predation (like wedgies) attend during the day and night. So I guess it's a bit of everything.
8, no, I think I duplicated it.
Thanks for the comments. I'll deal with your points soon. Sabine's Sunbird talk 06:22, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
You're welcome. I wish I had mention before you added more cites that the "cite journal" template (in Wikipedia:Citation templates) provides a smooth way to link the title of a journal article to its Web site. I hope to get back to this article later. —JerryFriedman 17:18, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I've looked at the cite templates and quite frankly they look f**king hideous. From the perspective of the person trying to use them that is. They must take three or four times the work to just typing it out, and you can't even check for mistkaes until you've actually saved the page. If someone wants to change mine they are welcome to but I haven't the inclination to do it myself.Sabine's Sunbird talk 04:58, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Some more correctiosn per Jerry's coments

  • 7 - I plain F**ked that line up. I removed it. Can't for the life of me recall what I was thinking
  • 4 - Another boneheaded error. Corrected.

Hope that deals with everything Sabine's Sunbird talk 07:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I wonder about the size comparison between prions and diving petrels - neither occur in the N hemisphere, so this comparison is unhelpful to Brits and Americans. Perhaps you could add ... diving petrels or (suitable N hemisphere comparartor)? jimfbleak 15:12, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Changed to storm-petrel, which is very cosmopolitan, the larger species of which are the same size. The size of prions is also given in the taxonomy section

[edit] whalebird

The Firefly Encyclopia of Birds (which you can search at Amazon) says prions "were once known as whale birds because they are frequently found in the presence of cetaceans" (p. 71). The Oxford dictionaries say that the various birds called whale-birds (Ivory Gull, Ruddy Turnstone, Red/Grey Phalarope, Procellaria spp., as well as prions, in case you're curious) got their name from either feeding on whale-oil and offal or from being found with whales. I suspect that with the prions, it's the latter (although "Webster's Third" mentions only the feeding explanation). So if you have a reliable source that says the name comes from baleen-like feeding, we can have both explanations; otherwise I think we should only have the explanation that prions are found with whales.

I'd guess that prions are found with whales because they feed on the same plankton, but I haven't found a source that's willing to commit itself on that. —JerryFriedman 20:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

  • You are probably right. I can't recall my source for this and until I do I will go with your research. As for them feeding on the same plankton it would probably be true, most everything eats krill and bird/cetacean associations are well documented. I've seen Cassin's Auklets and Sooty Shearwaters in massive feeding flocks with California Sea Lions and Blue Whales myself. Sabine's Sunbird talk 07:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fuel and bait?

"Humans have traditionally exploited several species of fulmar and shearwater (known as muttonbirds) for food, fuel and bait..."

How do you use muttonbirds as fuel or bait? Kaldari 21:49, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

The stomach oil of procellariiformes has the same calorific value as diesel fuel - I think they were used for lamp oil. I'll read up and clarify. As for bait, inhabitants of Tristan da Cunha use them to bait hooks for fishing. Sabine's Sunbird talk 06:22, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Culture

Picking up a topic from the peer review:

"Sun, wind, and cloud shall fail not from the face of it,
Stinging, ringing spindrift, nor the fulmar flying free;"

—Kipling, "The Last Chantey", last verse

The Firefly Encyclopedia of Birds says it's been speculated that the albatross in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" was actually a giant petrel. I have no idea what would make anyone think that, and the article doesn't give a source. However, the encyclopedia is available from Amazon Book Search (as I've mentioned), if you want to use that. —JerryFriedman 03:31, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd heard that too, but Coleridge never actually saw one but was moved to talk about them based on conversations with another writer, who described them following ships. Given that the large Procellaria petrels do that it could have been them, it might have been the giant petrels and it might have been albatrosses, or both giant petrels and albatrosses (they would be easy to mix up to the inexperienced eye). Kind of tenuous to mention here. And I'm interested that they rate at least a mention by Kipling, thanks for bringing it to my attention, - though I'm not sure that is enough for a section - maybe I'll look for more. Sabine's Sunbird talk 06:29, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
I wasn't sure they belonged in the article either, so they might just be here for amusement. —JerryFriedman 17:53, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Prions

I wrote Broad-billed Prion to kill the red link, but that article might benefit from an edit by someone who actaully knows something about the species. jimfbleak 07:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)