User talk:Richard Barlow

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Welcome!

Hello, Richard Barlow, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  -- Etz Haim 12:43, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Adding links more simply

Hi Richard - a useful tip for typing links, if the word wanted contains the link wholly within it like many plurals, type e.g. [[larva]]e, it isn't necessary to do it [[larva|larvae]], both end up the same on the final page. The latter format is only necessary where the link word is not wholly contained within the the word, e.g. [[butterfly|butterflies]] - MPF 14:10, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the note; "I hope I'm not causing a nuisance infesting the plant articles with my creepy-crawlies!" - not at all!, the more, the merrier, a lot of plant people don't have much of a clue what eats them, and this encyclopedia is all about adding knowledge. Try looking around Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life for ideas and anyone else with similar interests. For other style issues, looking at your Ghost Moth article, wiki policy is to have a space in measures (44 mm, not 44mm), and the genus wants italicising in the taxobox, otherwise looks really good - MPF 15:14, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

Hi and welcome. Just another tip to help improve and learn. You can add categories to your moth articles by putting this in brackets: Category:Moths. Just put double brackets [[]] around it (look at 'edit page' for any article that has one for an example). Categorizing articles helps people find them a lot easier. Great job on your moth stuff! --DanielCD 15:37, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thyatiridae → Drepanidae

I've moved your VFD comment to Talk:Thyatiridae, as the page doesn't really need to go through the whole deletion process. Instead, I've made Thyatiridae redirect to Drepanidae, so that people will find it if they search for the old name. Feel free to update the Drepanidae page now. Cheers, sjorford:// 17:32, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Not at all, happy to help! Just trying to keep VFD clean and tidy, that's all - it's long enough as it is :) sjorford:// 12:20, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Distributions

Hi Richard, nice to see lots of moths appearing everywhere; one small request, all the ones I've looked at, you list as 'British Isles'. If you are able to find details of their full ranges (e.g. 'northern Europe and northern Asia') to internationalise it a bit more, it would look a lot less parochial and be much better. Guess it depends on what refs you have available, though. - Thanks, MPF 16:17, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! Good luck with the digging :-) I'd help if I knew anything about them, but unfortunately I don't - MPF 23:10, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sources for binomial names

Hello. I don't know of a definitive source for moth authors. Fauna Europaea is probably 99% accurate, but unfortunately they don't give a source for the original description. In the case of Common Emerald, a google search shows alot of sites giving 1789 and other giving 1799, and even a few saying 1796-99. As far as I can see Jacob Hübner published the first part of his book in 1796, and another in 1799. Of course he may have published something in 1789, but I haven't tracked it down yet. If I were you I'd continue using Fauna Europaea as a reference, it's as good a site as any. Smallweed 16:39, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi Richard,
Was just perusing your talk page, which is very interesting. We use Lepindex for butterflies. How reliable is it for Moths. The original refs or sources are always listed there though I cant say whether LepIndex is up to date. For uniformity sake, we are using LepIndex as the authoratitive source for butterfly nomenclature. Regards, AshLin 14:40, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Larval food sources

Hi Richard I notice you are adding info to various plant species' pages as larval food for lepidopterans. I think that is a GREAT idea and I thank you for this. It's all too common to think of plants in isolation, without regards to their pollinators, larval feed value, and other important ecological relationships. May your tribe increase! Pollinator 21:45, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] taxoboxes

Please use the Taxobox Templates when making taxoboxes. Thanks! - UtherSRG 11:57, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

I just noticed you've made many moth articles. Execellent! But please go through them all and make sure you use the taxobox templates. Unlike User:MPF, I've noticed a few taxobox mistakes. If you look at the changes I've made to Ghost Moth and Scalloped Hazel you should be able to see what I'm talking about. - UtherSRG 12:24, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pine

Hi Richard - I've added a few redlinks at pine for moths that are more significant pine feeders - want to do articles for them? - MPF 21:43, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Moth pic

Hey, got any idea what kind of moth this is or if this pic is being used anywhere: Image:Cma 2003 ubt.jpeg. I found it in the Wikipedia:Commons and am trying to ID it. Thanks. --DanielCD 15:46, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the help Richard. I copied your response to the pic's page just to let you know. I'll remove it when we are certain of the ID. --DanielCD 16:07, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yea, I wish I had more info on it. People often just dump pics into the system without any info at all. The only info on this one was one word: "Moth". We'll figure it out though. Thanks again! --DanielCD 12:51, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Redlinks

Hi Richard - thanks; I'll put something together for them - MPF 10:48, 9 May 2005 (UTC)


[edit] The moth lists

First, I absolutly agree with you about the paucity of information on invertebrates, and I think you are doing great work with the British moths. At the moment the list on the moth page is getting too long, and you asked me for thoughts on what to do about it.

We should link from the main moth page to articles on moths that are specially significant. I suggest Death head moth, Luna moth, peppered moth, gypsy moth, codling moth, "the biggest moth in the world", silkworm. Perhaps not as a list, but rather in the text.

We can also provide links to (major) moth families on the main page, though this duplicates the links on the lepidoptera page. Finally geographical lists are sometimes useful: list of British moths, or list of North american moths for example. Those can be in separate articles, linked from the main page.

As for images, we try to avoid non-commercial images because, although wikipedia is non-commercial, one of our goals is to create a freely redistributable encyclopedia. Usage restrictions hurt this goal. But don't delete the images right now, rather ask the copyright holders if they would allow a release under the terms of the GFDL (mention that their moral rights remain, they retain copyright and derived versions must remain free, but they allow free use of the image) Many people are happy for their images to be used.

I'll be watching this page so feel free to reply here.

Zeimusu | (Talk page) 15:02, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the input: I think it should be manageable. One point: Even in a separate article, geographical lists (and family lists which I'm also thinking about) could get immense. There are over 2000 moth species in the chilly little UK. I can't imagine how many there are in North America. Geometridae contains over 26,000 species and Noctuidae more. I think we may have to think of splitting it down to genera. I have made a start on this in Hepialidae - I have listed all the genera of this relatively small family and I hope to do some articles on at least some of the genera. It is going to take a fair bit of work!
Hmm, I can't wait for you to get started on the beetles... I looked at the copyright for the Ghost moth images, and added a source and a copyright tag. The copyright holder seems to know more about lepidoptera than copyright law (not that this is a bad thing, of course). He states that the images are "Copy right free" (I.e. have no restrictions on their use) and then goes to place a restriction. At any rate, please ensure that your images have source listed (and linked), and copyright status where it is known. Thanks for your continuing contribution. Zeimusu | (Talk page) 14:13, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
Ok so I did the split. There is now a page list of moths which is linked from the main moth page. I'll connect it to some other places too. The body of the page is somewhat reorganized, see if you think it improves it. Zeimusu | (Talk page) 13:33, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
Looks good! Thanks for that. By the way I take your earlier point about beetles - enough to give me sleepless nights! Do you happen to know any masochistic entomologists? Richard Barlow 13:44, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lepidopteran taxoboxes

I've been updating old HTML taxoboxes to use the new taxobox templates, and I found that many lepidoptera taxoboxes have sections on "type species" and "diversity" that don't fit into the scheme described at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/taxobox usage. So I have proposed some new templates at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Lepidopteran taxoboxes and converted one article, Geometer moth, to show how the new templates will look. I would be grateful if you could comment on the proposal at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Lepidopteran taxoboxes. Gdr 11:14, 2005 May 26 (UTC)

[edit] Zincken

I'm afraid I can find very little on Johann Leopold Theodor Friedrich Zincken, but I've created a stub anyway. Smallweed 15:57, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Did you know?

Updated DYK query Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Brimstone Moth, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently-created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

[edit] Phagobox

Hi Richard - Looks good, with a few small reservations (1) its positioning at the left edge doesn't look too good in I.E., doing things like removing the bullets from bullet-point lists (refs & ext links here; I reckon never to put anything where it will be left of any part of any bulleted list); unfortunately I don't know how to improve it (if right aligned, it would make the page so long with the taxobox); (2) the 'empty' parts of the box are better with a non-breaking space added so the box is fully formed (I've done this on the Ghost Moth page); equally I think it might look better with just a single listing (just sci names, with a piped link to common name pages like [[oak|Quercus]]) rather than a double sci and common names; and (3) the 'fungi' entry looks a bit like a subheader with the entries below it are all fungi (maybe at least a bit of taxonomic ordering by kingdom or division or might be better?).

On more general principles, does the source indicate whether the plants include every thing ever recorded (even if the insect died as a result!), or the species they habitually eat? My feeling is that it would be more useful with only the latter included. Perhaps too if more than x (x = 5? 10? 20?) plants are used it might be better with a statement of being 'widely polyphagous' rather than have a gargantuan list?

One other thing, I wonder what'll happen when the mammals people see them and want to include e.g. phagoboxes of the entire diet of the Rabbit . . . - MPF 15:05, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have a suggestion. Such phagoboxes have a tendency becoming extensive, much too long. A smaller font may be the solution or working with four cells in a row : genus | common name | genus | common name. This last solution would halve the length of the phagobox. BTW I've put a <br clear=left /> under your taxobox in Ghost Moth. This puts the references and the link under the box but leaves an ugly empty space next to the box. Four cells in a row would fill this empty space. Do you agree ? JoJan 16:38, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Hi Richard - I've just thought of another possible option, to have a handful of separate pages with very large phagobox tables in, with e.g. all the species of a family or order of insects across the page at the top, and a long list of plants down the side, with 'x's in the boxes where the species interact. Then this box could be linked from all the pages without any long lists having to appear on the species pages. Sound useful, or would it not work well? - MPF 29 June 2005 23:08 (UTC)
Like this (if it works!!)
Taxon Insect 1 Insect 2 Insect 3 Insect 4 Insect 5 Insect 6
Plant 1 y n y n n n
Plant 2 n n y n y y
Plant 3 n y n n n n
Plant 4 n n y n n n
Plant 5 n n n y n n
Plant 6 y y y n y y


I've edited Ghost Moth to include small font on the first row, so that you have an idea how it would look like. But I haven't found a way to do this automatically for all cells. I tried with "fontsize="small" at the top of the table or at each row, but this doesn't work.

The making of tables is explained in Help:Table but strangely they don't explain how to change the font size. Therefore, I've added the 'small' tag to each cell and this seems to work. Anyway, you can use much more columns in a table when applying a small font size. But readibility becomes harder. JoJan 30 June 2005 14:15 (UTC)

[edit] Fall webworm

See Fall webworm. I hesitate to copy the Taxbox from Arctiidae. Anyway, for someone who knows nothing about biology, this article came along nicely; I cribbed some stuff from a local newspaper article, plus what I found on the web. Feel free to improve it any way you think. --FourthAve 21:02, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sod webworm

This is a lawn pest, and unrelated to the Fall webworm. But again, it's a moth. Parapediasia and Pediasia seem to be the agents.

I have the rudiments of an article, but my ignorance here is obvious. While of the order Lepidoptera, I don't know what family or families are involved. HELP

Sod webworm is the common name for the larval stage of for a number of species of moths, apparently spread over more than one family, but particularly of the genus Crambus. It also infests corn, and seems to be called also the corn worm or corn root webworm.

  • The Bluegrass webworm, Parapediasia teterrella (Zincken)
  • Pediasia trisecta (Walker)
    • 20 species of genus Crambus.
    • The corn root webworm, Crambus caliginosellus (Clemens),
  • Fissicrambus mutabilis (Clemens)
  • the cranberry girdler, Chrysoteuchia topiaria (Zeller)
  • the vagabond sod webworm Agriphila vulgivagella (Clemens)
  • In Australia, (Herpetogramma licarsisalis)

Two generations per season are possible, with the pupae moving down into the soil.

They are a well-known pest of lawns. Control is first done with adequate watering and close mowing. Bacillus thuringiensis is helpful with only very young larvae. Recent evidence suggests that the nematode Steinernema carpocapsae (Brand name Biosafe) is very successful. Additional control is possible by selecting grasses with fungal endophytes. Pesticides, however, are commonly used.

Insecticides

Talstar ( bifenthrin); Sevin (carbaryl, cyfluthrin, cyhalothrin, Astro, Bug Stop Conc. (permethrin), Conserve (spinosad).

Sources

[edit] Award

For patiently and consistently adding to our fund of knowledge in a little-known area I award you this seal of excellence: No cheapskate "barnstars," you are hereby awarded this barn! --Pollinator
For patiently and consistently adding to our fund of knowledge in a little-known area I award you this seal of excellence: No cheapskate "barnstars," you are hereby awarded this barn! --Pollinator

[edit] Pinus contorta Lepidoptera?

Hi Richard. I wonder if you would be kind enough to look at Commons:Image:Pinus contorta 8140.jpg? I don't think those little guys are merely enjoying the sunshine. At User talk:MPF's suggestion, I looked at Insect Images. My guys are similar to Choristoneura lambertiana, but my plant is Pinus contorta. Choristoneura occidentalis is a possibility too, but their preferred food is Picea according to the common name. Any comments or suggestions will be welcome. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 19:08, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi Walter. I have spent a while looking at your brilliant photo and I'm not sure I know any more than you but here are my thoughts for what its worth! The Choristoneura species you suggested above are both recorded from Pinus contorta, as are many other Lepidoptera (see HOSTS). However there are a couple of things which suggest to me they are not Tortricidae at all: They certainly look a little on the large side and they also appear to be quite hairy (or is this my eyes?!). I think they may be Lymantriidae - Brown-tail larvae are fairly similar to this and this species is widespread in North America but unfortunately it isn't recorded from any conifer. Other Euproctis species are recorded on Pinus, however, but I'm afraid I don't know enough about American species to leave this at any more than a suggestion.
My only other suggestion would be to seek local knowledge - does this reserve have a warden service which may have information on parasitic insects which are prevalent locally? Richard Barlow 14:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Hang on, what am I thinking - they are not nearly hairy enough to be Lymantriidae! I have to confess I am rather better at adult moths but I'll keep racking my brain! Richard Barlow 14:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Dear Richard: Thank you for your help. The link to HOSTS (above) is splendid. I'm pretty certain that the larvae are no more than 25 mm long (the Pinus contorta needles are probably less than 40 mm long); consistent with Choristoneura occidentalis, I think. The hair may be a problem, but I agree that Lymantriidae is not likely. They are not too hairy since a number of highlights from the skin are clearly visible. Hairs are visible in the Spruce Budworm illustration.
Anyhow, I've finally had time to email a couple of queries to Pacific Coast entomologists, so perhaps something will come of that. Choristoneura occidentalis is a major problem, so it should not be hard to find someone who can confirm or reject that possibility.
Thank you for your kind comment on my image. If I'd had the presence of mind, I would have taken 10-20 images instead of just the one. Oh, well. I have a number of Lepidoptera adult images that I hope to upload soon. I'm so pleased to have connected with you. Best wishes, --Walter Siegmund (talk) 05:04, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi Walter. My comments about these larvae were based on my rather limited experience of British tortricid larvae which tend to be rather small and hairless. I have no experience of Choristoneura and C. occidentalis isn't found here at all. I hope you get a satisfactory reply from the experts:) Richard Barlow 16:57, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I just received the following from Andris Eglitis, a USFS Entomologist with Deschutes National Forest:
those are early-instar larvae of the pandora moth, coloradia pandora pandora. they
typically spend the winter clustered around the buds of their hosts and
they may do a little bit of feeding on warmer days.  they won't grow much
until things warm up in the spring, and once they are slightly bigger they
will begin defoliating the trees. the larvae will be full-grown by the end
of june and the trees are likely to be completely stripped of needles by
then. the populations have been increasing in that area over the past six years.
I couldn't find an article for the genus Coloradia. Are there plans to add it? I would do it, but this is really outside my area of knowledge. Thank you once more for your time and assistance. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 18:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi Walter. Coloradia is a genus in the family Saturniidae with four Nearctic species. They all feed exclusively on pines although C. pandora has been recorded on aspen. Saturniidae never really crossed my mind when I looked at the photo (the only British saturniid is Emperor Moth whose larvae don't look much like this to be honest) so it shows you never can tell. The adult has a wingspan of up to 100 mm which suggests your guys are going to get a whole lot bigger before they're done! I will do an article for the genus when I get a few minutes (I am fairly busy at the moment) and let you know. Richard Barlow 08:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi Richard! Muddying the waters, I received an email that an unnamed Forest Service Zone Entomologist thought the larvae in my image were Choristoneura lambertiana. Tuesday, I sent Andris Eglitis an email inviting him to comment further, but have not had a reply yet. His email, quoted above, seemed to indicate that he was pretty certain that they were Coloradia pandora pandora. In any case, thank you for offering to write an article for the genus. That is most kind of you. On a related topic, please see Image:Polygonia gracilis 3396.JPG. It is one of my best Lepidoptera images. I hope you can use it. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 05:58, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Mm, it's never simple, is it?! Looking at the picture again, I think Coloradia pandora is more likely, based on my initial feeling that they look too big and fat to be Tortricidae but I obviously wouldn't use the picture anywhere until we have a definitive answer. Richard Barlow 09:13, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arthur Gardiner Butler

There are no sources or references for the material in this article, please provide them. TheRingess 08:08, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Moth request

Hi Richard - can you do a page on Paysandisia archon please? A South American species accidentally introduced to Mediterranean Europe, where it is causing serious damage on palms. Noted at Chamaerops; ext link info here. Thanks! - MPF 20:39, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks! I'll take a look at your plants redlist - MPF 10:26, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Finally a moth' er

Hey Richard, We've been looking for a moth' er for some time now. Finally struck paydirt. Take a gander over to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Lepidoptera. Oh yeah in case you've been looking there is now a {{moth stub}} --Viren 03:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Dude being spread thin comes with the territory when doing anything on natural history. User:AshLin and I started out doing a resource called List of butterflies of India. On the way we went in aquisition of images, the taxonomical review, authors, host plants, a lot more, and finally Project lepidoptera. Whcih is why we were looking for a moth'er. So welcome to the project and wikipedia. --Viren 08:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi Richard, welcome. We like moth'ers around us (especially those with a whole barn where we can store our stuff! ;). Any way we can help,do let us know. I think its time we all got around to stubbing out the Lep superfamily and family links. What say you? AshLin 12:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taxonomy changes

Hi, thank you for updating bird taxonomy on Puerto Rico related articles. I would like to ask you to add the reference at the bottom since usually the main reference is listed at the top. Take care. Joelito (talk) 14:04, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

It's a problem with your borwser. It sometimes does that if you are using internet explorer. Just close the window and open it again. Hopefully it will fix itself. Joelito (talk) 14:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Taxonomic splitting.

I notice you've been editing a bunch of birdie pages with regards to recent splits and other changes. I don't know if you're aware that we generally tend to stick the Handbook of the Birds of the World (frankly awful) taxonomy for the family pages and taxoboxes. I say generally because the recently featured Albatross article mentioned several taxonomies. It's a balance of stability (it's the closest thing to a stable well thought out world list) with accuracy (if the albatross taxonomy in HBW was anything to go by the whole things a wretched mess). Perhaps you should leave a message on the birds wikiproject about your changes and add your voice to the calls for a new taxonomy for wikipedia? I'd discuss it more but my access to the interweb is patchy at present (I'm cvurrently in the field). At any rate, it's always good to have more birdie related edits! Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:26, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

It's not only stability that is the issue, it's globality (is that a word? It is now!) AOU and BOU splits are up to date and certainly follow current sciences, but have limited reach. Lumping several genera together in one genus based on an AOU recommendation (for example) might be problematic if several members of the genus are found outside that ornithological organisations, as might happen if two genera of tyrant-flycatcher from the US were lumped. What would you do with the numerous members of the two genera found only in Brazil which the AOU has not considered at all? Other problems arise when two organisations clash, the AOU list and BOU list certainly aren't the same. And teh AOU is famously fickle, lumping and splitting the same unfortunate species multiple times. I have no idea if the BOU is the same.
Basically, I agree with you wholeheartedly that the HBW list is awful and that we should reflect current thinking, but I also think that a consistent wikilist is highly desirable (something most editors here agree with). Personally I favour the current IUCN/Birdlife International list (but that is a personal choice). At any rate, for future edits can I point you in the direction of the Chatham Albatross taxobox, the bottom table of which has a box for synonyms, if you make changes in the future that are different from the HBW taxonomy please consider putting the old name there. Thanks. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:27, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps we should first update the higher level classification in bird taxonomy before getting into species nomenclature changes and splits. Some of the lists for instance, List of birds of South Asia seem to follow Sibley-Monroe. Shyamal 12:54, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I second Shyamal. While personally I am more than happy to incorporate taxonomic changes into my personal lists, I am much more reticent to do so in cases where this will cause mass confusion, such as in the List of Arizona birds which is now inexplicably more "forward-thinking" than both the admittedly hidebound AOU (but note Cackling Goose!) and the Arizona Bird Committee! I say unify the core lists first, THEN worry about regional stuff -- work from the top down! -- Miwa * talk * contribs ^_^ 08:37, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
PS> Do you have any idea how hard to is to get European publications in Arizona? *laugh* Cheers! -- Miwa * talk * contribs ^_^ 08:38, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah, and I thought the amendments summarized in the British Birds article I'm using were global and unified, reflecting the worldwide brotherhood of ornithology;) Maybe this was a little optimistic. I thought that if I was making the change on the species page I should try to make the rest of WP reflect this - I'll leave the regional lists alone now if its going to cause confusion and generally tread a little more carefully. Thanks to everyone for your responses. Richard Barlow 08:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Long generic lists in taxoboxes

Hi, Richard. Nice to see someone adding more insect pages. I've been going through much of the non-Lepidopteran insect pages, especially Hymenoptera, to try to bring them all up to similar standards, and I'd like to make a suggestion: your taxobox on the page for Eulophidae was an example of the thing I'm referring to - that is, long taxon lists are unwieldy and can often be avoided if the taxonomic hierarchy is put to full use. So, for a family like Eulophidae, putting all 300 genera in the family-page taxobox makes for a difficult page to read and edit - at the very least, any generic lists for a family like that should be done on subfamily pages, or (if they are still going to be more than 100 names long), then a page such as the List of Eulophid genera is a solution to the problem: anyone who really wants to see the complete taxon list can go to that page, while leaving the page that actually discusses the family as a fairly small, self-contained unit. Having access to Noyes' database makes it easy to put together generic lists for Chalcidoids, I know (I use it myself), but I'd hold back on simply filling up the family pages with lists of genera. In the case of Chalcidoids, especially, there is another thing to consider: when a family is split up (as many are being split even now), then dividing up all the genera when the revision becomes official is going to mean the loss of much of your work (as in the case of the Agaonidae - less than half of the genera in Noyes' list are presently recognized as Agaonids, so the list on that page is going to have to be completely rebuilt from scratch, because the names are not broken down by subfamily). Again, the point is not that you shouldn't try to flesh things out, but you need to divide the hierarchy a bit more finely so no one page is too overwhelming, and in doing so you also automatically anticipate the kind of changes that the future will bring. That way your efforts will last as long as possible before anything more than a minor edit is needed. Look at it this way; if you had listed the Agaonid genera on subfamily pages instead of the family page, then the only change needed to move the taxa from Agaonidae to Pteromalidae or Torymidae would be to change the family name in the respective taxoboxes for each subfamily (since the entire subfamilies are what have been moved, not individual genera). That would've been very simply accomplished, compared to the present task of figuring out which genera have been moved to which family, and manually editing the generic list. You see? Something like the Aprostocetus page, on the other hand, is actually not a problem - there really are a lot of species, and no convenient subgeneric divisions, so there is no practical choice aside from just having one big page. So don't take this as a discouragement - I, and others here, simply hope that the efforts that contributors undertake will be done well enough the first time around that all subsequent edits will be minor ones. Everybody wins that way. Peace, and welcome aboard, Dyanega 03:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't respond to your "existential" question - your point about "Who will care about this list?" has crossed my mind repeatedly, and that is, in fact, why I have been generally working from the top of the classification downwards: there are two types of things people care about regarding insects, and that's familiar species and familiar groups. So, I'm focusing on making sure the framework for the groups is in place, because I'm a taxonomist. Group-level pages are the kind of thing that people will visit with when they do Google searches on a name, so I assume that most of the audience will be students doing research, and that's how I write the pages - the way I would discuss the group in front of a classroom of students. If a taxon is small enough, then I try to be explicit about the membership of the group, but if not, I leave off at the level that would be most appropriate for a classroom lecture. Ultimately, my goal is to have a page for every taxon that is now or has ever been considered a family (or higher). There's just over 1000 insect families recognized, so that alone is a challenge. But just because that's my goal here doesn't mean it has to be yours - though answering that question to your own satisfaction might help you focus. Peace, Dyanega 16:25, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Identification

There is a caterpillar up for identification at the WP:TOL talk page. I don't know if you would be able to identify it, but I thought you would be the best shot. Thanks --liquidGhoul 14:05, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I underestimated you :). --liquidGhoul 14:29, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ligusticum

Hi, I just created Ligusticum. Can you help fix it up? Badagnani 02:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Butterfly identity

Hi Richard - this one has been uploaded on commons; any idea what species? Photo from southwestern Germany. - MPF 14:57, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! - "do you think it may have been photographed in captivity?" I was wondering that too, or an escape from captivity. Unfortunately, there's nothing on the pic data to indicate so. It might be worth asking the photographer. - MPF 08:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Would you take a look?

As someone very interested in entomology, I though you might be interested that the Category, Plants and Pollinators has been nominated for deletion, and might like to take a look at it here. Pollinator 05:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Common names in taxoboxes

Hi Richard,

Thanks for adding common names to articles [1] [2] [3]. I would, however, argue that common names are more appropriate in the text of the article rather than in the taxobox. It's not as if we provide common name translations to names in the hierarchy (i.e. Animalia, Chordata, Mammalia, Rodentia, Muridae, and Deomyinae). I made that change to Abrocoma, but then noticed that Acomys will now need a similar treatment. --Aranae 17:09, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lepidoptera IDs

Hi Richard; since it isn't my field, I wonder if you'd be kind enough to look at a Lepidoptera article, Speyeria hydaspe. In particular, I'm a bit insecure regarding the ID of the individuals in the images (please follow the link to commons). Also, you might want to look at Nymphalis californica, although I feel more confident about that one. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Walter. Fritillaries are a pain to identify and I'm afraid I don't know anything about American species. Checking your photo against Google image search certainly suggests a pretty close match but Nomina Insecta Nearctica lists 14 Speyeria species and I'd wager they are all pretty similar. Nomina doesn't provide fine distribution details and location and flight season are often your best pointers - a local source may be your best bet for this info.
Same goes with the other one really - It's certainly a tortoiseshell but I'm not totally up to speed with American species. Sorry I couldn't be more help. Richard Barlow 07:12, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi Richard; I'll double-check fine distribution details and location and flight season. Thank you for having a look. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 14:16, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] spiders

hi richard,

just found two spider pages you recently did, and stood in awe at the articles you already did, and of your ambitious todo-list :) I wanted to give you a hint on the taxoboxes, for example check out these changes I made on one of your articles. never mind about the image lines, I just do these so that if somebody has a picture, it's easier to them to insert them. what i mean is the species section. well, i'm not entirely sure why we do it this way (i think i knew it once, but i forgot ;), all i can say is that most taxoboxes look like the changed version.

And there's a WikiProject Spiders, if you should consider doing more spider pages (though you're more into insects :) you could take a look at it if you want. For example, there's a cut'n'paste template for an example spider taxobox. And if you add the template {{WPSpiders|Start|Low}} at the top of a spider Discussion page, it's easier for us to find the new page, because then it is integrated into the Spiders project.

many thanks for your contributions :) --Sarefo 00:51, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Lepidoptera policy - Draft categorisation guidelines & Common vs scientific names

Hi Richard Barlow,

I've brought up two policy issues for discussion on WikiProject Lepidoptera here . May I request your valuable contribution and counsel, as a member of WikiProject Lepidoptera, in this regard. AshLin 18:10, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] a Plea for help with "hawthorn"

Hi, Richard.

For no particular reason, I decided to work on reducing the ambiguous use of "hawthorn". I have been changing all links to "hawthorn" into links to to correct page, which (for the tree or shrub) is "Crataegus|hawthorne". There are four categories of "hawthorn links: plant, Australian football club, administrative, and "other." The moths and the footballers are running a fierce race for dominance.

Two issues:

  • Please review my changes to the moths, if you would. I'm arbitrarilty re-linking to "Crataegus," but you may prefer to link to "Common Hawthorne."
  • For new pages, please consider using the more specific link instead of the generic "hawthorn". (Although the concept of a moth feeding upon an Australian football club does have a certain charm.)

Thanks! -Arch dude 01:52, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hieraaetus to Aquila

Hi Richard. You cite a British Birds paper which talks about some other work that has caused taxonomic changed. Do you know what that work is ? If you have a soft copy of that the BritBirds paper, I would be interested. thanks Shyamal 12:14, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I am afraid I somehow do not consider a British Birds paper as sufficiently authoritative, which is why I would like to see the original work being cited and what extent of material (genetic/morphological) that work was based on or whether it was some nomenclatural priority rule being applied (possibly incorrectly). Shyamal 12:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the paper link. Shyamal 16:52, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Is Rufous-bellied Eagle not also affected ? Shyamal 10:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lep ID?

Can you help with species ID of my photos. Butterflies are not too hard for me, but I've got a lot of photos of moths and skippers, mostly from southeastern US, but some from midwestern US, northeastern US and eastern Canada. There are a couple of puzzlers right now at User:Pollinator/unidentified species. I could post quite a few more, if you, or anyone else in the field could help ID. Thanks. Pollinator 04:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fishes

There is a new proposal on naming conventions for fish being discussed at WikiProject Fishes. As a member of said project your feedback would be appreciated at the WikiProject Fishes talk page here. Cheers, David. MidgleyDJ 07:05, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Perennial

Greeting Mr. Barlow, the reason I did that link is was because perennial links to a disambiguation page, and that's frowned upon. If Perennial plant is an incorrect article for a fungi, then you're welcome to create Perennial fungus. I'm not a botanist, so I don't know what the best choice would be, but I think that it should definitely link to something. Regards, Milton 22:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Lepidoptera policy - Assessment of importance of articles

Hi Richard,

I've brought up a policy issue for discussion on WikiProject Lepidoptera here . May I request your valuable contribution and counsel, as a member of WikiProject Lepidoptera, in this regard. AshLin 22:10, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bird collaboration of the month

As a member of WP:BIRD you are invited to this month's collaboration

The current WikiProject Birds collaboration article is White Wagtail.
Last month's winner was: Cockatiel.
Feel free to cast your vote for next month's article

Shyamal 02:22, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Lepidoptera policy - Draft categorisation guidelines & Common vs scientific names

Hi Richard Barlow,

I've brought up two policy issues for discussion on WikiProject Lepidoptera here . May I request your valuable contribution and counsel, as a member of WikiProject Lepidoptera, in this regard. AshLin 18:11, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arcariformes

Hi Richard, I noticed you have been one of the main contributers on the Acariformes article. I was wondering if you could give me a int concerning the identification of this mite? It was photographed in north-western greenland in a medium-arctic oceanic environment near the coast. It is my impression thet the number of species are rather limited in the harsh arctic environment and the critter is not be found in my incomplete field guide. I got a hint that it could be some kind of Trombidiidae. Do you agree? What is such a mite doing there? -- Slaunger 22:05, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for responding so fast. Actually, I am just assuming it is a mite, I do not know if there are other possibilities as I am more knowledgeable about the plants than about the critters? Concerning your assumption about the relative size of things you are pretty close. There is not a scale on the image, but according to my authoritative nordic flora book, a petal on the stellaria humifusa are about 4 mm long. Comparing sizes this indicates the mite(?) has a body about 3 mm long, 5 mm including the extremeties and the frontal appendages (which I have no idea what are called). I have also seen a very similar critter at a different location in North-Western Greenland, again close to the coast in a medium-arctic oceanic environment right next to this plant. -- Slaunger 09:49, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Have good luck digging. I appreciate your help. Thanks. -- Slaunger 19:40, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Was it too hard after all? -- Slaunger 21:18, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of Lycaenid genera

I've restored the page for you on the basis of it's future expansion. Sorry for any hassles, and I trust you see why I did fall into WP:CSD#A1 at the time. Hope this is okay for you, any further help you need please advise. Very Best. Pedro :  Chat  11:15, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Templates

I've noticed that the 4 "missing" list of gelechiid genera pages are listed in Wikipedia:Most wanted pages, presumably because there are no genera with names starting with those letters of the alphabet. (This could be resolved by not wikilinking them.) I would like to bring your attention to the possibility of writing a navigation template for your lists of genera - something on the lines of Template:List of genera. This would make maintainance easier, and would save you typing, especially if there's a means of testing if a page exists. I've modified List of gelechiid genera as an example.

It would be nice if you could test for the existence of a page, and only add a wikilink if it existed, as that would allow a common template for any breakdown into 26 lists for each letter of the alphabet, but I regret I cannot say whether this is possible. (It would require digging deeper into the intricacies of template and parser function syntax.) Lavateraguy 20:12, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Adding LepidopteraTalk templates to talk pages

Hi Richard,

The appropriate talk page template for lepidoptera lists is {{LepidopteraTalk|list|high}} or {{LepidopteraTalk|list|low}} . I use 'high' for lists which lead to expansion of wikipedia by creating large amounts of red links (example, national lists, taxon lists) and low for lists which have blue links (local lists of state/districts which are basically sublists of national lists}}. The genus or subfamily wikis are not considered lists even though most are stubs containing only lists at present.

May I request you to add the LepidopteraTalk template to all the lists you created?

AshLin 11:40, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Authoritative sources

The classification in NMNH LepIndex is not upto date in some cases and a friend of mine was told that they had no plans at present to update or maintain it. In view of this LepIndex alone is not reliable as a guide to valid genera. Tree of Life Web is more reliable. Marrku Savela's Life website is also another place to cross check. Wherever discrepancies are found, these are areas requiring investigation. AshLin 11:41, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikibooks Garden Book (you're a contributor!)

Hi Richard Barlow. While setting up a contributor's page for the Wikibooks gardening manual, your name came up as a top contributor due to the magic of Special:Import (the book is largely based on imported Wikipedia articles). This list (or updated versions of it) will be included in print versions for attribution purposes (since there are of course no "history pages" in print versions).

I'm sending this note to see if (a) you would like your real name used rather than your username, and (b) to make sure you have an account on Wikibooks. If your username is "taken" there and there are no contributions (or if perhaps you just lost your password), please feel free to leave me a note so I can help you fix the problem (I am a b'crat).

We're working on ways to make this attribution work better in the future, so also let me know if you want to be kept up to date on that. Thanks for contributing to the plant, insect, and other articles that have been so helpful in the creation of the garden book!--SB_Johnny | talk 19:42, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Moths

Hi Richard, Just discovered you as a fellow moth-er c/o input on AshLin's page. Where are you based, and do you have a list of articles you're working (or have worked) on? Cheers—GRM (talk) 18:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello again, Richard. Thanks for responding. I, too, have rather catholic tastes albeit mostly for wildlife. These days, my principal interests are butterflies in summer, followed by moths, and then birds in winter; I also have interests in mammals, reptiles and ladybirds. When I travel (intermittently for work purposes), it all depends on what I can get in terms of ID material—for example, last year I visited Zambia and did butterflies, but for Sri Lanka I only had bird books! I am supposed to be working on the British butterfly pages, but I am waiting on a re-loan of "the book" from Cambridge library. I dabble in lists, mammal and bird articles as the mood takes me. Part of my philosophy of contributing is that if I want to know about something I do some research. If I have time, I rewrite what I learn for Wikipedia. Cheers—GRM (talk) 16:23, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Birds March 2008 Newsletter

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[edit] WikiProject Birds April 2008 Newsletter

The April 2008 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
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[edit] WikiProjet Birds May 2008 Newsletter

The May 2008 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
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[edit] Re Alphabetical lists of Lepidoptera genera

Hi, a message by User:Jackhynes has been posted on WikiProject Lepidoptera Talk page debating feasibility of alphasbetic lists for Lepidoptera family-wise genera. Would you care to respond? AshLin (talk) 07:30, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Birds June 2008 Newsletter

The June 2008 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
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