Talk:Tachinidae

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[edit] Taxobox and other images

I'm of the opinion a taxobox image should be of the highest quality available, and, at the very last, have some semblance of identifiability about it. The image should be a closely cropped representation of the organism in question; vast amounts of "dead air" or flowers, what have you, all look nice but do nothing to help define the subject. "Featured" images may be wonderful pictures, for sure, but the voting of lay members says nothing about the suitability of an image for taxobox use; indeed, the fact a photograph was "featured" says nothing about the provenance or identity of the organism.

Identifying insect specimens strictly from photographs is a dicey propositon at best. Unless a particular species has such an outstanding and unique set of characteristics that are easily seen and agreed upon by a fair number of those familiar with entomology and the structures in question, rarely can an identification to species be made. Most photographs can only yield identfications to family or genus level - and many of those are educated guesses.

I would venture to demand some sort of citation or supporting data underlying all images of insects deemed to be identified to species level, and the same for general identifications. The taxobox image should have at least one qualified expert concur with the designation. (In my humble opinion).

It is for these reasons stated I am replacing the taxobox image with one of my own, along with supporting data and references. I am also going to edit other poor quality and guessed at specimens on this page.

The Tachinids are an important family within Diptera; we'd best have a good article for these critters.
NOTE: having long bristles on the abdomen is not necessarily an indicator of Tachinidae! Nickrz 05:09, 29 October 2007 (UTC)