Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/Archive17

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Archives for WT:TOL edit
1 2002-07 – 2003-12 Article names
2 2003-11 – 2004-02 Taxoboxes
3 2004-02 Taxoboxes
4 2004-02 – 2004-08 Bold taxa; taxonomy
5 2004-03 – 2004-04 Taxonomy; photos; range maps
6 2005-04 – 2004-06 Capitalization; authorities; mammals
7 2004-06 – 2004-08 Creationism; parens; common names
8 2004-05 – 2004-08 Templates; †extinct; common names
9 2004-05 – 2004-08 Categories; taxoboxes
10 2004-08 – 2004-12 Categories; authorities; domains; Wikispecies; ranks; G. species; capitalization; Common Names
11 2004-11 – 2005-05 Capitalization; common names; categories; L.; authorities; algae; cultivars
12 2005-03 – 2005-05 Ranks; common names
13 2005-05 – 2005-06 Hybrids; taxobox format; cultivars
14 2005-06 – 2005-07 Categories; food plants; identification; Capitalization
15 2005-07 – 2005-09 Synonyms; types; authorities; status; identification
16 2005-09 – 2005-12 Paleontological ranges; Rosopsida; Taxobox redesign; identification
17 2005-12 – 2006-04 Taxobox redesign; identification; APG; common names; capitalization
18 2006-04 – 2006-10 Categorization; include in references; snakes; range maps; seasonality graph; common names; bioregions; brya;
19 2006-10 – 2007-03 various
20 2007-03 – 2007-06 various

Contents


[edit] Taxobox and AUM

Netoholic has changed Template:Taxobox so that it does not rely on conditional templates. However, the results as they stand are somewhat more brittle, and generally change the appearance somewhat. I would request any participants here to take a look, and give their thoughts. Josh

What gets on my nerves is that Netoholic is the most rabid about the "dangers" of these templates, yet he is one who makes more changes to them than almost anyone! And as we know, it is changes to the template that is somewhat problematic (although it seems to me that the fact they are recursive is not much more of a problem than the same template being used on lots of pages - which is exactly what we had before the conditional templates came in)! Not sure what we can do as now that Netoholic has discovered this template, he is not the sort to give up easily :-). Pcb21 Pete 09:08, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
I wonder if this is the cause of the difference in display of the author names created using the new and old taxoboxes(using taxobox binomial_authority versus use of Template:Taxobox_section_binomial_parens). Hope these can be made identical. Thanks. Shyamal 11:37, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't know, but the AUM-compliant version simply does not work properly. As such, until an appropriate substitute for conditional templates can be found, we're going to have to go back to the multi-template version. I've made note of this on the how-to pages; my apologies to everyone who put work into the single template system. Josh

With Khoikhoi's help I've been making various updates to fix problems with the single {{taxobox}} template. It will still list unused segments in non-CSS compliant browsers, but I think most of the other concerns have been addressed. It now handles multi-line subdivision lists, displays image captions again, and has a new 'image_description' parameter for the pop-up text. Unfortunately, all of the old pop-up text from multi-line templates was not copied over into the single template and would need to be re-added. If we can get a list of other problems with the template I think we should be able to sort most of them out. This template is still being used on a ton of pages and it would be a shame to convert them all back to the old format calls... and then need to change them again when/if conditionals are implemented in the MediaWiki software. There's a way to fix the non-CSS browser problem (WeebleCode), but it requires setting a blank ('|weeble =') parameter in every call to the template... for which we'd presumably need a bot. --CBD ☎ ✉ 12:54, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unidentified Pictures

Hi!
Yes you guessed it, it's me (Fir0002) here again!

MG 0163.jpg

I'm pretty sure this isn't proper wheat, but some kind of weed. Found in East Gipps, Vic Either barley or rye, not sure which
MG 0575.jpg

I think bottom clouds are cumulus. It's a nice photo but AFAIK it can't be really used anywhere, maybe it's something I don't know?
MG 0609.jpg

Again I'm just uploading it to see if it can be usefull anywhere
MG 0626.jpg

Some kind of weed. Found in East Gipps, Vic Something in the family [[Caryophyllaceae, probably a garden escape
MG 1372.jpg

Weevil? Found in East Gipps, Vic Agree a weevil, but no idea what species
MG 8597.jpg

Damselfish taken in an aquarium at the CSIRO center in Canberra
MG 8600.jpg

Another angle of same species of damselfish (I think)
MG 8599.jpg

Clown fish; Taken in the CSIRO aquarium Either Amphiprion ocellaris or A. percula depending on whether the thing at the front of the 2nd dorsal is an 11th spine (ocellaris) or not (percula) DM
MG 8757.jpg

Camelia? Yes, a double-flowered Camellia cultivar

Image:MG 8604.jpg|Taken at CSIRO center in Canberra - This, and the next two, are Phasmatodea. I'm afraid this is an order I know next to nothing about so I can't be more specific!RB Image:MG 8605.jpg|Taken at CSIRO center in Canberra Image:MG 8607.jpg|Another angle Image:MG 8849.jpg|Taken at Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra Dusky Moorhen in front, Common Coot behind Image:MG 8850.jpg|Taken at Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra Common Coots Image:MG 8851.jpg|Taken at Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra Dusky Moorhen again Image:MG 8860.jpg|Taken at Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra Domesticated farm Mallard breed Image:MG 8865.jpg|Taken at Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra - I think this is a male Magpie-lark RB Image:MG 9193.jpg|A malamute? That, or a Siberian Husky, or another similar breed (see sled dog for other possibles Image:MG 9587.jpg|Taken in East Gipps, Vic - These are froghoppers of some sort, I'm sure there are plenty in Oz to choose from! RB Thank you very much for your time! --Fir0002 05:13, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Notes in italics by MPF 15:36, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Concrete capitalisation rule

I think it is about time that we have concrete capitalisation rules for the common names of species. One problem that seems to be associated with this, is the difference of opinion between contributors of different areas (e.g. birds and mammals). What we could do, is ask each daughter wikiproject of Tree of Life to do a vote for their preference (if they have one), and then do a vote in ToL for the universal rule. Then we will have a rule for the less popular groups which do not have a wikiproject, and then the exceptions for the wikiprojects which requested it. Once that is done, the rules could be published onto the ToL page (including the exceptions), and the wikiprojects with exceptions could also publish their exception.

You will find that in any encyclopaedia, they have a preference and stick to it. Why should there be an exception in this encyclopaedia? --liquidGhoul 06:19, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Because this encyclopaedia doesn't have a set of overall Senior Editors to enforce a common policy! If you look through the archives (top of this page), you'll find it has been discussed (fought over, argued, harangued, ...) on several occasions, never with any firm consensus reached. What usually happens is that a majority of those who spend a lot of time working on species articles prefer caps (often vehemently, and with detailed logical reasons for doing so), but a majority of 'other wikipedians' (those who don't work regularly on species articles but look in occasionally) prefer lower case (also often vehemently, but usually appealing only to 'by-the-book rules'). This of course doesn't help forming a consensus, as the regular writers (fairly reasonably) take little notice of what is seen as "dictats from outsiders". - MPF 22:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
These points are exactly right. Ornithologists would not prepare an article without exercising their agreed to (among all ornithologists) right to cap common names. It would be quite simply wrong to follow any other "universal" rule. Therefore, it is the non-ornithologists that need to decide if they want to follow suit or not. - Marshman 01:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
For the record, I'm one of those strongly in favour of caps for species common names. But even more so (having seen much confusion and many acrimonious disputes over common names), I'm getting more and more in favour of using scientific name titles for plant pages at least. That has the side benefit of making capitalisation disputes disappear as well. Common names would become redirects (from both caps and lower case) or disambig pages (see e.g. Toadflax for a current example). - MPF 22:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Good point, with which I also concur; although I'm one that tends not to use caps for common names of plants, I would not object to so doing. - Marshman
My new proposal here (based on how the RHS Dictionary of Gardening deals this question) would be to have all plants except for major food crops at scientific name titles; major food crops would have two entries, one a long page at the common name dealing with cultivation and uses etc., the other a short botanical page at the scientific name (as done already for e.g. Coffee / Coffea). Many of the major food crop plants already have such long pages that they would benefit from a page split to be rid of the "This page is XX kilobytes long. This may be longer than is preferable; see article size" tag - MPF 22:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Although somewhat by-passing the original question of caps for common plant names, I see this suggestion as a positive one. I think one difficulty people are having is that (I believe) only common names that match a species are capitalized. Correct me if I am wrong, but even an ornithologist would write "An unidentified wren landed at the feeding station", not "An unidentified Wren...." Ornithologists have the advantage of having an "official" common name for every known species of bird. Inasmuch as there are some 40 species of Coffea, and only two provide most of the beans for preparing coffee, the common name "coffee" is not very specific, whereas Arabian coffee (or Arabian Coffee) is Coffea arabica - Marshman
Yep, correct! - MPF 02:47, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
One of the countertrends I've noticed when studying local desert plants is that at-risk species seem to pick up "common names" as part of the publicization process - it's been Arctomecon californica forever, but due to appearing in the local newspaper frequently it's now the "Las Vegas bearpoppy". I'm still dubious about a *general* encyclopedia using only Latin - even if all the writers are scientists, they're still expected to write for a nonscientific audience. Stan 22:28, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
In my area of interest (ichthyology) it's unusual to capitalize common names. As a professor of mine once put it, "only ornithologists do that for fear that their subject of study will disappear due to taxonomic inadequacy". I like the idea of articles being at scientific names, but it doesn't solve the problem as the common name or variations will undoubtedly be used in articles. Anyway, I'm sure there are house styles and some places where people capitalize the common names of fish, but in my experience it's not general. Demi T/C 19:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
It may not be common, but it is certainly done by some books; my parents' old copies of The Observer's Book of Freshwater Fishes (1941, reprint 1961) and The Observer's Book of Sea Fishes (1958, reprint 1960) both capitalise all fish common names fully and consistently (so do other books in the series, e.g. The Observer's Book of Trees). - MPF 20:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I'll be in favor of capitalizing fish species names when our leading source (FishBase) does. :-) Stan 22:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I would be very wary of making a general rule for all those groups that no-one's spoken up for yet. In those cases, once an editor appears who knows the group (and the traditions of naming it), he/she can make the decision. It would seem unfair to foist a general opinion on a group just because none of us knows it well, particularly since this topic has been controversial in the past. I do, however, think that a group-by-group approach may prove to be fruitful, since some real differences seem to exist between them (even excluding the ornithologists). The next question is what groups to choose: is it enough to make a decision concerning arthropods, or do we need individual decisions for crustaceans, insects, myriapods, arachnids, etc.? Similarly, can all plants be discussed at once, or must cryptogams follow their own rules? Existing WikiProjects make the task easier, but many groups are not covered by WikiProjects. Is there a reasonably simple way to work out who are the major contributors in each taxonomic area, so that we can ask their opinions and perhaps end this stalemate? --Stemonitis 16:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Only a stalemate if you insist there must be a consistancy rule. Ornithologists will always use caps, and for that group the issue is settled. To set up a different rule for different groups is really no different—in the end and day to day—than having no rule. Many articles could exist that include species common names from several "groups". So the only option (IMHO) is to either insist on caps for all (perhaps taking into account that the rule applies only to species common names) or let everyone do as they please and move on to more pressing matters. In plant articles, I usually do not use caps, but do not revert where someone else does. - Marshman 18:04, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I've already stated my opinion that capitalization should be discussed on the main discussion page for the Wikipedia manual of style. Others have decided that they don't want to submit to the general consensus, or even find out what it is. I've accepted that I can't do a thing about it. (Wiki-12-step-program). Mackerm 19:13, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

To dwell on the subject of ornithology's cap rules, here's how it works in a nutshell:

  • Caps for specific taxa
  • No caps for a group of taxa not identified to species (Marshman's "wren" example is correct)
  • Caps-no caps for hyphenated species vernaculars
  • Caps-Caps for hyphenated genus/species group vernaculars.

Example of the latter two rules: Henicorhina leucophrys bears the vernacular name Gray-breasted Wood-Wren. When talking about the genus Henicorhina, one would write "wood-wrens".

I have to admit that I do not always manage to stick to the rule - Wikipedia may be scientifically accurate in content, but it is not necessarily so in style, not being written for a scientific audience foremost - thus using the cap rules will sometimes look weird.

At any rate, I do adhere to the rules in page names. In the long run, however, it would be best to convert to scientific names, although this would mean a lot of detail work: the number of vernacular names is often very large, but the scientific name only occurs once per regnum. For birds, however, using vernaculars is not that much of a problem, as there already is a standard set of unambiguous English (and French, Spanisch and German) vernaculars.

But that is indeed not for the bird gang to decide. Avian taxonomy is pretty straightforward, at least as far as these things go.

[edit] Taxobox template

I created a new version of {{Taxobox}} which utilizes a method devised by User:MrWeeble to do old style conditionals without meta-templates or CSS. Please take a look and let me know if it solves the subdivision problems. Note, I left the CSS stuff in place for everything except the subdivision section. --CBD ☎ ✉ 20:34, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Taxo-categorization of category:birds complete!!

there are now no bird, bird genus, families etc. articles in category:birds and all non-species articles have been moved from its children to category:Birds by classification. It will be necessary to occasionally check through to spot badly or un-categorized articles, but most of the work has been done. Many subgroups still have to be created, but lack at themoment, articles for it to be required.

Maybe at some point I'll work up the energy to get started on category:plants, but right now, I want to do something new, so that'll have to wait. Circeus 06:43, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Well done! I just had a look at category:plants, there's not too many there, but category:flowers does badly need emptying of genus and species etc pages, I'll try to tackle them over the next few days - MPF 23:57, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
a very naive question i am sure but is there some kind of system that automatically checks if the category matches or mismatches with the family given in a taxobox ? Shyamal 10:30, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes - it's called "we check it all when we visit a page". *grins* - UtherSRG (talk) 12:38, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I asked for a bot, but it would not be able to determine when it is appropriate to use the scientific or the usual names, among other things. Circeus 16:13, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Improvement Drive

Frog has been nominated to be improved by WP:IDRIVE. Help us improve it and support Frog with your vote on WP:IDRIVE. --Fenice 07:53, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hoverfly

Are these photos of a hoverfly? --Fir0002 10:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC) Image:MG 1366.jpg Image:MG 1376.jpg Image:MG 1383.jpg Image:MG 1386.jpg Image:MG 1388.jpg

Yes. SB Johnny 11:23, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
And damn fine pictures they are! Circeus 22:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why Ectoprocta and not Bryozoa?

Why do we use Ectoprocta in our tree of life and not Bryozoa? I know that ITIS says that Bryozoa is a junior synonym, but I believe that in zoology there is no rule of strict priority for ranks above superfamily. Bryozoa is much more common, and it wins the scholar.google.com test.

I can see an argument that "Bryozoa" refers to Ectoprocta + Entoprocta + Cycliophora and therefore can't be used as a synonym for Ectoprocta alone — but in fact that's exactly how it's used by tolweb.org, in Valentine's On the origin of phyla.

An anonymous editor at Talk:Ectoprocta comments:

The use of "Ectoprocta" as a phylum name in place of the more common "Bryozoa" is a non-standard usage which seems to be pushed by biologists from the USA who are not specialists in this group. (For example, in Brusca and Brusca). The accepted usage "Bryozoa" - as in the "International Bryozoology Association". is preferred by all the experts in the field. It has long-established and wide usage. For the sake of stability, there is little reason to change. The argument that a former phylum has now been split into two "new" phyla fails to take into account the enormous difference in significance of the Ectoprocta and Entoprocta. What has happened, in fact, is the separation of a small group from the main group - which happens all the time in taxonomy, and generally does not require renaming the major group

As usual, this comes down the question: which classification system we are using here? Gdr 02:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

As the one who wrote the original list on Animalia, I used the name Ectoprocta because it appeared in most zoology references I'd seen, including Brusca & Brusca. I suspect it was originally a subgroup of the Bryozoa that was promoted to its own phylum, rather than an invented name change as he suggests, and has the advantage of being unambiguous. But if experts prefer Bryozoa, feel free to change it. Josh

I'd say "non-standard usage" is far from a correct characterization; it is true that at the time when the groups (ectoprocts and entoprocts) were split, bryozoa fell into dis-use, at least in the US. If it is now the case that Phylum Bryozoa is generally preferred over Phylum Ectoprocta (and I'm not clear that such is the case), then Wikipedia should reflect that - Marshman 19:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Here are results of searches on scholar.google.com which show some evidence that the name Bryozoa is more commonly used by researchers, and that this is still true in recently published work:

Period Bryozoa only Ectoprocta only Both
All articles 3,340 248 287
2000–2005 only 879 69 105

Gdr 20:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've been bold and switched our taxoboxes to use Bryozoa. Gdr 17:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Red-eyed Tree frog

The current article for the Red-eyed Tree Frog, is the South American frog: Agalychnis callidryas . However, I have recently created the article for the Australian Red-eyed tree frog (under its binomial name at the moment, Litoria chloris). What happens in a situation like this for naming of the aritcle? --liquidGhoul 04:08, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Keep the article names as they are and add a disambiguation note at the top of the Red-eyed Tree Frog article linking to your article. This should cover everything. Richard Barlow 07:57, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
(I have done this now.) Richard Barlow 08:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Project: Horticulture and Gardening

After wading through the pages in the related categories, it seems pretty clear that a project would come in handy. If anyone is experienced in setting up project pages, your help would be most appreciated. Part of a gardening project relates to plants, insects (etc.), fungi, bacteria, and so on. I hope some folks from ToL might be interested in enriching the "practical" side of such articles. I started the project this morning... Wikipedia:WikiProject_Horticulture_and_Gardening. I'll be bringing in some expert help from web forums related to horticulture and gardening. SB Johnny 14:17, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Treefrog or Tree Frog

I have just finished writing all the species of the Litoria genus into the article, along with the common names. The problem I found was that I got the common names from here [1]. As there are a lot of frogs which are not commonly named, only one book seems to name the lesser known frogs: Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World, : 59. The problem is, that the book that names the majority of frogs, uses "Treefrog" instead of "Tree Frog". There are a few things of which I don't like about this:

  1. It is not a word
  2. The Wikipedia article of Tree frog has the word seperated, Litoria is a genus in that family (Hylidae).
  3. Harold Cogger (who worked in Australia Museum for 40 years or something in herpetology) and Michael Tyler (writen 8 books, and over 200 scientific papers on frogs) both use "Tree Frog". I consider these two the experts in the field, it is just that their identification books do not cover all frogs. The book used by the website just gives names of all amphibians (I think).

I have seperated all "treefrog"s into "tree frog", but I was wondering if that was alright. --liquidGhoul 13:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

  • I think the best thing to do is check the common names from another source and the create redirects for the species that have sometimes been listed as xyz Treefrog to the right Tree Frog page. You can double check common names here. --nixie 00:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unidentified pictures #2

More photos!

MG 1744.jpg

Probably a Verbascum species, most likely V. thapsus (compare Image:Common Mullein closeup.jpg) - MPF
MG 2308.jpg

Agapanthus?
MG 1765.jpg
MG 1764.jpg

It looks a lot like this. --Khoikhoi

Thanks! --Fir0002 23:23, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I have to say that the last picture looks a lot like this. They might be the same species but I could be wrong because I'm not an expert. --Khoikhoi 02:53, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

As to the third picture, the closest resemblance I can find is Harestail Grass (Lagurus ovatus), photo [2] and [3] JoJan 19:40, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User template

I've made a first attempt of a user template that can be put on the user page of participants in the WikiProject Tree of Life : see User:JoJan/sandbox.

This user contributes to the
Tree of Life Wikiproject

As to the image, I used a cute photo of a koala. But suggestions for a better image are of course very welcome. As to the (temporary) background color, would it be appropriate to have a uniform color for the whole Tree of Life, or would the colors used in the taxoboxes be appropriate if one wants to distinguish the participants working on different groups, such as plants, animals etc... Any thoughts ? JoJan 15:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Member of WikiProject Tree of Life

I have used this as mine if you are interested--?jweþþ (talk) 18:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Although the koala is cute, doesn't it slightly carry the implication that ToL editors are a bit sedentary. An alternative, might be a crop on the tree in Image:Tree hadrian's wall.jpg. Or if that is too monochrome, hows about a tree frog. -- Solipsist 13:00, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
This is not a very scientific method of finding a suitable picture. Any of the millions of known species of living things could be in that box. How about this: the kingdom with the most species is Animalia; the phylum within Animalia with the most species is Arthropoda; the most diverse class within the Arthropoda is Insecta; the most diverse order of Insecta is Coleoptera; the most diverse family of Coleoptera is Curculionidae; unfortunately I don't know what the genus in Curculionidae has the most species, but Anthonomus is a large one. So may I suggest something like this:
This user contributes to the
Tree of Life Wikiproject
Eugene van der Pijll 17:22, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


Or, to better display the full wondrous diversity of life, allow different users to use different pictures. I would envisage something like {{User WikiProject TOL|Boll weevil.jpg}} producing the Anthonomus box, and {{User WikiProject TOL|Australia Cairns Koala.jpg}} producing the koala box. This would also allow members to display their specialisation within the project. --Stemonitis 08:47, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Best suggestion yet, make it so :). Pcb21 Pete 12:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
It is so: {{User WikiProject TOL}}. If anyone wants to change colours, etc., then feel free. To see it in action: my user page features said template with a pretty circular crab. --Stemonitis 12:56, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Expanded infobox?

It seems to me that the current taxobox could be expanded to give some structured information. For example, for animals at least, maximum lifespan and dimension, habitat and diet summary, and a standardized world map showing range might be nice. The taxobox also takes up a lot of real estate for the taxonomic hierarchy. Perhaps it would be desirable to tighten it up? Demi T/C 19:26, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unidentified bird

Hi! I was hoping that you could identify a bird which has been visiting my verandah recently. I live in East Gippsland, Australia. Here are some photos: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fir0002/Unidentified_bird And a video in case you need the bird call: http://peter.flagstaffotos.com/unidentified_bird.wmv

Thanks! --Fir0002 23:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

It is the Striated Pardalote (Pardalotus stratus). There are six subspecies, I think that this one is Pardalotus striatus ornatus. --liquidGhoul 11:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What type of fly?

Hey guys,

I don't have an insect reference books, and cannot identify this fly. Can anyone help?

Unidentified fly
Unidentified fly

Looks like a Greenbottle (Lucilia), a genus of blowflies, but there's probably 1,001 other similar genera (or, more realistically, 10,001 others!) - MPF 14:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] New taxobox template: everyone happy?

Is everyone happy with the new {{taxobox}} template? I am thinking about converting multi-template taxoboxes to use the new template. However, I noticed that User:MPF had changed Seemannia from a single- to a multi-template taxobox [4]. So is there a problem? I looked at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life/taxobox usage and Template talk:Taxobox and it appears that all objections have been addressed, or at least are not currently being argued. Comments? Gdr 15:37, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The reason I did so was so that I could add a picture and/or an author citation - the instructions page for using the new taxoboxes (at least the last time I looked at it, which I'll admit is a while ago) doesn't have any clear instructions about how to add in extra lines, whereas I'm very familiar with using the older ones.
There's also a few of the new ones where I've added an author citation at the end of the species line; the only way I could get this to format correctly was to add </b> after the species name, otherwise the author also appeared in bold text (the usual wiki formatting of three ' didn't work).
I also find the necessity to remove "Image:" from image file names is very confusing, I think that should be made so that inserting a pic is just a matter of copying the file name out of commons and pasting it in without having to delete part of it - MPF 16:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see: you have problems with the usability and inflexibility of the new scheme. I was worried that it rendered incorrectly. Gdr 16:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, thanks; tho' even more, I'd say clearer instructions, and some copy-n-pasteable templates with all the lines in (so that excess lines can be deleted, or <!-- -->'ed for future reinstatement, rather than have to be added), preferably a template for each kingdom style/colour - MPF 17:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll give the changeover a go and I'll see if I can improve the documentation. Gdr 22:21, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Now there's more examples of the new taxobox in use, I'll be able to make a template from one of them - MPF 10:36, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I added some cut-and-paste examples to Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/taxobox usage and tried to improve the documentation. Let me know if it's unclear or unhelpful and I'll see what I can do.

Thanks; they're still missing the image lines - it's a lot easier to delete lines one isn't using, than to know what extra lines to add, where to add them, and then to type them! (or, even better, rather than delete them, to put <!-- --> tags round lines not being used, so that they're still there for future editors to use when a pic becomes available). Also worth adding the name endings and format reminders (ophyta, opsida, ales, aceae, ''[[G]]'', '''''G. s''''', etc; compare the old-style templates I've got on my talk page [scroll down 2 screenheights]) - MPF 01:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Can I encourage you not to use tricks to squeeze the authority in next to the binomial? It makes it hard for programs to figure out what you've done. If it's imporant to place the authority next to the binomial when the authority is very short we can add a key to the template like "binomial_authority_nobreak" specially to handle this case. Gdr 11:53, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

No problem! I mainly did so because it was easier to enter (never having fully got the hang of templates!); no, I guess it isn't important for short ones to be on the same line even tho' I do think it looks a bit nicer - MPF 01:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

A separate issue: I notice a couple of pages use the rank "branch", for the Bilateria (e.g., Bilateria itself, and Symbion), which currently doesn't show up in the taxoboxes. Can this rank be added, or should the pages be altered to use only more standard ranks? --Stemonitis 08:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

For the moment Bilateria can be restored to the taxobox without a rank. Gdr 11:59, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Peculiar formatting / rendering problem

I've noticed where a species and its varieties are listed in a taxobox, the space between the italicised species name and "var." disappears, so the name appears as Genus speciesvar. thingy, instead of Genus species var. thingy. The space is there in the edit box, but disappears in the on-screen version - MPF 01:22, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Bugzilla:4830 Gdr 11:50, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Converted multi-template taxoboxes

I converted about 15,000 multi-template taxoboxes to use {{Taxobox}}. There are a few tricky cases that I didn't convert: there's a list at User:Gdr/Nomialbot/Report 2006-02-01. There are three common cases:

  • Article about two genera. We should add parameters genus2 and genus2_authority to support this.
  • Article uses cladistic taxonomy and this can't easily be made to fit in the Linnaean straightjacket of the taxobox.
  • Article about a virus. We should either make the taxobox support viruses or else make a new taxobox specially for viruses.

There may be some more that I missed. Gdr 21:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks hugely for doing all this!! Didn't realize I had so many ToL articles on my watchlist... :-) Stan 15:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Common names

As a new Wikipedian I have become increasingly bemused by the usage of common names for plants, the choice of one (sometimes obscure) "common" name as the accepted one, and the redirects of all other common names, as well as the scientific name, to this "accepted" common name. For example, I was checking out MPF's articles and edits in Parthenocissus and the various Parthenocissus species articles. Redirecting to a particular common name (which may or may not be "common", depending on who you talk to) makes little sense and represents a POV. I have already weighed in on Albizia julibrissin, known almost universally in the U.S.A. as "mimosa" but is known by various other names in other English-speaking countries (I am always amused when people insist that "silk tree" is the proper "common name", even as we all agree that Albizia julibrissin is the correct name). I'm probably opening an old can of worms but I would strongly suggest that the scientific name be the title of the main article, with all common names redirecting to the scientific name. One example is Parthenocissus tricuspidata or "Boston ivy", both of which now redirect to "Japanese creeper" even though this species is almost universally known as "Boston Ivy" in the U.S.A. In fact I have never once heard of the name "Japanese creeper" (and why "Japanese" when this species is also native to China and Korea???). My point is not that one "common name" is more accurate than another, it is that many species have multiple common names, any or all of which have varying degrees of "accuracy", and which vary greatly from one English-speaking country to the next. By their very nature, standardization of common names is a lost cause. MrDarwin 18:57, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree that all plants would be better at scientific names (see my comments higher up this page under 'Concrete capitalisation rule'), but this is widely disliked in some quarters (being cited as 'against wikipedia rules'); pages I've moved to sci names in the past regularly get moved back to common names by other users. Of the particular case cited, I'd be happy to move the page(s) to scientific names, but we should be consistent in this across all members of its category (i.e., everything indexed at Category:Vitales), otherwise trying to find anything in the index becomes nonsensical. The only reason I kept these pages at common names was because that was already the established use in at least that genus. Of Parthenocissus tricuspidata common names, Japanese Creeper (its standard common name here) is better and much less POV in (a) indicating a major part of its native origin, and (b) sharing a group name with related species (i.e. Virginia Creeper), whereas "Boston Ivy" is very confusing, indicating neither its native area nor its relationship, but rather suggesting it to be a North American species of Hedera. - MPF 19:22, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
At the very least, I would suggest that species that have multiple common names, particularly misleading common names (like the various "ivies") or common names that differ significantly from one region or country to the next, have their articles under the scientific name with the various common names being redirected to it. MrDarwin 19:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree with MrDarwin, and also cite the cases of common names being used like genus in articles, example: nettle is a genus! No, Urtica is a genus! This is an error.Berton 22:18, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
It is the case that most plants (other than rather rare ones) do have multiple common names for the reason that "common name" is what somewthing is called locally and plants are distributed widely (especially if involved in horticulture). Usually, the common name used at Wikipedia is a British or US East Coast common name and for tropical plants, anything goes (even Spanish). Unless common names are reduced to not being common to their location (what ornithologists did), there can not be agreement on what is the "real" common name - Marshman 23:33, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
I've moved the Parthenocissus species to sci names now (will edit the pages for style tomorrow) - MPF 23:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, that makes sense to me and I hope it makes sense to others as well! MrDarwin 14:15, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
As one of the "common name advocates" I suppose :-) , I'll give away a hint as to how to more easily justify the use of a scientific name - identify multiple species/genera that a common name is used for, and document them at the common name, making it into a sort of disambiguator. That way less-technical readers get to decide what they're looking for, before having to decipher an article written in science-ese. FishBase is a great example, in that it has a whole table of common names (in various languages) vs species, no doubt a great help to the ichthyologist trying to talk to Brazilian fishermen about what they're catching. I don't suppose botany has anything similar? Stan 17:00, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Of course that is a good approach. In general, when an article name is changed to a scientific name, the old name becomes a redirect. But I like your idea of expanding that to include many common names to either the same species or same common to many species (the disambig. page part). Could include other languages to the extent that an organism is known by its "foreign" language name in English-speaking countries. - Marshman 18:38, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleaned up Category:Frogs

In the last 3 days, I have cleaned up Category:Frogs. All of the families, genera and species of frog have been moved into Category:Frogs by classification. In frogs by classification, the large families have thier own category (e.g. Category:Tree frogs), and if there are enough species within a genus, the genus has its own category(e.g. Category:Litoria). I had to use my judgment as to whether to create categories for some families, which had very few articles, but the potenital to have lots because there was a large list of species (e.g. Category:Poison dart frogs). I hope this is alright. The families with no genus or species artices have stayed in Frogs by classification.

I have also started a category Category:Frogs by country, which only includes Category:Frogs of Australia, as that is the only I have created thus far. --liquidGhoul 03:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Now have Category:Frogs of India. --liquidGhoul 05:25, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikispecies?

Just wondering... are all the species pages going to be moving to this? (http://species.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) ... I'd never noticed it before, but found it through wikibooks. If not, what's it for? SB Johnny 13:25, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

See meta:Wikispecies FAQ Gdr 14:30, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I saw that, but wasn't clear on how it relates to the wp articles and the TOL project here. Is it just a taxonomy tree? Most of the pages seem to be along those lines now.SB Johnny 15:29, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Like any other wiki, wikispecies is what its editors choose to make it, but yes, its focus is on taxonomy.
There's no likelihood of articles being moved from en: to species:, but since en: is freely licenced, editors are free to copy articles in either direction.
For the original proposal, see the wikipedia-l thread starting here (there's more here following its creation). Gdr 16:33, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Botanical terms

While looking over the article on daylily, I noticed that the term scape was wiki-linked, but led to a page about something else entirely. There also seems to be no page for crown (mentioned on that page, but it's a red link and refers to trees specifically, not plants generally). I think it's good to have the term "scape" leading somewhere, because it's not obvious, but should it be a WP article, or a Wiktionary definition (there just doesn't seem to be all that much to say about scapes). If the latter is better, how does one link a wiktionary definition from an article? I've gotten used to the wikibook shortcuts, but can't seem to track them down here. (Sorry to be so full of questions lately.) SB Johnny 20:45, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Most technical terms will support an article; not only do you have to define the term, but you want to describe variability, show some pictures, relate to similar terms, discuss function, etc. See petal, inflorescence, and raceme for some good examples of articles that go beyond the dicdef. Stan 00:43, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Although it is clearly difficult to generalize here, I would disagree. Most technical terms in Botany/Biology are just definitions and Wikipedia is not a collection of definitions (belongs in Wiktionary where "variability, show some pictures, relate to similar terms" are perfectly appropriate accompaniments). Most technical terms belong to a family of closely related terms (functionally or morphologically) that together would merit an article such as you describe. I spend a lot of time making redirects of pages for terms that people made a definition page for, but have little chance of becoming a real article by themselves and which are treated already in articles. In the example given (scape) the term is one ripe for a disambig page and the proper redirect for the botanical definition under flower or some such; or direct to a definition at Wikitionary - Marshman 03:49, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I think for now I'll move the current page to "Scape (software)", and start a stub article. There are several other plant articles already linked to that page (That page also has bad url links, BTW). Problem with the wiktionary definition is that there are 4 meanings: (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scape), so that's not an ideal solution either. I'm still wondering about what the general rule should be. SB Johnny 10:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
An excellent example of the point I am trying to make is the article bract which at one time was headed for Wiktionary, but had potential for expansion and subsequently was. Note that many technical terms are defined within it, providing a place to link those terms to, as well as solid context for all the related definitions given. An encyclopedic approach. - Marshman 18:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
It's easy enough to create links in articles without checking exactly what they link to--I've done it myself, and that is clearly what happened here. But rather than linking to a simple definition of "scape" why not have "scape" (in the botanical sense) link to an article on inflorescences that discusses the terminology surrounding scapes, peduncles, bracts, racemes, and various other terms? Such an article would be informative rather than simply definitional. MrDarwin 13:44, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Is Wiktionary accepting multiple pages of descriptive content now? They didn't formerly. Stan 13:21, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Not sure what you mean? - Marshman 18:38, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
You said '(belongs in Wiktionary where "variability, show some pictures, relate to similar terms" are perfectly appropriate accompaniments)', which suggested to me that you thought more extended content was appropriate there. In general, dictionaries confine themselves to one-sentence definitions - even my 20-volume OED can rarely be induced to use a second sentence, even for a complicated concept, and explanatory paragraphs are only used to discuss tricky etymologies and the like. To take "scape" as an example, if there's anything to say about evolutionary advantage, remarkable growth rates, composition compared to regular stems, etc, I would expect to see that in an article here, not in Wiktionary. If there is no such additional info, then yeah, redir or transwiki (in the case of "scape" redir to either inflorescence or plant stem seems most sensible). Stan 20:16, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photos for identification

Hi!
Back with more pix...

MG 2000.jpg

Feeding on grape leaves, East Gipps, Vic, Aust
MG 2001.jpg

same as previous
MG 3083.jpg

Uh... That third one looks like a rose. The leaves are hard to see, but they also look like a rose. --liquidGhoul 04:45, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

The leaves look roseate to me; seems like a doubled gardener's variety. --Mgreenbe 14:55, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, it is obviously a cultivated variety, you do not get flower form like that from a wild rose.--liquidGhoul 21:10, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

The caterpillar is a hawk moth larva, recognizable by the horn on its hind end. There are some good Australian Lepidoptera sites and I will try to identify it specifically for you and let you know. Richard Barlow 12:09, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Got it! Its a Vine Hawk Moth (Hippotion celerio) - see [5]. No article for it yet, but I will write one when I get a chance and include your pics. Richard Barlow 12:25, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Further to the above I have just noticed Hippotion celerio also occurs here in Europe where its common name is Silver-striped Hawk Moth - When I do the article it will probably be under the sci name. Richard Barlow 17:55, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Open tasks list

Please help to keep the Biology portal's Open tasks list up to date. This is one of our main communication methods to help get newcomers more involved in editing articles. It contains a list of articles that need improving, articles that need creating, articles that need cleanup, etc. And of course, if you have the time, please help and work on some of the tasks on that list! --Cyde Weys 05:20, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Which takes precedence: official common name or actual common name?

"In cases where there is a formal common name (e.g. birds), or when common names are well-known and reasonably unique, they should be used for article titles."

What happens when a species has a "formal" common name that is different from its actual common name? For example, the formal common name for Caenolestes fuliginosus is "Dusky Caenolestid", but its actual common name is "Silky Shrew Opossum". Which one should be used as the article title? This is going to be a hot topic soon as it seems the 3rd edition of Mammal Species of the World (which was just recently published) has decided to make up more scientific-sounding common names for the mammals of the world. (I wonder if they renamed the Lion, "Tawny Panther"!) Kaldari 06:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Most of the common names in MSW3 are more "common" and less scientific. Different sections of MSW3 are compiled by different authors, and some were better at others in using more natural names thn others. When I recently editted the Paucituberculata articles, I noted that MSW3 called all of the shrew opossums caenolestids. I felt free to ignore "caenolestid" and kept the "shrew opposum" part of the name. However, C. fuliginosus is called the Dusky Caenolestid (Shrew Opossum) in MSW3 and not the Silky Caenolestid (Shrew Opossum). Was I wrong to use "shrew opossum" instead of "ceanolestid"? Was I wrong to use "dusky" instead of "silky"? (Have no feaar... Panthera leo is still "Lion".)
MSW3 notes about its use of common names:

Unlike previous editions, we have provided a common name for each recognized species. The starting point for these names is Wilson and Cole (2000), but each author was encouraged to examine those names and to provide a different one if there was a good reason to do so. Thus, this list can be viewed as a second edition of Wilson and Cole (2000) There are no urles governing vernacular names, but Wilson and Cole (2000) outlined several reasons for adopting a single name for each species of mammal.

On a side note, MSW3 capitalizes common names much like is promoted here via WP:BIRD (and WP:PRIM, WP:CETA, WP:CEPH), but MSW3 capitalizes after a hyphen while we do not. - UtherSRG (talk) 07:21, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Ugggh! looks like they've been browbeaten by Charles Sibley's peculiar grammatical ideas (on caps following hyphens) - MPF 14:24, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict-reply to Kaldari) I would argue that Duff and Lawson (2004), Wilson and Cole (200?), or even Nowak (1997) have as much claim to the "official" common name as MSW3. There are no official committees that oversee that sort of thing for mammals (unlike birds). Many of the common names in MSW3 appear to have the goal of educating by modifying existing common names so that they no longer infer incorrect relationships. Thus shrew-opossums have become caenolestids because they are not true opossums, tree shrews have become treeshrews because they are not shrews, and mouse-like hamsters have become calomysci (calomyscuses?) because they are neither mice nor hamsters. I'm a bit surprised that flying squirrels aren't gliding squirrels. --Aranae 07:23, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I know next to nothing about the ins and outs of mammalogy, but I would say that a real common name (as really used commonly by real common people) would always have precedence over a committee decision. If there's real discord, then go for the scientific name. A recently-invented "common name" is pointless, because we have the scientific name for referring unambiguously to a taxon. --Stemonitis 08:30, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
And, of course, common name is a slippery concept, as in Puma, which has some 40 common names in English alone. I live where the common name for Puma concolor (previously Felis concolor) is panther (see Florida Panther) (or painter, in many older accounts). Pick one, note all of the sourceable alternatives in the article and use redirects. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 12:54, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

There is no such thing as an "official" common name (which by their very nature vary from one area to another). There are various authorities who have tried to standardize particular names but these may or may not be in actual usage by the people who actually observe and talk about the critters (and plants) (e.g., "ladybug" vs. "ladybird beetle"). This whole discussion illustrates why (in my opinion) all species should have articles under their "scientific" name, with all common names redirecting to that. MrDarwin 14:18, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The concept "There is no such thing as an "official" common name" seems (as far as I can tell) to be a largely US attitude; over here (UK) at least, the various authorities - i.e., authors of the books that people read and learn their names from - have pretty much standardised most plant and animal names. Having said that, I agree that by and large, most plant species at least are better placed under their scientific name - MPF 14:24, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
A lot of us agree on exactly that point. Ornithology has made great strides in developing "official" common names, but that always seemed sort of "what part of 'common' do you not understand". Common names are common to the geography, and certainly one reason scientific notation was invented and based on Latin in the first place. I suppose the wide dispersion of many birds (migants) and a fairly tight professional and amature community have promoted their efforts at standardizing, a hopeless task here to apply to the full range of biota on earth (where most species do not have any common name). - Marshman 22:08, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
There is an international fully official list for French names,so I don'tsee what,s keeping English ornithologist tocomeup wth something. Circeus 22:20, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I think you mised my point or I stated in badly. Yes, there is an "official" list for bird names in English, but that does not get us very far here, as birds are but one small group of organisms. Wikipedia policy will always run into groups that have common names standardized and want to use that for article names and groups that do not have such a list and do not want to use common names as they often have no meaning to large numbers of users. Scientific names are standardized - Marshman 22:49, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I think the most important thing is that our articles contain redirects from the scientific name. I also think it tends to be a better idea to red link potential pages by scientific name. I have seen many instances where a species page is made and the associated genus or family page has a red link to that species for a long time after because the common name on the genus page differed from the article common name (not to mention capitalization differences). Common names are, by their nature, ambiguous, but I do think that most articles are better off being housed at their common name. The general public is simply less likely to tune out/assume they can't understand if the title of the article is less intimidating. There are groups which are exceptions (most extinct animals, many garden plants, etc.) and the general public is happy with Tyrannosaurus and Rhododendron. --Aranae 00:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
I think it may be more confusing for readers who are looking for one common name and get something unexpected. For instance, someone who is looking for mountain lion will find themselves in Puma, and may be perplexed. As Dick Smothers said to his brother, "There are no pumas in the United States, Tom. No pumas in North America.". Actually, in this case someone has chosen as the common name the name of the genus. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 02:07, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
But 'Puma' is a Native American name! - MPF 14:24, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Which Native American language? I doubt the Native Americans in, say, Florida, Maine and Utah all used the same name for the animal. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 14:51, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Looked it up - seems it is Quechua, from South America, so he's right after all . . . MPF 15:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
That far south? I thought maybe from Mexico or Central America, but didn't really know. In any case, I would argue that Puma concolor for the title of the article would be no more offputting than Puma for most people. Other cases are more or less clear, but on balance I believe putting the articles under scientific names would serve us best. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 15:19, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Yep; that's from the OED (they say 'Inca' from Peru, which means Quechua). Good point; of course it is a monospecific genus, and those, we put by convention at the genus name (c.f. e.g. Ginkgo) . . . so the page would be at . . . . Puma ;-) MPF 18:06, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
And Ginkgo is a special case where the Genus name is the 'common' name in English. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 00:40, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Except that one of the the first sentences of the article should say something like: "The puma (Puma concolor) is also known as the mountain lion, cougar, panther, catamount, etc. in which case I think Tom and Dick will manage okay if they stick around long enough to read a line or two. --Aranae 02:21, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
The same thing would be true if the article was under the scientific binomial name. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 02:49, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely. I just think Dick and Tom have more potential to think the article will be over their heads and dismiss it early if its title is a scientific name. I don't have a strong opinion on the subject, but that weak opinion is: create the article with either the most common common name or the official common name. Don't stress about it too much as it is a common name. Most importantly, make sure the scientific name redirects there and all available common names are outlined early in the article. --Aranae 03:03, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
I think that works, but in reality, there is not a lot of difference between encountering a scientific name and an unexpected (or unknown) common name. I think people are more sophisticated than you are giving credit, and would more likely look at that list of other common names if redirected to a species name than (if in their experience) a "wrong" common name - Marshman 05:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

This quote from George Wald seems to be relevant again:

In the original version of this table, Nuttall mentions Cynocephalus mormon and sphinx, omitting their common names. I have learned since that one is the mandrill and the other the guinea baboon. Since Nuttall wrote in 1904, these names have undergone the following vagaries: Cynocephalus mormon became Papio mormon, otherwise Papio maimon, which turned to Papio sphinx. This might well have been confused with Cynocephalus sphinx, now become Papio sphinx, had not the latter meanwhile been turned into Papio papio. This danger averted, Papio sphinx now became Mandrillus sphinx, while Papio papio became Papio comatus. All I can say to this is, thank heavens one is called the mandrill and the other the guinea baboon. Anyone who supposes, as Nuttall apparently did, that he improves matters by giving their taxonomic designations is only asking for trouble, and is more likely to mislead the reader than to inform him.

(Yes, it's tongue-in-cheek, but the point is that scientific names are not always more stable than common names.) Gdr 14:39, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Banksia identification

Image:Banksia sp.jpg
Banksia sp.

I can't identify this species of banksia. Unfortunately, I did not photograph the leaves, sorry. Anyway, according to the Banksia article, the flowers come in yellow, red, orange and pink. This is obviously not any of those colours, and I don't think it is green because the flower is young, as all the banksia flowers I saw on this trip were green. The tree was in Gloucester Tops, close to Barrington Tops National Park, and is at a high altitude, so the temperature is pretty much always < 30C, and can get below 0 (as it snows). It was about 4 meters tall, so was not a shrub. --liquidGhoul 04:37, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

  • As the article says there are 80 species of Banksia, and that flower is one of the more common shapes for Banksia flowers. Try emailing the park - a ranger would probably be able to give you a list of Banksia species in the park, if not the actual species name.--nixie 04:41, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Another Identification

Do you know this crab?
Do you know this crab?

OK, here I am again. I went frog watching with the local herpetological society, came across no frogs (heard lots), but hundreds of theses little guys. It is near Nelson Bay, NSW, Australia. The people there called them soldier crabs, but the current article for that is the European soldier crab (extremely different). I have no crab identification book (although I do want one now, they are fascinating), so could someone please identify it. I don't think it should be too hard if someone has the resources, as there are < 20 species in this area. Thanks. --liquidGhoul 13:14, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, I have found it myself. It is the Soldier crab (Mictyris longicarpus). Again, the common name has failed us. Oh well... I will create an article(s) for it tomorrow. --liquidGhoul 14:13, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Not to be confused with the Soldier crab (Dotilla myctiroides)[6], the Soldier crab (Coenobita clypeatus)[7], the Soldier crab (Mictyris platycheles)[8] or the Soldier crab (Mictyris brevidactylus)[9]. BTW, M. longicarpus seems to be the Light-blue Soldier Crab, as opposed to M. platycheles, the Dark-blue Soldier Crab. :-) -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 14:45, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
This illustrates perfectly the problem with using common names in a global context. I have made a soldier crab a disambiguation page and would strongly recommend avoiding all names like "light-blue soldier crab" in titles in favour of scientific names. --Stemonitis 09:37, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Just to add to the confusion, Coenobita clypeatus, which is called a Soldier crab on a Smithsonian Institution website[http://www.sms.si.edu/IRLFieldGuide/Coenob_clypea.htm, is listed in Wikipedia as the Caribbean hermit crab. It's a good thing we can link and redirect in Wikipedia. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 11:07, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I see you had already caught that. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 11:09, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Skeletons

how about making it a standard to include skeleton images with the articles that it would concern? say, all vertibrate organisms? the amount of times i have checked out an article in the tree of life, only to be disapointed with the results. only just now have i checked out the fish article, hoping to see a skeleton, so that i can compare with cetaceas, trying to figure the differences in swimmin methods (one has a horisontal tail, the other is verticly orientated). nothing on spine structure though. i realise you much get a lot of requests, and i would be greatful fro a moment of your time. thankyou kindy :) mastodon 18:36, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

You could make it your own project to include the skeleton of animals in the articles. We have one in frog. The problem is, that it is hard to get one which has good copyright on it. But, yes it is a very good idea. --liquidGhoul 23:52, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gray's Ratsnake

Can someone who knows about snakes take a look at Gray's Ratsnake? Is it the same as Coluber ventromaculatus? -- Eugene van der Pijll 17:33, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

They are indeed. [10] - UtherSRG (talk) 17:40, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks; I have merged the articles. Eugene van der Pijll 17:44, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Monotremes and Marsupials

I've created Wikipedia:WikiProject Monotremes and Marsupials. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:38, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tree disease

Tree with ingrowing twigs

Detail of ingrowing twigs

Does anyone know what is going on with this tree? It appears to have a mass of twigs growing in tangled clusters around its trunk. The tree might be a chestnut, but I'm pretty sure this isn't its normal habit. So presumably some sort of disease (cancer?). -- Solipsist 13:42, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

My guess, if it is anything at all, would be a parasitic plant. Do the twigs that look out of place look like they are the same wood? Other than that, I don't know. It might be nothing, it could have had a really good growing year last year, and it sent out heaps of shoots to soak up as much light as possible. --liquidGhoul 00:26, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Its difficult to be sure that all the twigs belong to the same tree, but I don't think its a parasite. At first I thought someone had been making some land art by weaving twigs around the tree, and also wondered but doubted that it could be an enormous nest. But, if you look carefully at the more detailed view, you can start with one of the main branches and find an area with a cluster of medium size twigs that grow inwards and they in turn sprout finer twigs. So I suspect this is all down to the one tree. There were several other trees of the same species around (there's a younger tree in the background of the wider view), but this was the only one showing the bizarre twig growth.
AFIK, ordinarily, with time, a tree drops any limb that fails to get light; either because they are growing inwards or growing into the crown of a neighbouring tree. With these twigs its difficult to see how they could even have room to produce leaves. -- Solipsist 10:23, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
I still think it may be a parasite. They usually grow in huge bundles, not knowing how much the tree can handle. They will also fuse with the tree, and it looks like they are drowing out of the tree, when they are really growing in. Stealing the nutrients and water. If you look at the close up photo you can see a green branch in there. If it is the same tree, shouldn't all the branches be in a deciduous stage? --liquidGhoul 10:42, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Looks like a gall canker. Is that an Oak? SB Johnny 11:11, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
  • It looks, to me, like a condition commonly described as witches broom. The characteristic symptom is clusters of twigs and branches giving a broom like appearance. It can be caused by numerous factors and affects most trees.--nixie 05:58, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, Witches' Broom looks like a plausible explanation. There is quite a good page about it here. -- Solipsist 08:22, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Somehow missed seeing this before – the tree is a Common Lime (a hybrid, Tilia × europaea; Tilia platyphyllos × Tilia cordata). This sort of twigginess is a normal character of some clones of this hybrid; it is vegetatively reproduced (propagated by cuttings, not seeds), and there appears to be a relationship between production of this twiggyness and ease of rooting cuttings. In other words, the ones that are dreadful for suckering are also cheap to propagate, and is thus a product of human selection. The two parent species rarely show this character, but it does occur occasionally. Although it does look very like a witches' broom, it isn't actually one in this case. - MPF 22:57, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] APG II and Wikipedia

I keep seeing variations of the phrase "Wikipedia has adopted the APG II system" in various botanical articles and it continues to irritate me to no end. While I believe the classification system devised by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group has considerable merit, and due to its influence should certainly be acknowledged (if only to compare it to previous influential systems, e.g., the Cronquist system), the fact remains that there are numerous authors of Wikipedia articles who have varying degrees of acceptance of the APG system. Morevoer, it remains to be seen whether the details of its classification will be widely accepted, and as it is already several years old parts of it are already being modified by subsequent authors. "Adoption" of a particular system published at a particular time means that newer, and possibly better, systems will be rejected (never mind the fact that adoption of a particular system represents a non-neutral POV!) MrDarwin 15:09, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you. Some editors have got the wrong end of the stick, I think. In my opinion, the situation should be something like this in all articles on taxonomy:
  • Use an agreed-upon system for naming articles, and in taxoboxes, to ensure a reasonable amount of consistency.
  • If you present any classification in the article, present the agreed-upon system too.
  • Don't mention Wikipedia "adopting" anything (we ought to avoid this in any case under the principle of WP:ASR).
  • Present alternate taxonomies where they exist (following the principle of WP:NPOV).
So I think you'd be well within your rights to remove phrases like "Wikipedia has adopted the APG II system", and to present other taxonomies. Gdr 16:05, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Darwin has raised a valid point. And I agree with Gdr how to handle this issue. Let's agree on using the APG II system in the taxoboxes for the sake of consistency. In the text however we can use a phrase such as "according to the APG II system, ....", while at the same time discussing newer developments in the field, as well as older classifications. JoJan 20:40, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Shanel 20:16, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template for missing taxoboxes

I created one: {{missing-taxobox}} - not very pretty I'm afraid. This will be helpful because i sometimes see articles without one. Toxodon is the first example. muriel@pt 13:36, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I generally slap {{ToLCleanup}} onto such articles. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:05, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

It's also a good idea to put a request here. That way the request will show up on interested peoples' watchlists. Gdr 22:35, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Maybe even better: a category for articles needing taxoboxes? SB Johnny 16:48, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Table for families

I have created this table to be placed in Anura (family list). I was wondering, before I implement it, whether this would be accepted. As in, is it better to have a simple list, or something more complicated but with more information.

This is obviously not the final draft. I will be adding more info, and different columns. The description column doesn't work for such broad classification, and it will not be in the final draft. I was just using it as a place filler. Thanks --liquidGhoul 13:34, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, I have decided that I am going to add it to the article, but I need some more columns. Does anyone have any ideas? --liquidGhoul 13:35, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Scientific peer review

"The board will consist of a dozen Wikipedians who belong to the scientific academic community. These members will be familiar with scientific literature (theses, articles, etc.) and will judge our articles by the standards with which they are familiar. Their grounds for critique will include factual content, prose, referencing, presentation, and compliance to standards and manuals of style. Preferably, the board will cover a number of scientific disciplines such that any scientific article will get an appropriately in-depth grilling."

Are there any participants in the Tree of Life-project who belong to the academic community and who are willing to participate in this peer review ? JoJan 15:39, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems very elitist to me to specify "academic community" - I thought the whole point of the Wikipedia project was that your edits are judged by your peers, who aren't necessarily professionals in the field. I have contributed to hundreds of bird articles, but, like many other contributors, this refects an interest outside my working life. I for one would prefer to continue with the existing principle of judgement by one's peers. jimfbleak

[edit] Breeds?

Is there a reason that dog/cat/horse breeds are being included in this project? In terms of taxonomic convention, they have no place in the Linnaean heirarchy of classification, or any newer form of taxonomic classification for that matter. Frankly, their inclusion seems a little amateurish and unscientific. KieranSamuk 03:13, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it's mainly for lack of anywhere else to put them. Much the same can be said of plant cultivars. I don't think it is a major faux-pas to have them forked out from here, as they are at least derived from real taxa. - MPF 23:03, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

But make sure that articles about plant cultivars and animal breeds don't use taxoboxes. Gdr 14:28, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unkown Dragonfly + Orchid

Hi!
Wondering if anyone can identify these:

MG 4109.jpg
MG 4112.jpg
MG 4121.jpg
MG 4123.jpg
MG 4135.jpg
MG 4137.jpg
MG 4139.jpg
MG 4146.jpg
MG 4150.jpg
MG 4161.jpg

I think it's a species of Gomphidae --Fir0002 www 10:05, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Also would appreciate identification of the orchid --Fir0002 www 01:09, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Don't forget to include the geographic info. It's next to impossible to ID most organisms without at least that. I would agree that it's probably a gomphid, but won't be able to help much beyond that. --Aranae 04:10, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
All taken during summer in East Gippsland, Victoria, Australia --Fir0002 www 21:34, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Definitely a gomphid - the widely spaced eyes are diagnostic. Yellow-striped Hunter Austrogomphus guerini looks a good fit - see [11] but don't treat this as gospel. Richard Barlow 13:02, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unknown Bugs

Hi,
Decided to start a seperate message on these instead of continuing from the above message.

As you can see they seem to be swarming of something. It was taken fairly early in the morning, after a night in which there was rain (possible reason for swarming?) in East Gippsland, Victoria Australia. Thanks for your help! --Fir0002 www 01:27, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

They appear to be parasitic Hymenoptera of some kind, probably Ichneumonidae (I'd imagine there are hundreds of species in Oz). I'm guessing they are newly hatched from their pupae - the rain you mentioned may have triggered a mass hatching. Richard Barlow 13:45, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Earthstars

I was planning on writing an article on earthstars (those puffball-like fungi), but came along more than a few problems. To make the long story short: The Geastraceae article says they're earthstars, so I figured I'd search for the missing genera. I found this article: http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/dec2003alt.html which is a couple years old and it talks about a species in the genus Astraeus. The thing is, that same website says... well, read the last two paragraphs. It says it may be in it's own family! So I guess my questions are these: Anybody have an update on this? If I make an Astraeus hygrometricus article, how should I classify it? and what about the Geastraceae taxobox? thanks!--TheAlphaWolf 18:58, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

We're not obliged to keep up to the minute with taxonomic revisions, at least as far as taxoboxes are concerned. The ideal is to choose a well-respected and fairly recent authority for a group and follow that in the taxoboxes, explaining in the article text when different researchers have come to different conclusions, or when the taxonomy is uncertain. For example, in Scorpaeniformes multiple taxonomies are presented in a single list with notes; in mammal multiple taxonomies are presented in separate sections with more extensive discussion. Gdr 17:47, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] www.arkive.org/

I've noticed widespread addition of links to this site by 195.188.139.172 (talk · contribs) and would appreciate confirmation that these can be deleted as link spam. Circeus 16:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind, seems that user has been warned before. These edits may be reverted on sight. Currently going through the pages that couldn't be rolled back. Circeus 16:58, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Slightly harash in that the links are on-topic, quite good and to a non-commercial (inc. no advertising) site. That site in some ways is a clone of the ToL project - articles are quite similar. But yes overall we don't need the links, but don't be harsh with the contributor. Pcb21 Pete 17:07, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
User has received a warning. If he keeps on this, I'll add more warnings and maybe a block. At a glance, while on-topic, the links are unnecessary: they either are more complete than the article (in which case we want to use them to expand the article, not just link to them) or less complete (in which case there is no point in linking in the first place), and the mass-linking ends up turning wikipedia into a linkfarm. Circeus 17:21, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
By that logic, what links are acceptable for taxopages? ToLWeb? CephBase? FishBase? Redlist? ITIS? - UtherSRG (talk) 17:30, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
After I remove the link from Biodiversity and Benedict Allen, I decided that it was not worth discriminating in this case. Circeus 18:32, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm with Uther. I think the links are a worthwhile addition to the articles. --Aranae 23:57, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

My mess should be completely cleaned by now. Kudos to UtherSRG, who did most of it. I've apologized at several talk pages already, and have rewritten the message I left on the anon's talk page. Circeus 00:17, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I almost went ahead and deleted them myself [12] Maybe I'm just bitter from too many unreplied emails asking for an image to illustrate an unusual article, but wouldn't it be nice if people donated images to us than use us to garner traffic to images we can't use. Sabine's Sunbird talk 09:05, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I am disquietened by the rise and rise of things called "spam". That used to be about commercial email and its broadened use weakens the word's impact.
However it is clear that these links were added en masse for the primary purpose of benefiting the target website rather than our own. Should be easy to come up with a policy statement that results in improvements to Wikipedia as the primary goal... Pcb21 Pete 10:44, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I've added a few ARKive links to pages myself (e.g. at Dracaena draco) as they're useful and very well-presented sources of referenced info which I happened upon while looking for data. I agree that it would be nice if the person who adds them wholesale would do so in the context of adding content to wikipedia, but I'd not want to delete them just because he doesn't do so - MPF 09:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Update: Freakofnurture (talk · contribs) reverted and blocked the IP for 24 hours, which might be a bot. Circeus 14:44, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Consistancy and algae

I hate to bring up old discussions, but I think it's important.

I think we should be consistant when classifying things. What I have in mind are the green algae, which depending on which article you're looking at are classified as either plants or protists (or may have a green taxobox saying they're protists, lol). Personally I think we should group algae in the protist kingdom. My reasons are:

1)(most important point... replying to people saying plants and green algae are a clade) As far as I'm concerned, as long as we do have the kingdom "protista", we are NOT going by actual clades. Meaning that if we DO start going by clades instead of the general taxonomy, we really should break apart the kingdom protista into all REAL clades. My biology book says protists are not closely related enough to each other (like all animals are, or all plants, etc) to justify putting them in a single kindom. So either we go by clades (and this goes for ALL taxonomic groups) or we go by the usual way they're grouped. We really have to be consistant. As of right now, wikipedia is a mess. If you go around looking at relevant articles they don't agree with each other.

2) Most places you go to say algae are in the kindom protista. I think we should follow the general thinking, although we should make it crystal clear to people reading the articles that the classifications may not represent actual clades, but that we are going by the general classification system.

3) This kind of goes with number two... I'm pretty sure most schools teach that algae are protists. If we start calling them plants, it may cause confusion among students doing their homework, etc.

So, do we go by clades or by the regular, accepted taxonomy?

4)When in doubt, I think we should do the simplest thing. The simplest thing in this situation I think would be to group algae as protists. We already have a ton of articles under the kindom protista, and changing them all to their real clades would be a pain--TheAlphaWolf 23:50, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

You are trying to set up some kind of division between cladistics and "regular, accepted" taxonomy. But there's no such division. Taxonomists of all kinds use methods from cladistics and are interested in the phylogenetic history of the organisms they study. Linnean classification, as practiced today, generally tries to make monophyletic groups: this is what taxonomic revisions like APG II and Sibley-Ahlquist are all about. So this is a red herring.
Your point about schools is also a red herring. School textbooks are always some years out of date; Wikipedia shouldn't be in the business of deferring to them when the real science has moved on.
The question, as always, is what taxonomy are you asking us to follow? If you want to persuade Wikipedia editors to use a particular classification, you're not going to be able to do this on your own authority. You need to find a widely respected, authoritative, reasonably up to date, and publically available classification for us to follow.
So what's it going to be? Obviously you wouldn't be happy with Cavalier-Smith (2000 or 2003) because he includes Chlorophyta in Plantae. So who do you have in mind? Gdr 12:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
There is no such thing as consistency in classification! That's because classifications change depending upon new data and new knowledge of relationships, plus the opinions of the systematists who work on various groups. The best that Wikipedia can do is acknowledge and discuss the history of a particular group and the diversity of past and present opinions regarding its classification. (Personally I'm opposed to Wikipedia "adopting" (officially or unofficially) a particular classification, such as the APG II system, because they are just another POV and rapidly become out of date.) MrDarwin 13:53, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Obviously, we have to adopt some system in each taxobot, but I agree that the article text should cover the more widely accepted historical and current classifications. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 14:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
In most cases the taxoboxes will probably "adopt" a certain classification, but I think there are many situations where the matter is controversial enough that taxoboxes should address both sides of the controversy. Here are two examples: [13] and [14]. Authorities are split nearly down the middle in regards to what to do with both of these taxa (though it's becoming less so with Cetartiodactyla) and I would argue that our taxoboxes should avoid taking sides in certain instances where the field is very balanced. There also seems to be a trend for removing taxoboxes for historical clade names that have no modern equivalent [15] vs. Amblypoda. I'd argue that these pages and others such as Ungulata are benefitted by having a taxobox, because it still serves the same function. In this case, however, it is quickly establishing the thought process behind the taxonomic designations applied by past researchers. Taxonomy is a set of hypotheses and our taxoboxes should be not be so rigid that they do not allow for that. --Aranae 20:04, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Taxoboxes are supposed to be simple summaries of the taxonomy as a convenience to readers. It seems to me that if we have to present alternatives in taxoboxes, then they lose their value as summaries. For example, the question of whether to keep Artiodactyla and Cetacea as separate orders, or merge them into a single order Cetartiodactyla, affects the taxoboxes in several hundred articles. Are you arguing that it's necessary to present the alternatives in all those articles? Gdr 21:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Presenting the alternatives for order-level taxonomy for species level articles would, of course, be ridiculous. That's not what I'm suggesting. We have to take a position at some point for all articles below the level in question. The discussion for Cetartiodactyla is only relevant for the Cetartiodactyla, Cetacea, and Artiodactyla articles. I'm also only suggesting this for situations where one alternative is basically not much better than a coin flip, or in situations where the term is outdated. The taxoboxes are certainly of value as a summary for historic taxonomic designations such as Amblypoda or Marsupionta, but it would be nice if they could be labeled in manner that indicates it's an outdated term. The same could be said for common, alternate taxonomic terms such as Ungulata, Archonta, and Cetartiodactyla - taxa which don't fit into our wikipedia-endorsed taxonomies.
In situations where the community is almost equally divided, we can easily make the taxobox within the relevant article be more NPOV by presenting the alternates and labeling them as such. I find myself really uncomfortable with treating taxonomy as something known with complete certainty when it is a series of hypotheses just like everything else in science. Making everything fully NPOV would be, as Gdr indicates, impossible, but a few minor changes on the more controversial articles would go a long way toward eliminating POV.
So the terms to go in the taxoboxes would be something along the lines of Historic taxonomic hypothesis, and Alternative taxonomic hypothesis. These would certainly only go in the taxoboxes pertaining to the specific article. --Aranae 22:44, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I can't see why treating green algae as plants requires that only clades can be used as kingdoms. As far as I know, there is no system that attempts this, but this doesn't mean that systems don't concern themselves with clades. For instance, Cavalier-Smith recognizes an extended Plantae, but treats most eukaryote groups in a paraphyletic kingdom Protozoa. Clade-only systems like Adl et al. don't concern themselves with ranks.

Here's how it seems to me. We need to use a kingdom Protista or Protozoa for basal forms, but there's no reason to keep groups there that have better placements elsewhere. For instance microsporidians are traditionally considered protists, but are definitely related to fungi and are considered fungi in newer papers, so they are listed as Fungi here. Green and red algae are definitely related to plants, and are considered plants in papers like the one referenced on red alga, so I'd argue that's what we should do.

We could also list both kingdoms. However, that really makes it look like the kingdom is the only or most controversial part of the classification, which for most aspects of protist and algal taxonomy is totally false. Listing all major systems would be ideal, but is very difficult - an attempt to do so on wikispecies has met with little to no support. As giving alternatives every now and then implies the taxonomy is authoritative the rest of the time, I think it's less misleading to list a single "sample" taxonomy and discuss variations in the text. Josh 23:38, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

"You are trying to set up some kind of division between cladistics and "regular, accepted" taxonomy. But there's no such division."-gdr.
What I meant by that is that the vast majority of places you go to say algae are protists. Doing a simple "protist kingdom" (or "plant kingdom") will show that green algae are most often placed in the protist kingdom and absent in the plant kingdom. All I'm saying is if we go against what others say it definately would be confusing.
"So what's it going to be? Obviously you wouldn't be happy with Cavalier-Smith (2000 or 2003) because he includes Chlorophyta in Plantae. So who do you have in mind?"- Gdr"
Well, I actually don't mind too much which one we choose. However, I DO mind that right now it's all a mess, and very inconsistant. Some articles are based on clades and others on other systems. Like the example I gave, protists. The kingdom protista is NOT a clade. Apparently green algae and plants ARE a clade. So here we have two types of articles, one not going by clades, and the other one going by clades. All I'm asking is pretty much what you asked, "what's it going to be?". I want to know what classification system I should go by. If we're going by clades, we should break up kingdom protista into the who-knows-how-many clades. If we're not, then we should move the algae into kingdom protista, since it's not a clade anyway. Since the second option is easier and generally more accepted (and as I explained earlier that just means more sources agree on it), that's why I said we should put them in the protista kingdom.
"Obviously, we have to adopt some system in each taxobot, but I agree that the article text should cover the more widely accepted historical and current classifications."- Donald Albury
Yeah, I think that's the perfect solution. We do have to adopt some method of classification, otherwise wikipedia is a complete and utter mess. It makes wikipedia look HORRIBLE when say a species of green alga is listed as a protist, yet if you click on the higher taxa it somehow changes into a plant along the way.
As for presenting both hypotheses, I think we should, but not in taxoboxes. Like gdr said, they're supposed to be short summaries. Presenting alternate hypotheses belongs, I think, in the articles themselves.
"I can't see why treating green algae as plants requires that only clades can be used as kingdoms." Josh
Because that's inconsistent. Ok, some authorities flip flop between clades and ...not clades..., but wy should we? It doesn't make sense to start grouping species into clades, and then to stop doing it half way through. What IS taxonomy if we do that? just a bunch of people assigning names to random groups of species just because they felt like it? I thought taxonomy was based on SOMETHING. You can't just flip flop between those somethings, otherwise what's the point? if you do that, taxonomy doesn't tell you something. Are they classified together because they happen to look the same, or because they're actually related?
With your microsporidians and green algae example, they're using clades. Which is fine by me, I just want consistency. --TheAlphaWolf 23:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Taxonomy should reflect natural relationships. Since the evolutionary tree is continuous, though, any division is going to be partly artificial, separating some creature from its parents. A clade is a branch, separated by a single cut, which automatically leaves a non-clade behind. There is nothing inconsistent about recognizing that the trunk is a continuous part of the tree, even though it is not a branch.

At any rate, although Whittaker treated all complex algae as Plantae, it is now generally agreed they should represent a clade. The only question is over which clade: the embryophytes or something broader. It's important we follow one of them consistently, but recognizing Protista does not force us to use one or the other. Josh 03:54, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Eukaryote classification

Perhaps this has already come up, but Adl et al. 2005, The New Higher Level Classification of Eukaryotes with Emphasis on the Taxonomy of Protists, is an interesting paper; the entire paper (as pdf) seems to be available for free. MrDarwin 02:32, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

It's been mentioned on the eukaryote page, and seems mostly authoritative on relationships. I don't think we should abandon ranked systems, but where possible we can choose them to conform to Adl et al. and the like. For instance, Phaeodarea can still be considered a class, but should be moved to the phylum Cercozoa. Josh 04:13, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ringnecked or Rose-ringed Parakeet

Someone suggested that the discussion about this species has been made here in the past. Does anybody know where I can find it? KimvdLinde 03:37, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confirm?

Rhacophorus owstoni?
Rhacophorus owstoni?

Can someone confirm this identification? I don't know much about Asian frogs. --liquidGhoul 13:10, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry, I am pretty sure that it is. --liquidGhoul 14:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Competing comon names ->Scientific name?

I always interpreted unique in In cases where there is a formal common name (e.g. birds), or when common names are well-known and reasonably unique, they should be used for article titles. Scientific names should be used otherwise. as that a common name was uniquely pointing at a single species. That implies that in the case of two comon names, one is the name for the page, the second and the scientific redirects. However, some interpret unique in that two comon names is not unique, and that the scientific name should be used in those cases. Which is correct? KimvdLinde 10:10, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I use your interpretation but I don't think it's been "policy-ized". Pcb21 Pete 10:19, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
If this is the consensus among editors, I propose to clarify the section to In cases where there is a formal common name (e.g. birds), or when common names are well-known and reasonably unique, they should be used for article titles. In cases with two or more common names for a single species, the most often used common name should be used. Scientific names should be used otherwise. KimvdLinde 10:54, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I have just assumed the interpretation you use. The problem with your solution for multiple common names for the same species is that it is often difficult to decide which name is the most common, and diferent editors may well prefer different common names as the primary one for a given species. Actually, I would prefer the articles to be at the scientific name and redirect/dab all 'common names', but that's a different story. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 11:37, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Donald - vertebrates tend to have "formal" common names, but plants and inverts don't. So the scientific name is best. I never thought about redirecting/dab'ing all common names, but it's actually a really good idea. Guettarda 12:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, I think the established situation is to use the comn name when available, although I would prefer the scientific name first policy as that has less issues and is more precise. And yes, sometimes two names are used equally, and in that case, the first sentence can make the difference. KimvdLinde 13:57, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Scientific names, at least for birds, are currently in a state of flux, and different authorities have given species such as Great Egret at least three different scientific names. People will search for the English name for birds and mammals, and this seems the logical article name. jimfbleak 14:34, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Redirects are cheap. Our first consideration should be that readers can find the article whether they are searching by scientifc name or any one of possibly several common names. Common names often need to be disambiguated, as well, while scientific names rarely need disambiguation. The example that struck me the most is Puma concolor (previously Felis concolor). The 'common name' chosen for the article was Puma, whereas I would think mountain lion or cougar would be much more common usage in English. In other words, the choice of which 'common name' to use seems to be rather arbitrary. -- Donald Albury(Talk) 14:57, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
We had recently that discussion on the Ring-necked Parakeet versus Rose-ringed Parakeet. The later is the official common name, and the most used name, so not an issue. The original question was if a scientific name should be used when there are two unambigious common names, or that the most common should be used (or one arbitrarily when they are equally comon). KimvdLinde 15:58, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mystery tree

Can anyone please identify this ornamental tree photographed in Costa Rica? jimfbleak 14:44, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

An Erythrina species - MPF 20:48, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
many thanks, jimfbleak 05:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
While my first impression was that it was an Erythrina, the flowers don't look right to me. The pods, on the other hand, fit. Guettarda 22:22, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming of populations

Should the article name of a population be the species name with the population name in parenthese, for example Horse (American population), or should they get their own unique name, for example American horse? KimvdLinde 08:15, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it's informal enough that it's a case by case thing. Whichever seems to work best. In this case, if you are referring to feral horses, I would say American feral horse (or mustang) to distinguish it from domestic horses in America. --Aranae 09:38, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, I just used it as a made-up example to get clarity. KimvdLinde 09:48, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Beetle identification

Green beetle
Green beetle

This message was posted on my talk page; since I cannot hope to answer it, I thought I'd post it here. --Stemonitis 06:59, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Can you help me identify the following green beetle? It was dead when I found it but has a jousting horn in the front making me think it is related to rhino beetles. Eltharian 18 April 2006
I would look among the dung beetles. KimvdLinde 09:25, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
The rose chafer beetle (Cetonia aurata) or the Potosia cuprea are good possibilities. JoJan 17:35, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
It looks rather different from the specimen on the rose chafer article. It also looks very different from the specimens of Potosia cuprea here (not the first picture, but the two beneath). If you think it is a Cetonidae, maybe it is a Dicronorrhina. There is quite a nice gallery of Cetonidae beetles here (personaly I think there is quite a likeness with Dicronorrhina hybrid). It would be helpful to know where it was found though. --IronChris | (talk) 18:36, 19 April 2006 (UTC)