Talk:Opabinia

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Geology: Cambrian Low‑importance

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Opabinia has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
September 6, 2008	Good article nominee	Listed

body

over sized ant head and bee like body —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.209.244.218 (talk • contribs)

Previous edifying comment courtesy of User:71.209.244.218. --DanielCD 03:33, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

scale inconsistencies?

The scale image appears to be in discord with the scale image in the H. sparsa article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Burgess_scale2.png). Specifically, in the scale image for this article, the H. sparsa is labeled as P. gracilens, and the P. gracilens is labeled as H. sparsa (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Burgess_scale.png). Nervexmachina (talk) 16:25, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The lengths in this article are from Whittington's big 1970s article. --Philcha (talk) 16:45, 30 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

curious/enigmatic

I deleted the word "curious" from the first sentence today for being unencyclopedic. Another user then inserted "enigmatic", asking in the edit summary if "enigmatic" is more encyclopedic than "curious". I'm going to revert. In the case anyone disagrees, please post here first. Subversive 21:55, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

classification?

The taxonomic classification given here for Dinocarids is not in agreement with the one in Wikispecies. Note that Dinocarida is there described as a phylum, not a class; and that Opabinida is given as one of the order (presumably the one for Opabinia species), not Radiodonta. Does anyone know which one is right? Any new information on current taxonomical classification of Opabinids? (My guess is the Wikispecies people know best; if nobody answers, I'll change the classification to match what I see there.)

Another question: two sources (http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Fossil_Sites/Chengjiang/Chengjiang-Biota.htm and http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Lagerstatten/chngjang/) do not mention Opabinia species in the Maoshantian shales (with which Wikipedia agrees: see Maotianshan shales), but one does (http://wwwalt.uni-wuerzburg.de/palaeontologie/Stuff/casu30.htm). Does anyone know who is right? If there are Opabinidae in the Maotianshan shales, then I suppose the information should be here (as it currently is); but if there aren't, then it should be deleted from here. (My guess is the source that does mention Opabinia is wrong -- note that it still mentions Opabinia under Arthropods, and that it gives bibliographic sources for most species, but not for Opabinia.) --Smeira 00:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

re: classification?

Can we not at least say Superphylum: Panarthropoda ? RV 28 January 2007

Size?

Are there any Inforations available about the Size of Opabinia? The size of the proboscis?

--84.57.40.83 11:58, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It says in the descriptio that the animal was several centimeters long, (4 or so) which is I think wrong? I think it should be 50 cm...

194.53.253.72 (talk) 13:42, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The sources say that the maximum length of Opabinia is 101 millimeters. Do you have a source that says 50 centimeters?--Mr Fink (talk) 16:50, 11 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The link to the Smithsonian is broken

But I'm not sure where that link was supposed to point... is there someone able to recover the original page?

--User:ptoniolo 2007-09-01 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ptoniolo (talk • contribs) 22:59, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sources & snippets

(in addition to those in the "refs" section)

Distinguishing anomalocaridids from arthropods and priapulids
The oldest arthropods of the East European Platform
Evidence for Monophyly and Arthropod Affinity of Cambrian Giant Predators
Morpho-anatomy of the lobopod Magadictyon cf. haikouensis from the Early Cambrian Chengjiang Lagerstätte, South China
A Cambrian gilled lobopod from Greenland
Why are arthropods segmented?
Arthropod origins
A new xenusiid lobopod from the Early Cambrian Sirius Passet fauna of North Greenland
Giant Predators from the Cambrian of China
Origin, diversification, and relationships of Cambrian lobopods - "comparison between the dorsal spines of Cambrian lobopods and small shelly fossils suggest that Cambrian lobopods might have originated from the Meishucun radiation and diversified in the Qiongzhusi radiation."
Arthropod body-plan evolution in the Cambrian with an example from anomalocaridid muscle
Phylogeny and life habits of Early Arthropods-Predation in the Early Cambrian Sea
Evolution of cephalic feeding structures and the phylogeny of Arthropoda

-- Philcha (talk) 17:55, 21 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA

Hey, I agree that this article is ready to run for GA! Although you do need to sort out the "notes" and "references" sections. Great work!! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:10, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Opabinia/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Hi, I will be reviewing your article for GA. It looks like a very interesting article. I will be adding comments as I read through it. Please feel free to add comments or to contact me. —Mattisse (Talk) 00:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

"it was thought to be" is repeated in the lead. For variety, other wording should be used. Also, it is in the passive voice. If possible, it would be better to say who thought it rather than being indirect.

Rephrased, see what you think. -- Philcha (talk) 08:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Description

Done "Opabinia looks so strange that the audience at the first presentation of Whittington's analysis laughed." This needs a direct citation. -- Philcha (talk) 08:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

W's 1975 paper.

Done Budd should be wikilinked at first mention.

Also w-linked Derek Briggs. No articles exist for Bergström or Zhang. -- Philcha (talk) 08:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Theoretical significance

Is there a link for the "explosive" hypothesis"?

No, but there's a "main" article about the whole complicated issue. -- Philcha (talk) 08:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments

I think the article is very good. You have done an excellent job. There are a few irregular things like using quotes for words like "aunt" and "cousins" but I assume that the referenced text used those words as well. And for "triangles", the quotes seem the best way to go.

Re "triangles", I'm glad you agree. IIRC the refs use "sub-triangular ...", which would have to be explained without using the (copyright) pics in the refs.

"Aunts and cousins" appears to be my own coinage, but make the family tree implications obvious - including that the concepts are relative, see the comments on tardigrades. "Aunts and cousins" are an extension of "sister-group", which is common in the literature. I chose this approach because Wikipedia:Make_technical_articles_accessible encourages the use of familiar analogies - e.g. I used a couple in Tyrannosaurus#Locomotion to avoid having to explain the physics of angular momentum, and everyone seemed happy with that. In a lot of WP paleo articles I think "aunts and cousins" does the job without the need to refer to and explain stem groups, etc. In this case I had to define "stem group" etc. in the theoretical section because historically the theory and the finds of other lobopods combined to change the evaluation of Opabinia's implications for the Cambrian explosion. But that's at the end, and I think the analogy does the job well earlier in the article. -- Philcha (talk) 21:12, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if lobe+gill should be spelled out more formally: lobe-plus-gill or lobe plus gill.

If I had to change it, I'd want the hyphenated version, as it's the combination that's significant. I went for "lobe+gill" becuase I think that makes the point even more visibly.

Under Further reading the books need isbns.

Removed the section:Gould is cited (incl ISBN); Opabinia fossils have been found (so far) only in Burgess Shale, not Chengjiang. -- Philcha (talk) 21:12, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Final GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

—Mattisse (Talk) 23:58, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Image quality

Is there a slightly better version of the 'comparative sizes' image under 'History of discovery' - the text is unreadable on expansion. Jackiespeel (talk) 13:42, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can (barely) read the text in the image, mostly because I'm using a desktop computer with a large screen. @Jackiespeel:, I'm presuming that you're reading from a tablet or similar handheld device? Perhaps we could ask @DinoGuy2: if he could modify the text?--Mr Fink (talk) 15:06, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was using a computer too (and clicking on the image): the text is readable now.

Another diagram 'if you fancy it' - the creatures on the diagram from opabinia to hallucigenia as compared to an adult human hand. Jackiespeel (talk) 18:23, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]