User talk:Dysmorodrepanis~enwiki/Archive070101-071119

Previous: Talk page archive 2005-2006

Next: Talk page archive 07-NOV-22 - 09-APR-15

Domestic pig#Needs Attention

Replied to your post at Domestic pig#Needs Attention.

:)

--Alf 17:49, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Re-replied. Dysmorodrepanis 18:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Re-re-replied. --Alf 07:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Ecdysozoa: Thanks

At last, I have met another biologist here, who is also sceptical about Ecdysozoa. It was rather hard to persuade Jefffire that to question this odd grouping is not just a POV by an old-fashioned Russian biologist. By the way, how many zoologists (if you know any, and for all I see, I suspect you do know some of them) support the Ecdysozoa hypothesis in your "intellectual environment"? Alexei Kouprianov 23:12, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is general agreement that it provides a good concept to start with and is an important breath of fresh air - but that the monophyly of the group (or the content of the Ecdysozoa as a monophyletic group) has not been established to satisfaction.

What can one say? The morphological characters uniting the Ecdysozoa (as originally proposed) are not autapomorphies. The molecular characters are, but then, there are other molecular analyses that indicate non-monophyly or even paraphyly of the "traditional" Ecdysozoa.

Personally, I would be very cautious about trying to get back the old Articulata... vertebrates, after all, are kind of segmented too so segmentation in itself is apparently a synapomorphic thing.

I think I will (over the next half-year or so) try to revie more current literature. But I sometimes fear that horizontal gene transfer might have played a bigger role in the issue than suspected, and biology is only now really getting a hold of that concept. What we know is that the metazoan radiation started (probably) in the late Vendian/Ediacaran, and the creatures that were around at that time still make good "targets" for HGT, soft-skinned and with no discrete reproductive organs one can discern (what if they reproduced asexually such as by budding or division? Every single body cell subject to viable HGT could theoretically give rise to a new "species", possibly even one with drastically altered bauplan).

Especially as regards nematodes - there is no reason (IIRC) to rule out yet that they are all descended from a parasitic ancestor; in fact this would explain much of the problems we have in placing them. Morphologically, nematodes stand apart from all other Metazoa, but is this indicative of their evolutionary relationship, or a consequence of their evolutionary path? Maybe in the future we can tell. At present, I think to consider the Ecdysozoa more than an interesting hypothesis with quite some merit to it would be premature. But it's not my primary research topic.

FWIW, as regards "things that took strange twists and turns in their evolution", they're finally going to sequence Trichoplax! This is very much about time, and I have been waiting for it for 10 years (my professor told me when I asked him, "but nobody does Trichoplax, leaving me very dismayed). Many insights will come from that project, I am certain - not so much as to where they go in the evolutionary tree, but as regards how a simplification in bauplan boils down genomically. That their ancestors were less simple animals I think is universally accepted. And the latter might also hold true for nematodes. Dysmorodrepanis 15:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

European Magpie

No big deal, but I notice that this article has the US spelling of "behavior", which seems a bit odd if this bird is split from the NAm forms. Would you object to changing to the spelling standard in Europe? Jimfbleak.talk.10:12, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Of course not! Thanks! Dysmorodrepanis 17:09, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Melospiza melodia

Hi Dysmorodrepanis; I have uploaded a new picture of Melospiza melodia, Image:Melospiza_melodia_31766.JPG, that may be better than my earlier Image:Melospiza_melodia_01450t.JPG. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 04:51, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Will see where to put it in the article! It is very informative. Dysmorodrepanis 08:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Bird page update ?

Hi ! I am sure you have seen the Livezey paper [1]. Wonder if bird can do with some updates. Shyamal 03:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Currently the discussion of Livezey/Zusi rages on the Dinosaur Mailing List. But I'm collecting all papers I can come up with in my sandbox, and I think this will be the project to work on during the next months. The scope of the update is massive. While the basic structure is being increaingly fleshed out (The Coronaves internal structure seems one of the more consistent proposals), there is still much work to do on the internal structure of the apparent clades before anything definitive can be said. For the time being, I am putting together the information in the orders' pages (see for example Flamingo or New World vulture - especially the source code of the latter page). Near passerine needs an overhaul, but that's probably where I'll start as this is the only probable clade that is fairly well resolvable both internally and in its relation to other "higher landbirds". But take a look at that page, which I just gave a preliminary makeover so that it is acceptable - you'll see just how much information must be worked into the thing. It has really started last year; the thing to do for this year is to review it all for WP so that by the end of 2007, WP is hopefully the most comprehensive open-source source on Neornithine evolution available anywhere. Dysmorodrepanis 08:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

new species

Hi. Thank you for fixing and expanding the articles which I created about the new species. Thanks. AstroHurricane001^{(Talk+Contribs+Ubx)} 18:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Always most welcome; keep up the good work! (I am currently adding notes of caution to the Antpitta and Tapaculos as regards their family assignment. Check in 1 hour or so, when I should have the family articles done. But don't do it without your favorite cordial, you have been warned ;-) ) Dysmorodrepanis 18:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Inca Dove stuff

Boy, does that article need some expansion. Before that, please take a look at the argument I've made in favor of re-reverting to Columbina on Talk:Inca Dove. I won't re-revert until we've come to a final consensus, but I've simply followed the AOU / SACC lead on this, and, well, they're the authorities on the matter, not I. Thoughts? -- Miwa * talk * contribs ^_^ 09:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts were added to the Talk page. Dysmorodrepanis 16:37, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Stitchbird

Hey mate. Do you know if any family name is in the works for the Hihi? I mean, the page is kind of wierd at the moment, the family is 'monotypic' and the cat is still honeyeater. It looks kind half finished. (As a boastful aside, Stitchbirds are one of my study species for my PhD! I hope I can get a photo of them doing the face to face breeding for the page!) Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:54, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Heh, it is half finished - the research, that is. I have also catted it in Corvida to reflect that it should be classified as a distinct monotypic family, but left it in the Meliphagidae cat because that's where field guides etc will keep it (the categories are good for handling such cases of controversy and/or latest science). As families fall under ICZN fules, the taxobox will have to await formal publication of a name. New paper on wattlebird's out now IIRC, so tomorrow I'll look into the matter and see what I can draw from this and the other stuff we collected on the Passeriformes talk page. At least I'll add some info to make it less confusing.

Good luck with the stitchbirds! I'm gonna try and get a photo for Meller's Duck on Sunday. Last time I tried, they were not cooperative. Gonna talk the guys at the lab and at the zoo into letting me do some sequencing of these one day... Keep up the good work! Dysmorodrepanis 03:02, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Categories in your sandbox

Could you please remove the categories from User:Dysmorodrepanis/Sandbox7? I am working on cleaning up categories for North American animals, and this sandbox page is very distracting. Thank you, Dr. Submillimeter 14:56, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh sorry, that should have been entirely deleted long ago! Thanks for informing me, it's gone now. Dysmorodrepanis 17:05, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Bird Feature Article

Hello! I'm trying to raise Bird to feature article status from its present good article classification. Any suggestions or help would be appreciated............Thanks..Pmeleski 02:37, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

To be honest: don't. By the end of 2007, the phylogeny & evolution section will look WAY different from today for all the new knowledge. I'd rather see to that the groundwork gets set, i.e. the anatomy articles and behavior, conservation, ecology (+ reproduction) sections get cleaned up and linked to GOOD articles on the topic (a lot of the detailed "see main article"s are fairly stubby or lacking at present). As regards behavior and anatomy, e.g. the stuff on the avian brain is for some 80-90% either redlinked or totally obsolete as we had major scientific breakthroughs since 2000 (we can only now seriously try to understand it). Basically, much of the good stuff about birds would be Original Research as of now. In 12 months or so, it'll gonna look way different.

(To be REALLY honest, I'd not call this article Good at present. B-class for the most part, really. The scientific view on birds is undergoing a major shift at present, mainly for much missing info coming in as we discuss it.

In any case, I'll be on a field trip the next weeks (totally unbird stuff) and see where it's at when I get back, and throw in my 2 cents. (Don't be discouraged, be bold! It's just I wouldn't do it because as far as I know mayself, I could forget doing much else for the next year or so ;-) ). Thanks for the kind notice! Dysmorodrepanis 02:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• Raises eyebrow* I'm anticipating some radical new stuff taxonomically, but I wasn't aware that everything else was going to change too. Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

PS its about time you archived your talk page! It takes too long for my rubbish connection to load it! Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

It's basically that we have enough to start putting it all together. EG we know that there's something about Cypselomorphae, but how do they group with doves? Resolving interordinal relationships should be possible fairly robustly by simply joining together the extant order-level studies. Tommy Tyrberg is working on Ornithothoraces phylogeny. If you check out the bird brain anatomy page, you'll get slaughtered by redlinks, etc. Gonna do the archive before I leave, thx! Dysmorodrepanis 03:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Archaeopteryx

Hi Dys,

I know that you are leaving for a trip soon, but you seem to be our go-to guy when it comes to fossil birds. The WikiProject Dinosaurs team is planning to send Archaeopteryx to FAC soon, and, quite frankly, this article is a bit of a mess. I do understand that you are incredibly busy now, but when you do have an opportunity, could you give the article a quick glance to see what we're missing? Since this is the only article we've extensively reworked which overlaps into the WikiProject Birds area, comments from someone more familiar with fossil avians or avians in general is crucial. Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated. Firsfron of Ronchester 19:36, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, there is one important bit to add: the Dinosaur Mailing List archives (-> Google) have a discussion of Mayr's preliminary analysis of the latest specimen ("...with theropod features..." was the paper's title; it's on the Archie article IIRC) + erratum for the cladistics fans here to fillet.

Much uncertainty, and if there's one person to ask for input, I'd say it's Tommy Tyrberg. Suffice to say that at present, I'd love to see each specimen remarked upon its peculiarities separately (to be honest, we don't know if they're all one single species, and the odds are slightly against - they grew up, most likely, like "reptiles", i.e. in bouts, tho). Mayr of Senckenberg too has possibly seen more of Archie than most ppl. and I'd try and contact him for input. He might be busy with cool stuff tho.

What seems parsimonious - but just that - is that some specimens don't seem to line up with either Confuciusornis or modern birds; the former because some Archies have got a distinct, more enatniornithine-like (don't quote me on that) evolutionary trajectory, the latter because Confuciusornis are just too derived aerodynamically ro compare well. Keep your eyes peeled for Tyrberg's, Marjanovic's next, & Mayr's last papers featuring Archie; read with the necessary pinch of salt (see how quality of analyses varies even with one single main author) and draw your own conclusions!

That being said, I entirely trust the dino crew. Good folks they have, and of course, when I'll be back and see sth contradicted by some paper, I'll gladly add the ref. Dysmorodrepanis 03:00, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

White-chested White-eye

Hello I have a little problem whith this statement:

EPBC Act List of Threatened Fauna

The EFBC Act listed Zosterops albogularis as extinct since 2000. But Birdlife is knowing of least two confirmated sightings in 2003 and 2005. So how can a goverment body say that this bird is extinct? --Melly42 06:36, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The EPBC listing is a legal framework incorporating political considerations whereas BirdLife's is more purely scientific and has no legal standing - I think that the EPBC listing came about in 2000 because of the lack of verified sightings, and it means simply that conservation measures specifically for this species won't be eligible for Federal funding (e.g. via the DEWR). It might be dealt with in the article by changing conservation status to PE and remarking that due to the EPBC listing, the taxon is currently "legally" extinct but that "scientifically", it is presumed to be not entirely gone.

This issue sometimes pops up, such in the case of the Tasmanian Tiger: there was quite some discussion whether it should be reclassified as Extinct - not because of the suppposed sightings themselves, but because the nature reserve set aside for it based on these sightings (which harbours much of the remaining Tasmanian woodland ecosystem + associted threatened species) was specifically maintained as a TasTiger reserve, and classing this as EX would mean that the reserve would lose its protection status too. Dysmorodrepanis 19:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Bunyip

I liked your contribution at bunyip. I was going to try to include those points myself. Do you think the link Aboriginal mythology might be better further down? Perhaps where you differentiate between the folk and indigenous myths. Regards, Fred 22:42, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Change as it pleases you. Dysmorodrepanis 00:04, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Input invited

Hi. I'm planning to spend a bit of time in the next couple of weeks or so trying to improve Slender-billed Curlew, with the aim of bringing it up to GA status. Any suggestions you have would be much appreciated at the article's talk page. Thanks SP-KP 22:39, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

bird evolution

I take it you're back from your field trip, hope it was fun (or at least tolerable). I'm sure you noticed that we ignored your advice and went ahead and took on bird. As part of it I split out bird evolution today so that I can hack down and reorganise the section in the main article (a task I am not looking forward to). It's just the old section at the moment, but I'll try and work on it, and since you're our best taxonomist/evolutionist I thought I'd better flag it up. Incidenatlly, have you see this paper ...

• Ericson PGP, Anderson CL, Britton T, Elzanowski A, Johansson US, Kallersjo M, Ohlson JI, Parsons TJ, Zuccon D, Mayr G (2006)"Diversification of Neoaves: integration of molecular sequence data and fossils" Biology Letters 2(4): 543-547

and the related bun fights, I mean, replies? Quite interesting. Sabine's Sunbird talk 23:25, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Wandering Jew

I split the Wandering Jew pages up like you suggested. Double check if you want to, but I think I did it correctly. Dark jedi requiem 01:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks aplenty! (see here) Dysmorodrepanis 01:12, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Passerines

Did you ever know that you're my hero? and ev'rything I would like to be? I can fly higher than an eagle, 'cause you are the wind beneath my wings. Seriously though, amazing work. Looks like we have some more family pages to create and write. I did one of the finches today, and I'll hunt down some info on the Hyliotidae tomorrow. I saw one of those in Uganda and the guide book stated that it was an oddball lumped in with the warblers for no particularly good reason. Nice to get a little resolution on that. Nice little bird. Sabine's Sunbird talk 10:56, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

PS I just noticed that Sylvia is a babbler. That is funny beyond words. Oh those crazy taxonomists. Sabine's Sunbird talk 11:18, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Or the other way around (the way I like it better, reciprocal monophyly after all) - that most warblers aren't warblers, but that the "true" fulvettas (Fulvetta) are also among the truest of warblers?

I wonder what will come from decent sampling of the Turdidae and Muscicapidae... Many thanks for the Przewalski-finch BTW! Dysmorodrepanis 16:37, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and there is no such thing as a laughingthrush anymore it seems.... for the time being. When I'm through with that article, you'll see why :) Dysmorodrepanis 18:48, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Without wading through the papers (I'm at qwork at the mo) did the research support splitting out the chats into the Muscicapidae? It always struck me as somewhat odd. Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:59, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

See last paper I added on Passerine talk page! Let me put it this way, without having seen the primary ref:

"Yes... but the Muscicapidae could be Sylviidae (paraphyly galore) and Timaliidae (low sampling density) combined..." would be a nice way to put it. ;-) Dysmorodrepanis 22:05, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Hyliotidae

Do you have a paper that uses this name? I have Fuchs (2006) which talks about the deep split but I can't find a ref on the name. He doesn't propose it in the paper as far as I can see. Maybe we have a Stitchbird like situation? Sabine's Sunbird talk 04:28, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

No, and I have changed it accordingly on Passerine. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 39 (2006) 186–197 (see Old World warbler: Fuchs et al 2006) is the one and only paper this far and does not propose the name. So copy/paste from stitchbird. Dysmorodrepanis 04:40, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Gotcha. I'm suprised he didn't name it there and then. Nothing like the imortality that comes from naming a family. Looks like a strong contendor for a family to me. Sabine's Sunbird talk 04:42, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Sylviidae

I suggest that the page be moved to Sylviidae and Old World warbler. No disagreements here, tomorrow's Anzac Day so I should get extra time to work on some of those families. Are you a syop, can you do the move? If not it can be proposed at WP:BIRD and Jim or Cas can do it. Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Good, but take your time with the families as it suits you. I will sort out the parrotbills and white-eyes first, which look like a certain and a highly probable merge. Dysmorodrepanis 02:33, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

The trick is finding out info on them beyond taxonomy. On the plus side in that respect is that for my birthday next month I'm getting HBW 11 (hopefully) which covers the Old World warblers and flycatchers. I wish I had 10 with me (its back in England) which had the wrens and the Donacobius (as well as the Palmchat, Silky flycathers and their ilk). And I gleefully wait for 13, which has the berrypeckers which are mysterious little shits. I wonder how they'll be able to wreit anything on them at all. Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Fulvetta

Hi, do you have a copy of the Pasquet paper ? Shyamal 03:42, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Would love to have a soft copy. Sorry, unable to mail you. Shyamal 06:37, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Oops, I didn't notice the commented part. I thought it was perhaps a failure on my part to leave my contact info. The new systematics info that you are adding and compiling is really setting the wikipedia articles apart from all available books. Thanks. Shyamal 04:37, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

But didn't the paper arrive? I sent it, tell me is something happened to it so I can try again! Dysmorodrepanis 08:12, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Oops. No it didnt. Hope you entered the mail id right. The same prefix on yahoo dot com should also work. Thanks in advance. Will ack when I receive it. Shyamal 08:44, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I think I know what went wrong. Sent to Yahoo account together with a nice surprise (if you don't already know that one) I found. Dysmorodrepanis 14:07, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Recd. Need to spend some time on it. I get a unhappy feeling when they report trees that are sensitive to the outgroup ! And let me know if you need help with the clade template. It really makes this kind of information more easy to see with much less words. Shyamal 05:33, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Clade template? Where is it? (I mean, what's its Wikipedia address?) Dysmorodrepanis 06:46, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Template:Clade but link that is quite unhelpful ! See my comments on my talk page under experiment or on the Talk:Bird page. Shyamal 06:51, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, OK! Thanks! Dysmorodrepanis 06:55, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Recent edit to wedding

Hi Dysmorodrepanis, I have opened a small conversation about your recent edit to the wedding article. You opinion would be very welcome. Thanks -- Siobhan Hansa 12:27, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

In line references

It would be even better if you would do more in-line references. Snowman 08:30, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

You mean < ref > tags. It is a common misconception that "inline refs" is the same as "< ref > tags". "Inline refs" means merely that you cite refs in the inline text and not dump them uncited at the end. I already inline refs - in a more proper way, actually, than the tag does. If I'd submit a life sci paper that is formatted a la ref tags, it would get bounced right back to me; no journal would accept a humble-jumble bibliography that is not porperly cited with author names and pub dates in the inline text.

I don't use < ref > tags because a) it messes up readability and editability of the code beyond belief (a 1-line sentence, which is probably the average, gets torn to pieces if you add 4 lines of tagged refs inside it), so that the article will de facto become off-limits to inexperienced editors lest they break something (I have seen this time and again - tagged refs tend to get "swallowed up" in such edits), b) they are MUCH harder to handle when copyediting, c) the way they are cited in the outpout article defies every convention used at least in life sciences in that they're jumbled all over the place in the bibliography´, and d) one has always to edit the whole when adding refs article to see if it is formatted right which is a major pain in >30k articles and becomes sheer hell in >60k articles. In a nutshell, it's a tradeoff - either I don't use ref tags, or I only correct orthography and punctuation.

I try to reference the articles I do - which are almost exclusively scientific - so that they are usable for the amateur as well as the professional, and professionals want decent reference lists that may for example be copy/pasted as a coherent whole, which one does not get with the tag. (Actually, the tag produces footnotes, such as used in social sciences for annotations and comments on sources. But even they assemble the references in a properly sorted bibliography at the very end).

Altogether, Wikipedia entirely lacks a satisfying code for citing references. The alternatives are insufficient and inflexible (Harvard template), endanger core principles of WP and do not adhere to scientific "good practice" (< ref > tags), or are entirely unworkable (numbered lists).

There should be a dedicated push for a usable reference format. I find this to be the most significant flaw in WP at the moment, and one that may endanger the entire project. At the least, it is a major detriment to WP's standin in the scientific community. Dysmorodrepanis 09:23, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Just see if the ref and note templates help. It is used for instance in Decline in amphibian populations. Also you maybe interested in http://www.zotero.org/ if you are a Firefox user. Just passing by. Cheers Shyamal 06:21, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Decline in amphibian populations breaks (as usual for numbered notes) if only a single reference is used twice, refs are inserted in the sequence. That's what I meant.

What is needed ASAP is a format that is concise, collectes reference source code in a dedicated section alphabetically (a major drawback of the < ref > tag, as references are a resource in their own right but not if using tagged refs), and ideally gives author and date in-line (so that readers will immediately see whether some information is fishy. Say in molecular biology, if it's basd on a 20-year-old ref). Also, it must allow the same ref to be cited multiple times, and it must be flexible enough to handle any source of Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

If there ís no such format, Wikipedia will end up to be like a very messy paper encyclopedia. Articles will be essentially static and there'll be a dearth of up-to-date information. Try adding a ref to DNA#Alternative_double-helical_structures: this is simply beyond the possibilities of any but the most hardcore users; there is hardly a coherent sentence of output text left. In this case, there are people who built this article and watch it. Should they leave, the article will become an unreadable, uneditable mess soon enough. From this user's point of view, the biggest long-term problem of Wikipedia is not under- but over-referencing. Under-referencing can and will be fixed. There is no possibility ATM to have a load of references AND a conveniently readable, editable article. Dysmorodrepanis 08:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Very well put, Dysmorodrepanis. I agree. --Aranae 14:02, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Mamora's Warbler

Hi. Can you correct the following sentence please:

• "They seem to form thich in turn groups with Tristram's Warbler and the Dartford Warbler (Helbig 2001, Jønsson & Fjeldså 2006)."

I'd do it myself but I don't know what you're trying to say. Thanks. Mwng 13:32, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Marmora's Warbler and the Balearic warbler seem to form a form a superspecies which... corrected! Thanks for notifying me... now how the "t" got in there I have no frickin' idea... Dysmorodrepanis 14:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Missing animals and biology.

• Ah. User:RCP added the animals to Biology page a while back and I recommended that he transfer them to Animals page. Afterwards I seem to have forgotten the whole thing. As far as I am concerned, you can merge them. - Skysmith 16:16, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Dysmorodrepanis 21:48, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Fairy Warbler

In view of your recent taxonomic changes, could you have a look at this article please. Also, although I've written it with the name above, Fairy Flycatcher is currently its usual name. Should I move it? Jimfbleak.;;^{comment here}12:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Phew. Don't move it at present. Either name is awkward... I think "tit" should be in it. But we have "tit-warblers" (Leptopoecile, now Aegithalidae) so if I'd have to have an opinion on the matter, "tit-flycatcher" or "flycatcher-tit" would probably be the best guess.

But as for now, the name stands (it's a monotypic genus, and hence the name falls in the scope of HBW/BirdLife standardization). Awkward maybe, but until the matter has found some consensus outside Wikipedia, we can simply leave it as it stands.

Thanks for the Stenostiridae! I'll go over it and put in whatever additional refs I find later today! Dysmorodrepanis 12:12, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

No more parvorders?

I noticed you moved up the bird parvorders to infraorder status. Granted, whether some of them are parvorders or infraorders depends upon the taxonomy used as a reference, I was wondering whether the change was made due to anything more than personal preference. I didn't notice anything on WP:BIRD about a change. Caerwine Caer’s whines 18:46, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The parvorder concept saw little use beyond Sibley & Ahlquist, and their arrangement has been butchered in 2006. See passerine and Talk page. Dysmorodrepanis 18:48, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

DNA

Thanks for the references, I added them to the article. TimVickers 23:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I read the abstracts, but I can't get full-text access. TimVickers 23:30, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Sure, the first 1980 review could be useful. Thanks. Just click on "e-mail this user" on my homepage. I don't like leaving my address on webpages for the spam harvesters to pick up. TimVickers 23:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I've got it now, I can access it from work. E-mail works by going to the user's Userpage and clicking on th "E-mail this user" link under the Wikipedia search bar on the left-hand side of the screen. Thanks again! TimVickers 15:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Caprimulgiformes

An anonymous user has hacked at the entry's systematics and taxonomy and left the following edit summary added reference; corrected prejudicial, unprofessional, and erroneous assertions. Don't know much about that order, what are your thoughts? Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:53, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Rv & add. Anonymous, technically yes, but. Dysmorodrepanis 04:09, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Neoepiblemidae

Hi Dysmorodrepanis. I noticed your changes around articles pertaining to Neoepiblemidae. You cite a source via comments in Phoberomys, but would you mind writing out the complete source in a references section somewhere? Perhaps Neoepiblemidae would be most appropriate. The articles need references to begin with, probably McKenna and Bell, 1997, but this is particularly true now that there appears to be some controversy and changes. --Aranae 22:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. Dysmorodrepanis 22:41, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Fulvettas

Hi. Do you have a pdf you could email me of the paper (Pasquet et al (2006): The fulvettas (Alcippe, Timaliidae, Aves): a polyphyletic group. Zoologica Scripta 35: 559–566.). I've been waiting for this article for a while now and I'm hopeful it'll make the polyphyletic Alcippe situation a little clearer. Love what you've done with Old World Warblers and Babblers by the way. Great stuff!! --Deargan 13:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Wheres my Megalaima ?

So is the new Capitonidae split mostly geographical or is it another big shock. Would love the reference for this as well. Shyamal 11:54, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Just working on Megalaimidae... a nice clean split, toucans are closer to the SAm lineages. I'll be done with it in maybe half an hour! Dysmorodrepanis 11:57, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, look forward to the refs too ! thanks. Shyamal 12:10, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Ref still pending, but I know I have it around; will add later today. There was simply too much confusion, with the new pages not linking to the Barbet article. I have put up a request for a Semnornis page so the fourth subfamily can be done too (there's only that one genus in it).

The Asian barbet page is gonna be beautiful. Dysmorodrepanis 12:13, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Done! (except for ref) Now to the African guys... the reason I originally came here. Dysmorodrepanis 12:16, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

You are pretty much reassembling the bird tree. Maybe you should offer your services on www.tolweb.org as well ! The clade diagrams may be helpful additions, let me know if I can help there. Esp. if they need to be done from publications. Shyamal 12:26, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I was already pondering this. Mh, I think I'll finish my studies first, then move on to TOL. Or http://www.eol.org/ EOL for that matter. (I'll wait and see how this develops :) ). As regards refs, I can get a good many of these, given time (usually a week will do) and as long as someone points me to them... Actually, my Wikipedia work grew out of the need to "do something" with the papers that were collecting on my HDD :D Dysmorodrepanis 12:30, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Am I being unreasonable?

I have commented here on Guinea Pig FAC - I am keen for others input, either to support if they think I'm nitpicking or to comment/help out etc. cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 23:14, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd concur with the basic approach - make 2 major sections: GP as the biological entity Cavia porcellus, the other as regards its sundry relationships with humans. Dysmorodrepanis 23:24, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Tanager

Hi Dysmorodrepanis, just seen your makeover on the back of my fiddlings. Are there any layouts or pages you'd prefer I didn't drastically alter? It would save me a lot of effort if I knew beforehand.--Deargan 06:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, it just so happened to coincide. I have added taxoboxes and some blurb to the genus pages you started, categorized them etc. You can check them out and nick the taxobox to adapt to further genera. Dysmorodrepanis 06:02, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Spooky! Just seen your contribs list- wow! I was just passing the sleepless hours, halfway through I wished I'd chosen a smaller topic! Good practice though.

I will nick the taxoboxes but feel free to flesh out as many genera as you like, I'm off to bed. Cheers--Deargan 06:26, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

"I wished I'd chosen a smaller topic!" - yeah, here too, absolutely. My only intention was to add some reference on feather lice of certain tanagers. And only as an annotation for further use... none of the birds in question had articles of a size where it would be worthwhile to add such trivial information! But, well, it's done now :D Dysmorodrepanis 13:50, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Loon

Somehow the image Image:Gaviidae Distribuzione.jpg has disappeared from the Loon page. Any idea what happened to it? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 02:46, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

No ideas? No comment? It looked to me like that was an image you uploaded - was I incorrect? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 02:11, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

No, I have only found it on the Commons. I have no idea at all what happened to it. No deletion log, nothing. Dysmorodrepanis 05:49, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Bleh. That was a good graphic. Ah well :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 13:58, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Searching for a Pied Raven ref

Hi Dysmorodrepanis. Common Raven is now at FAC and needs a ref for the following paragraph: "In the Faroe Islands a pied colour-morph of this species occurred among all-black birds; known as the Pied Raven, it eventually disappeared in the mid 20th Century, probably due to selective collection for its unusual plumage." Would you be able to supply a ref for it? The sources at Pied Raven are in German and Danish, languages I don't understand, so I'm not comfortable citing them myself. Kla'quot 20:26, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Bird skins

Hi, wonder if you might be able to help obtain a free photo of a bird skin or a tray full of them to illustrate the article on ornithology. thanks. Shyamal 11:51, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Great ! Take your time, I leave you the choice of choosing one. I think there are some images already of mounted specimens. If you can get photographs of calipers being used to measure bird skin morphometrics, that would also be really educational. thanks in advance. Shyamal 12:11, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

My work at the museum being done when I took the pix, I don't have any of these. BUT I might be able to get some later this summer. Dysmorodrepanis 12:34, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

PalaeontogrItal89:3

You added this as a comment embedded in one of your edits. What do you mean by this? - UtherSRG (talk) 13:44, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Palaeontographia Italica 89 2002 3-36: Recent Advances on Multidisciplinary Research at Rudabánya, Late Miocene (MN9), Hungary: a compendium PDF fulltext. (I know you'll love it ;-) )

These things I do when I am coming across a source that I have no time/leisure to check, or that references or discusses things apart from what I actually need it for (in this case, the avifauna). Dysmorodrepanis 13:57, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'd probably love it, if I could read it. Ok, it's a comment so that you can possibly later go back and add the reference, and I see that this one is not worthwile to go to a full reference since the link you provide is to a list of references available upon request. Oy. Ok. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:09, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot: the fulltext PDF is here. I was on the phone so I had no time to check it out and make sure this list wasn't the one where they had the fulltexts password-protected and you needed to access the list to get the pw. If prehistoric hominoid's the name of your game, you'll find it interesting. Few of the taxa discussed therein are even mentioned on WP. It provides a nice discussion of the habitat and ecological and geographical/geological conditions of the locality too. Dysmorodrepanis 14:57, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Passerine

The stuff I've added here is not part of a 'to do' list so if your agreeable I'll shift them all to the relevant talk pages. Deargan 11:43, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Rectrices source

Hi Dysmorodrepanis:

I'm working on a flight feathers article (tying together several stubs we now have floating around) and would love to get some references to cite for the species and rectrices numbers you provided in the current Rectrices article. Can you help with information on where you found the Ostrich, grouse and domestic pigeon counts? Thanks much! MeegsC | Talk 14:56, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

HBW is usual default source (see project page). If you want to check it out, you're welcome; I'll be off a few days and would see to it if nobody else does. Dysmorodrepanis 21:20, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

• I checked HBW, and found a reference for the pigeons, but there's nothing about the numbers in ostriches or grouse. If you come across them somewhere, please feel free to plug them in to Flight feather#Rectrices. Thanks! MeegsC | Talk 19:06, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Butterfly

Hi E ! since you are in a butterfly mood, maybe we should get some of these articles in order. I pulled up butterfly a bit, but there are still some related articles like the one on migration - Butterfly and moth migration that need to be overhauled (not to mention the article name). Thanks for the many fixes on the Indian species lists ! Cheers. Shyamal 04:36, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

List of Lepidoptera which feed on Ashes

Nice job, thanks! Are you "caretaking" this article? If so, would you consider one of us (you or me) resequencing the list taxonomically (as it was when I finished the list without the headings), or do you think that the differences between the European and North American taxonomic sequences make that unhelpful? Cheers—GRM 09:08, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Caretaking? Oh, not at all ;-). But I found it just interesting to see this. Check out List of Lepidoptera which feed on Brassicas, very few geometrids in there - could well be that they aren't in a good evolutionary position to counter the chemical defenses compared to noctuids.

I thought about a taxonomical resorting too, but I was equivocal about it (most other of these lists were alphabetical, so I stuck to that). Lepidopteran taxonomy is not a stable thing. Maybe one could use superfamilies (which seem fairly stable and are resolved OK as regards phylogeny) as subsections and sort these taxonomically. I'm not sure. Would you think this is advantageous? I have no opinion on the matter, really, and would go with either approach. Dysmorodrepanis 12:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I only asked because I am fairly new to moths in general. I got interested in this list because my "new" house has a Black Ash tree in it and I wanted to know what to expect—unfortunately, the online database only has records from North America and few of those occur in Europe as well. Taxonomically, I am trying to learn the UK taxo sequence and family names; not sure we "do" superfamilies to any extent over here. My one reservation on resequencing is that UK and US taxo sequences are not the same (e.g. US list skippers after all the other butterflies and we put them at the beginning). Maybe we can just think about it and if one of us decides to "do it" the do so? GRM 14:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd be cool with that. Dysmorodrepanis 14:10, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Arhopala_eumolphus

Hi, was the verification tag for the female alone ? I would have few reasons to distrust the label information from a museum source like that. The only problem can be taxonomic changes, but the image has a subspecies and location noted. Shyamal 15:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it's for the male/female bit. My literature has no indication on whether this particular critter is sexually dimorphic, and the common name puzzles me. Dysmorodrepanis 15:36, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The lycaenids commonly have sexual dimorphism. I checked this particular one here [2]. Incidentally, the image comes from Robert Nash, the curator of entomology at the Ulster museum. Shyamal 16:00, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Reason for Undo

Hi, You undid changes to Satyrinae by Carlosp420 but did not give any reason in article talk page or edit summary. User:Carlosp420 is a lepidopterist and member of WikiProject Lepidoptera. Could you please explain the reason for this? AshLin 07:08, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

You got me at the wrong moment here ;-) I am presently moving the bits and pieces to the different tribe pages. I'll be done soon (a few hours) and then the content will be essentially the same, but it won't be this long and unwieldy list. Had to get some sleep though before I got to finish it. Some genera appear to be synonms now (their validity is apparently 1968 vintage); thhis will change, but be duly remarked. Check out Elymniini for how it'll look when it's all done. Dysmorodrepanis 13:40, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying.AshLin 16:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Fossil Uria

Hello, please see [3]. Would you make more clear your statement about "the only known occurrence of the Alcini tribe outside the Atlantic"? Extant Uria are found outside the Atlantic. I'd like to understand what you meant to convey. Thanks, 68.121.161.71 02:43, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I think it is more clear now. It is obvious when one looks at a globe. Dysmorodrepanis 02:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

While I pointed this out at the Guillemot page, I see that you did edit identical text on the Uria page, which I had not seen before. At any rate, extant Uria are found "in the temperate to subtropical Pacific", if by this you mean Lompoc. So I'm still in the dark on your intended meaning, sorry. 68.121.161.71 03:15, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

"At any rate, extant Uria are found "in the temperate to subtropical Pacific", if by this you mean Lompoc" - but, again, take a globe. The distribution of the Alcini is centered on the N Atlantic. U. aalge's Californian distribution is at the limits of its range. Global diversity of alcids is centered on the Alaska-California region OTOH. The fossil record from there is very dense. Had the Alcini radiated in the area, it is highly unlikely to have been missed.

In a nutshell,

• Alcini: Extant Pansubarctic to Panarctic and NE Pacific. Fossil record good Atlantic, very poor Pacific.
• Synthliboramphini: N Pacific to Mexico. No evidence from elsewhere.
• Cepphini: Extant Pansubarctic to Panarctic. Fossil record good Pacific.
• Brachyramphini: N Pacific to Mexico. No evidence from elsewhere.
• Aethiini: N Pacific to Mexico. No evidence from elsewhere.
• Fraterculini: Extant Pansubarctic to Panarctic. Fossil record good Pacific, poor Atlantic.

The Californian Uria are, unlike any other alcids, the ends and not near the center of their spatio-temporal distribution of their tribe.

(I was working mainly from non-US literature, and this generally has the S extent of U. aalge not very precisely delimited. I thought they only went as far as Oregon or so.)

See also discussion and references at Alcidae. Dysmorodrepanis 03:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'm pleased with your additional cleanups. Thanks 68.123.46.213 03:58, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank You for notifying me! Dysmorodrepanis 04:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Morph and polymorphism merged

Have at it! I already added an example, though, and there are a couple on the Talk page that I could add.

My criterion so far has just been whether the examples are cool and show the breadth of meaning of "polymorphism", but we may have to give some attention to how the examples section is organized (it's time for sub-heads) and what fits in the organization. —JerryFriedman 04:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm gonna finish some moth stuff and set to the polymorphism article later today. Dysmorodrepanis 04:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Email

I sent you an email, hope you received it. Shyamal 04:19, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Not yet, no :( Dysmorodrepanis 23:09, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Blocked I suppose. Anyways, the subject was on the Drepanidae and I just thought you should consider communicating by email with User:Dclees who is an expert on the microlepidoptera. I am not sure if he logs in regularly on wp, but if you write to me, I can mail you his mail id. Or you could consider activating the WP mail on your page. Shyamal 03:25, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Ediacaran biota additions

Hi, just wanted to thank you for your efforts on various Ediacaran organisms! They're much appreciated, as Wikipedia's coverage of these critters is remarkably poor!

I would just take issue with your confident designation of them all to kingdom animalia. This is rather POV and there's no consensus on their true home - better perhaps to use the eukaryote colour (#e0d0b0) for the taxobox and discuss affinities in the text?

Thanks a lot,,

Verisimilus T 12:32, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, go ahead. I simply nicked the taxobox from Ediacaria which was pink. I don't usually do Eukayra incertae sedis, so I actually didn't know there was a dedicated color for these. If I had, I'd probably have used this too.

Also, I dropped 2 references as annotations into Ediacaran biota (at the very start of the References section) which contain material you might find interesting. It would need some significant rewrite or possibly a new section ("post-Ediacaran survival of Ediacara fauna" or such), and I just stumbled upon the refs and didn't seek out more information, so I just left them there for ppl who are more into this to work them over. One of the critters, Tullimonstrum gregarium, already has an article, but at present there is hardly any page that links to it. Suffice to say that "worms" and "fronds" are known from at least up to the Carboniferous. Dysmorodrepanis 12:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

moa-nalos

Have you seen this paper? Bradley C. Livezey (1996) A Phylogenetic Analysis of Geese and Swans (Anseriformes: Anserinae), Including Selected Fossil Species, Systematic Biology 45, No. 4. pp. 415-450 Seems that placing the moa-nalos with Anas might be wrong. Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:42, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

A pure morph analysis; anyone who does this on these is bound to get what he deserves ;-) (I'd bet one could force Chelychelynechen to group with turtles ;-P ). The actual situation is more difficult, as we don't have good mol data either, or rather, the data is partly good, but confounded six ways to Sunday. Dysmorodrepanis 02:46, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I haven't read it yet, but I just downloaded it. I'm trying to decide which project to take on after bird is over, and was browsing a family treatment of the Anatidae. Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:55, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I dabbled ;-) with them some time ago, as obvious from the refs... the Livezey ones are among those that I have not seen yet, but IIRC a lot of their conclusions are off. Anatidae don't seem to lend themselves to systematics readily. But they might be missing citations for several of the changes taken around 2000, such as the breakup of the Cairinini.

It might be that some of the Hawai'i subfossils used here are misidents/misassignments. There is one study which does that, and it might be this one. Gonna check that out. Dysmorodrepanis 03:00, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Gigantoraptor

"Come again? This is not Scansiopteryx. It's a basal oviraptorosaur (or oviraptorid?), and these have been around long enough that 90% of scientists agree that they're sister to either Avialae or Paraves. I'd call that "mainstream opinion"... ...such a statement might clarify things for people who haven't read any of the more recent papers on theropod systematics and evolution, but just one of the G-raptor media reports... "

Ok, but I would phrase this as a discussion of oviraptorosaurs as a whole. As it was, I believe it discussed the position relative to birds of Gigantoraptor specifically, which as far as I know was not included in the paper (correct me if i'm wrong about that). Saying it is mainstream opinion that Gigantoraptor is sister to birds is false. Saying it is mainstream opinion that oviraptorosaurs as a whole are sister to birds is true (unless you're Paul, or Osmolska, or Maryanska... is Barsbold in the avian ovi camp?). Dinoguy2 12:01, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Yes, you're right. Barsbold? It's an interesting question; he was equivocal about it in 1983, but I have not read anything recent in which he actually takes a stand on that matter. He did believe in 1983 that his oviraptorosaurs were not close to Archie, but that's all he said. Mongolian is such a difficult language... ;-) Dysmorodrepanis 17:12, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Commas or parentheses for scientific name in opening sentence and elsewhere

(Now that was a long header wasn't it?) There's a debate here about commas versus parentheses for scientific names for organisms (well in this case birds). I'm not sure whether this has been raised elsewhere but would be good to establish once and for all here and could apply as MOS across all biology articles. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:01, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Wisdom Bird in Progress

That anonymous contributor on Strigogyps and Sophiornithidae got me to thinking... So, is Strigogyps a sophiornithid or a gruid? I can't find much information either way. As such, I've started work on reconstructing Sophiornis proper... Are the legs ok?--Mr Fink 04:38, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, seems correct... the reference situation is very entangled and anon made 1 mistake. OK, so here goers: Alvarenga & Höfling threw the ameghinornithids out of the phorusrhacids, and everyone (including, not except Peters 2007) who looked at them (Mayr twice - ref coming - & Peters) agreed. Strigogyps was traditionally placed with owls, and eventually with the sophiornithids (need ref). BUT rather than synonymize the ameghinornithids with the sophiornithids, Mayr 2005 (which I have not seen) seems to find S. sapea/Aenigmavis not to be an owl but an ameghinornithids.

So the taxonomic treatment of Mayr (2005) is to place the A+A genera into Strigogyps but the systematic treatment is vice versa - Strigogyps into ameghinornithids. Bit puzzling.

We need an article on Strigogyps which discusses the confused history of the taxa. Luckily Peters (2007) is free and has a list of synonyms. The hard thing is, Wikipedia needs to take a decision: Mayr (2005) or Peters (2007) - one, two or three genera, and 2 species or 3? I seriously don't knwo what to advocate.

As regards Sophiornis, I don't have much on this at all. I think there's a paper somewhere where there's a picture of its footbone where the toes attach and it might not have been X-toed. You might want to try Google Scholar, and if you find something, maybe I'll be able to get it. I don't know whether it could turn its head well and had an owl-face already... need to check whether I find anything on the skull being known. Otherwise, default to Berruornis (of which IIRC the head is not known :( )m then to Palaeobyas and Palaeotyto. The latter seem to suggest that the owlish bits of Sophiornis are closer to barn-owls than to true owls... ah, I need to borrow Lambrecht and Olson's books again to say more. The fact that the general placement of owls is unresolved (but seems to be "higher landbirds" and closer to diurnal raptors than DNA-DNA hybridization suggests) does not make things easier. I don't see good evidence recently anymore that ties them to nightjars. Maybe their ultimate ancestor was some mousey thing more or less roller-like in general habitus (but not in color)... but that's just a slightly-educated guess. Dysmorodrepanis 23:41, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Like a barn owl or a bay owl?--Mr Fink 23:53, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Probably more like a bay-owl, but even then, not very close.

Mikovsky says in J.Ornithol. 139: 247-261:

The tarsometatarsus is very stout, trochleae are open in distal view, and external hypotarsal ridge is blunt. In these features Palaeobyas

differs from the Tytoninae, and agrees with Sophiornis and Berruornis, which are placed in the family Sophiomithidae (Mourer-

Chauviré 1987, 1994). Hence, Palaeobyas should be removed from the Tytoninae, and placed in the Sophiornithidae.

He does not have a reputation for being overly reliable though. According to his his "Cenozoic Bords of the World 1", the material of Sophiornithidae seems to be limited to foot bones and some additional scraps; nothing of cranial elements is mentioned. If this is correct, an accurate reporduction is impossible save by chance, and even then nobody could tell it's accurate :( Dysmorodrepanis 01:41, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I have now fixed the other pages where it was mentioned. Reinstated the Ameghinornithidae on the Fossil birds page and moved them under Salmilidae where they are at least not totally wrong.

As a side note, how lucky we are that it's an European taxon! Any Gondwanan "gruiform" (and that includes phorusrhacids) is presently up for splits... Dysmorodrepanis 23:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

In need of your opinion

Hi. Could you please give your opinion concerning this matter: Talk:Mauritius#Possible_conflict_of_interest. (Related to this one: Talk:Rodrigues (island)#Soapbox)

Thanks in advance. Aeons | Talk 07:04, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Tree Warbler

Hi, I've finally got round to dealing with the referencing issues in this article which you raised earlier in the year. Can you look at it and let me know if you're comfortable with the outcome? I didn't include the article in the Auk in the taxonomy paragraph, as I didn't think it was that relevant to the specific point under discussion, but it does look interesting and should be definitely mentioned in the article as an example of research on the genus. SP-KP 19:42, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Honeyeater

Just to let you know (to avodid duplicating or losing efforts) that I'm working on a new list of honeyeaters for the article. the current species list misses well over half the species and has some genera missing too. If you want to have a look it is at User:Sabine's Sunbird/making a point. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:59, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Good! (I was pondering to do it myself yesterday...) Dysmorodrepanis 01:01, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

You are not using authoritative source for your list of Apis species

Hi. I'm sorry to get technical about this, but Engel's revision is the definitve work on honey bee CLASSIFICATION. Arias & Sheppard's paper assumed that the named taxa they examined were valid, but they are not, and no one has yet published a newer classification refuting Engel. Furthermore, it is not a paper on classification (taxonomy), but on taxon relationships (phylogeny); it is true they argue in the discussion that nuluensis and nigrocincta should be categorized as species, but no one has yet published such a nomenclatural act. They are ARGUING that genetic divergence is enough to make something a species, but the taxonomic community has yet to agree with this premise. There is no established "cutoff" for the genetic divergence of a species from a subspecies. For the time being, these taxa are all subspecies. Until such a publication raising these taxa to species status appears, the WP article should reflect the accepted classification, otherwise it constitutes "original research". There is nothing wrong with mentioning that Arias & Sheppard believe that these subspecies deserve species status, but the WP article should portray this dispute accurately. Dyanega 23:55, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

You still accept paraphyletic taxa in Insects? Phew... How does Engel refute McEvoy & Underwood (1988), Kirchner et al. (1996), Otis (1996) for laboriosa and Koeniger et al. (1996) for nuluensis? What makes Engele's classification authoritative? What species concept allows for highly assortative mating and persistent lack of gene flow in species? Dysmorodrepanis 23:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

There is a difference between taxonomy and phylogeny; it is especially messy when molecular studies try to designate arbitrary levels of genetic differentiation that constitute "species". What a molecular phylogeneticist wishes to call a "species" and what a taxonomist is willing to designate a "species" versus a "subspecies" are, in the case of Apis, different things. That particular issue can be summed up very simply: molecular phylogenetics DOES NOT allow for the category "subspecies" (this is the old "Phylogenetic Species Concept" issue), but taxonomy DOES. Moreover, in terms of "refuting" them, McEvoy, Underwood, Kirchner, Otis, Arias, and Sheppard are NOT taxonomists - there is nothing to "refute", in that sense. As long as the taxa in question are "clades", then it is up the the taxonomists whether to rank those clades as species or subspecies - and Engel chose subspecies for binghami, laboriosa, and nuluensis. If any of them (or anyone else) publishes a taxonomic revision of the genus Apis, THEN we can change the WP entries accordingly. For the time being, Engel's is the most recent revision of the genus, and whether the molecular phylogeneticists agree with it or not, it stands until someone else publishes a newer revision. Changing the classification in WP based on your agreement with Arias & Sheppard's arguments is "original research" on your part (you will also PLEASE note that I have included, in the appropriate spots, Arias & Sheppard's arguments for species status). Note that I am NOT disagreeing with their interpretation, either - laboriosa and nuluensis may both very well be a good species, for example (especially the latter, which is almost certainly a good species, since it can be found sympatrically with cerana!) - but whether or not I agree or disagree, the WP taxonomic hierarchy should reflect the accepted taxonomy of the group. The jury is out on whether taxonomists are going to accept the premise that genetic differentiation is enough, by itself, to make something a species. ESPECIALLY when taxonomy has the category of "subspecies" that can be (and is often) used when there are geographically distinct populations which are presumed capable of interbreeding even if they presently do not (i.e., with a "persistent lack of gene flow" - the species concept that allows for this is the BSC). Maybe it's not true in ornithology, as you say, but insect taxonomists (other than lepidopterists) at least seem to prefer that species have actual visible characteristics that reliably separate them - you can't do a gene sequence on a 200-year-old pinned museum specimen, after all. Dyanega 00:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Missing birds and other things

• Go ahead. I have also this list about generic science topics - Skysmith 12:13, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Polbot

Have you seen the bird stubs this bot has been creating? It's made a bunch of stubs of your Malagasy warblers. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:53, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Hehe, yeah. Need to go over these. I think about joining FlickrLickr as an evaluator, to get the CC-2.0-BY-SA pics from Flickr Bird Guide up on the Commons, now that the number of bird articles lacking pictures is about to explode... Dysmorodrepanis 10:07, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Short-toed Treecreeper

Hi Dysmorodrepanis. I was assessing some previously unassessed bird articles tonight, and discovered this weirdness in the Short-toed Treecreeper article. I'm not sure how to fix it, because I'm assuming you added the bit about the close relationship to North America's Brown Creeper based on the article you cite (which I don't have access to). However, the next sentence no longer makes any sense, since the two don't occupy the same continent. (Here's the diff file, so you can see where the problem is.) I don't want to just revert it, because obviously you put some work into finding the reference, but I'm wondering—is the Common Treecreeper not closely related? Would you mind taking a look to see if you can sort it out? Thanks! MeegsC | Talk 21:51, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Huh! I'd never have guessed that—which is why, I suppose, molecular research is turning so many things on their heads... Turns out we humans aren't so good at "guessing" after all! :) MeegsC | Talk 21:45, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#Straw_Poll

This relates to the text on the placement of footnotes which you helped to work out last month; you may wish to comment. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Beaked whale photo

Hi Dysmorodrepanis, I'm out of town right now so it will take me at least a week to get the picture scanned. I think what I'll do is scan it at the highest resolution I can and e-mail it to you; you can then reduce the resolution as needed. Please let me know if this will be a problem. Sounds like a good book :) Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 21:08, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Cool! Let me know when you're back. All the best! Dysmorodrepanis 21:32, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The city library workers are now on strike. Welcome to the politics of British Columbia ;) Anyway, it will take a while but I WILL get to this. Cheers! Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 20:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

painted lady

Hi. The photo Image:Painted Lady - Vanessa cardui - large.JPG was taken in England. I've added that to the image description, but I'm not sure how to change the taxobox at Painted Lady so I'll leave that part to you :) -- Tarquin 19:08, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Zootaxa1297:47

Hi. As you might have seen (or you'll see) at the WP:BIRD discussion page, I'm wondering why you put that citation at two species in Ploceidae. Was it by any chance to support the choice of English name? —JerryFriedman 02:51, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I'm going to change Philetairus socius to Sociable Weaver in Weaver. —JerryFriedman 03:25, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Good. I wasn't sure why that name wasn't used, so I didn't change it back then. Dysmorodrepanis 07:15, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Category:passerine stubs subtypes

Hi again. As yours was the most specific of the comments on my proposal to split up the above stub type, I thought I'd ask you to review what I've done so far, now that the immediate "oversized crisis" is over. I've tried to address your concerns about the "dustbin" families by only populating those with the narrow-sense genera as indicated on the corresponding articles here, though given the obvious caveats about Wikipedia as a source, that might itself be questionable. There's still rather a lot of articles left in Category:passerine stubs (which should probably actually be Category:passeriformes stubs, given that the permanent category's at Category:passeriformes?), but I'm holding off on systematic re-sorting to Category:Passeri stubs, since that would appear to be by far the majority of the remainder. I could further re-split into Category:Passerida stubs (with or without the alleged sibling Category:Corvida stubs), but I'll hold off or doing or formally proposing that for now. Alai 23:18, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Bird collaboration of the month

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

Shyamal 02:12, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

List of hummingbirds in taxonomic order

I noticed that some time ago you collapsed the species list to genus level. I'm not keen on this in general because it makes it less easy to use, but on the whole I can live with it. The problem is the red-linked genera, where the component species effectively disappear from view. I shouldn't have to do a full search of Wikipedia to find the species. The alternative would be to make the alphabetical list into a sortable (by English and binomial name) table. I know it can be done, because I saw it some weeks ago, but I can't remember where. Do you know how to do this? Jimfbleak 12:23, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

nevermind, I've found how to do sortable tables, Jimfbleak 12:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks for reply. Sortable table help is here -it's surprisingly easy, even I can do it! Jimfbleak 05:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe of interest

Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:46:01 +0100
From: Roderic Page <[email protected]>
Subject: [Taxacom] Bird supertree -- open source phylogenetics
To: TAXACOM <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset=US-ASCII;	delsp=yes;	format=flowed

We are building a bird supertree, and would like your help. Katie  
Davis ( PhD student in my lab ) has  assembled a large number of  
source trees, constructed an MRP matrix, and has put online a first,  
very crude supertree.

As an experiment we invite anybody interested to download the data  
and try their hand at building a supertree. We provide a form for  
uploading any supertrees that result, and a simple viewer to help  
navigate a tree of this size online.

Our hope is to encourage a competition to find the "best" supertree.  
Participants will get credit in the resulting paper.

For more details please visit http://linnaeus.zoology.gla.ac.uk/ 
~rpage/birdsupertree/.

Regards

Rod

----------------------------------------
Professor Roderic D. M. Page
Editor, Systematic Biology
DEEB, IBLS
Graham Kerr Building
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QP
United Kingdom

Phone: +44 141 330 4778
Fax: +44 141 330 2792
email: [email protected]
web: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html
iChat: aim://rodpage1962
reprints: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/pubs.html

Subscribe to Systematic Biology through the Society of Systematic
Biologists Website: http://systematicbiology.org
Search for taxon names: http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/portal/
Find out what we know about a species: http://ispecies.org
Rod's rants on phyloinformatics: http://iphylo.blogspot.com
Rod's rants on ants: http://semant.blogspot.com

------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Taxacom Mailing List
[email protected]
http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom

Piksi

I came across this stub when working through list of bird genera. As a fossil, should it be in the list? Jimfbleak 13:09, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Well Hesperornis isnt, so it shouldn't be either. Dysmorodrepanis 21:37, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Tortoiseshell cats

First, let's get one thing straight, it is a content dispute, not vandalism (I am not doing this in order to disrupt Wikipedia, and neither do I think you're trying to disrupt WP either). Second, "calico" and "tortoiseshell-and-white" are variants of the tortoiseshell pattern, which is the subject here. The tortoiseshell pattern is characterized by both eumelanistc and pheomelanistic colors, so the cat in the current picture, especially given that its colors are brindled and not patched, is a tortoiseshell ("calico" or "tortoiseshell-and-white" entails patched colors). Finally, I looked up the standards of the FiFé and the GCCF, and neither makes a sharp distinction between tortoiseshell and tortoiseshell-and-white, so I would appreciate if you could supply some references that back your claim before it is accepted.--Ramdrake 23:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

See talk page, where your claim was never accepted and your proposal never followed (and hence it 'is vandalism, technically, since the consensus has been since nearly 10 months to ignore it - 10 months in which you could have provided supporting references, but didn't). Re your FiFé/GCCF, the latter (British SH: 21 is tortie, 22 is t+w) and apparently also the former (e.g. Persian: PER f/g/h/j) assign different breed numbers/codes to tortie and tortie-and-white. How is that not a sharp distinction? Dysmorodrepanis 00:08, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I also forgot to mention that this article is about the general pattern; if there was a separate article for "tortoiseshell-and-white", your point might have merit, but there isn't. It isn't like Wikipedia has an article per color variant in cats. If you want to change the caption to say the cat has a "tortoiseshell-and-white" pattern, do it. But I would like to keep the picture, as it is the best picture of a tortoiseshell pattern (including "-and-white") we have on Wikipedia. And please, review WP:VAND because you accuse me a third time of vandalism. You'll see it isn't vandalism at all.--Ramdrake 00:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

You are correct on the last count. It is WP:NPOVD. Dysmorodrepanis 00:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Species_problem, PSC, subspecies

I'm restoring the Species_problem page for the following reasons:

- So far as I know no species concept says anything directly about subspecies so including particular claims of the BSC and PSC regarding subspecies has the effect of bringing in issues that are not accessible to general readers

- There are other specific claims that one might include, either for the BSC or the PSC, that are of similar scope with regard to utility at the point you make. By making this particular one the article misleading suggests that the point is of primary importance. Understandably it is an important point for many, but for others there are other more important claims against the PSC (or BSC - take your pick)

- The article is not really about species concepts, but rather the place of species concepts within debates about species.

hope this is not a problem Karebh 03:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. Thanks for letting me know! I did it for 2 reasons: first, species concepts are nowhere discussed (but might be there; see that article's Talk and/or that of Species for more). Second, the BSC vs PSC - sp. vs ssp. thing is the most "visible" issue in the debate to the lay reader; I thought it might be of more than passing interest at the state where the page currently stands.

If you can do me a favor though, disentangle PSC and ESC. They're not the same; though both rely heavily on phylogenies, monophyly is the only (AFAIK) "character" relevant in the PSC, whereas in the ESC, a species is a diagnosable (by morphology or whatnot) (mono)phyletic lineage.

If you'd like to do some work on the page or make Species concept an own page one day, drop me a line! Dysmorodrepanis 07:34, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

No content in Category:Ichthyornis

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Category:Ichthyornis, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Category:Ichthyornis has been empty for at least four days, and its only content has been links to parent categories. (CSD C1).

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Category:Ichthyornis, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. CSDWarnBot 06:02, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Very good! So it works the way I hoped. These are empty because they were a series of nested empty categories, with only the last ever getting a single entry. Dysmorodrepanis 06:56, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Crotalus atrox

Hi Dysmorodrepanis! Question: what do you mean by your last edit to Crotalus atrox? Is it supposed to be a reference? If so, it should be expanded and added to the "Other references" section. --Jwinius 22:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you can get it and read it; I know not enough to do it now. Dysmorodrepanis 22:06, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I found it and it loks interesting; it is online for free. I do not understand enough of it so I dropped it in there for whoever of you reptile experts likes it and understands all of it to check it out and add it. Or do you collect sources on the Talk page in the herpetology project? Becasue I get the occasional interesting herpetological paper. Dysmorodrepanis 22:12, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, then could you provide a link to where this page is? After all, "MusTexasTechUnivOccasPap164 p001" isn't much to go on. The herpetology project isn't that well organized, at least not for snakes. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one at Wikipedia who spends much time on snake articles. My sources are mostly books, a list of which I keep in a document at home so that I can copy and paste them as inline references as I write. If you find any more interesting links, just post them on the relevant talk pages and I'll find them. (You can answer here as I've got your talk page on my watch list). --Jwinius 22:41, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, so when I find interesting rescources, I will add a direct link when available and maybe more info such as the title etc (Indeed, this is a fairly rarely seen journal. Had it been PNAS or so, it might have been quite obvious). Dysmorodrepanis 22:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Although I'm not always equally swift to behold, I believe the article you were referring to is this one. For now, I'll add it to the other references section of the Crotalus atrox article so it won't get lost. Thanks! --Jwinius 23:06, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes! Thanks a lot! Dysmorodrepanis 23:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Minor Edits

Please remember to mark your edits as minor when (and only when) they genuinely are minor edits (see Wikipedia:Minor edit). Marking a major change as a minor one (and vice versa) is considered poor etiquette. The rule of thumb is that only an edit that consists solely of spelling corrections, formatting and minor rearranging of text should be flagged as a 'minor edit'. Thanks! Jauerback 16:56, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes Sir Patroller Sir! ;-) (the Bird project folks would've considered it "minor edits" - though it might not have looked like it in the changelog, it was essentially just copyediting.) Dysmorodrepanis 16:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Paper help

I am looking for a paper in the Bulletin of the BOC. Is this perhaps available in electronic form within your reach ? Ali,Salim (1980): India ornithology: The current trends. BBOC 100(1), 80-83

Even an abstract would suffice for my purpose. thanks Shyamal 07:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Tough chance. The BBOC is perhaps the worst-avaliable major ornithogical journal at present. Even Google does not really know this particular paper, which is bad because in such situations (main ref unavailable) I usually try Google or Google Scholar to see where the paper has been cited and try to get these papers then to see what info is contained. The only possibility with just a fair chance of success to get at the info in this paper would probably be sifting through the Forktail archives [4] and see if anything looks promising. No search function though :( . Dysmorodrepanis 16:03, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Also thanks for looking over the butterflies. Good to have more eyes. Shyamal 05:49, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I was in a Lepidoptera modd and am adding this paper on those that use carrion as a source of their equivalent of a sports drink... :D So I'll drop the ref where no articles or just stubs exits and discuss it where the articles are long enough to add such minutiae. Always a pleasure, and I saw some of your recent work. Congrats! Dysmorodrepanis

Mud-puddling can also do with some help ! Shyamal 15:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Vomiting

Thanks for including another meaning for emesis on vomiting. I have encapsulated it all in a {{dablink}} template, to make the disambiguation header non-printable in skins that support printing.

I don't normally support disambiguation of articles that do not exist. Are you planning to write a page on emesis butterflies? JFW | T@lk 21:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Not me, but the butterfly project is busy adding new species. Dysmorodrepanis 21:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

References?

Um, hi Dysmorodrepanis, I was just wondering what you're up to with edits like your recent ones to coffee[5], coffee in the global economy [6], grouse[7], etc. You seem to be adding references to articles without actually referencing them in the text or even telling anyone what they are or how they relate to the subject matter. I'm sure you have some brilliant master plan with all this, I was just wondering if you could share it? Thanks!--Margareta 15:40, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Refs up for grabs. If it's not explicit bird stuff like Grouse, I'm not the right guy to do it and will gladly leave that on the experts. I have quite some literature on shadow coffee for example but I'm not a specialist in coffee economics nor in the avifauna of shade coffee plantations; whoever is would find the ref I dumped there useful. Dysmorodrepanis 15:47, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Wise Bird In Progress

Does this look too owl-y [8] for Sophiornis?--Mr Fink 23:36, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Need A Bird Expert

Can you please check out Special:Contributions/Luna_perige and see if the editor's contributions are genuine? I think they're hoaxes but I'm not an expert on birds. --NeilN 04:27, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

His changes to ʻApapane‎ and Iiwi might be OK (I don't have the knowledge to comment) but the rest were transparent nonsense. Lavateraguy 19:58, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh yes, I noticed. But the story behind it was interesting. Pretty good timetable too. Dysmorodrepanis 20:01, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Grayish Saltator

Hi, Dysmo. Great to see improvements at Grayish Saltator. Wait, Greyish? Why did you change the spelling?

Also, fui doesn't have an accent on the i (any more). Did you know the Dictionary of the Royal Academy is on the Web? Search for ser and then click the Conjugar button at the top.

I can live (though in pain) with ampersands, caps and small caps, and a lack of serial commas, but I can't live with footnotes before commas and periods. See the style manual.

If we need a bit of classification at the beginning, I suggest saying that this bird is part of the vast nine-primaried songbird assemblage and saving the family question for the Systematics section. —JerryFriedman 05:23, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The IUCN, as you say, always uses "Grey", even for "Grey Catbird". The Wikipedia convention is to use the local spelling, so American for American birds, British for British birds, Australian for Australian birds, etc., and we've been following that in articles. (For birds found in North American and Britain, it's depended on who wrote the article first—mostly Jim.) I don't think people will let you change every "gray" and "color" and "vocalization" in articles on North American birds not found in Britain! (If you want to.)

For birds with a range like the Grayish Saltator's, it's a little less clear. The regional authority is the AOU, which uses U. S. spelling, and most of the field guides for the region are published in the U. S., but the two small English-speaking countries where the bird occurs use British spelling. Personally, I'm in favor of American spelling for all birds found exclusively or mostly in the Western Hemisphere, but I may be biased.

I looked at the first six pages of Google hits for dichoso fui. Of the ones that referred to the bird or the folk song named after the bird, fui outnumbered fuí about 14 to 4. I don't think there's any difference in Spanish between ui and uí, and I think the people using the accent are just fond of the old-fashioned spelling, but we should go with the Academy.

On the footnotes, you surprised me very much by saying the superscript placement means a difference in "scope". I can see your argument, but I don't think the CMoS is the only style manual that recommends putting superscripts after punctuation marks. Is there any manual that doesn't? Is this style really used in Europe? I think it's a really new thing, and I don't think footnote style is where we should doing new things. People will just think it's a mistake instead of understanding. —JerryFriedman 04:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Nature uses a before-punctuation style, but it discourages summary citations (one reference for several sources). ISO 690 explicitly allows either. In brief, it's essentially a British English vs American English thing (my old lab's in-house MoS - in Germany - went with before-punctuation as BE is more frequent in Germany, so I suspect that e.g. in Latin America they'll use after-punctuation etc). Nature gets around the end-of-para dilemma by having authors attempt to cite after-fact rigidly, i.e. usually in mid-sentence. Most of my sources use Harvard referencing anyway, but that's less than feasible for bulk referencing on WP. Dysmorodrepanis 14:15, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Aquila kienerii

Namesake

I see that you are being very conservative about the Hieraaetus->Aquila and restricting the change to only the exemplars used in the research papers. It however appears that even Hieraaetus kienerii has become Aquila kienerii. See [9] Shyamal 05:25, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah good. I have a ref for the Spotted Eagles and was prepping up Aquila a bit beforehands. Will add kienerii and adjust the other pages accordingly. Thanks! Dysmorodrepanis 10:22, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Polymorphism (biology)

If you look on the Talk page of p/morphism article you'll see I've thought about two of your suggestions for examples, namely the fantastic mini-frog Leiopelina and the Gammarid Dikerogamarus. Both were well worth getting to know; but neither would make a really good example (I think). Dikero is clearly p/morphic, but authors have no idea how it relates to its ecology, or its genetics; and most of the mini-frog variants are geographical races. I've excerpted some stuff (from the web) which I used, and which you might look at; its placed in the same section as your refs. I do this, temporarily perhaps, since you offer no e-mail link and this is the only way I can show you what I've been looking at. Regards, Macdonald-ross 13:30, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Indonesian...

Hello there - thanks for your edits to Indonesia articles. Could you please use the term "Indonesian" rather than "Bahasa Indonesia" - we should stick to the English terms here on English wikipedia. Ie, we say "German", not "Deutsch". Also, please link it to Indonesian language, not Bahasa Indonesia. Any questions, please let me know. thanks! --Merbabu 13:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Poa

I added a photo on the poa article. I've probably bungled the description as I don't understand glumes and spikelets. I was basically looking to post a photo showing why bluegrass is called bluegrass and I don't see any photos anywhere that catch it the right time. Today, I stumbled on a bunch of grasses that appeared at the right time. I have a bunch more photos I can post to Flickr if that would be helpful. Thanks. Americasroof 21:47, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Mountain Trogon altitude

Hi again. In Mountain Trogon, you added information from Herrera et al. that the altitudinal range is 600 to 1200 m, but Howell and Webb say 1200 to 3500 m. I have a feeling Herrera et al. made a mistake—under 1200 m seems too low to call a mountain (at least in Mexico and Central America) and too low for pine trees in the tropics. I added the Howell and Webb numbers with a note that they disagree, but what do you think? —JerryFriedman 22:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

That was actually in oak-shade coffee habitat. Herrera et al's record is from Cacaguatique, between 1,200 and 1,600 m ASL (they have 3 sites in this altitude range, but it is not possible to say at which the birds were observed). Their source is:

"En Honduras se le encuentra entre 600 y 1,200 m.s.n.m., en bosques de pino y pino-encino (Monroe 1968)" ("In Honduras one encounters them between 600 - 1,200 m ASL in pine and pine-oak woodland")

That is Monroe, B. L. 1968. A distributional survey of the birds of Honduras. Ornithological Monographs 36: 1–458. Unlike the rest of the series, this volume is not online :( Perhaps Howell & Webb comment on Monroe's data? I have added a few other papers recently where Howell/Webb ranges/altitudes are revised by new data, but in such cases the authors invariably and explicitly say that they do so. Herrera et al do cite H&W, but not in regard to the present species. Dysmorodrepanis 23:03, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, H&W don't comment on the Monroe monograph.

Alexander Skutch says in Trogons, Laughing Falcons, and Other Neotropical Birds, "Long ago, amid pines, oaks, and other broad-leaved trees in the mountains of Guatemala above 8,000 feet (2,440 meters), I studied Mountain Trogons…".

Robert Ridgely, A Guide to the Birds of Panama, says, "Mountain Trogon is uncommon in pine-oak woodland and cloud forest in highlands of western and central Honduras, mainly above 1200 meters (4000 feet)…"

Peterson and Chalif say in A Field Guide to Mexican Birds, "4000–10,000 feet".

So I'm really thinking either Monroe or Herrera et al. goofed on this one. —JerryFriedman 03:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

So perhaps just give the H&W data with a footnote:

"But see also Monroe (1968){{check}}<!-- check whether 600 to 1200 m in Honduras is correct --> ''fide'' Herrera"?

Dysmorodrepanis 03:45, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Dicho y hecho, más o menos. I followed the idea you suggested but changed it a bit. —JerryFriedman 16:59, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Supertrees

Did you take a look at the forward I made you earlier (Rodney Page) http://linnaeus.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/birdsupertree/ There are some results here http://linnaeus.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/birdsupertree/results.php

Do you know of any opensource/freeware that can read and allow manipulation of large MRP data (as provided there) ? Shyamal 03:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, I'll ask a prof but I'm not sure she'll know.

But... I mean... those trees... WOW! They're so beautiful! And most everything just falls into place.

Thanks! Dysmorodrepanis 04:07, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Perica_(butterfly)

I notice that you are the one who added the reference to the Perica butterfly genus to the Perica article. I am curious about this genus, predominantly due to its name being Perica, and wish to find out more but know not where to look. Why don't you create a stub article for this topic? I would do it myself, but this butterfly seems to be particularly esoteric and I know not where to look for information, though by observation of your edit history I am given the impression that you are knowledgeable enough about such things. Thanks. —Hrvat4568 10:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe today, maybe til Sunday, I'll whip up a quick one. Maybe I'll even be able to find out why the name :D that's sometimes very hard, if the genus was described long ago, the authors simply assumed everybvody who'd care had enough grasp of Ancient Greek to know. Dysmorodrepanis 18:10, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

heh

Yeh same mate —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xolith (talk • contribs) 16:35, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

And yeh same to you good sire! Dysmorodrepanis 17:05, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Astraptes fulgarator

Is there a "more than" missing from the article? - it seems to me that the variation in larval morphology and ecology would have been cause to suspect the presence of cryptic species. Lavateraguy 19:13, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes! Thanks for the notice! Dysmorodrepanis 19:18, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

European Robin

Hi Dysmorodrepanis. I translated European Robin into ヨーロッパコマドリ in Japanese Wikipedia. Please tell me. What is the source of your edit: "Although the authors conclude that both Tenerife and Gran Canaria populations are..." ? Is this your original research? --Iceheron 12:54, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

It's a methodological critique; basically, the problem is as follows:

The data supports 2 contradicting hypotheses (at least). Before a rigorous analysis, one seems more likely than the other (considering Canaries biogeography etc). However, the authors discuss only the other one, which does not seem to fit the data as well, and that's a big problem, because going any further than I did would indeed be OR: it cannot be said that the authors' hypothesis is wrong and the seemingly better one is correct; it can be said however that the authors' conclusion (that their hypothesis is certainly correct) is dead wrong as of now, because there remains at least one more promising hypothesis to be properly tested.

See here for an intro in combining data sets. The last reference therein (Williams 1994) would in fact make a good sourcing for the entire footnote. It would have been better if I had written something ending with "(see also Cladistics and molecular clock for details)" but at that time, these themselves were insufficiently sourced so I though better to do it this way because otherwise it might look sourced but isn't.

As you pointed this out and I am not satisfied with it anymore either now we have sources on Wikipedia, I might just as well tweak it a bit, add some sources etc. Check it out again Sunday or Monday perhaps; it should be clearer then. Dysmorodrepanis 14:27, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Rectricial bulb(s)

Hi Dysmorodrepanis: Just checking (since the reference I have to hand isn't specific on this)—does an individual bird have a single rectricial bulb, or one on each side of the tail? MeegsC | Talk 15:44, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm presently doing some merging of "Pope's nose" into Pygostyle and the ref I have here always uses plural. That also makes sense given that the two central rectrices are not stuck in there. Dysmorodrepanis 15:51, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Redlink in hatnote

You added a hatnote with a redlink in [10]. It's discussed at Wikipedia talk:Red link#Disambiguation. Are you planning to create the article or do you have any comments? PrimeHunter 16:32, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe.

If you don't like it, remove it. But it may be useful: Some of the hundreds of pages that link to Cladistics actually mean Cladistics (journal); having the correct link already there even though no article exists will help fix that. (It is impossible to search these mis-linked articles out; no search term can possibly work. They have to be stumbled upon and corrected one by one). Dysmorodrepanis

Blancan

I don't think that any current paleontologist scholar of the Blancan believes that it ended with the end of the Pliocene, although others would like it to fit nicely in the box. Read the cited sources. The dating dispute is all between ending dates within the Pleistocene. --Bejnar 01:00, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Cyperus esculentus

Hiya. Cyperus esculentus is listed in Cornucopia: A Source Book for Edible Plants as having edible leaves. That's why it's listed in List of plants with edible leaves. Do you have a citation that says that they're inedible by humans? I'd be happy to remove it from the database if so. Barring that, I think that we need to leave it on the page, since that's currently the most authoritative information we've got available. Thanks! Waitak 19:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, can't say that it makes a lot of sense to me either, but there it is in the list. I've been trying to get ahold of a physical copy of Cornucopia. Given that the whole list is based on what's there, it makes sense to do some verification! In the meantime, I've been happily munching wild garlic mustard leaves, and greatly enjoying the experience, so there's something to all of the "edible leaf" stuff... :-) I guess I'll leave it there for now on the strength of the Cornucopia listing, but note it for review. Thanks! Waitak 20:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for the cleanup of Indian butterflies wikis. Much appreciated. AshLin (talk) 07:14, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Always a pleasure when I come across them! Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 15:03, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Fossil birds redirects

Hi. I wasn't sure what you were getting at in your message, so I thought I'd check - do you mean double redirects? If so, won't the bots pick those up? They seem to whenever I do this kind of thing usually? If you meant something else, let me know. Thanks. SP-KP (talk) 21:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Whats wrong with this willow?

Hi, I was recently in North-West Greenland, in the town Upernavik. There I found this infected willow (probably Salix arctica, maybe Salix glauca) (see also here). I noticed you are a main contributor to an article about bugs feeding on willow. Have you got any idea what hit this willow? I plan to upload the photos to Commons once I understand what is going on and can give the photos a meaningful name. -- Slaunger (talk) 20:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

2 possibilities:

• Plant galls. In which case I'd go with gall mites as the ones responsible. See also here; the lowest 2 pictures. How the galls look like depends on both the willow and the parasite, but Eriophyidae generally make smallish galls that stick out of the upperside, are hollowed out from below, and are usually tough, horny, yellow or red and sometimes hairy.
• Fungal disease. In which case they're fruiting bodies, and would probably be outgrowths of the upperside of the leaf only and the underside would be normal, or bear a black dead spot or a dimple where the growth is but not a hollow.

I think the former is more likely. But see also Tenthredinidae (the red "sausage galls" to the left some 2/3 down in the page linked above). These gall midges make what looks like a coarser version of Eriophyidae (gall mite) galls, only they are hollow inside (I think) and almost always MUCH larger: the gall midges might be just 1-2 mm long, but the mites are microscopic See Image:Gehölz.mit.Gallwespe.4067.jpg for what seems to be Tenthredinidae galls on what might be another species of Salix. Eriophyes padi produces very similar (more hairy) galls on Rosaceae: see photo here. But I don't think that one can narrow it down to more than family if at all; see Image:Eriophyes tiliae 2005.08.19 16.44.07-p8190001.jpg for the very different galls caused by another member of Eriophyes on linden (Tilia).

Overall, I'd say if the things were hollowed out from below, I'm 95% in favor of Eriophyidae gen. et sp. indet (at present ;-) ). If it is a fungus, I can only promise to take note when I come across something similar; I know next to nothing about these guys. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 21:37, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that was a fast and very thorough reply with very good references. Thank you very much. I agree with your intepretation. da:Bruger:Sten also indicates to me that it is Eriophyidae on my talk page on the Danish wiki (aways nice with a second opinion). -- Slaunger (talk) 21:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Always a pleasure! Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 21:50, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Tall Dropseed

Hi there! I saw your recent page move regarding this page. It showed up in the WP:PLANTS assessment log. Anyway, I just wanted to mention a couple conventions you may not have been aware of for future moves. 1) Regarding common names and article titles, it's been something discussed without consensus, so much like non-national topics and their British English vs. American English spellings, WP:PLANTS has never come to a conclusion and therefore considers the style of the first major contributor to be the one to follow. The larger convention, however, appears to prefer lowercase when it's not a proper noun. 2) That's all rather moot, though, since this species also falls under WP:NC (flora) which prefers article titles at scientific names unless it meets one of the given exceptions, which it doesn't look like this page does. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know about those conventions so you can use them as you wish. Oh, and I've left a note at WP:RM for an admin with those capabilities to move the page to the species name title. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 02:02, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

So I'll mv pages to the scientific name title in the future, OK? As regards genus pages, I tend to link to the common name that seems most common and/or makes most sense. That way, it is easy to check for redirects. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 02:26, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but it's no big deal. We're not actively going around moving pages, but when you find one and the spirit moves you, so be it. I do whenever I encounter a page that doesn't seem to fit either exception listed in the naming convention. And regarding linking to genus pages, whatever you do is fine. No convention on that, really. Mullein and Verbascum both get you to the same place. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 02:35, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Vague references

Hi Dysmorodrepanis! I'm sure you mean well, but what is the purpose of the vague references to "PacificScience61:36" that you recently added to Vipera ammodytes, Trimeresurus and Bothrops atrox? It looks like a reference to a scientific journal; have you found some interesting articles in it? (PS -- Please answer here, as I've temporarily added your talk page to my watchlist). --Jwinius (talk) 11:33, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Ha! I totally forgot: we had a similar conversation regarding Crotalus atrox back in August. I think you're going to have to be a little more helpful with this one, though. I did manage to find this overview page that shows the contents of previous issues of the Pacific Science journal, but it shows nothing yet for volume 61. Will we have to wait for that until next year?

On a side note, I find it very irritating that these scientific journals charge people for access. For even if I managed found your article, it looks like I would not be able to read more than the abstract unless I were to buy a subscription. Now that we have the Internet, it seems to me like these commercial publishing houses are little more than bloodsucking parasites that form a barrier to scientific progress. Why do academics continue to put up with this nonsense? --Jwinius (talk) 14:05, 28 November 2007 (UTC)