Talk:Frog/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Frog Wikiproject

I am currently proposing a frog wikipoject. If you are interested, please read the proposal, discuss at the proposal page anything you think I should add, and sign up here. Thankyou --liquidGhoul 01:25, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Improvement Drive

Frog has been nominated to be improved by WP:IDRIVE. Help us improve it and support Frog with your vote on WP:IDRIVE. --Fenice 07:54, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

This could prove a good source for inspiration: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=dbio.box.4334 . - Samsara 12:20, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Bottom vocal sac or pair of sacs through cheeks

I think this needs to go in the article. Unfortunately, I don't know the details of it, e.g. which species have which system. - Samsara 15:36, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

So which part of its anatomy is this frog using to call? - Samsara 20:35, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is important for the article. I think there is more than just the two types. I have a book at home which I think covers this, so I will look it up and reply later. It should be noted, that some frogs do not have them at all. Like the Stoney Creek Frog (on the right), has none, although most of its genus does. --liquidGhoul 23:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

One call to attract, one to mate?

I have a reference work (Lexikon der Biologie, 1994, Herder Verlag) that claims that there are two different calls, one to attract a mate "advertisement call" and one to elicit mating once a female is present, "Werberuf"; however, "Werberuf" translates exactly as "advertisement call", so I believe the author may be confused. Any comments? - Samsara 20:43, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I have never heard of it. Tyler's (Australia's frog expert) Natural History of Frogs does not mention it, however if it is a trait that is only in European frogs, for example, then it might not be mentioned in the book. Is the author well known for herpetology? --liquidGhoul 23:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The author's name is given as Prof. Dr. Peter Weygoldt. Although most of his recent work seems to be on Arachnids, I found plenty of Google evidence for "peter weygoldt anurans" as well. Have a look: [1].

Here's the excerpt:

I.d.R. gibt es mehrere Rufe: einen Paarungsruf ("advertisement call"), mit dem Weibchen angelockt werden, einen Werberuf, mit dem das Weibchen zur Paarung aufgefordert wird, einen Revier- oder Kampfruf, mit dem ein anderes Männchen vertrieben wird, einen Befreiungsruf, den ein Männchen ausstößt, wenn es v. einem anderen geklammert wird, u. einen Schmerzschrei, den manche Frösche ausstoßen, wenn sie unsanft angefasst oder von einer Schlange ergriffen werden.

Rough translation:

Usually, there are several calls: a breeding call ("advertisement call"), which is used to attract females; a courtship (or advertisement) call ("Werberuf"), with which a female is invited to mate; a territorial or fighting call, with which another male can be driven off; a liberation call, that is used when a male is amplexed by another; and a pain cry, that some frogs emit when roughly handled or grabbed by a snake.

So you can sort of get away with it by translating Werbung as courtship rather than advertisement... - Samsara 00:54, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Something I am adament about that extract, is the distress call bit. They tend not to bother with snakes, and the distress call is for other predators. I am guessing this is because snakes cannot hear. So I am not sure it is very reliable, however I will research for the courtship call. --liquidGhoul 07:35, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Just one more thought: the call may not be for the snakes' benefit. It may be to attract predators of snakes, in which case, the snake might drop the frog and "leg it" ('xcuse the pun!). - Samsara _contrib ^talk 16:51, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Weygoldt's an established name in herpetology. He's done a lot of work especially with courtship and reproductive behavior. And he's right. Males may modify their calls to attract females, defend territories, signal predator release, etc. I'm not sure that all of these are present in every species, but I AM sure about release calls. Pstevendactylus 22:03, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Frogs in Culture

Do you think we should split the frogs in culture (including popular culture) section into its own article? At the moment, it is taking up so much space, and is so ugly. If it were its own article people would be able to contribute to it, through more than just bullets, and elaborate on some points.--liquidGhoul 10:40, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and would also note that it duplicates some of the material in the disambiguation pages. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 14:31, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I also agree that biological information should be split from everything else. Three votes are enough to proceed?. Lejean2000 16:19, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I think so. Went ahead with it. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 16:48, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

The Uses section also looks a bit out-of-place Lejean2000 09:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Resources

I found this website. Seems like it has some good evolutionary biology on frogs, but I haven't read it all yet. --liquidGhoul 10:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

If someone is interested in frog calls - here is a link Toad-Talk and Frog-Speak: Male Chorusing and Female Sexual Selection in Anurans (pdf) Lejean2000 10:29, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

User:LiquidGhoul/Frog adaptations

I have finally "merged" my frog adaptations article into this article. At the moment it is extremely clunky (just a cut and paste job), so it needs cleaning up to flow with the article. I would love to eventually get rid of all the sub-sections (3 = signs). --liquidGhoul 00:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The current structure actually looks great to me. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 22:47, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Daly reference

Does anyone have a copy of Cyclic Nucleotides in the Nervous System by John W. Daly? Could you check whether it makes the statement cited in the article? Thanks, Samsara _contrib ^talk 02:24, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

See this article by Daly. The statement is correct, though I wouldn't call pseudophrynamine alkaloids unique. Lejean2000 13:21, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't worried about the statement. I was concerned that the citation does not correspond to a reference at the end of the text. You just can't have floating citations like that in an article that's striving for featured status. So I guess we'll replace "Daly" with the reference you've given. - 86.138.87.64 13:28, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Frog skeletons

I mistook the second one for a fossil, which is why I put it in the evolution section. If anyone has any further thoughts on this, please let us know! - Samsara _contrib ^talk 10:37, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't look like a fossil to me - it's damn well preserved for a fossil and I don't see any traces of restavration on it. Lejean2000 13:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Article Structure

• First, I would like to suggest the aggregation of "Diet and predators" and "Distribution and status" in one section, which may be called Ecology.

• Second, I think the taxonomy section may benefit from some expansion, that is, if someone is up to the task.

Lejean2000 20:40, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm trying to avoid the term ecology as a heading, because all of the below could be said to be part of the Anurans' ecology:

• 1.1 Feet and legs
• 1.2 Call
• 1.3 Moisture retention
• 1.4 Respiration
• 1.5 Camouflage
• 1.6 Poison
• 2 Life cycle

Sadly, ecology is now often used in as broad a sense as "natural history". - Samsara _contrib ^talk 20:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

A quick survey indicates that it will be difficult to expand that section because few things can be easily said about the taxonomic distinctions; see my recent edit. Apparently, Anuran taxonomy is a highly controversial and difficult field. Samsara _contrib ^talk 21:08, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm nerd enough to take on the taxonomy section. While anuran taxonomy does have a confusing history, new molecular genetic techniques are providing enormous insights.Pstevendactylus 02:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I would also suggest rather significant changes to the article structure to improve organization and flow. Why are "feet and legs" mentioned when no other aspects of morphology are included? Perhaps a better structural approach would be to have a "Morphology and Physiology" section which includes feet and legs (as part of a broader body form section), moisture retention, respiration, and poison; as well as a "natural history" section which includes call, camouflage, and life cycle.Pstevendactylus 02:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I like this idea, and second it. Just to note, the capitalisation convention is for the first word of a heading, so it is "Morphology and physiology". --liquidGhoul 03:08, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I updated the article structure following my suggestion above and liquidGhoul's approval. I still think that the "Life cycle" section could be broken down into a more coherent structure. Maybe the "Life cycle" section as a walk-through from egg to adult, and moving the prey and predation into subsections of "Natural history" of their own. The article structure changes were pretty signficant, but I still think we could improve article flow to increase chances at featured article status. Pstevendactylus 01:25, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Article structure II

I still feel like the article could use some significant changes to be better organized for feature status, and these are primarily within the "Natural history" section (and more specifically, "Life cycle."). I want to see this article get featured status, so I'm just hoping for improvements here. Granted, I did make major structural changes earlier today, so I understand if there's some resistance to the idea. But anyway, here's what I'm proposing:

• Life cycle
  • Eggs (with a special note about very cool complex egg behavior where in some species, adults lay eggs on leaves above ponds so that the eggs don't get eaten by fish. Then, because eggs out of water can be eaten by snakes or predaceous wasps, the eggs will hatch early if one of these predators approaches, and fall as early tadpoles into the water. And, of course, I have a reference for this very cool study).
  • Tadpoles
  • Metamporphosis (because this involves MAJOR changes to the morphology and physiology of amphibans: from herbivores to carnivores, gills to lungs, fins to legs, etc; it deserves more importance than has been provided already).
  • Adults
  • Reproduction (including amplexus)
  • Parental care (not that rare, actually, probably at least present in 20% of species, in one way or another).
• Diet
• Predators

Since this is a major change, I'd like to see some consensus. But I totally feel that it would be a better organizational scheme and would allow more detail into life cycle.Pstevendactylus 04:35, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

As long as no information is removed (it seems you want to add more which is great :)), I don't see a problem. However, I think you should wait to see what Samsara says, as he had a lot to do with the formatting of Life cycle. egg --> adult is the normal progession in books, so it has that advantage. --liquidGhoul 06:13, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Tadpoles eating moss?

Stumbled over this passage:

Most tadpoles are herbivores, eating moss, or filtering small plant particles through their gills.

Surely it is algae that they eat? Moss does not do that well under water afaik. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 20:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

You might want to have a look at this article about tadpoles diet. I too tired to read it this late. IMHO, some moss species can do well on the bottom of lakes and I can easily imagine tadpoles, being bottom feeders, grazing the surface of rocks at the bottom.

Lejean2000 21:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

From a brief skim, it looks like 100% algae, esp. diatoms and Oedogonium. So I'll change that to "algae". - Samsara _contrib ^talk 22:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Order of lifecycle

I think it makes sense to present the life cycle starting with tadpoles. This will make it easier to explain the change of diet, and one could finish with the diversity of mating and brood care behaviours. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 22:38, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense. --liquidGhoul 12:33, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Maybe this is pedantic, but shouldn't the life cycle start with egg? Pstevendactylus 22:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Images: predation image

I just uploaded this from flickr - best I could find:

Samsara _contrib ^talk 23:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

It is a pretty bad image. Maybe we should just wait until someone takes a good photo of it. It is not necessary for FA. --liquidGhoul 23:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Nominate for FA or peer review?

I've nominated frog as a good article. Depending how that goes, we may soon want to think about peer review and featured article nomination. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 03:22, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I accepted your nomination as a good article. This article definitely looks like it's own its way to featured status. But, I would suggest completing some of the tasks already outlined on this page before doing so. A peer review wouldn't be a bad idea either. joturner 03:26, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I just read through the entire thing for the first time in about a week, and it has changed a alot! The to-do list needs to be updated. The decline in frog pop. and ecological tool is done, and historical importance should be part of the Frogs in culture article. The rest of the things on the to-do list could be done with the peer review. Most likely, there is someone out there who can do the gallery well, and things such as merging call and life-cycle and the introduction could use some input from people who have more experience in those areas. I am going to do some edits now, but I tihnk it is basically ready for peer review.

If you put it up for peer review, it might be useful to ask about things like the gallery straight up. Maybe give a link to my sandbox article to see if that method is feasible (although it isn't updated to include all the text in this article). --liquidGhoul 06:48, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I've updated the TODO list again. Have a look to see if you agree, and comment to my question about the introduction if you like. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 11:27, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

The introduction needs to be much larger. At the moment it is in pretty terrible shape. It should basically summarise the article, so those who do not wish to read it can get the basic jist. At the moment, it basically summarises the taxonomy section and nothing else. Considering this is such a large article, the introduction should reflect that. I think it should be about four or five paragraphs long. When writing the White's Tree Frog article, the intro gave me the worst trouble, I really don't like it. --liquidGhoul 12:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Haeckel frogs

I have a gift for you guys.

--ragesoss 00:23, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Would this fit frog or frogs in popular culture better? - Samsara _contrib ^talk 14:44, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

This was supposed to be a scientific illustration; while there may be slight exaggerations, all the frogs shown should be real species. I'll try to scan the opposite page which has the (German) descriptions and names of all the frogs listed.--ragesoss 21:01, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

See Image:Haeckel frogs with labels.jpg and Image:Haeckel frogs text.jpg for the identities of each frog.--ragesoss 04:51, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

liquidGhoul, can we verify that these frogs all behave and roughly look as shown in the picture? It might be something for a "history of frog science" section if we ever make one. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 02:23, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

They're clearly exaggerated, but the major forms and behaviors look real. The species lists in the book (while using outdated generic names) referenc real species that largely correspond to behaviors shown on the plate (parachuting, tadpole transport, crests and spines, etc). Cool illustrationPstevendactylus 02:36, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Size of opening

Humpback whale is a featured article with an introduction that is shorter than this article. I'd say the one here is long enough, and I've crossed out that task on the todo list to reflect this opinion. Any comments, liquidGhoul, Lejean, anyone else? - Samsara _contrib ^talk 21:11, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't really agree, but we can let the peer review sort it out I guess. In the normal case, I would just go ahead and do it, but I hate intros so much! :) --liquidGhoul 23:24, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Emphasis on conservation

I would argue that we should beef up the conservation status here. Since we're looking at about a third of the species currently threatened by myriad risks, I would argue that it deserves more than a couple of lines. The newly re-written introduction to the decline in frog populations page might be a decent summary to add. Plus, there's a photo of Bufo periglenes.Pstevendactylus 21:58, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, with all the good info on amphibian declines out there, why is a third of the "distribution and status" section attributed to earthworm feeding?Pstevendactylus 22:39, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Smelless organs?

"The internal organs of frogs are relatively odourless. Hence, dead frogs are often used for dissections in high school and university anatomy classes, often after being injected with coloured plastics to enhance the contrast between different organs."

-Is this really true? I'm skeptical, but could be wrong. Frogs that are dissected in high school are preserved with formalin and stored in alcohol. I believe this, rather than anything innate to frogness, is what makes them relatively odorless. Pstevendactylus 22:13, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I tried to remove this quote, but it was replaced. I certainly don't mean to be "uppity" or whatever (I'm new), but I am highly skeptical of the claim that frog organs are odorless. I have dissected over 1000 frogs, scores of rats, dozens of various molluscs, insects, etc. Once preserved, they all smell the same to me (except maybe grasshoppers smell particularly bad). I also don't see the smellless organs note as particularly important. But I'll step out of this debate nonetheless.Pstevendactylus 02:59, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Remove it again, I don't find it particularly useful, or believable for that matter. It is generally the bacteria which causes the smell. State in the edit summary to go to the talk page if they want to add it again. --liquidGhoul 03:08, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, it was Samsara. I trust your work, maybe the statement needs some clearing up. Can you provide a source for the statement?--liquidGhoul 07:41, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I budge, because I have neither a freshly dead frog to prove it to myself, nor a literary source. It seemed to make sense since they have such a high water content compared to, say, rats, so non-polar substances would evaporate more slowly, even if present. Most frog food is odourless, too: annelids especially, and some insects. Herbivores tend to smell worse. It seems that mostly aquatic frogs are used for dissections, whose food would be even more watery. I'm well aware that some toads smell quite bad.

I'm also not sure that frogs are invariably preserved in formalin or alcohol, since this can discolour them. I remember movies containing scenes of high school kids having to first anaesthetise to kill, and then dissect frogs. If this an inaccuracy in films, it should be mentioned in frogs in popular culture. Pstevendactylus?

- Samsara _contrib ^talk 13:08, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

So the question now is, where to put the comment about frogs being commonly used for dissections. It's an anatomy-related comment that wouldn't really fit in frogs in popular culture, so it has to find a home somewhere on this page. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 16:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't make it clear that I had left a comment on this page about it. I think that the dissections comment could fit pretty well under the "Morphology and physiology" heading, with a note about how the morphology and anatomy is well-known to many students or something. I agree that this is a significant note to include on this page rather than some other. I'm not sure if students never had to kill their own frogs, but that certainly doesn't happen anymore. PETA would explode if students were made to kill and dissect their own animals. And you're right, not all frogs are fixed with formalin and preserved in alcohol, this is just the standard method for preservation. That said, I guess there are any other number of preservatives. Each of these, however, should halt decomposition and kill bacteria, thus rendering specimens smell-less.Pstevendactylus 20:27, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I think they used to just knock out the frogs, and disect them while they were still alive. They didn't feel any pain, and students were able to watch their heart beat, lungs work etc. It would obviously be illegal now. --liquidGhoul 22:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Frog hands

I'm moving through the paragraphs doing general punctuation/grammar editing. I've seen several references to "hands/feet" of frogs. I don't think I've ever seen the front feet of frogs referred to as hands. If this is common, please let me know because I've been removing the "hands" bit. Joyous | Talk 22:19, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I have found the front limbs is often used. However, if you use that, you might as well use hind limbs for the legs. --liquidGhoul 04:34, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with using "hands", since their structure is actually homologous with ours. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 22:18, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Ref

2004. Encyclopedia of Reptiles & Amphibians Second Edition. Fog City Press. ISBN 1877019690.

I'm trying to track this ref down; could the person who added it give some more info or check to see if the ISBN is correct? --DanielCD 22:20, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that is correct. If you would like more info on the book, I could supply it. I wasn't sure of how to write the reference, as there is no author mentioned, just editors (and there are lots!). --liquidGhoul 04:36, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I figured that was the case. I just wasn't able to find it. --DanielCD 03:46, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Camouflage in frogs?

The article currently states that most frogs that use camouflage are nocturnal. Is this true? It seems that the ones active in the daytime would be the ones needing protective coloration. Joyous | Talk 01:48, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

It is harder to distinguish colours during the night, so if something uses camouflage, it is better to do it during the night. Frogs' camouflage techniques are not as refined as reptiles, so it is better not risking it. The diurnal frogs are those which do not worry about predation, ie poison dart frogs.--liquidGhoul 08:51, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Edible frogs, poison, and skin modifications

I removed this sentence that was tacked to the end of the "poison" section, because I don't know what it means. Feel free to deal with it however you see fit.

• "Edible frogs rely on skin modifications rather than poisons for protection."

-- Joyous | Talk 02:09, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Taxonomy

I am not a native English speaker but the following sentence from the Taxonomy section doesn't make any sense to me. Any hints?: The distinction is far from universally accepted, especially because there are few features that are as unique to any group as taxonomists would like. Lejean2000 07:40, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

It was a bad sentence. I have changed it, how is it now? --liquidGhoul 08:52, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Great ! Lejean2000 09:23, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Distribution figure

The Global Amphibian Assessment has a figure that I think would be excellent for the "Distribution and status" section posted at http://www.globalamphibians.org/patterns.htm. It shows the the number of species of amphibians worldwide (ALL amphibians, not frogs alone, so it includes salamanders and caecilians; still the trends for all amphibians should mirror those for frogs). It also is free to reproduce for educational purposes. However, I'm not familiar with the procedure for uploading images, nor the procedures for copyrights. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be happy to get the scoop. Pstevendactylus 03:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

habitat

I'm trying to avoid using the word "habitat" to decribe whether the frog is ground, tree, or water-dwelling. I think examples of habitats are, I don't know, like "coastal rainforest," or "parkland" or "mountain pine forest," stuff like that, although I probably made those up. Joey Q. McCartney 09:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

No, they sound legitimate. Habitat is the area they live in, and the frog-type is the name, more-or-less. Even though the names encompass habitat descriptions, they are not "habitats" in themselves. I'll look and see if it's ok. --DanielCD 05:26, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

What about life-style? Also, we should be using the terms: "terrestrial", "aquatic" and "arboreal"; instead of saying they "inhabit trees land and water".

Swimming pool picture

File:TheFrog.jpg

Frog in swimming pool

Hey guys, what do we think of the recently added picture of a frog in a suburban swimming pool? I notice it's not really in the same line as pictures we'd been planning to add to the article. The photographer and uploader added it to the article and went straight to featured picture candidates with it.

Do we think that it exemplifies urban encroachment of frogs, or does it just have odd colours? Do we believe that a frog in a swimming pool is more than a once-off occurrence? - Samsara _contrib ^talk 00:28, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't like it, because it could be considered cruelty to animals. If the pool is in use, and contains chlorine, the first thing I would do, is take it out, and rinse it off. Not sit around and take a photo of it. If the pool is not in use, and does not contain chlorine, then it is a pretty common occurrence. However, the photos we have been adding to the gallery, illustrate the species of frog well, in that you can see the colour and shape of the frog. I don't know if the colour of this frog is accurate (as it turn brown when it is in water), and the body is blurry. Also, I am pretty sure we have a frog that is extremely similar (if not the same species) already in the gallery, and it illustrates it better. The point of the gallery is to illustrate as many different "kinds" of frogs as possible. --liquidGhoul 01:14, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

F.Y.I. The frog was removed from the pool right as it was being quickly photographed. It or one of the same species has repeatedly jumped into my suburban swimming pool and we have had to atttempt to remove it as it swam through the chlorinated water. I will admit it is not in line with the rest of the pictures on the article and I am going to of course also de-list it from the featured picture candidates page. I added the picture not so much to show the frog, but I thought it would help illustrate the effects urban sprawl has had on frogs. I am offended to be accused of animal cruelty. I have saved dozens of baby turtles that also have "suddenly appeared" in our pool over the years so that they might have a chance to live. I did not "sit around and take pictures of it." One person removed it right as I took a photo of it. Urban sprawl has had serious affects on frogs and I hope you can find a better picture to add to illustrate this very important issue. I am a strong supporter of the ASPCA. The color is actually quite accurate though. Have a nice day, and good luck with this article. ¡Dustimagic! ^(T/C) 03:57, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Vegetarian

Just a short comment, as a vegetarian it was really weird to see the article followed by a link to Wikipedia Cookbooks ... I think it's ok, it's just ... weird. ChaTo 12:25, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I did mean to say gliding... alas, it was late!

Samsara _contrib ^talk 16:01, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Pressing for FA nomination

We should nominate it for FA now, before AID ends and attention wanes! - Samsara _contrib ^talk 16:07, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that sounds good. I still feel strongly that the "Life cycle" section could use better organization, following my comments in "Article structure II, above (sorry I didn't post this at the bottom). --Pstevendactylus 16:14, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'll just discuss it here then.

• Life cycle
  • Eggs (with a special note about very cool complex egg behavior where in some species, adults lay eggs on leaves above ponds so that the eggs don't get eaten by fish. Then, because eggs out of water can be eaten by snakes or predaceous wasps, the eggs will hatch early if one of these predators approaches, and fall as early tadpoles into the water. And, of course, I have a reference for this very cool study).

I put that in the article a while ago (read that section), although a reference would be good. Starting with eggs would be okay, I guess. The idea I was following so far was to give a summary of the life cycle before delving into specific adaptations that only concern very few species.

• • Tadpoles
  • Metamporphosis (because this involves MAJOR changes to the morphology and physiology of amphibans: from herbivores to carnivores, gills to lungs, fins to legs, etc; it deserves more importance than has been provided already).

All the points you mention are there, but you can add more if you feel strongly about it. Please note that the article is getting quite long now, so we may have to split excessive material off into spin-off articles, like we did with frogs in popular culture.

• • Adults
  • Reproduction (including amplexus)

Yes, please put in details that you feel are missing.

• • Parental care (not that rare, actually, probably at least present in 20% of species, in one way or another).

Quite a lot has been written.

• Diet
• Predators

So in summary, please make sure you can convince us that you've read the existing material before making new additions! And give credit where credit is due. I was sour to see you getting credit for a little bit of recent work, when especially liquidGhoul and to some extent myself have been working on this article for a while. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 16:34, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

First, I think that breaking it down into subheadings and rearranging it is what I was primarily suggesting. This section, while great in information content, seems pretty scattered (why are paragraphs on diet and predators placed between tadpoles and adults?). As far as length goes, I think that this organization could actually reduce size because it seems like the life cycle section contains redundancies.

Second, I DO understand that a bunch of this material is already here, and I'm not trying to take credit where it is not due. Specifically, in reference to egg dropping behavior, yes, this is already there. What I think is especially cool is that eggs know when a predator approaches and hatch early (which is pretty cool behavior for eggs that haven't even hatched yet). On metamorphosis, since this is one of the major facets of amphibian biology, I think it could use a little more emphasis

Once again, I'm new, and don't know all the rules, politics, etc. I'm just trying to help.--Pstevendactylus 16:56, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

You should read the talk and have a browse through the history of the article. I had originally planned to do everything the way you suggest, but gave in to liquidGhoul who felt we should not have subheadings, based on his experience in the peer review of White's tree frog. This also implied having fewer sections overall, merging sections together, with benefits for improving overall flow of the article. Originally, the article had a short section on prey and predators at the back, but it was necessary to move this forward to avoid repetition with the life cycle section, where differences between tadpole and adult food were being introduced, i.e. the whole shortening of the gut business. What I think we are within our rights to consider is whether to make certain parts of the text bold, to serve as a sort of substitute for subheadings. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 17:27, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Cool, looked through history and the talk page. This article has come a long way in very short time. I'm not sure that subheadings would be essential, but organizing the flow into paragraphs using the structure above would help. I do understand the issue with diet/predators being merged into life cycle, but it seems to me these are pretty different components of the natural history (life cycle: population biology; diet predation: interaction with other species). I'd like to try to reorganize this section to improve flow without creating subheadings or deleting anything. But since this is meeting some resistance, I'll do it on my userpage and you guys can have a look. --Pstevendactylus 17:59, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Cool. Looking forward to what you come up with. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 18:02, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've tried to change the structure and posted it at User:Pstevendactylus/workspace. Thanks for the tip on the worskpace page, Joyous. This edit is a little longer primarily because of the subheadings, which could be removed to have the whole life cycle section in paragraph form. Otherwise, I only added about 50 words. I tried not to take any information out (but see the bottom for a factcheck question), although I changed a bunch of the sentences to make the flow go better. Let me know what you think. I won't do anything unless there is a broad consensus or other suggestions for improvement.--Pstevendactylus 19:40, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

The stuff you removed comes from liquidGhoul's quill, and he usually works from personal knowledge or references. So wait for him to get on that, it's probably in one of the general references given at the bottom of the current article. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 19:53, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I have left a response to the text you removed on the workspace page. --liquidGhoul 00:44, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Otherwise, I'm happy with it so far. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 20:06, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Just one more thing: make sure you put the footnotes in the correct order when you insert it into the article. It's messy to fix. Cheers. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 20:09, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the new organization has much better flow. The subheadings on the stages of the life cycle add to the structure. I hope those stay in the final version. Joyous | Talk 20:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I take it you meant to put final version in inverted commas? Or maybe you are thinking Wikipedia:Stable versions? ;) - Samsara _contrib ^talk 20:37, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I meant "the version that eventually gets copied from the workspace and dumped into this article." Joyous | Talk 20:44, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Devious plan

What I suggest we do, seeing that liquidGhoul may not come online for about three more hours or so, is to put the changes in without the subheadings and apply for FA. We can haggle about details later. Sound a plan? I'll be back in half an hour. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 21:22, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

See my slightly modified version here: User:Samsara/frog_life_cycle Main changes are removing headings and substituting "understood" for "known" in one instance. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 21:28, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Well... Haven't you two been busy... :) I don't particularly mind what the formatting is. It is not my forte, however we should go through peer review first, instead of featured article candidate. --liquidGhoul 00:33, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not particularly concerned with the formatting either, especially since all but one subheading is a single paragraph. I concur with the peer review status then FA.--Pstevendactylus 02:52, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Once Pstevendactylus (man that is hard to spell) adds his life cycle section, I suggest we go straight to peer review. The AID time is about to run out, and I don't think there is anything we are still missing. --liquidGhoul 09:29, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Have added it, with headings; nominating for peer review now. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 13:16, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Predators surviving toxicity

Do we have an example of a poison dart frog predator? I know that there is an extremely poisonous newt and a snake that predates it, tolerating high concentrations of the poison. One of the recent textbook examples of variation in the wild. Anything like that for frogs? (There must be...) - Samsara _contrib ^talk 19:58, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Behavioural adaptations have surfaced for eating the cane toad in Australia (which has only been here for 70 something years). Feshwater crocs will squeeze their head, and the poison is washed away so they can eat it. Some birds will also eat most of the body, except for the head, where most of the poison is. There is also one snake which is immune to the effects of the poison. I don't have references at the moment, but if you want some I will find it. As for dendrobatids, I have no idea. --liquidGhoul 00:49, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Gallery again

It almost works. We need to find a tag that regulates the height of the frame around a picture, otherwise we won't get happy - IE renders the text a different length and hence puts breaks in different places, resulting in different numbers of lines that mess up the whole layout. We need something that is consistent across browsers, i.e. we need to keep frame height constant by means other than manual breaks. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 21:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

The gallery now works in Firefox 1.5, Internet Explorer and Opera. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 21:18, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Also works in Safari 2.0.3. Joyous | Talk 21:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't work in Firefox 1.0.7 for Linux, though. Is this important to us? Maybe we should make a three-column table instead? - Samsara _contrib ^talk 12:40, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I know it is customary for web developers to design for all browsers, but if someone is advanced enough to use Linux, they can probably update. I don't want a major change like tables. One thing to note though, is that some of the photos have two line captions, and some have three. That may be the problem. --liquidGhoul 12:53, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

If it's in the Linux version, it's probably in the Windows version as well, but I can't test that. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 13:07, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I assume I've added it in the place that people were thinking...? - Samsara _contrib ^talk 21:19, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, perfect. --liquidGhoul 09:23, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Can we archive the gallery section on this talk?

I think we've completed the tasks we set out here, should start a new discussion if new matters come up. Takes up a huge bandwidth every time this page loads... Thanks, - Samsara _contrib ^talk 13:41, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Done now. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 18:54, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Gallery suggestion

One of the people who are active at peer review, Fritz S. made an edit suggesting the use of the <gallery> pragma. Since we have no other pictures near it that could conflict, maybe this is a safe choice for now? - Samsara _contrib ^talk 18:46, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Converting red links to stubs

I've had a look at some FAC comments, and it seems that articles are sometimes criticised for containing red links. Especially the evolution section of this article still contains many red links. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 15:06, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I was going to say that it is not much of a problem, but looking at the evolution section, there are too many in my opinion. Having red links can encourage someone to start an article, and even make a decent go at it. However, if we stubify it, they may just pass over it, and it doesn't get detailed information for a long time. So it might be an idea to leave some of the well known things as red links, and the lesser known links can become stubs. --liquidGhoul 21:09, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Just so we know what we're talking about, I've pasted the section here:

The earliest amphibian discovered to date is Elginerpeton, found in Late Devonian rocks of Scotland dating to approximately 368 million years ago. The earliest well-known amphibian, Ichthyostega, was found in Late Devonian deposits in Greenland, dating back about 363 million years. The later Paleozoic saw a great diversity of amphibians, ranging from small, legless swimming forms (Aïstopoda) to bizarre "horned" forms (Nectridea). These first amphibians are thought to have evolved from bony fish of the class Osteichthyes, which were widespread during the period that amphibia emerged. There is, however, substantial debate over what type of bony fish was the precursor to amphibians. Suggestions include the lungfish and the Actinopterygii as the forerunners to modern amphibia.

The earliest known (proto)frog is †Triadobatrachus massinoti, from the early Triassic of Madagascar. It is about 250 million years old, and had not yet evolved the full combination of features currently associated with frogs. The skull is frog-like, being broad with large eye sockets, but the fossil has a number of other features diverging from modern amphibia. These include a different ilium, a longer body with more vertebrae, and separate vertebrae in its tail (where modern frogs have a fused structure, the urostyle or coccyx). The tibia and fibula bones are unfused and separate, making it probable that Triadobatrachus was not a very efficient leaper.

Another fossil frog, discovered in Arizona and called Prosalirus bitis, was uncovered in 1985, and dates from roughly the same time as Triadobatrachus. Like Triadobatrachus, Prosalirus did not have greatly enlarged legs, but possessed the typical three-pronged pelvic structure. Unlike Triadobatrachus, Prosalirus had already lost nearly all of its tail.

The earliest true frog is †Vieraella herbsti, from the early Jurassic (188–213 mya). It is known only from the dorsal and ventral impressions of a single animal and was estimated to be 33 mm in snout-vent length. †Notobatrachus degiustoi from the middle Jurassic is just a bit younger, about 155–170 million years old. It seems likely that the evolution of modern anura was completed by the Jurassic period. The main evolutionary changes involved shortening of the body and loss of the tail.

Frog fossils have been found on all continents, including Antarctica.

The red links are:

• Elginerpeton
• Nectridea
• Triadobatrachus massinoti
• Prosalirus bitis
• Vieraella herbsti
• Notobatrachus degiustoi

I think Elginerpeton should remain in spite of being a red link, because it is significant to all amphibians. A similar argument can be made for Nectridae. The rest I think we don't have the manpower to make and maintain at the moment. The intention to eventually write about them is now preserved by this comment here. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 19:43, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Image copyrights

This image has a problem: Image:Megophrys_lateralis.jpg

This one is probably alright: Image:Nasikabatrachus_sahyadrensis.jpg

All the other ones are fine, either GFDL or PD. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 01:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Damn they are both really good photos. --liquidGhoul 03:15, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the Litoria infrafrenata image should be there. There is already two other images from the Litoria genus, one of them (Litoria caerulea) is incredibly similar to it. In fact, I think they were originally considered the same species. I will have a look around for a frog family which is not yet represented.--liquidGhoul 11:11, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I replaced it with one of Bufo bufo, which means that Bufo is now overrepresented, but the picture was just too good to pass up. - Samsara _contrib ^talk 23:28, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it will drill into people's mind that toads are frogs. :) --liquidGhoul 02:29, 28 February 2006 (UTC)