Talk:Hemilepistus reaumuri

Length?

Knowing their biomass density and the width of their burrow openings, the curious reader will want to know their length.--Wetman (talk) 22:03, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I was surprised at the lack of that information in the sources. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:08, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

GA Review

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

Reviewer: J Milburn (talk) 09:48, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

It's looking pretty good, but I think it's going to need a little bit more work before it's ready for good article status.

• "Middle East, "the driest habitat conquered by any species of crustacean"." Ideally, this tidbit would go in the main body, and could then be mentioned in the lead.

 Done, although the MOS recommends a citation in the lead even so, as far as I recall (I'm happy to be corrected if not). --Stemonitis (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Citations aren't strictly needed in the lead- a lot of people dislike them there. I tend to keep them in the lead for direct quotes or contentious claims only. J Milburn (talk) 11:23, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

• "rôle"?

An acceptable variant. See role. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done – reworded. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:14, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

• The lead is very short- for an article of this size, I think I'd want to see a lead of 2-3 times as long. The purpose of the lead is to summarise the rest of the article- it should give an accurate overview of the topic, and avoid introducing anything that is not found in the rest of the article. The guidelines may be helpful.

 Done --Stemonitis (talk) 14:14, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

• I think this should be restructured a little; I'd go for taxonomic history, followed by description (which I think is a stronger title than "characteristics") and probably distribution at the bottom. I'm pretty much copying how we organise fungi articles there; are there specific guidelines for anthropods? Maybe for insects?

I'm happy with changing "Characteristics" to "Description" – that would be more in line with other crustacean articles, too. I am wary of putting the taxonomic / nomenclatural material first. It may be standard for fungal articles, but I feel it's the bit that the reader is going to be least interested in. My personal standard (so, sadly, the de facto standard for crustacean articles) is to first describe what it is, where it lives and what it does, before worrying too much about synonymy and other technicalities of nomenclature. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

• I'd want to see more actual description, rather than what differentiates it from other species. A physical description and size- how many legs? What colour is it? How long is it? How long are the antennae? And so on.

I have really struggled with this side of things. The information simply doesn't appear to be readily available. (Where's the Field Guide to the Crustaceans of the Negev Desert when you need it?) Some of what you ask is general to all woodlice (number of legs, for instance), so I can provide that from more general sources. For the rest, I don't want to have to go back to the Milne-Edwards description, because that will only list the technical characters, not the general appearance. In particular, I have looked hard for a measurement of the animal's size and turned up nothing useful. One paper mentioned something like "we took animals over 12 mm", but without explaining whether that was a typical adult size or just an arbitrary figure. I did manage to get a measurement for the burrow entrance, which, together with the photographs gives some impression of size, but it's not the ideal situation. I'll keep looking. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done. I managed to find some concrete dimensions in a paper I had overlooked. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:14, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

• How far south is it found? Any data?

 Not done. No idea. I don't think anyone's done detailed mapping of crustaceans across the Sahara. Hemilepistus only really lives in the peripheral parts of the desert, so I don't expect it extends too far south in North Africa. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

• "digging equipment" Probably the wrong term; brings spades to mind

 Done --Stemonitis (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

• "and up to 70% of its diet may be made up of H. reaumuri.[10] No predators are known to attack H. reaumuri in its underground burrows.[9]" Could you perhaps link these two sentences a little more?

 Done, I think. Let me know if it still seems clunky. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

• "constructing a burrow" "Burrow" should have been linked earlier

 Done --Stemonitis (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

• You're now saying the burrows are very deep, yet before you only mentioned shallow burrows. Are the burrows made deeper after the woodlice have mated?

 Done. I have re-ordered the article to put the ecology (including the burrow dimensions) first, with the burrow initiation dealt with under the life cycle, which now comes later. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:55, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• Is there only one entrance to each burrow? Presumably they're just simple one-tunnel systems?

 Done. I assume so, and that is certainly the implication of the texts I have read, although none of them had said so explicitly. Logically, there must only be one entrance, otherwise the guarding mechanism wouldn't work (one adult guards while its partner forages). --Stemonitis (talk) 10:55, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• "it was later moved to Hemilepistus," By whom?

 Done. It was Budde-Lund himself. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

• Is the glot of synonyms worth mentioning in the taxonomic history section?

Perhaps. I would edge towards saying not, because I don't know if it's really unusual. A fair number of widespread crustaceans seem (to my eye) to have similar numbers of synonyms. Since the source is just a list, without any text speculating on the reasons for the mass synonymy, I am wary of making too much of it. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done. A recent publication has removed several synonyms as a species of Porcellio; I don't think the few remaining are particularly worthy of mention. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:14, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

• The sources seem appropriate.
• Are there no categories based on its distribution?

 Done. Most crustaceans are aquatic, so most of the biogeographic categorisation is done ocean by ocean; Category:Terrestrial crustaceans isn't really big enough to warrant division into biomes. Category:Woodlice is a member of that category, so this article is already categorised as far as is currently possible within the Crustacea. I have, however, added Category:Invertebrates of Africa and Category:Fauna of the Middle East. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Ok, the most important issues are expansion of the description and expansion of the lead. Some good resarch has gone into this, and the writing is good, so I'd love to see it promoted to GA. J Milburn (talk) 10:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Your comments seem fair. I will see what I can do. Just to warn you, I won't be editing next week, but I should be back in action after that. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Take as long as you need. J Milburn (talk) 11:26, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I think I've dealt with everything you have brought up. Let me know if you think the article needs further work. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:55, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Second read through

Great work so far, and this is now looking like great little article. Just a couple more fixes, and I'd be more than happy to promote.

• Perhaps best to cite the quote in the lead, even though it's cited further down. Sorry, I've probably created some confusion there.

 Done. No problem – it's easily fixed.

• I'd recommend merging the paras in the lead- I'd say two longer ones would look better than four shorter ones. The level of detail, on the other hand, looks appropriate.

 Done --Stemonitis (talk) 14:03, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• "equivalent to a biomass of 19.2 kg/ha; desert mammals are estimated to have a combined biomass of 39.9 kg/ha" Adding something like "by comparison" may help this flow a little better.

 Done --Stemonitis (talk) 14:03, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• "H. reaumuri can only escape" I think if you're opening a paragraph, the name should be spelt out. That's how you do it elsewhere

 Done. I think I read somewhere that scientific names should be given in full on the first instance in every section, but that's a somewhat arbitrary limit, and it works just as well for every paragraph. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:03, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Those small fixes will be enough for GAC, but, if you're interested in FAC (and I hope you are, as this is a decent article which has potential) I have some more thoughts-

• Again, slightly more on the description would really be required. Come October, I could have a delve into my university library, as there may be something there, but, at the moment, it's a little sparse.
• There seems to be no mention of what they eat, beyond the fact that they're herbivores and sometimes eat soil. A basic overview ("dead and dying wood") along with some examples ("favouring Genusus speciesus and Anotherus exampleus") would be a great help

 Done --Stemonitis (talk) 14:03, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• You mention they're monogamous and the time of year they do stuff, but how long do they live? Do the parents die off once the offspring leave, or might they stick around and have another batch the next year?

 Done --Stemonitis (talk) 14:03, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• "Several species names that were previously thought to be synonyms of H. reaumuri have been re-examined, and found to refer to a species in a different family, now known as Porcellio brevicaudatus.[2]" This could perhaps be expanded a little.

I'm afraid I don't know any entomologists (or whatever the accurate term would be for woodlice) who are active at FAC/PR, but some biologists who may well be willing to help out if you want to take this further include Casliber (talk · contribs) (birds, plants, fungi, bit of everything), Sasata (talk · contribs) (fungi mainly, but also mammals), Ucucha (talk · contribs) (rodents, but also lots of extinct mammals), Visionholder (talk · contribs) (lemurs) or Jimfbleak (talk · contribs) (birds). Of course, I'm also happy to offer any further help should this go to PR, FAC or just "unofficially". J Milburn (talk) 13:06, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not plannng to push straight on to FA. I'll give it some time first. I have no experience with FA nominations, and I get the impression from some quarters that it may be more hassle than it's worth; that is, it takes a lot of effort but produces relatively little improvement. I may be wrong. Either way, it's not something I'll be looking at immediately. But thank you for the suggestions nonetheless. It is useful to know where to concentrate efforts, and your suggestions will allow me (or anyone else) to improve the article, even if it doesn't get nominated for FA. Just going through this review has produced a marked improvement, whatever the outcome. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:03, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

FAC is hard, no denying that, and certain articles tend to fare better than others. Some people are damn good at preparing FAs and have loads. I still find it rewarding and worthwhile; I'm currently working on Auricularia auricula-judae (there's a peer review if you have any thoughts!) hoping to get it to FA status. Anyway, back to this article, it's looking brilliant right now, so I'm more than happy to promote it to GA status. Great work- I look forward to seeing more of your work in the future! J Milburn (talk) 16:26, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Rôle

While "rôle" is still an accepted spelling, it has been overwhelmingly replaced by "role" and the French spelling is now often frowned upon (the MHRA, for example, specifically mentions "rôle" and advises "role" instead). This is similar to "élite" (which is almost always now spelled "elite"), "smörgåsbord" (now spelled "smorgasbord"), and "hôtel" (now, "hotel"). I recommend changing "rôle" to "role" as currently it is outdated and appears alien to most readers and is thus a distraction to readers. — al-Shimoni (talk) 05:31, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. Rôle is still much more frequent than hôtel or smörgåsbord, particularly in British English. I also doubt whether a style guide for the humanities is the appropriate arbiter in this case. It's all academic now, because I have reworded that part. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:06, 17 July 2011 (UTC)