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Butterlfy IDs

I just wrote Niagara Parks Butterfly Conservatory (been approved for DYK) and have ID'd 20 photos of their butterflies [1], but still need to ID 12 more: [2]. Can someone you know help ID those 12? Some pics have more than one butterfly. Thanks.RlevseTalk 00:40, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

You could try going through http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/butterflies/neotropica/ithomia.html Shyamal (talk) 04:00, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, will give it a shot. RlevseTalk 23:57, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Another Butterfly ID

I am also trying to identify this butterfly for the article on Ricketts Glen State Park, which is soon to go to FAC. I know it is a fritillary, and think it is an Aphrodite Fritillary or Great Spangled Fritillary, or perhaps it may be a Speyeria atlantis. Could someone who is knowledgable please make a positive identification? Thanks in advance for any help with this, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 01:53, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps this will help you. AshLin (talk) 05:47, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks - I appreciate the link (even if I am still not sure of the ID - they all look pretty similar to me). Ruhrfisch ><>°° 03:38, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Anyone interested in helping out?

I am working on a list of Lepidoptera from Hawaii, currently located on my sandbox: User:Ruigeroeland/SandboxSA. I intend to make articles on all species. I did a lot already, but there are still quite some left. Help with that would be nice, but my main question is, would anybody like to help expand the info in the list itself, so it might qualify for a DYK? Would be nice to have a Lepidoptera DYK for once... :) Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:59, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

FYI, the list is "live", see List of List of Lepidoptera of Hawaii. There are some species left to do, but most have an article. If someone is interested, the list needs some refs to qualify for DYK. I'm not very good at reffing, so any help would be appreciated. Thanks Ruigeroeland (talk) 10:28, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I would like to help in such work but actually i need to understand more about the current work--212.138.113.11 (talk) 12:22, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the offer, didnt see your reply until now. I think it is too late for DYK, because the article is too old now (it needs to be created or expanded recently to qualify). Any work on it is much appreciated though, so please go ahead and expand the article all you want! Ruigeroeland (talk) 12:46, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
Expanded Papilio xuthus. Will keep a lookout for more information on Hawaiin taxa. AshLin (talk) 15:21, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Lepidoptera articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the Lepidoptera articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:15, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:14, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Smallman12q & Svick from all of us. AshLin (talk) 17:11, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup listing progress

External morphology of Lepidoptera up for GA

User:Stemonitis highlighted the scarcity of GAs/FAs in the WikiProject. Since imho, External morphology of Lepidoptera is most complete in all aspects, this has been put up for consideration at WP:GAN.

WikiProject Members are requested to develop their favourite articles and put them up for GA. AshLin (talk) 11:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Identification Help

File:Monted Geitoneura.jpg
Geitoneura klugii?

I recently caught/mounted this butterfly. I tried using this tool to identify it, but nothing comes up that seems to be what I have here, but it does look a fair bit like Geitoneura klugii or something else from Geitoneura, but this isn't exactly like any of the pictures of any species from the genus Geitoneura, (maybe another species not mentioned on Wikipedia?).

Extra details:

  • Collected in Goulburn-Broken region of Victoria, Australia.
  • Under-sides of hind-wings are plain brown. (fore-wings look like the above-side).
  • Wing-span (from tips of each fore-wing) is 7.5cm.

Is anyone able to Identify this? JamesDouchTalk 02:42, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind, I identified it - it's Heteronympha merope. JamesDouchTalk 03:04, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

All species of three families on wikipedia

FYI, with the help of user Wilhelmina Will and help with the stub sorting by user Dawyn, we now have articles on all species of the families Gracillariidae, Micropterigidae and Micronoctuidae. The first is medium sized (about 2,000 species), while the latter are small (about 200 species each). Cheers Ruigeroeland (talk) 14:25, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I did a few random tests using entries from http://www.archive.org/stream/descriptionsofin02meyr and its an amazing job, well done. - hope the seeds will grow. Shyamal (talk) 14:40, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Lets hope they will! Some are very very short, but that is mainly because there is no additional material to be found online. Anyway, all of them have at least the synonyms, authorities and distribution and are referenced. Just curious: what do you mean by random tests using http://www.archive.org/stream/descriptionsofin02meyr? Or to say it differently: what did you test exactly? Cheers! Ruigeroeland (talk) 15:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Picked a few names (binomials) and tried to test for their existence and was pleasantly surprised to find some under their new placements too. Shyamal (talk) 15:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Ah, I get it! Still a lot to go though, but we will get there eventually. Ruigeroeland (talk) 15:54, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Yet another humungous task completed by User:Ruigeroeland. AshLin (talk) 17:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Please review External morphology of Lepidoptera for GA

Requesting any Wikiproject Lepidoptera member to review External morphology of Lepidoptera for Good Article. Anyone other User:AshLin, User:Meganmccarty, User:Bugboy52.40 or User:A_little_insignificant may do so. Its actually quite an easy process. AshLin (talk) 05:32, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

One issue at the moment is that the link to image/diagram of male genitalia seems unfulfilled. Can that picture be reinstated? ACCassidy (talk) 19:45, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Please check again. All images are rendering to my browser. AshLin (talk) 03:26, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Polyommatus myrrha and other Lepidoptera

Three things:

Catocala is a Noctuid (moth) and Polyommatus is a "blue" (Lycaenidae). Your taxon seems to be Cupido myrrha Shyamal (and that in turn now seems to be (Agrodiaetus (Sublysandra) myrrhus ) (talk) 02:13, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) (More confusing answer)

As far as Polyommatus is concerned 'myrrha' appears to have been a synonym for Polyommatus eroides (Frivaldszky, 1835) an obscure butterfly from Asia Minor vide Savela here. As far as all Lepidoptera are concerned, Lepindex shows all the taxa with "myrrha" on this page. So I would say, there is no recognised Polyommatus species "Polyommatus myrrha".
You will need to refer to specialist Noctuid sites for the correct information about Catocala. However Lepindex gives "myrrha" as a valid taxon in Catocala here while Savela does not list "myrrha" here but he does show "mira" as a valid taxon. AshLin (talk) 02:29, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you both! That was of help. With that Lepindex link I've now determined that Polyommatus myrrha is now called Cupido myrrha.
Catocala myrrha and Catocala nuptialis is still unclear.
Catocala mira and Catocala myrrha appear unconnected. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 00:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Hello there, didnt catch your question. According to the "Annotated check list of the Noctuoidea (Insecta, Lepidoptera) of North America north of Mexico", see: http://pensoftonline.net/zookeys/index.php/journal/article/download/414/400 Catocala nuptialis is valid. Catocala myrrha is not mentioned, so is not a valid North American species. The website Butterflies and Moths of North America is not up to date. I also found a ref for the synonym, I inserted it in the article. Cheers! Ruigeroeland (talk) 08:21, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Sphingidae

I am working on creating species articles on all Sphingidae species at the moment. While doing this I am also expanding existing articles (there are/were a lot of very shitty ones by the way). In the process I am also trying to clean up the higher taxo levels. I cleaned the Macroglossini tribe allready. I removed links to species, since they are also found on the genus pages. I will clean up the subfamily after I finish the other tribes in the subfamily. There is one thing that is bugging me though.. what should we do with the Sphingidae species list? Although there is some merit in having this article, I dont really feel like checking everything (since I allready did that when updating genus pages). Should we keep it? If so someone should update it.. If not, I suggest to delete it when I finish with the family.. Any opinions? Ruigeroeland (talk) 11:41, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Great! I don't know about the Sphingidae species list. It could be updated if some good sources could be found. Specking of sources, you could you this source as a checklist for the Australian species; Australian Moths online. Good luck. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JamesDouch (talkcontribs) 09:23, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
Well, the sources to update it are no problem.. The complete taxonomy of the family is at http://www.cate-sphingidae.org/, but I allready put all info in the genus articles and are currently making and updating the species articles. I dont really feel like doing double work by updating the List of species article. Also, it is a bit of a redundant article now (it wasnt when it was created, because at the time there were no genus articles). Thanks for the link, I will have a look. Ruigeroeland (talk) 11:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
Ok, the Sphingidae family is "done". There are now articles for all tribes, genera and species. Any ideas on the species list? Although updating it would not be a problem, but a lot of work, it seems to me it is hard to keep it up-to-date since people would rather add new species to the genus article than to the species list. Furthermore, keeping the info in two places is not really practical in my opinion. Ruigeroeland (talk) 10:08, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

New articles

Thanks to this request on Project main page by User:Chrisrus, the following articles have been created.

Contribs by Users Ruigeroeland, Stemonitis, Rosceles & self.

Oh, happy day!

AshLin (talk) 09:24, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Another - Lepidoptera genitalia. AshLin (talk) 05:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
You are on a roll! Great work. Ruigeroeland (talk) 10:57, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Recent changes were made to citations templates (such as {{citation}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}}...). In addition to what was previously supported (bibcode, doi, jstor, isbn, ...), templates now support arXiv, ASIN, JFM, LCCN, MR, OL, OSTI, RFC, SSRN and Zbl. Before, you needed to place |id={{arxiv|0123.4567}} (or worse |url=http://arxiv.org/abs/0123.4567), now you can simply use |arxiv=0123.4567, likewise for |id={{JSTOR|0123456789}} and |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/0123456789|jstor=0123456789.

The full list of supported identifiers is given here (with dummy values):

  • {{cite journal |author=John Smith |year=2000 |title=How to Put Things into Other Things |journal=Journal of Foobar |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=3–4 |arxiv=0123456789 |asin=0123456789 |bibcode=0123456789 |doi=0123456789 |jfm=0123456789 |jstor=0123456789 |lccn=0123456789 |isbn=0123456789 |issn=0123456789 |mr=0123456789 |oclc=0123456789 |ol=0123456789 |osti=0123456789 |rfc=0123456789 |pmc=0123456789 |pmid=0123456789 |ssrn=0123456789 |zbl=0123456789 |id={{para|id|____}} }}

Obviously not all citations needs all parameters, but this streamlines the most popular ones and gives both better metadata and better appearances when printed. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:01, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

New articles

I extracted three new butterfly articles from an improperly written page by a new user.

I did some basic formatting, categorization and project tagging but I don't have enough knowledge of the subject matter to do much more with them. Safiel (talk) 20:06, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I added some taxoboxes. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 02:11, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. Safiel (talk) 03:49, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
I did some minor work, mainly wikilinking. I think the articles are ok for now. Cheers and thanks for the work and your message! Ruigeroeland (talk) 08:17, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Input please

Could someone have a look at Cosmopterix gemmiferella. I made a bunch of articles like this one, including the description of the adult. I am aware of the technical terms, but is it okay to use them if I refer to the glossary? I am aware of other articles we have that include these kinds of technical descriptions. I prefer to use "normal" language, but there is little to no other info on these species, so it is either this, or no description at all. By the way: the texts are CC-BY-3.0 so I can copy them without any problems. Let me know what you think. Ruigeroeland (talk) 14:53, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

AfD discussion request

The recently created article Puget Trough prairie butterflies is currently under AfD. Not much response, so I thought I would mention it here. I should note this is related to my previous posting regarding the three new butterfly articles. In particular, is any of the remaining article worthy of moving to a new Butterfly and moth conservation article as I suggested. Thanks. Safiel (talk) 03:31, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I think Butterfly and moth conservation would be an interesting subject and definately worthy of an article. Dont know if the material in Puget Trough prairie butterflies is a great start though.. It would definately need a lot more to pass as a "worldwide view" of the subject. Ruigeroeland (talk) 07:20, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Country Lists

Hello all, I am currently working on creating country check lists and was thinking it would be great to have an overview page of all available check list. I began working on it on a sandbox page, see http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User:Ruigeroeland/Sandbox3, but Im not completely happy about the way it looks. If anyone has some ideas or would like to get involved.. Feel free to mess about on the sandbox page to try some stuff.. On a related note, how should we call such a page? List of lists of moths and butterflies fits the bill, but I would like something more catchy.. :) Ruigeroeland (talk) 17:11, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Wow, I hope you know what you are getting yourself into :P. Maybe incorporate something like distribution, maybe "World Distribution of Lepidoptera"? Saying moths and butterflies is a bit wordy. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 02:33, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
Hmm yes, that sounds okay.. We dont have a page like that for other animal groups do we? I know wikipedia is nearly complete for mammals and birds and I have seen country lists for these, but not a page indexing all of these lists.. Anyway, it seems like a lot of work, but I have found some good sources. I have made lists for North America (except Mexico), Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii in the past. I am now working on Africa and Europe. Problem will be South America and Asia, I havent found any sources for these yet, so they will have to wait till sources become available. Ruigeroeland (talk) 11:39, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
It would be amazing if we could acomplish this for all orders. Doing, but sense the list is always growing, it seems almost imposible. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 12:40, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
That would indeed be amazing.. I am sticking with the Leps for now though.. :) Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:32, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

If anything, I'll put it on my long list of things to do. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 19:07, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

RfC

In case of emergency, click this emergency stop button to interrupt this process.

There's been a recent suggestion for a bot task. If approved, this task may be able to hop on board the taxobox cleanup bot task that's awaiting bot approval.

  • Affected articles: Lepidopterans with {{taxobox}}-style taxoboxes
  • Changes:
  • |classis=[[Insect]]a would be added where missing
  • Minor ranks would be removed as per WP:TX
  • "<!-- outcomment unnecessary taxa instead of deleting them. They may eventually be included again when the article grows longer. -->" would be removed from articles that are visited during the bot run

Bob the WikipediaN (talkcontribs) 15:00, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

The second part of this proposal will require some complex logic. Removing minor ranks is quite simple for an editor to do, but not so simple for a programmer. That task would be particularly simpler if someone can come up with a list of frequently-used combinations. Bob the WikipediaN (talkcontribs) 16:00, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

The logic isn't very complicated, as I see it. If it's a species, the seven major ranks will be plenty (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species), unless there are infrageneric taxa involved; any minor rank above the genus is irrelevant for a species taxobox here. Likewise for genera, any minor rank above the family is irrelevant. I think the number of articles at other ranks will be few enough to be dealt with manually. (If not, it will be obvious once the species and genera have been removed from the cleanup category.) --Stemonitis (talk) 16:28, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
You missed family. Dger (talk) 01:57, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
So I did. Now corrected. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:19, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Ah, yes-- I had forgotten the simplicity of the taxobox's Linnaean-based taxonomy; the automatic taxobox's code allows for more complicated phylogenetic-type taxonomies, and it has rather complex logic for removing minor ranks. I'll try and make some time to put together tracking categories for the affected articles before the weekend ends; that way we'll have some better idea of the numbers involved here. Bob the WikipediaN (talkcontribs) 16:42, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Are there any minor ranks that should always display? For example, in the dinosaurs, Theropoda should always be displayed. Bob the WikipediaN (talkcontribs) 17:31, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I know of none. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:19, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Tracking categories have been planted; the categories should self-populate over the next several hours. Please do not delete any empty ones until 24 hours from now. These categories will assist in estimating how many articles will be affected. Bob the WikipediaN (talkcontribs) 23:42, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
The issues involved amount to 18,048; many are within the same article, so this could (in an unlikely event) be as few as 6K articles or as great as 18K articles. Bob the WikipediaN (talkcontribs) 00:19, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Another task that could perhaps be added to this – I think it's uncontroversial – would be to remove the HTML comment that is present in many of these articles which states "<!-- outcomment unnecessary taxa instead of deleting them. They may eventually be included again when the article grows longer. -->". This has always been untrue, since the inclusion of taxa in the taxobox is not contingent on article length, and never has been. I feel that editors are likely to be misled by this statement, which can safely be removed. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:19, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
Sounds good to me; I'm not sure the best way to track these articles, but I'm sure our botmaster can at least pull that off the articles that will already be on its to-do list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bob the Wikipedian (talkcontribs) 19:53, 19 April 2011
I see I failed to include an emergency stop button on this page. It's here now. Bob the WikipediaN (talkcontribs) 16:20, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
Since the AN/I discussion has now been archived, without any indication that administrator intervention was needed, can we now continue with this task, for which broad consensus has been demonstrated? --Stemonitis (talk) 08:39, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
I think so. AshLin (talk) 08:59, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
Well, I've reset the bot to allow it to continue. If any further action is needed, one of us can leave Noommos a note. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:51, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
The bot has completed its task. Nine categories of Category:Lepidoptera cleanup remain. Bob the WikipediaN (talkcontribs) 16:14, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
Then the bot has not completed its task... --Stemonitis (talk) 16:24, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I would like to propose moving Magpie (butterfly) to Protoploea apatela. The original article was autogenerated as The Magpie by a bot based on an IUCN entry.[3] This rare butterfly is commonly referred to as Protoploea apatela, not as a "Magpie". The common name claimed by IUCN is not in any use. Disclosure: I believe the term "The Magpie" should go directly to The Magpie (Monet) and/or that latter term should be moved to the former. Viriditas (talk) 03:04, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

The move you propose seems acceptable to me; I see no evidence that "The Magpie" is used for that species. I think your wider plan cannot work, however, and "The Magpie" must become a disambiguation page (or, probably, redirect to Magpie (disambiguation)). That's because other species are indeed called The Magpie (and variants thereof). --Stemonitis (talk) 05:42, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
There is nothing on the disambiguation page indicating why a search for "The Magpie" should go to any article but the painting. Obviously, this isn't the place for that discussion, so I'll take it to the dab talk page. Viriditas (talk) 07:25, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Papilioninae genera

The article Swallowtail butterfly, in the taxobox, lists papilioninae genera. There are three there that are redlinked: Lamproptera, Losaria and Meandrusa. But Lamproptera and Losaria aren't (but should be?) listed in one of the articles Leptocircini, Papilionini or Troidini. Also, the article Leptocircini lists (a redlink) Neographium, which doesn't appear on the Swallowtail butterfly article. What should be done?

I might also add - should we change the image in the taxobox of the Swallowtail butterfly article? Yes, its a pretty butterfly, but surely there are better quality images than that. How about a featured image? JamesDouch (talk) 12:06, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

I can't help on the former problem, but as regards the images, just be bold! There are three featured pictures just in the genus Papilio, and a further two involving the word swallowtail. Check out Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Animals/Insects for candidates, and pick whichever you think is most appropriate. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:43, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Some google-ing seems to lead to the following conclusions: Lamproptera is in the Leptocircini tribe. Losaria seems to be a synonym or subgenus of Atrophaneura and Neographium seems to be a synonym of Protographium. If you are going to work on papilionidae genera, might I suggest you add the synonyms and place redirects? This would prevent red links with invalid genera in the future and might prevent people creating articles for them. Cheers and happy editing! Ruigeroeland (talk) 12:48, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
Oh, and you should probably use funet as a source, it is pretty good for butterflies. See http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/insecta/lepidoptera/ditrysia/papilionoidea/papilionidae/papilioninae/protographium/index.html, http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/insecta/lepidoptera/ditrysia/papilionoidea/papilionidae/papilioninae/lamproptera/index.html and http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/insecta/lepidoptera/ditrysia/papilionoidea/papilionidae/papilioninae/atrophaneura/index.html and http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/insecta/lepidoptera/ditrysia/papilionoidea/papilionidae/papilioninae/meandrusa/index.html for the genera you raised questions about. Cheers again! Ruigeroeland (talk) 12:50, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
I changed the taxobox image to something nicer. Thanks for working it out Ruigeroeland, I'll fix it up. Cheers JamesDouch (talk) 01:55, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
Ok, I've done what needs to be done with Lamproptera, Neographium and Protographium, but seeing there is uncertainty for Losaria, for now, I will just remove it from the Swallowtail butterfly article and redirect it to Atrophaneura --JamesDouch (talk) 02:51, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
Nice work! Keep it up! Ruigeroeland (talk) 10:24, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I've come across someone who claims this: "Atrophaneura is a totally separate phylogenetic entity to Pachliopta. Pachliopta is the sister genus to Losaria (coon, rhodifer, neptunus and palu). Atrophaneura should only be used for the priapus and nox groups of Troidini containing the following species: Priapus group: priapus (luchti is really just a red bodied ssp), hageni, sycorax, aidoneus. Nox group: horishanus, semperi, kuehni, varuna, nox, matsudai, dixoni." I know one person shouldn't allow me to cause a fuss, but I didn't want to ignore this either. His source: Racheli, T. & Cotton, A. M. 2010. Papilionidae part II. – In: Bozano, G. C. (ed.), Guide to the Butterflies of the Palearctic Region. — Omnes Artes, Milano, 86 pp. Most of the words he used are listed as synonyms in Atrophaneura. So is there any concern here, or is he mistaken? --JamesDouch (talk) 01:16, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Prehistoric Lepidoptera

I usually dont work on fossil species, but I made a fist draft for an article on Prehistoric Lepidoptera. The lead section is from the main Lepidoptera article, while the list comes from various sources. If anyone is interested in expanding the article and/or make articles on genera and species, all help is welcome! Cheers Ruigeroeland (talk) 10:24, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Two fossil moth articles

I have just finished writing up the two fossil Tortrix species named by Cockerell in 1907 and 1917. Tortrix? destructus and Tortrix? florissantana are both over the minimum for DYK so if anyone thinks they are interesting go ahead and nominate them, I'm not participating in that project at this point. --Kevmin § 02:46, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Great! Really nice to see all the response to the Fossil Lep article. I never did anything with DYK, so I really wouldn't know how the nomination process works.. plus I'm going on vacation in a few days, so I dont know if I have the time to figure it out just now. Maybe someone with experience would like to nominate them? Anyway: great articles! Ruigeroeland (talk) 07:32, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Another fossil

Neurosymploca? oligocenica has now been created! --Kevmin § 17:01, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Is this the earliest known likely diurnal lepidopteran? If so, is there a verifiable reference for this? Speaking from POV of searching for interesting facts for DYK. AshLin (talk) 17:41, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
Not sure to be honest, the article mentions the diurnal nature in respect to the wing shape but not in temporal relation to emergence of diurnal behaviors. Also it is quite likely that nocturnal natures are the derived character, given the relation ship to tricopterans. Either way I did nominate it for dyk on the second specimen known but not available fact.--Kevmin § 08:34, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Btw, I just completed another article, Hydriomena? protrita, and nominated it.--Kevmin § 08:34, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm having difficulty finding interesting hook facts from these fossil articles. Hence my inactivity on further DYks after Prehistoric Lepidoptera. AshLin (talk) 18:30, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
No worries I have already nominated both Neurosymploca? oligocenica and Hydriomena? protrita. --Kevmin § 00:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to assist in adding donated content: GLAM/ARKive

I am the Wikipedia Outreach Ambassador to ARKive, who have kindly agreed to donate an initial 200 article texts about endangered species from their project, to Wikipedia, under a CC-BY-SA license. Details are on the GLAM/ARKive project page. The donated texts include some about Lepidoptera. Your help, to merge the donated texts into articles, would be appreciated. Guidelines for doing so are also on the above page. Once articles have been expanded using the donated texts, we are also seeking assistance in having those articles translated into other languages. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns, on the project's talk page, or my own. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:10, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

There was only one butterfly (Apollo butterfly) and I added most of the content. Dger (talk) 18:42, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
That's great thank you. I hope to add more Lepidoptera to the list soon; meanwhile, why not improve an article about a creature in another order? ;-) Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:31, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Identification help

Hullo. Need help identifying the above butterflies. Both are from Mindanao, Philippines. First one does not fold its wings up when resting. It's on a banana leaf, for scale (wingspread around 2.5 to 3 in).

Second one is a lycaenid AFAIK, resting on the tip of a lobe of a Philodendron bipinnatifidum leaf, for scale. I spent a lot of time trying to identify this before. While the wings resemble that of Chliaria and some other genera, the color of the eyes simply don't match. Hate you mimicry complexes, lol.-- Obsidin Soul 07:04, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Images 1 & 2 are of a Hesperid (skipper) - see the hooked antennae. Images 3 & $ are of Lycaenids. Are they the same butterfly? 08:12, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! Working on that I think it's a snow flat (Tagiades), but the markings don't match exactly to existing species images in the net. Compare: Tagiades japetus, Tagiades gana. Interesting note: Specimen was found near Dioscorea alata plants (Purple yam), common host plants for the genus.
And yes 3 and 4 are the same individual from different angles and with spread wings on 4th image.-- Obsidin Soul 09:43, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
I think I've finally identified the last two as Hypolycaena sipylus, based on this collection.-- Obsidin Soul 21:14, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

What butterfly is this?

Here. Maybe it's this? Not sure if this would be a useful photo or just duplicative. I took the photo near Yaupi in the Ecuadorian Amazon basin. Thoughts before I upload? Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:41, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Siproeta stelenes
Philaethria dido
It's a rarer Philaethria dido (commonly known as the dido, rare bamboo page, or green heliconia butterfly). Purty. :P See this page. They have overlapping ranges and S. stelenes is a Batesian mimic of P. dido, but Siproeta stelenes has shorter more serrated wings. The wing patterns are also slightly different. In particular note the 'knot' of color in the middle of the forward edge of the ventral side of the forewing. It's absent in P. dido. Some of the pictures of S. stelenes in Wikimedia Commons are misidentified, I've requested renaming for them. And I think it's useful. You might want to crop out the edges though and focus on the butterfly.-- Obsidin Soul 01:44, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
Also compare:
-- Obsidin Soul 01:48, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Article Request: Atlantea tulita Quebradillana, Harlequin Butterfly of Puerto Rico

Beautiful Butterfly Endemic to Puerto Rico, Endangered Species. No Wiki article that I can find. Main Source which includes Public Domain Pictures and Video from USFWS here and here. Please Help! QuAzGaA 17:40, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I started by adding the genus Atlantea. Dger (talk) 13:01, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Unidentified butterfly

Can anyone identify this butterfly? [4] The picture was taken at an exhibit so its home territory is unknown. Dger (talk) 13:12, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

It is a Heliconius spp imho. AshLin (talk) 15:38, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, I agree but which one? Dger (talk) 16:49, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Two unidentified butterflies

First two taken at the Alcantra gorge, Sicily. Other two taken in Taormina, Sicily.

Ruigeroeland (talk) 17:41, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

1 & 2 are Old world swallowtail. 3 & 4 are possibly Large White. AshLin (talk) 18:29, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
Awesome, thanks for the ID! Ruigeroeland (talk) 20:51, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
(FYI: the plants in image 1/2 are lantana sp. if you didn't already know) Sicily? I've been to Sicily/Taormina. Nice little place. I do remember those two are pretty much the only butterfly species I saw in Italy. Large white, or small white? I never knew. JamesDouch (talk) 06:53, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Title for hybrid articles

Ornithoptera allotei and Ornithoptera akakeae are currently the titles for both of these articles. These are actually hybrids, making their scientific names synonyms, so should I change the titles to something else? If yes, then what? --JamesDouch (talk) 07:00, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Probably Ornithoptera × allotei and Ornithoptera × akakeae with loads of redirects. I really am not familiar with how ICZN treats hybrids though. -- Obsidin Soul 12:59, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Article naming

Hello, I have two questions:

  1. WikiProject Insects believes that common names should be used for article titles "in cases where [they] are well-known and reasonably unique". This project seems to have decided at some point it would be using scientific names no matter what. Do I get this right?
  2. I believe Whites (butterfly) should be moved to Pieris (butterfly), the genus is describes. (Pieris is taken.) Both Pieris in particular and Pierinae in general are regularly referred to as "whites"; I don't see any strong case for giving precedence to either choice. I'd be willing to move the article, create/update the disambiguations/hatnotes that would need creating/updating, and redirect incoming links as needed. Objections?
Noym (talk) 03:34, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Capitalization of common names of animal species

Taxon lists in article bodies

Many articles contains lists of species, genera, tribes, etc. in the article body proper (not just in the taxobox). These lists use a number of different formats; the most popular general patterns seem to be the following:

  1. Anthocharis belia – Morocco Orange Tip
  2. Anthocharis belia Linnaeus, 1767 – Morocco Orange Tip
  3. Morocco Orange Tip
  4. Morocco Orange Tip (Anthocharis belia)
  5. Morocco Orange Tip Anthocharis belia

I think there should be one format we should standardize on, and it should be this:

  1. Morocco Orange Tip Anthocharis belia

Rationale:

  • The vast majority of readers will scan the list for an entry with a given common name, not with a given scientific name. This means the list should be sorted by common name, not scientific name, and the common name should start at the same horizontal position on each line for scannability. This rules out formats #1 and #2. For readers who prefer scanning a list of scientific names there is still the taxobox.
    • Aside: Note that #1 and #2 are not just not scannable; they are also inconsistent with our standard for article intro sentences, which gives common name first and canonical name second. On some level this tacitly establishes a naming format standard. It would obviously be nice if article intros and article link lists could use the same format. But this is really just an aside.
  • Format #3 does not contain the canonical name of the article. This makes navigation harder; if article titles are scientific only but names in lists are common only then users are forced to keep switching mentally between the two models. A large body of UX research demonstrates that having to keep switching between two naming schemes slows users down, makes it measurably harder to find things, makes people subconsciously uneasy in general, and diminishes the perceived trustworthiness of the material prestented. The format also encourages editors to use common names in their links, which is not what we want.
  • Formats #4 and #5 have the same problems that #3 has, albeit to a drastically lesser degree. The reader can see the canonical name of the article, which is nice, but the canonical name is not part of the actual link. The reader still has to switch to vernacular mode for a fraction of a second. Additionally, the parantheses in #4 are useless visual clutter.
  • Format #6 has none of these problems. As a nice side effect, it makes the clickable area the link takes up on the screen as wide as reasonably possible, which is an important thing in link lists of this sort, usability-wise.

I'm currently trying to sort out some of the article naming and linking problems in Papilionoidea; to be specific, I'm correcting outdated taxon names, moving articles from ambiguous vernacular names to scientific names, creating disambiguation pages for ambiguous vernacular names, repairing broken links that go to the wrong taxon, etc. This means I have to update lots of species lists of the type I'm talking about here. If there are no strong objections I will begin moving lists I have to make significant changes to anyway to format #6 in a few days. Noym (talk) 16:24, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I see a number of problems with your preferred format, and I would dispute some of your arguments. "The vast majority of readers will scan the list for an entry with a given common name, not with a given scientific name." I see no evidence for this. Moreover, a large number of species, even of Lepidoptera, have no common names, or have several different ones (note that your example species is very frequently referred to by the more grammatical name of "Moroccan Orange Tip", as well as "Morocco Orange Tip"). In contrast, every species has a single scientific name, and listing – say – a family by scientific name will have the advantage of keeping species in the same genus together, which would not result from alphabetical ordering of common names. Your format included two links, both to the same target, which is not desirable. Several other statements also seem questionable. "The format also encourages editors to use common names in their links, which is not what we want." Why is that "not what we want"? As far as I can see, there are strong reasons for following your example 2, which is clear, consistent, and is the only one to contain all the information. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:39, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, yes, we would have to use scientific names in many cases either way due to there not being any common name. Oh, and if we wanted to keep the lists injective we would have to use scientific names in many additional cases due to there being two or more common names. Most lists would end up being jumbles of names of both types for no immediately discernible reason and with no way of meaningfully sorting them, which would be, well, bad.
It's vaguely disconcerting I failed to see this after spending 1000+ edits solving problems that come from using common names for article titles. Let's say that was a brief senior moment and never mention it again.
So that leaves us with #1 and #2 then.

(outdent because new proposal) I think there should be one format we should standardize on, and it should be this:

  1. Anthocharis belia Linnaeus, 1767 – Morocco Orange Tip

If there are no strong objections I will begin moving lists I have to make significant changes to anyway to this format in a few days. Noym (talk) 20:20, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I prefer 2 myself. No complaints. However note the convention on lowercase letters for common names (except for proper names and sentence case), does WProject Lepidoptera adhere to this? IIRC, only WProject Birds and Primates do not.-- Obsidin Soul 20:48, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Odonata and Lepidoptera are officially exempt. I don't have any strong personal preference on this; I simply stick with convention. If you look around you see that Lepidoptera articles have been using Title Case for common names fairly consistently in the past. Noym (talk) 21:07, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Ah gotcha. Thanks.-- Obsidin Soul 21:12, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
I also prefer option 2, so it seems we all agree so far! Ruigeroeland (talk) 07:54, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Typography

So #2 it is, I'd say.

There are three versions of this format in common use; in order of decreasing popularity: Which line format do we like best?

  1. Atrophaneura dasarada Moore, 1857 – Great Windmill
  2. Atrophaneura dasarada (Moore, 1857) – Great Windmill
  3. Atrophaneura dasarada Moore, 1857 – Great Windmill

Which of these do we like best? Noym (talk) 19:56, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

A, and using bullets instead of <li> (unless that's only for choosing here). Anyway, note that parentheses in Author citation (zoology) is important, not arbitrary. Species which are still in their original taxonomic placement (i.e. the valid name used now is the name the species was originally described under) do not have parentheses. Species which are not in their original taxonomic placement (e.g. species names which have been 'fixed' by ICZN, or transferred to another genus, etc.) are in parentheses.
Atrophaneura dasarada was originally described by Frederic Moore as Papilio dasarada, hence it should be:
I have corrected the article as well.-- Obsidin Soul 20:44, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
This is correct but does anyone know what square brackets ([ ]) around a date or author means? Dger (talk) 21:07, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Author citation (zoology)#Inferred and anonymous authorships? I've never seen it used though. :/ -- Obsidin Soul 21:22, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for that. I assume that inferred dates deserve the same punctuation. I have seen it used many times for dates but infrequently for authors. Dger (talk) 02:18, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
"note that parentheses in Author citation (zoology) is important, not arbitrary"
Thanks for pointing this out; I had no idea. As far as I've seen so far, however, the species lists we have use either small font or parantheses or neither to set off author names; ie. some people must have been treating the parentheses as a typographic distinction analogous to using fine type. Either this is a weird coincidence or I have to check up on every author citation when I'm fixing lists. Oy vey.
"A, and using bullets instead of <li> (unless that's only for choosing here)"
Yeah, the <li> was just so I could say A, B, C instead of 1, 2, 3, so the common names of the format options would remain unambiguous. I did not mean to suggest that list items should be numbered. Noym (talk) 22:07, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
I did the same thing, until Stemonitis pointed it out a little over... half a year ago? lol. The way the ICZN rules are worded is insanely indecipherable >.<-- Obsidin Soul 02:35, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
You are not alone. I think everyone has been flummoxed by this when they first found out! I know I was. The brackets are at least one thing that is consistent between botanical and zoological codes (although everything else about author citation differs between them). --Stemonitis (talk) 05:09, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
I used to think it was a matter of style too until someone pointed it out to me. When I started working on wikipedia I always removed the brackets when making genus pages. :( I correct them when I stumble upon them now though. Ruigeroeland (talk) 06:44, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
So we all agree author citations currently have or don't have parentheses essentially at random? Oh well. At the rate my move requests are being implemented this could become a moderate inconvenience in as little as nineteen years. Noym (talk) 10:23, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
LOL, FWIW though, some genera have members that are almost all in parentheses. Usually those which have been split off from larger older 'trash bin' genera. Generally, the more stable its taxonomy, the less variation in the presence of parenthesis in author citations. And yeah, I still find myself getting confused with botanical and zoological nomenclature and terms. >.< -- Obsidin Soul 21:19, 27 September 2011 (UTC)