Talk:Aposematism

GA Review

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

Reviewer: Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs) 09:44, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

• I propose to review this article. I can see that the prose is of a high standard and I will read the article in detail shortly. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:44, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this on. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:51, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

First reading

• Aposematism is a term that will be unfamiliar to many. There is some information on its meaning and origins in the lead, but there should be information on this in the body of the text. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:50, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

I've added a paragraph and wikilinked it to the article on Poulton's book. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:12, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

• I'm puzzled by your use of the word "luminescence", but it's probably my ignorance.

Avoided.

• "Sharply contrasting black-and-white skunks and zorillas are examples within mammals." - The preceding sentence is about insects acquiring toxic chemicals from host plants, but this is not the case in skunks and polecats.

Reworded.

• "Nudibranch molluscs ... the evidence for this has been contested ... and has no known mimics." - I'm puzzled by this too. I though aposematism was warning predators of the unprofitability of preying on the animal rather than anything to do with mimicry as such.

It is. Added "Mimicry is to be expected as Batesian mimics with weak defences can gain a measure of protection from their resemblance to aposematic species."

• "Further, fish predators may adapt to visual cues more rapidly than do birds, making aposematism less effective." - I'm puzzled by this statement too.

The source presents evidence that predators (blueheads) "continually assess and adapt to prey palatability using visual cues.".

• "Batesian mimicry is frequency dependent: it is most effective when the ratio of mimic to model is low; otherwise, predators learn to recognise the impostors." - Is this a correct deduction to make from this source?

Yes, though it's a specialised paper. Added a ref to Edmunds.

• • That's it for the moment. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:16, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

GA criteria

The points I raised above have been addressed. The structure and layout is satisfactory, the prose is of high quality, the article is well-cited to reliable sources, it is neutral and stable. The images all have appropriate licenses and captions. I believe this article reaches the GA criteria. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:09, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks for the review. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:46, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

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Origins of the Theory: Wallace, 1867

In the quote here there are strange notations, e.g. an "at" crossed out and the word "seizure" underlined. The frequency of them means this looks deliberate rather than a mistake. Is this a verbatim transcript of a letter meaning it needs a sic? Or do these marks require deletion? Gulielmus Rosseus (talk) 02:52, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

The text of the letter shown by The Natural History Museum, footnoted as our source, shows the underlined words and the struck out word "at". That source includes this information: "This transcript is based on that produced by The Darwin Correspondence Project". The Darwin Project web page shows the words as italicized, rather than underlined, and does not show the struck out word "at" at all. (https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-5416.xml). I could not find an actual image of the letter. Almost certainly, the letter was handwritten, so italicizing would be unlikely or impossible, but underlining would be quite possible. It's an open question whether the word "at" actually appears in the letter and may have been crossed out by the writer. So, we're kind of back where we started: underline seems more plausible than italicizing in the original, and without more documentation, or an image of the correspondence, we can't be sure if "at" appears as crossed out, or perhaps does not appear at all. But the NHM source shows what we might consider more plausible in both matters: underlining and cross-out by the letter writer. DonFB (talk) 05:41, 27 December 2023 (UTC)