The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the Camas pocket gopher(pictured) has been described as "morose and savage", yet can be tamed in captivity?
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This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.
You could make the synonym list be less intrusive by doing the same as seen on for example red rail.
It's a bit hard to get an idea of how the animal looks from the taxobox image alone. Consider madding this one somewhere, as it shows the head in a different view.[1]
Can I ask your advice on image use? Of the 14 images at Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Thomomys_bulbivorus I have uploaded 12. The other two there before are the taxidermy in the Italian museum and the woodcut from the 1800s encyclopedia. Both incorrectly labeled as "California". Do you think the article would benefit from having those images added, to highlight the complex taxonomy issues discussed in the article? Also, where/how best to incorporate the other image you mentioned? —Gaffταλκ04:38, 24 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
Still seems a bit odd for a "mislettering", it is a completely different word.
I think "mislettered" at the time may have meant more that the letters were laid out wrong at the printer or something along those lines. The reference here reads "The fourth (Diplostoma 1 bulbivorum) was based on the skin of a "Camas-rat," from the "banks of the Columbia," an animal said to be very common on the plains of the Multnomah River" (F. B.-A., I, p. 206, pl. xviii/>, wrongly lettered " Diplostoma douglasii")." The reference F. B.-A. is the Fauna boreali-americana and the plate/image is the one here. I think "mislabeled" is more appropriate than "mislettered." —Gaffταλκ04:50, 25 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
If the title is the common name, this should be used throughout the article. That is how most articles about extant mammals are written. FunkMonk (talk) 16:48, 23 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
"the only place on the Columbia from which" Too esoteric for non-Americans.
I have edited it and tried to clarify. The wikilink for Columbia River goes to the 1,243 mi (2,000 km) river.
"It was to have been in" Seems a bit awkward.
better?
"Even prior to that, it seems that this specimen was not well preserved" What did it consist of?
The water is a bit murky. I'll read up more when I get a chance. Made some edits for now.
* okay?
No word on the former genus it was classified in, Diplostoma? What is it?
I doubt that it is going to be worthwhile to translate the Brandt text. I ran some through Google translate, without much information. I'm not sure how to go about getting more clarity on this point (not for lack of searching). I'll keep in on the to-do list, but need to focus on bigger issues first. —Gaffταλκ16:57, 25 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
There just is not much in the Brandt text about this. I;ve clarified a lot in the article. This again seems an "artifact" of the Diplostoma affair. —Gaffταλκ02:46, 28 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
"what at the time as thought" Was thought?
"at that time for the Camas pocket" Only for the?
That is my understanding. I've added the "alone." Its in the first paragraph of referenced article, under "Context and Content". The rationale was questioned later by some other naturalists. I'll have to review references to get the full story & clarify. Something about some minor concavities of the pterygoids, if I remember. I'm not sure what prompted adding the others later. I acutally cannot find anything about one of the species in the subgenus listed in ITIS http://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=900156 : Thomomys atrovarius—Gaffταλκ18:57, 24 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
-- this has been addressed.
"In the 1920s, reference is made to the "Willamette Valley Gopher." Why shift of tense here?
fixed
"In German is is known as "Camas-Taschenratte," in French, "Gaufre bulbivore," and in Italian, "Gopher gigante." Why do we need to know the name in countries where it doesn't even live?
It's referenced and somewhat interesting in a trivial way. I moved it to the talk page.
Yeah, the thing is, one could write such lists for prettt much every6thing on Wikiedia, but its relevance would be questionable, especially when a species isn't native to the places these languages are spoken. FunkMonk (talk) 15:21, 29 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
::* I get it. I had added that when the article was still a stub, because it seemed interesting in the moment. It is obviously not essential. That it is called Gopher Gigante in Italian is marginally relevant, since it is the largest in the group. But I vote we leave it out. —Gaffταλκ16:59, 29 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
"No subspecies of the Camas pocket gopher are described." Why present tense?
"The patterning reflects a destructive event occurring across a broad expanse of the territory about 13,000 years ago." With what consequences for the animal?
I thought the sentence immediately prior helped clarify. A study was done in 1993 analysing genetic patterns and tracing patterns back to an event at that time. The two references I have listed in the article are a bit. From IUCN http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/42594/0 : "This species exhibits a genetic pattern of limited inbreeding within populations and much differentiation among populations; pattern reflects a cataclysmic event affecting the entire geographic distribution of the species about 13,000 years ago (Carraway and Kennedy 1993)." I will try to find the original paper, but need to avoid relying too much on primary sources. —Gaffταλκ18:57, 24 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
"Diplostoma douglasii from Fauna boreali-americana, 1829" Is that a depiction of the type specimen?
This image is parked in the middle of the section of the book on the animal. Again, we are in murky water. I'll try and sort it out. —Gaffταλκ18:57, 24 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
"One of the four initial species of Richardson was Diplostoma ? bulbivorum." Add that this is an old name for the Camas pocket gopher. FunkMonk (talk) 17:19, 28 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
The taxonomy section is a wall of text, could be split into at least two or three more paragraphs.
better now?
"now known as Thomomys bottae." You could mention the common name in parenthesis.
"They most closely resemble Botta's pocket gopher.[citation needed]" All such tags should be dealt with prior to nomination in the future.
Likewise with the second to last paragraph in the description section.
"peculiar fur" That means little by itself.
-- clarified
"This heavy rostrum" Should be the, it is only a part of the skull. But I wasn't aware that any mammals had anything referred to as such, does the source really say rostrum?
"such as T. mazama" Always remember to provide common names as well.
Good with the new flood stuff, though it leaves some stuff repeated in the taxonomy section, and perhaps it would make more sense under distribution? That is, after all, what it is about.
-- fixed redundancies there. Need to go over the rest of the article as well.
The reproduction and growth stuff looks like it would be better of as a subsection under behaviour.
Likewise, the last paragraph now under "biology" (about predators and parasites) seems like it would make more sense under ecology. Ecology could perhaps be its own section.
After this, there would be no separate "biology" section, which doesn't make much sense anyway. Behaviour and ecology is biology.
"The cataclysmic Bretz Flood crashed through the Willamette Valley approximately 13,000 years ago in an almost perfect overlay of this distribution at an elevation of around 122 m (400 ft)." Much of this appears to be redundant, after you added the new text on floods.
fixed.
"Before the floods, and since," Wouldn't "before and since" read better?
done.
"It is uncertain if burrow systems of different gophers communicate." Communicate? What is meant by that? Interaction?
Exact quote from Verts :"Burrow systems of several pocket gophers may communicate although tunnels of adjacent individuals may be ..." It means the systems of gophers liveing near each other may connect. I fixed the odd phrasing. —Gaffταλκ01:34, 1 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
"Dandelions were found more often than other vegetation in the nests and burrows than other food sources." Repetition.
"Their bones have been identified in the regurgitated material from predatory birds." This seems to overlap with a sentence in "biology", should be merged.
I understood that, but thought the quote in its entirety may be interesting enough to stand alone. I'm not picky about the block quote being there or not. Kind of fun, because I didn't know how to make that until yesterday...—Gaffταλκ22:50, 1 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
Some of the intro seems to be short, abrupt sentences. Stuff that is related could be grouped together (morphology stuff, for example), to give a better flow.
"may become tame in captivity" This is not covered in the article. There should be no unique info in the intro.
-- fixed and expanded. Added a new reference to plunder.
One last thing, which I'm unsure whether the article addresses: What does Camas mean?
Refers to Camassia. They were thought to be devouring the bulbs. There is some controversy in the literature, but later authors say that they are not bulb eaters. Which makes bulbivorus a misnomer. I will spell this all out better in the article. —Gaffταλκ22:03, 30 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
I'm not going into the origins of the word "Camas" too much, but linked to the article about the flower and clarified why it is the common name of the gopher.
done. Can still benefit from going over by an excellent copy editor. Request was placed at Guild of Copy Editors a while ago. —Gaffταλκ03:21, 2 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
Awesome work with the dodo. I will plan on incorporating some of the boxed quotes from naturalists of the era and some other features of "your" article. Once this article passes GA, if you have additional ideas and want to help out, it would probably help me a lot in terms of developing my skills.—Gaffταλκ18:57, 24 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, as for quotes, that was mainly done because the animal is long extinct and can't be observed by modern scientists, which means all we have are those old accounts, which should not really be interpreted, and are therefore left as they were. I'm not sure quotes are much relevant to extant taxa, and they could instead present outdated information. FunkMonk (talk) 19:03, 24 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
For FAC, I'd recommend that you request a copyedit here:[2] I always do that. But beware that it can take long before someone does it, as it is mostly done chronologically, so you could list it now already, this review will no doubt be done by that time. FunkMonk (talk) 17:19, 28 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
Oh, I see you are a copy editor! Well, the thing here is that it seems some of the sentences are a bit convoluted, and some complicated stuff could need explanations. You could re-read it once this review is over. FunkMonk (talk) 18:33, 28 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
The article is still a work in progress. I'm not a great copy editor & actually haven't done anything since putting the userbox on my page! I may have asked for a GA review sooner in the process than would be ideal, but your feedback has been extremely helpful. —Gaffταλκ21:26, 28 November 2014 (UTC)Reply
What do you think, to break up the taxonomy section a bit?:
There is a specimen of a quadruped in the Hudson's Bay Museum, which Mr David Douglas informs me is the animal known on the banks of the Columbia by the name of the Camas-rat, because the bulbous root of the Quamash or Camas plant (Scilla esculenta) forms its favourite food. The scull is wanting, and the animal, therefore, cannot be with certainty referred to a genus, but the form of its exterior cheek-pouches leads me to think that it may belong to the diplostoma of M Rafinesque-Smaltz.
Alright, seems everything has been fixed appropriately. Now there is one last thing: a number of words are wikilinked twice in the article, they should only be so at first occurrence. FunkMonk (talk) 07:22, 2 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
I fixed them all except a few intentional exceptions. Where important names of people, or taxonomic classes are linked in the infobox, I left them linked on first mention in the text. Additionally, in a very few instances, important concepts linked in the lead or early sections were also linked linked once more if they occurred at the very end of the article. I think there is Manual of Style precedent for doing it this way. I'm totally open to changing it if you think best. —Gaffταλκ14:17, 2 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
I feel that there is an excessive level of detail in the lead, making it hard to read and unfocused. Perhaps confining the lead to the most often mentioned facts from more than one secondary source would help. For example, it seems to me that saying, "The females have four mammary glands" in the lead is overdoing it, unless the other members of the genus have a different number of teats. Many of the other sentences are equally random-seeming. Abductive (reasoning)17:14, 28 December 2014 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
It is really satisfying to see this article up on the Main Page today! It took a lot of work to make it happen. Thank you to everyone who helped out. --Gaff (talk) 18:08, 3 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
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