Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Mealybugs

Mealybugs

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 11 Mar 2015 at 01:41:43 (UTC)

Original – Three mealybugs, insects in the family Pseudococcidae. These unarmored scale insects are found in moist, warm climates and considered pests as they feed on plant juices of greenhouse plants, house plants and subtropical trees.

Reason: As can be seen from the file history, this was a tough shot to get right. Mealybugs are tiny little "bug-cows" (herded by ants) which feed on plant matter. These were found in our garden (the pinkish background is the wall). I ended up focus stacking 5 images to get all three of these tiny insects in focus (not an easy task, if you look at the rest of the Commons category). I think it's rather nice, even if they terrorize plants.
Articles in which this image appears: Mealybug
FP category for this image: Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Animals/Insects
Creator: Chris Woodrich

Support as nominator – — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:41, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I appreciate how big an ask this is, but do we have any clearer identification? We have nearly 300 listed genera, nevermind species, so "a mealybug" is actually a very vague ID. J Milburn (talk) 10:33, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- I can try to ask, but some of the identification methods (poking a female, for instance) are not applicable to pictures. My wife's also gotten rid of the mealybugs - as soon as I told her they eat plants, she didn't want them in the garden. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:59, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - To quote User:Shyamal from elsewhere: "Unfortunately most mealybugs can only be identified under a microscope and identifying to species would require the specialist (i.e. not me) to examine a specimen, dissect the genitalia and compare with literature (often scattered in journals)." I'm still looking for a genus-level ID, but not hoping for much. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:12, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - Alright, I've received a response from an entomologist Jee recommended. As with Shyamal, he stated that a certain identification from a photograph would be impossible. He did note, however, that there is a species (Phenacoccus parvus) which feeds on Lantana (as here). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:45, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- Can we get it down to a genus or other subgrouping? Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 11:51, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - No, "identification" as above included identification to the genus as well. Sorry I wasn't clearer about that — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:07, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable supporting this without clearer ID. We used to pass a lot of images with only genus level ID, but even that strikes me as less than ideal, now. A lack of clear ID, for my money, reduces EV; the best and most useful images in professional works (such as reputable guidebooks or scientific papers [didn't we used to have something about this in the criteria?]) are going to have a subject which is identified with some accuracy. Josh Milburn (talk) 09:18, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      - Oh, I understand completely. There are a lot of unidentified insects I've taken images of which haven't been anywhere near FPC or QIC (on Commons); they may be technically there, but the ID needs to be done. For the mealybugs, I thought that the extreme difficulty of proper identification (and the technical shot) would be a mitigating factor, so I tried nominating anyways. No worries if that's not the case. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:32, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not Promoted --Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 03:16, 11 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]