Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Beetles

Synetini or Synetinae?

Is the taxon Synetini a tribe of the leaf beetle subfamily Eumolpinae, or is it in fact a separate leaf beetle subfamily known as Synetinae? A number of articles in the last decade or so seem to prefer Synetinae as far as I'm aware, though ITIS and, of course, we on the English Wikipedia have decided to call it a tribe (at least, since March 2007). I'm leaning towards renaming the Synetini article back to Synetinae as it was pre-2007, but I don't want to make any rash decisions here just in case this is a bad idea. Especially since the rank of this taxon seems to be controversial even in the literature anyway. I've made attempts to try to clarify this controversy in text as a temporary "fix" since I started editing the Eumolpinae-related pages, but it just eats away at my head nevertheless!

As far as I've been able to piece together, the recent history of the rank of this taxon is as follows (some of which I already referenced on the Synetini article over the last year or two):

• pre-1995: The taxon is known as the subfamily "Synetinae", at least since Edwards (1953).
• 1995: C.A.M. Reid places it as a tribe of Eumolpinae, giving it the name "Synetini".
• 2002: American Beetles, Volume II: Polyphaga: Scarabaeoidea through Curculionoidea lists it as Synetini.
• 2008: In Jolivet & Verma's Eumolpinae – a widely distributed and much diversified subfamily of leaf beetles (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae), they criticise Reid's placement and prefer to keep it as a subfamily.
• 2010: The Catalogue of Palaearctic Coleoptera volume 6 lists it as Synetinae, and even states it does not include Synetinae in Eumolpinae.
• 2011: Bouchard et al.'s "Family-group names in Coleoptera (Insecta)" article in ZooKeys lists it as the subfamily Synetinae.
• After this, the trail goes cold and nobody seems to really touch the subject, except in phylogenetic studies such as this one from last year implying that it's not part of Eumolpinae or something?

This would also be good to clear up because sister project Wikispecies has a page for both ranks of the taxon for some reason. Wikispecies only needs to have one of them, but because of my confusion here I'm not sure which one to keep.

Monster Iestyn (talk) 18:32, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Based on the timeline you've presented, and a greater number of sources in the taxonbar for Synetinae, I'm inclined to go with subfamily. Of the taxonbar sources for Synetini, the ITIS record was last updated in 2006, and while I'm getting an error from EOL, EOL does scrape Wikipedia and can't be trusted as an independent taxonomic source. But this is a pretty superficial analysis on my part; I'm not considering the taxonomic merits of either circumscription. Plantdrew (talk) 05:39, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

EOL probably needs its own discussion somewhere more general at some point I think, since none of the existing EOL links for taxonbars seem to work anymore. I think this is because they completely changed the site recently? Monster Iestyn (talk) 11:07, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, maybe I'm wrong about the above, I jumped to conclusions. EOL links *do* work for some taxon pages, but not for others like Synetini/Synetinae. ...weird then. Monster Iestyn (talk) 01:53, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

My philosophy - for what it's worth - is to designate some recent source as the latest "state of play" ("trusted source" i.e. overrides earlier statements) unless either you have a reason to disagree, or something more recent emerges that you prefer. In this case I (personally) would follow Bouchard et al. unless you have a reason not to then you can say that the WS entry is compliant with the Bouchard et al. treatment at least (for now; nothing is immutable). Just my 2 cents' worth of course. Regards Tony Rees, IRMNG. Tony 1212 (talk) 08:35, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I have since learned that Handbook of Zoology Arthropoda: Insecta: Coleoptera: Volume 3 from 2014 also calls it a subfamily, based on morphological data or so. So yeah, it's looking pretty conclusive to me we should be using "Synetinae", at least for now. Monster Iestyn (talk) 09:05, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

...Oh bother, I was actually just about to make the move from Synetini to Synetinae myself just now (assuming it is current classification after all), but it appears I cannot for technical reasons and I'd need to go to Wikipedia:Requested moves to do so... or can anyone here do the switch for me maybe? Monster Iestyn (talk) 02:21, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

...No response? Oh well, Requested moves it is then. Monster Iestyn (talk) 21:13, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

A speciesbox for Draft:Arrhenodes minutus

So I was going to add a {{speciesbox}} to Draft:Arrhenodes minutus when I ran into a problem. Is the species Arrhenodes minutus, Arrenodes minutus, Arrhenodes minuta, or Arrenodes minuta? I'm not sure what taxonomic database is the go-to one for coeloptera, but I keep seeing different names on each site. There is no template at {{Taxonomy/Arrhenodes}} nor {{Taxonomy/Arrenodes}}, nor articles for the genus at either Arrhenodes or Arrenodes. --awkwafaba (📥) 03:31, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

According to multiple articles I've found online, Arrenodes Schönherr, 1823 seems to be the original spelling, and Arrhenodes Schönherr, 1826 is a later misspelling:

• A world catalogue of families and genera of Curculionoidea (Insecta: Coleoptera) (excepting Scolytidae and Platypodidae). (from 1999): page 47
• Arrenodes minutus (Drury, 1770) (Coleoptera: Brentidae) discovered in the Maritime Provinces of Canada (from 2008): page 34
  • "[...] Arrhenodes Schönherr, 1826 has often been employed in the past, however, this has been relegated to a junior synonym of Arrenodes Schönherr, 1823 (Anderson and Kissinger 2002)."
• Family-group names in Coleoptera (Insecta) (from 2011): under "Subtribe Arrhenodina Lacordaire, 1865":
  • "Type genus: Arrenodes sensu Lacordaire, 1865 [as Arrhenodes, incorrect subsequent spelling of type genus name, not in prevailing usage; not Arrenodes Schönherr 1823; syn. of Estenorhinus Lacordaire, 1865]."
• David Sharp (1840–1922). A bibliography and a catalogue of his insect names (from 2013): page 59
  • "Arrhenodes SHARP, 1895b: 44; misspelling of Arrenodes SCHÖNHERR, 1823"

Seems pretty conclusive to me that Arrenodes should be the spelling used, and Arrhenodes should be a redirect to it. As I've been learning more and more for myself recently, a lot of the databases don't seem to be all that up-to-date or even accurate at all (especially as far as beetles are concerned), so it's better to look for the actual publications. Monster Iestyn (talk) 05:33, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

@Monster Iestyn: ok, sounds fair, so it is Arrenodes minutus and not Arrenodes minuta then as well? --awkwafaba (📥) 14:24, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm leaning towards minutus, but I'm actually not entirely sure which one it should be. Depends what the gender of the genus is I expect. Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:23, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

@Awkwafaba: Okay yeah obviously nobody else has commented on this in the few days since, so I'll suggest you go for minutus because:

1. the 1999 catalogue of Curculionoidea indicates that the genus name Arrenodes is masculine ("M;"), and from what I'm aware for "minutus"/"minuta", "-us" is a masculine ending, and "-a" is the feminine one (I don't really know any Latin at all so I'm mostly going off experience of seeing those kind of names)
2. the 2008 article I linked uses "Arrenodes minutus" in the title anyway!

Hope this finally settles the matter. Obviously the article title can be changed later if for some reason I was wrong. Monster Iestyn (talk) 18:19, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

@Monster Iestyn: Oh I forgot to write that I already did that, added the {{Speciesbox}} as Arrenodes minutus at Draft:Arrhenodes minutus. Good to hear that it's correct though. The draft was created by an IP so I guess it will need more than that to get published to main. --awkwafaba (📥) 19:04, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Ah, fair enough then. Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:49, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Renaming some leaf beetle genera articles

To my knowledge, the following leaf beetle genera with articles actually should have different names:

• Fidia Baly, 1863: renamed to Neofidia Strother, 2020 (Fidia Baly, 1863 is a junior homonym of Fidia Motschulsky, 1861)
• Lypesthes Baly, 1863: a junior synonym of Fidia Motschulsky, 1861 (1860 in some sources)
• Massartia Selman, 1965: renamed to Selmania Zoia, 2019 (Massartia is a junior homonym, though I'm not sure what the senior homonym is)
• Orthaltica Crotch, 1873: a junior synonym of Aulacothorax Boheman, 1858
• Scelodonta Westwood, 1838: a junior synonym of Heteraspis Chevrolat, 1836
• (there may be more I forgot but these ones are the ones I can think of right now)

However, I'm not sure which of these actually should be renamed on Wikipedia, or whether it's a good idea to do so just yet. Various things that bother me:

• The article establishing Neofidia was published just a few days ago, though the nomenclature problems that lead to the new name have been known for at least a decade.
• Massartia in particular is a problem, because the only source I have for the new name currently is Zoia's African Eumolpinae site (the actual article for the new name I do not know and it is probably inaccessible on the internet anyway).
• Most of the databases linked from the pages still use the old names, though with exception to Orthaltica which has been updated to Aulacothorax on BugGuide and iNaturalist.

For the Fidia/Lypesthes/Neofidia names, I've already updated the relevant Wikispecies pages and even added some Wikidata items. Meanwhile, on Wikipedia I already noted the new names for all of the above genera on their articles ages ago, along with sources to back those up. Not sure where to go from there though. Anyone know what is best for these cases? Monster Iestyn (talk) 16:10, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

A senior homonym for Massartia is Massartia Schouteden, 1952 (a hemipteran), but there's also a botanical Massartia so disambiguation may be needed.

Generally I wouldn't advise creating a Wikipedia page for a taxon published days ago (although that often happens anyway for many vertebrates). But I don't see any reason to delay when the new publication resolves a known homonymy. It's possible that Zoia had intended to publish Selmania in 2019, but for whateever reason the publication has yet to appear. Zoobank should have a record for Selmania if it's published, right (it does have a record for Neofidia)? IUCN certainly has a few cases of bogus ined. authorships, and I could see that also being an issue where a person maintaining a database might enter taxa they themselves are describing prematurely. Plantdrew (talk) 23:41, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

ZooBank isn't consistently used for new zoology publications I find unfortunately, as far as I'm aware it's not mandatory to use it unless a publication is not available for print (or something like that). Even when it is used though, sometimes people forget to "activate" the pages on there. Oddly enough, the publication for Neofidia is actually on there ([1]) but is missing all the nomenclatural acts as of writing, so Neofidia is not on there. Selmania isn't on there either, and I suspect it was published in a print-only periodical that doesn't usually use ZooBank. Judging by the last update to Zoia's site, possibly in Vernate volume 38? Monster Iestyn (talk) 01:27, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Update a year later, all volumes of Vernate up to volume 38 have now been made freely available online, including the article establishing Selman Zoia, 2019 as a replacement name for Massartia Selman, 1965 (as it is both a homonym of Massartia Conrad, 1926 and Massartia Schouteden, 1952). See here. So Zoia did publish the name after all. Sounds like Massartia is alright to rename to Selmania now, clearly. Monster Iestyn (talk) 23:24, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Habroscelimorpha/Cicindela dorsalis

I think that the article Cicindela dorsalis and the much newer article Habroscelimorpha dorsalis are meant to be about the same species of beetle. From what I gather--and I'm not an entomologist; I gathered it all right here--Cicindela has been a very large genus with a number of subgenera. One such subgenus was Habroscelimorpha, to which the dorsalis species belonged. Several of those subgenera, including that one, are being raised to full genus level. I think that is what caused this situation. But I don't feel I have the expertise to decide if that's correct and meld the two articles--and I certainly don't have the authority here to delete one article (assuming that's what it would require). Uporządnicki (talk) 00:48, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

You're right. Those two articles refer to the same species. Habroscelimorpha dorsalis is the correct name, according to ITIS, GBIF, Bugguide, and iNaturalist. Cicindela dorsalis is a more complete article. I've requested that Habroscelimorpha dorsalis be deleted, and will move Cicindela dorsalis to Habroscelimorpha dorsalis when (and if) that happens. Thanks! Bob Webster (talk) 01:47, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Rather than requesting to delete an established duplicate article and then moving the other article into that name-space, it is better to just merge the two articles at the article name to be kept and then changing the other article to a redirect. I have now done this by following the instructions contained at WP:MERGE. Loopy30 (talk) 19:33, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Subspecies articles for African Eumolpinae

Some background: I'm aware that some years ago, Rubbish computer made a series of articles of African species and subspecies of Eumolpinae using Stefano Zoia's African Eumolpinae site as the main source. Unfortunately, many of these ended up as orphans as a result (I think I heard one was even deleted), which is what lead to me making articles for Eumolpinae genera or species to de-orphan them in the last three years or so. (Which is how I became so active in leaf beetles pages on Wikipedia I guess.)

Now back to present day... while I'm not sure whether the species themselves are notable enough for articles in the first place, the subspecies on the other hand seem don't seem deserving of articles at all in my opinion. For instance, the three subspecies articles for Colasposoma brevepilosum have at best three sentences currently. As far as I can judge, you couldn't expand on them much more without going into detailed descriptions of the subspecies themselves, and there's little to no sources besides their original descriptions (and Zoia's site). Even then they will likely still be stubs, given the current lack of information on any of them. Wouldn't it be better for their contents to be placed in the main Colasposoma brevepilosum article?

Basically I just want to make these subspecies articles into redirects to the species articles where possible, if that's alright. I'm just asking here because I'm not entirely sure if I should do so or not. I'm still not totally familiar with Wikipedia policy on these kind of articles as it is. Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:50, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

If nobody responds soon I may assume there's no objection and go ahead with the above anyway. Monster Iestyn (talk) 15:10, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Monster Iestyn:. You might get a stronger range of responses if you took this query to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Insects talk page as Beetles is a sub-project thereof and has fewer active participants following the talk page here. My personal feeling is that subspecies rarely require their own individual pages unless they are particularly noteworthy as a subspecies (of which I can think of zero examples for beetles, but this must be thing). In the examples you provided, they would make more sense being part of a single article - specimens of the same species recorded in one paper by the same authority (thus potentially less taxonomically stable as sub-species). The nearest thing to specific guidance on it is Wikipedia:WikiProject Insects#Criteria for inclusion. I vote be bold. Zakhx150 (talk) 10:16, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

@Zakhx150: Ah, thank you for the response. The guidance you linked sounds like it would apply here, yeah, there's not enough info on these subspecies for them to have much more than stubs as I said. And thanks, I'll turn to that talk page next time I need something on this sort of subject then, I am getting a bit tired of getting little to no responses somewhat. Monster Iestyn (talk) 14:07, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi Monster Iestyn. First of all, I'd like to apologise sincerely for my lack of a response. As I've become busy in real life I've been spending less time on Wikipedia than I'd like, to the point where I often don't even catch up on notifications. Secondly, I think turning the subspecies articles into redirects is a good idea, but am not sure what policy is on this. Cheers, Rubbish computer (Talk: Contribs) 17:07, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

No worries, I actually didn't think about the fact I was nicknoticing you by linking your page if I'm being honest, but oh well! That said, I've already turned them all into redirects since my last comment anyway, so it's all done now. =) Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:19, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Ok cheers. Rubbish computer (Talk: Contribs) 19:22, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Rhadine caudata

The article for Rhadine caudata could use another set of eyes. I had started a discussion on the Talk page but my edits were again reverted without any response. —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 21:48, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Help on article about Rivacindela hudsoni

Hi! I am a uni student working on an article about the tiger beetle Rivacindela hudsoni, would anyone be willing to look it over in a few weeks? Thank you :) Anastasia.sck (talk) 05:12, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Gyaritini vs Gyaritinni

There are Category pages for two tribes of longhorn beetles. Gyaritini--with one "n"--is categorized under the Lamiinae subfamily, and Gyaritinni--with two "n"s--is under the family Cerambycidae. The Category:Gyaritinni ( 0 ) category has many more species in it, including all the species of the genus Gyaritus; the genus itself is under Category:Gyaritini ( 45 ).

I suspect that Gyaritinni is a mistake. I'm not an entomologist or taxonomist; I'm an obsessive Category Reorganizer/Fixer. I'm willing to undertake moving everything from Gyaritinni to Gyaritini (a tiny project compared to many I've done). And I'm confident enough that I've figured things out right that I'll take it on right away--barring some sort of message that I've got it wrong.

When I've done that, assuming nobody's persuaded me to put it all back, I'll come back here and talk about deleting that category (which I can't do). Uporządnicki (talk) 15:08, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

@AzseicsoK: I cannot find anything that references "Gyaritinni" that isn't on enwiki or a mirror, which makes me think it's a spelling misteak. It looks like you moved everything already, so good job i guess.  :) --awkwafaba (📥) 14:01, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

@Awkwafaba: I did indeed, yes. It seemed pretty clear to me. I also moved the Gyaritinni category itself, from Cerambycidae to Lamiinae, so now, they're conspicuously next to each other in the Lamiinae subcategory list.Uporządnicki (talk) 17:38, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

A new (?) genus, Tinaroo, not a town in Australia

There are a couple of new articles for species of a genus Tinaroo. These are Tinaroo apicicollis and Tinaroo gibbicollis. It looks like Tinaroo has recently been set up from at least some species of what had been Batrisodes. There's no article on the genus.

Right now, the species boxes on both are linking to a town in Australia called Tinaroo. I've been trying to change that, but the edit I made to the template hasn't worked. Uporządnicki (talk) 00:51, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

@AzseicsoK:, your edit to the template worked, but you need to make a null edit to the species article (or wait "awhile" which could be a few hours) to get the updates to the template to display. I've made a null edit to T. apicicollis. You should pipe the link in the taxonomy template so that the disambiguatory term isn't displayed. Also, very few articles are using (genus) as a disambiguatory term; the standard term for beetles is (beetle). So |link= in the taxonomy template should have "Tinaroo (beetle)|Tinaroo", which I have now changed. Plantdrew (talk) 01:04, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: Not sure I got all that, but thanks. Actually, I think I get all but the Null edit (don't bother). I guess basically, if I'd waited a bit ... Uporządnicki (talk) 01:10, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: Oh, and thanks for the category, too. I added it for the one, and forgot the other. Uporządnicki (talk) 01:12, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Qualifier for a genus name--preference?

If I'm going to set up a Category page for a genus of beetle, and the genus name is one that should have a qualifier in parentheses, what is preferred:

• Genusname (genus), or
• Genusname (beetle)?

Someone recently explained that directly to me here, but I don't remember what s/he told me, and I don't know where to find that helpful individual's message to me. I've looked around for some procedure or rule, but I'm not finding one. ALSO:

• If there is an article on that genus and the article title has a qualifier, should the qualifier on the Category title match the one on the article--even if it's not the preferred one?

In my ongoing mission to break up the (formerly gargantuan, now--you're welcome--merely huge) category Lamiinae (used to be over 4000 articles; I've got them down to about 2500), I'll soon be setting up a Category for Linda (beetle). (I'd like to add, though, that the vast majority of articles that I've recategorized, I've moved to already existing subcategories.) Uporządnicki (talk) 14:17, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

OOOOOPPSSSS!!!!!! Now, I see who gave me that information before, and where--and I feel like a prize jackass! It was @Plantdrew:, IN THE EXCHANGE JUST ABOVE THIS ONE, where he answered my comment on Tinaroo. Thanks @Plantdrew: (and you know, I had a hunch it might have been you). I'll try to remember that, now. It DOES make sense; I understand that a genus name Linda would be allowable in another kingdom, but there certainly won't be another beetle group with that name. Uporządnicki (talk) 14:26, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

@AzseicsoK: I also agree with Plantdrew's guidance. Do you think we should start a protocol page for categorizing Beetle articles? Gug01 (talk) 19:32, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

As a DABfixer (and non-zoologist), I greatly prefer reasonably precise qualifiers for genera. The problem isn't just across kingdoms. As compared with (genus), they markedly reduce the risk that an editor will enthusiastically but inaccurately link to a junior synonym. I haven't yet come across an article which classified a dinosaur as a protist or vice versa, but wouldn't be at all surprised if I did (and live in hope). Only yesterday, I came across a link to DAB page Adrana; the intended meaning was the invalid name for the butterfly, not the valid one for the mollusc. I've even come across {{genus disambiguation}} pages where none of the names was an accepted one. Narky Blert (talk) 01:38, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Funny you mention that! Two topics above this one, I talk about finding a taxobox with a genus name linking to a small town in Australia. It was hard to fix: 1) there's no article on the genus, and 2) it was one of those new, automatic taxoboxes. (talk) 14:26, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Eliminating Redundancy in Categorization

Hello fellow editors! I'm thinking to eliminate the redundancy in our categorization of beetles. Specifically, if we have a category for members of a subtaxon, that subtaxon category should be a subcategory of the taxon's category, while the subtaxon itself shouldn't be in the taxon's category. That's really wordy, so to give an example: Hemilophini has a subtaxon genus called Adesmus. Adesmus has its own category. All Adesmus species and the genus article should be in the Adesmus subcategory, and the Adesmus subcategory should be a member of the Hemilophini category, but none of the Adesmus items - including the genus article - should be members of the Hemilophini category, to avoid duplication. Similarly, all members of Hemilophini should be in the Hemilophini category or some subcategory, but none should be in the Lamiinae category too - to avoid duplication. We should discuss this standard to standardize our categorization efforts. Gug01 (talk) 20:59, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Also, we should aim to get all categories to under 1,000 members (not including subcategories); that number should be our upper bound. Gug01 (talk) 21:24, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

@Gug01: Ah, there's a lot to be said on all this. I'm an obsessive categorizer/subcategorizer/recategorizer/category-correcter here; that's almost my raison d'etre. On both of your first points, there's actually Wikipedia guidance. And it's almost as you have proposed.
I've known for many years that in general, if we put a thing into a subcategory, we don't put it in the parent category. You can find that here. And one would hate to think of the Beetles main category page listing every species of beetle.
HOWEVER! I have not treated it is a hard and fast rule. One should treat these things with some common sense and finesse; WHEN is it helpful to depart from usual policy a little. So when I put articles on individual species into a category for the genus, I will put in the article on that genus, too (with a sortkey to put it at the top, before the main alphabetical list). But I've also been adding THAT one to the parent category--the family or subfamily or whatever that includes that genus. Yes, even though there's a subcategory. IT TURNS OUT that there's Wikipedia guidance on that, too. It even uses the terminology--"eponymous category"--that I've used in my edit summaries, and it recommends what I've been doing.
By the way, just in passing, on the subject of snails, there are some very large categories listing species. Several of them ask in a note at the top that even if some species go into a subcategory, they should also go into that large category. I don't know why, but that seems to be their Project's preference--so I've followed it when I'm there. Uporządnicki (talk) 17:47, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

I think it makes sense that if you have an eponymous category the article can go into the larger category as well, as it provides more comprehensive taxonomic linkage; I'll respect that policy from now on. Gug01 (talk) 01:53, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

@Gug01:, on your second point, it's a laudable goal. I'm currently working on the Lamiinae category you mentioned (in your FIRST point). There were about 4400 articles in that category; I've got it down to about 2400--and if I live long enough to finish, my very experienced instinct in these things says that it will have WELL under 1000 entries. I'm doing it largely by moving articles to already existing subcategories. These are the tribes within the subfamily; one of them is the Hemilophini that you mention--which will be a lot larger (not to mention having at least one more subcategory) when/if I finish. But should you contemplate jumping in, I give you fair warning. The only way I know to move articles from one category to another is to go to each article ONE AT A TIME, and edit each one. Maybe Bots could do some of it; I know nothing of these Bots. And while one can actually fly through moving the species from the subfamily to the tribe (if one is working with species from a single tribe), if they should then to to a subcategory for a genus (for this project, I've been using a cut-off of 20 species minimum to start a genus category), well, I religiously use sortkeys to break up the category alphabetically. Then, each article will have a different sortkey (the species name--the second element of the "scientific" name). It's a huge job.
I also think that there will be categories that cannot be brought to under 1000 entries--given that we are, after all, talking about species of insects. But I don't think there will be many. Uporządnicki (talk) 18:17, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

@AzseicsoK: Having surveyed all beetle categories, only Lamiinae, Apomecynini stubs, and Acanthocini stubs number over 1,000. However, there are a lot of other inconsistencies among the beetle categories; size isn't the largest problem unfortunately. Gug01 (talk) 00:30, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

I see. I used to do categorization (and still occasionally do) before I moved on to focusing on quality control and Good Article nominations & reviews. One tool that will help you if you don't already have it is Hotcat, as it lets you modify categories from the article page without going into source code. Gug01 (talk) 01:53, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

@Gug01: MAJOR UPDATE--BREAKING NEWS! You said, "Having surveyed all beetle categories, only Lamiinae, Apomecynini stubs, and Acanthocini stubs number over 1,000." In fact, the category for Lamiinae did have well over 4000. As of just a couple of minutes ago, I managed to get it down to exactly 1000. It will be a lot less when I finish (assuming I live long enough). Probably, almost everything in the Lamiinae category below the level of tribe can go into one of the many already-existing subcategories for the tribes. And if it turns out that a genus has 20 or more species (an arbitrary cut-off I set for myself for this project), I set up a subcategory for that genus, under the appropriate tribe. There might be some species in Lamiinae that fall into tribes too small to warrant subcategories, but by and large I think that when I finish, there will be little more than the tribes in the category for Lamiinae. Uporządnicki (talk) 14:29, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

@AzseicsoK: Congratulations!! 4000 is crazy! I've been helping quite a lot in recent days with the Lamiinae category too, though nowhere near as much as your work. I've now brought it a bit under 1000. Keep up the great work! I'm going to move onto the Apomecynini and Acanthocini stubs. Gug01 (talk) 17:13, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

@Gug01: I have, for my part, finished with the category for Lamiinae. Just to be sure you've noticed, WE got it down from about 4400 entries to fewer than 200, i.e., less than one full page. Uporządnicki (talk) 21:50, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Chariesthes euchroma

Can someone have a look at this recent edit? It doesn't look right, and it's unverified, but I'm loath to remove information from a stub added by someone who might well know a thousand times more about bugs than I do. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 15:04, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources

Main page: User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Jewel beetles and beer -- article suggestion

Suggestion: Some years ago it was discovered that male Jewel Beetles in western Australia were attempting to mate with brown beer bottles that had been discarded in the Outback. The males were "fooled" by the color and texture of the beer bottles. They were not successful in their efforts and the beetle population was declining. The beer companies changed one feature of the bottles and the mistaken copulations ended. Thus the beetles survived. I hope beetle (and beer) lovers can write up something about this feature. Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 13:40, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

@Srich32977: It's already mentioned at Julodimorpha bakewelli, the species involved, and Evolutionary mismatch#Giant jewel beetle and beer bottles. Poor beetles. SchreiberBike | ⌨  19:28, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

@SchreiberBike: The podcast i listened to said the beer bottler changed the bottles by removing the stubby surfaces. This change fixed the problem and the bettles are now thriving. – S. Rich (talk) 19:38, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Two articles for the same species

We currently have two different articles for the longhorn beetle species first described by Haldeman as Amniscus variegatus in 1847: Sternidius variegatus and Astyleiopus variegatus. Unfortunately, it isn't clear which of these names is currently accepted. ITIS says Sternidius variegatus is the accepted name[2][3], but the Cerambycidae database (which is used by GBIF and others), says that Astyleiopus variegatus is the accepted name.[4] iNaturalist and BugGuide also favor Astyleiopus variegatus. Nosferattus (talk) 13:25, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

The ITIS record for Astyleiopus was last reviewed in 2006, and the record for Sternidius variegatus has no review date (i.e., hasn't been reviewed since well prior to 2006). The most recent reference cited by ITIS for these from is 1995. ITIS is likely out of date here. Plantdrew (talk) 14:36, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Taxon Review

I made this comment on the article Anoplognathus chloropyrus where it has been discussed on iNaturalist about a Taxon review resulting in a taxon swap for observations there as a result of the paper Seidel & Reid 2021 My question is should Anoplognathus chloropyrus be moved to Anoplognathus brunnipennis (new stub) as a result of all this ? totally new here so would like some advise Edisstrange (talk) 08:40, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

It does seem that Anoplognathus chloropyrus should be moved. A citation to Seidel & Reid needs to be added to the article to explain the situation. Plantdrew (talk) 17:21, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

the catch is that I don't have move rights, still very new and all thumbs, hopefully some nice person could do the move for me. The current Anoplognathus chloropyrus article has some dead reference links. I'll try to fix them in the meantime Edisstrange (talk) 03:01, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I have requested the move using the requested moves tool Edisstrange (talk) 03:30, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Carabidae.org has left the building

Members may be interested in discussing this topic at WP ToL. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:12, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Stubs for Amara?

I'd just like to bring this to the Project's attention. I've just proposed a new stub category for the Caribidae genus Amara. Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/2023/March And I've proposed naming it in not quite the usual way; I explain that in my proposal. So I'm hoping people here will have a look at it. Uporządnicki (talk) 17:43, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments

Quality assessments are used by Wikipedia editors to rate the quality of articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Wikipedia:Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a |class= parameter to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project decides to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass {{WPBannerMeta}} a new |QUALITY_CRITERIA=custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:22, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello, Please note that Japanese beetle, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of the Articles for improvement. The article is scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing! Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 29 May 2023 (UTC) on behalf of the AFI team

Carabus marietti, or mariettii?

@Voorts: There's a species in the genus Carabus, with several subspecies having individual articles. The species article itself, and most of the subspecies articles spell it mariettii, with two i's at the end; this is how it's spelled in the text of the genus article. But there's one subspecies, Carabus marietti stefaniruspolii, that spells it with one i. I moved the article--assuming it was a typo--but after someone moved it back, I have reason to believe that one i is the correct spelling, and all the other articles have it wrong. Could someone with more expertise than mine (i.e., any amount more than zero) look into this, please? Uporządnicki (talk) 20:38, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

From Google Scholar searches / looking at the sources cited in the articles, it appears marietti (one i) is correct, but happy to be corrected if I'm wrong. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:42, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

It does seem that marietti is the valid name but the source of confusion for the Wikipedia spellings might be CoL (or its source CarabCat). If you look at the tree listing you see the species with the single "i" and all the subspecies with "ii" (also see Carabus (Heterocarabus) marietti Cristofori & Jan, 1837, Carabus mariettii akensiculus Cavazzuti, 2006, Carabus mariettii akensis Haury, 1889, etc). Carabus marietti stefaniruspolii is not recognised. The checklist at Carabcat isn't working. —  Jts1882 | talk  06:29, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

According to the paper on Turkish Carabinae doi:10.3906/zoo-0905-13) cited in the Carabus mariettii article and some of the subspecies articles, subspecies stephaniruspolii belongs to species Carabus bischoffi, which is treated as subspecies Carabus mariettii bischoffi on Wikipedia and CoL/CarabCat.—  Jts1882 | talk  06:49, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Lepturges, Lepturgantes

I've been reorganizing the page Category:Lepturges, as I have done for hundreds of categories. I'm probably almost half way through, and I just noticed that the Infoboxes for the ones I was doing gave the genus as Lepturgantes. I spot checked a handful that I'd done before, and they also said Lepturgantes. Unfortunately, they're not yet one of those automatic Species boxes. If, in fact, all these species Infoboxes are wrong, I'm perfectly willing to go through the species and redo them. But I'm not in any way an entomologist. If someone knowledgeable would assure me that it's the correct way, I'll try to find time to undertake it. (I've done far, FAR bigger projects before, many times.) Uporządnicki (talk) 19:46, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Further on this! I've just found that the genus Lepturgantes does have an automatic Species box. There are about half a dozen species of that with articles in Wikipedia, and they all use that automatic box. The Lepturges articles where I've noted the point (there are roughly a hundred, and I haven't been through them all, yet) all have manually created infoboxes. Uporządnicki (talk) 19:57, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

According to Catalogue of Life, which follows the "TITAN: Cerambycidae database", both are valid genera. Ten species are listed for Lepturgantes], with the large majority in Lepturges. There are also a couple of species in Lepturginus] and three in Lepturgotrichona. This looks like the genus Lepturges was split up. I'll see if I can find the source for this split (if that is what happened) and check the automated taxoboxes.  —  Jts1882 | talk  09:24, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I see you just created an automated taxobox for Lepturges, and applied it to the very first species in the alphabetical list. OK, I'll take it as legit. Uporządnicki (talk) 11:30, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I converted the next one, but then reverted my edit; I see it's more complicated than just substituting. Uporządnicki (talk) 11:39, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Seems all those Lepturges species articles were created with the same error, which has survived since 2014. They had the correct genus name in the |binomial= parameter, i.e. genus Lepturges, but had | genus = ''[[Lepturgantes]]'' in the taxon hierarchy. The now archived Bezark reference is consistent with current sources (CoL, Lamiinae of the World). Seems the update needs:

1. Conversion to {{speciesbox}}. I use a helper template replacing the line {{taxobox with {{subst:convert taxobox In this case, the |genus= parameter also needs changing from Lepturgantes to Lepturges. The {{Italic title}} can also be removed as it is redundant when using {{speciesbox}}.
2. Add Category:Lepturges with the species epithet as sortcode.
3. Update the archive reference to use {{cite web}} with <ref name=PCoCotW>{{cite web |last=Bezark |first=Larry G. |title= Cerambycidae: Family, Subfamily and Tribe List |url=http://plant.cdfa.ca.gov/byciddb/bycidview.asp |website=A Photographic Catalog of the Cerambycidae of the World |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130827211041/http://plant.cdfa.ca.gov/byciddb/bycidview.asp |archive-date=27 August 2013 |access-date=22 May 2012}}</ref>

Ideally one would add the CoL and Lamiinae of the World citations, but that means getting the ids or urls for both for all the species pages, which is a lot of work. As they seem to confirm the existing reference, I'd skip this for now.  —  Jts1882 | talk  12:12, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I've converted the taxoboxes and fixed the genus for A-E (about one third).  —  Jts1882 | talk  14:05, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

All converted to {[tl|speciesbox now}}. I can't believe that those taxoboxes lasted ten years with mismatching genera. It does provide an example of where making these sub-stubs has little value. Nearly all state that they are species of beetle in family Cerambycidae and note who described the species. All that information is available in the list at the genus article. As they already exist, there is no point in deleting them, but I think we should avoid making such articles without additional information.  —  Jts1882 | talk  15:38, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

They were (except two, I think) all in the Lepturges category; adding the species epithet as a sortkey is what I was doing (I've done thousands of those, literally), when I spotted the issue. I'd done almost half of them, I think. If the rest weren't done while I was waiting on this question, I'll finish them soon. Uporządnicki (talk) 15:58, 29 September 2024 (UTC)