Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Insects/Archive 2

Synonyms or subspecies

Could somebody please advise? There is a list below the name in a big, fat block. Are these all synonyms? The first name is a synonym, but the last part of the list seems to have subspecies. Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:42, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

They are all synonyms, the subspecies are basically synonymized with the nominate species. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 00:31, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I will add them to the article. Sorry for the late reply. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 13:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Requesting an ID on two insects from the Philippines

Hello, I'd like to ask if anyone knows what these insects are. I could get as far as their family but nothing much beyond that. Pictures were taken in the island of Mindanao, Philippines. Thanks in advance. Obsidi♠n^Soul 05:30, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

• 
  The blue bottle fly is perched on a leaf of a young palm. It is blue throughout, no bronze or green highlights as far as I can tell. If I would guess, it's probably Chrysomya rufifacies based on pics on the net?
• 
  This Jewel bug was feeding on Jatropha.
• 
  Jewel bugs on a Gmelina arborea leaf. They were preparing to mate I think. Family Scutelleridae, that's all I'm sure of of these bugs, heh.

Acromyrmex laticeps nigrosetosus

I started Acromyrmex nigrosetosus. I see this laticeps word when I google it. What does that mean? What's the proper species name? Please advise. Thanks! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 13:08, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

There are two subspecies it seems. A. laticeps is the correct species name. Subspecies are A. laticeps laticeps and A. laticeps nigrosetosus. According to our very own Wikispecies.--Obsidi♠n^Soul 13:27, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. So what does that make Acromyrmex nigrosetosus? A redirect to the article Acromyrmex laticeps?

Wait, no.

ITIS lists it as a subspecies. As does Systema Naturae, Encyclopedia of Life, and Taxonomicon.

But look here in AntWeb AntWeb. Seems to have been revised as a species name in 2007 by A. L. Wild. The linked PDF doesn't work anymore though. Seems to have been originally published in the journal Zootaxa. Info was given as 21367 Wild, A. L. 2007. A catalogue of the ants of Paraguay (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Zootaxa 1622: 1-55. Publications are listed here, but no PDF link to the article. Currently hunting down the said PDF--Obsidi♠n^Soul 13:56, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

[1] Ucucha 13:59, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see matches at that site of any of these keywords: Acromyrmex, laticeps, nigrosetosus. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 14:02, 22 January 2011 (UTC) I get it. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 14:04, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Ucucha found a copy. I found another copy as well. And yes. Seems like it got promoted to species level. Another species from the genus that got elevated seems to be Acromyrmex pubescens, formerly from Acromyrmex lundii. You should take a look at it and revise the other articles as needed as well (it includes several other Formicidae as well). Use the journal as reference.--Obsidi♠n^Soul 14:06, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks for your digging. I am trying hard to figure out what you just wrote i.e. what was what and what is now is. :) I hope I get it right. Thanks all! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 14:17, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Hehe, no worries. I already added A. nigrosetosus and A. pubescens among the list of species in the Acromyrmex. Your article should be fine now (it's now a species, to put it simply). I also removed A. lundii pubescens and A. lundii parallelus from the Acromyrmex lundii article. Again referring from the same journal. You can reuse the cite I used as well:

<ref name="Journ1">{{cite journal|last1=Wild|first1=Alexander L.|last2=|first2=|year=2007|title=A catalogue of the ants of Paraguay (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)|journal=Zootaxa|volume=|issue=1622|pages=41, 51|publisher=Magnolia Press, http://mapress.com/|doi=|url=http://mapress.com/zootaxa/2007/zt01622p055.pdf|accessdate=January 22, 2011 }}</ref>

Saves you having to rewrite it. ;D --Obsidi♠n^Soul 14:34, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much! There's no way I would have gotten it right. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 14:39, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Dealing with vast species lists

Does anyone know of a quick way to format huge species lists? I've just completed formatting a 300+ strong fly genus and my typing hand is feeling the strain. I'm now having second thoughts about tackling any other similar sized genus. Deargan (talk) 12:12, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

That depends on the sources you're using. I noticed you haven't put the citation in the article yet, so that makes it harder to advise. Most online sources, including most PDF files can be reformatted into wikitext fairly simply using the right tools. With some PDFs and all purely printed media, you have to type it in manually. Is that what you've done here? Be aware that the parentheses around the authorities are very important, and should not be added or removed. I am sure that at least some of the Copestylum species you have listed should have parentheses around the authority. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:20, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, most of them apparently. I've started working on that. The area I need help with is creating this -

• Copestylum albertoi Marcos-Garcia & Rotheray, 2007 from this - Copestylum albertoi Marcos-Garcia & Rotheray, 2007 for example, multiplied many hundred times over. Is there some tool which would make this task any less onerous? Also I should say I'm using the Catalogue of Life and Encyclopedia of Life websites for information and lists.Deargan (talk) 07:27, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I use a text editor I made myself which can use regular expressions in its search and replace function, although any decent text editor would do, as long as you can replace special characters like the new line. I then make the following replacements:

• ", " becomes ",_"
• ". " becomes "._" (for names with initials: "C. L. Koch" and the like)
• " & " becomes "_&_"
• "de " becomes "de_" (There may be more of these depending on what names occur in the list. If it includes "Le Loeuff", say, you would also need "Le " => "Le_". The lists I work with have a lot of "De Man" and "de Haan".)
• "\n" (new line) becomes "</small>\n*''[["
• " " (space) becomes "]]''_<small>" (The only remaining spaces should be between the binomen and the authority.)
• Finally, "_" becomes " "

This does most of the reformatting in a set number of steps. There are always a few problems with two-word surnames that hadn't been noticed, or with inconsistent formatting in the sources, but it generally gets through the lion's share of the work.

Catalogue of Life, incidentally, is not a reliable source of information on the membership of a group. It is quite useful for finding likely authorities, but it includes all sorts of names which are no longer valid, or never were, as well as multiple orthographic variants of the same name. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:55, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Looking for authoritative sources, I have come across the following snippets; it looks like a good, comprehensive list may be almost unfeasible. The Kaufman field guide claims that there are at least 39 species of Copestylum in North America, including those formerly classified under Volucella (a reclassification which may well complicate matters). Marcos-García & Pérez-Bañón (2002) state that there are > 300 species, and go on to describe yet another. There is also a paper from 2009 (doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.2008.00503.x) describing 7 new species, which don't appear to have made it onto any of the online lists yet. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:09, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes I see what you mean. I checked my hastily assembled species list against a search on the BDWD Nomenclator and discovered a rather different list there. I'm not sure if the nomenclator is any more or less reliable than other sources (though it ought to be!) so perhaps I should just settle for a brief introduction to the genus with possibly a few better known species included as examples. Deargan (talk) 21:46, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

More insect-related articles

You who are more insect-knowledgeable than me might want to consider adding , Mass provisioning and related articles to the purview of your project. As it stands now, they are a part of no Wikiproject. Cheers. N2e (talk) 17:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Someone added one of the two articles to your WikiProject ("2011-02-03T23:26:58 Innotata", on Progressive provisioning), but not the other (Mass provisioning). Your call. N2e (talk) 17:05, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

You can do that too. If they are specific to insect behavior, they should definitely be tagged for this project. —innotata 19:27, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

See also

Would it be permissible to add a "See also" section to such a page as Coccidae?

It could have links to species that are not accessible from the family page because there is no page for the genus. In this instance it could include Eulecanium cerasorum and Pulvinaria innumerabilis, both of which are tagged as orphans. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 17:54, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

In a word, yes. I think it's an ideal use of the "See also" section. I do this fairly frequently, particularly where I can't find a reliable source and so can't knock up a decent linking stub. It might be time for WP:Insects to opt in to Svick's WikiProject cleanup listings, which will show up just how many (tagged) orphans there are in the project's purview (as well as other types of cleanup); I suspect it will be quite a few. Incidentally, if you fancied fleshing Coccidae out a bit as well while you're there, it could certainly do with it. Oh, and perhaps add Conchaspis capensis to your list – we haven't yet got an article on Conchaspis. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:04, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I will add a "see also" section to Coccidae then, and in other places when I notice a similar lack. I won't include Conchaspis capensis though as it is in Conchaspididae. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:14, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

A fair point. Excuse my confusion. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:15, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Is the provision of one link in this way enough to remove the Orphan tag from Eulecanium cerasorum? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:32, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

That's partly a matter of opinion, I think. Since the instructions in the {{orphan}} tag are all about adding links in other articles, and I'm pretty sure the text "Eulecanium cerasorum" doesn't appear anywhere else, I would tend to remove the tag, yes. WP:ORPHAN also states that the current intention is only to tag articles with exactly zero incoming links (from the main namespace). There are a lot of taxonomic articles whose only incoming link is from the parent taxon (typically the genus linking to the species article), so I think it's fine to remove the tag. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:18, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Good. I have had a look at WP:ORPHAN and it specifically mentions "Organisms/Taxonomic/Species articles" as being difficult. I plan to do some orphan rescue work and perhaps I'll make a start on Insects. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:16, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Scale insects

I have been creating new pages for scale insect families but I have met a problem. The family Monophlebidae has been carved out of Margarodidae according to this source and this means that some genera such as Icerya and the species Icerya purchasi currently appear in both. Wikispecies puts this genus in Monophlebidae. Any views? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 20:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Nobody has replied to this so I plan to go ahead and move some of the genera as appropriate from Margarodidae to Monophlebidae. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 20:17, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Help finding naming papers for myrrha insects

My Google-fu has evaporated. Can not find ANY of the naming papers for some insects with species names "myrrha". See here, especially source 71. It's not really so much for the references as citations, but we really want to read them and see if the "namers" had some comments about the Myrrha myth, motivating them to label these butterflies myrrha. Please help!!!TCO (talk) 18:21, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I did some investigation but I am afraid I could not find any useful information. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 14:06, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

The only one I've been able to find is the protologue for Antona myrrha, which was originally described as Geometra myrrha. Descriptions are given by the author in Dutch and French, but with no etymology or discussion of the epithet. My own suspicion would be that these insects were all simply named after the plants that they live on, either referred to by name (Myrrhis odorata, for instance), or using myrrhus more generally for any aromatic plant. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. Would you say those plants are named for Myrrha (or for myrrh...given she and the plant are the same thing anyhow, she turned into the plant). Is myrrhis a general term for bitter or fragrant? Not just referrring Myrrha/myrrh?TCO (talk) 16:16, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I was able to find most of them, but none have anything you would find useful:

• Myrrha Mulsant 1846: [2]
• Antona myrrha (Cramer 1775): [3]
• Eois myrrha (Schaus 1912): [4]
• Libythea myrrha Godart 1819 [5]
• Saurita myrrha (Druce 1884) [6]
• Catocala myrrah Strecker 1874 [7]

I always have trouble finding Herrich-Schäffer references, and the Müller one seems to be a non-published manuscript name.

My impression is that many taxonomists of the 18th and 19th centuries felt obligated to use a Greek or Latin name, so every time they couldn't think of a descriptive one they would grab a name out of some reference book without paying attention to the story behind it. I've seen at least one case where Mulsant used the phrase "Nom Mythologique" ("mythological name") for a name that I couldn't find in any reference on mythology (I can't remember which one- it was a ladybug, but that doesn't narrow it down much)

The current names for Lepidoptera came from this query at Lepindex]. I believe it's the same as the cite for the claim of 8 lepidoptera with the name "myrrha", which contains 2 references to the same name (one as species and one as subspecies), and the apparent manuscript name I mentioned above.

As for any connection with the plant genus Myrrhis, I'm skeptical: most of the species in question aren't from anywhere this rather obscure Central-European herb would be expected to grow, and most hostplant names I've seen in generic names are modified by adding various derivative suffixes.Chuck Entz (talk) 23:57, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Lepidoptera

I've been editing Lepidoptera like there's no tomorrow, but I can't do all the work myself. If anybody would like to go over it and see if they can add as much information as they can, or give me advice on what needs to be extended, moved, reworked, ect. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 21:43, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

RFC:Use scientific naming conventions?

The use of scientific names is the most beneficial way to go. There are to many common names or on the other end none at all to be reliable. Scientific names are for the most part reliable (well at least more reliable then common names) at higher levels. Here is are aim to make all higher level taxa use scientific names down to the family, unless further compromising dictates otherwise. to make your "vote" add *(your side: '''oppose/support''') reason why. ~~~~

• Strong support: Currently the insect orders are a mix of vernacular and scientific, which not very consistent. These are higher ranking taxa which are stable and include many different species with different names. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 12:32, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

• Very strongly oppose. We are written in English, and for lay readers, not for specialists; even specialists use generic and English terms when speaking to the generality. J. B. S. Haldane spoke of God as "having an inordinate fondness for beetles", not for Coleoptera. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:56, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

• In general, we use (or should use) vernacular names when they are commonly used and well-established, and scientific names otherwise. Is there any reason not to use some of the well-established vernacular names for insect orders, like "beetle" for Coleoptera? Ucucha 12:50, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Quite a few reasons actually. First note, using the scientific name is encyclopedic, as the encyclopedias I use all use the aforementioned rather then the vernacular. Second, many higher taxa include species that do not only go by one common name (though debatable). For example Coleoptera includes "fireflies, june bugs, ladybugs, weevils," ect., though those could be called beetles, I've personally never heard someone calla firefly a beetle. Another note is that there is no consistency, half of the other insect orders use the proper scientific name. Scientific names of higher ranking taxa are more reliable (though lower ones are not at this moment do to ongoing research). Can I move this up into the box and include it as an oppose? It will make it easier when a vote is considered. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 13:18, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is a laymans encyclopedia, so use vernacular names when they are well established, and use scientific names when they are not. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:08, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Use vernacular as redirects to scientific nomenclature. Of course, this may require a considerable number of disambiguation pages, as a particular common name (and don't get me started on the ridiculousness that are "ESA approved common names") may refer to a number of different organisms. Aderksen (talk) 15:53, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, or rather, agree with Ucucha and van der Linde. If the vernacular name is not common, established, and clear, the scientific name should be used, as may be appropriate with Coleoptera. —innotata 16:38, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
• Note:I'm seeing some consistency in the reasons why in those who oppose. Speaking from someone who once, albeit along time ago, was a "layman", do we not come to Wikipedia to learn, where they are redirected to the page and realize what the scientific name. Another thing to note, we are only considering only high taxa (orders mostly) in Insect, with only 6 using common names with the other 28 using the scientific. Other encyclopedias do not use the common names, are they not also for the common reader, certainly there not only for experts? Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 23:39, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

No. We come to find out what a beetle is. That the closest scientific taxon to the common and vague notion is the Coleoptera is a fact about beetles; not the most important fact (if we were only interested in terminology, we'd be on Wiktionary) nor the one which should determine the title, but one the article should prominently mention - and does. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:56, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say it was the most important fact, neither did I say it did not mention it. However I have yet to find a reason to not to change it, as using the scientific does not hinder or discourage (in my own opinion) the reader, and considering the pros and cons I'm not convinced that we shouldn't. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 00:30, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

• Neutral. I can see good reasons on both sides; using scientific names for everything is neat, unified, consistent and encyclopaedic. But on the other hand, the majority of readers (I assume), aren't going to recognise these names and because the articles are supposed to be targeted at the reader it almost seems right to use vernacular names. A compromise could be to redirect vernacular names to scientific ones. (-that's what we've already been doing). -- — JamesDouch • Talk 01:20, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

This is what I was hoping to accomplish, but there is no consistency what so ever, maybe we should do this for the insect orders. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 01:45, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support. The common name should redirect to the article which would have the scientific name. It would be more accurate, morew consistent _ i.e, more encyclopedic. So that the common man is not confused, the leads would be appropriately worded. AshLin (talk) 03:18, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

• Question: Just to be sure we all understand the proposal, you are proposing to move all WP Insects articles, down to the rank of family, to scientific names, right? So:

• Insect => Insecta

• Beetle => Coleoptera

• Blister beetle => Meloidae
• Click beetle => Elateridae
• Darkling beetle => Tenebrionidae
• Fire-coloured beetle => Pyrochroidae
• Firefly => Lampyridae
• Ground beetle => Carabidae
• Leaf beetle => Chrysomelidae
• Longhorn beetle => Cerambycidae
• Rove beetle => Staphylinidae
• Sap beetle => Nitidulidae
• Soldier beetle => Cantharidae
• Stag beetle => Lucanidae
• Water-penny beetles => Psephenidae
• Weevil => Curculionoidea
• Whirligig beetle => Gyrinidae

• Caddisfly => Trichoptera
• Cockroach => Blattaria
• Earwig => Dermaptera
• Flea => Siphonaptera
• Fly => Diptera

• Botfly => Oestridae
• Cheese fly => Piophilidae
• Crane fly => Tipulidae
• Flesh-fly => Sarcophagidae
• Horse-fly => Tabanidae
• Hoverfly => Syrphidae
• Mydas fly => Mydidae
• Stalk-eyed fly => Diopsidae

• Hemiptera

• Aphid => Aphidoidea
• Bat bug & bed bug => Cimicidae
• Cicada => Cicadidae
• Froghopper => Cercopoidea
• Jumping plant louse => Psyllidae
• Mealybug => Pseudococcidae
• Planthopper => Fulgoromorpha
• Scale insect => Coccoidea
• Treehopper => Membracidae
• Velvet water bug => Hebridae
• Whitefly => Aleyrodidae
• Water treader => Mesovelioidea

• Hymenoptera

• Ant => Formicidae
• Bee => Anthophila
• Chalcid wasp => Chalcidoidea
• Cuckoo wasp => Chrysididae
• Fairyfly => Mymaridae
• Gall wasp => Cynipidae
• Horntail => Siricidae
• Sawfly => Symphyta
• Spider wasp => Pompilidae
• Wasp: not changed

• Louse => Phthiraptera

• Chewing louse => Mallophaga

• Mantis => Mantodea
• Mayfly => Ephemeroptera
• Megaloptera

• Alderfly => Sialidae

• Neuroptera

• Antlion => Myrmeleontidae
• Owlfly => Ascalaphidae

• Odonata

• Damselfly => Zygoptera
• Dragonfly => Anisoptera

• Snakefly => Raphidioptera
• Termite => Isoptera
• Thrips => Thysanoptera

but not:

• Bumblebee => Bombini
• Dobsonfly => Corydalinae
• Fishfly => Chauliodinae
• Potter wasp => Eumeninae
• Powderpost beetle => Lyctinae
• Stingless bee => Meliponini

and are you including these?

• Rain beetle (= Pleocomidae, but article would be Pleocoma)
• Telephone-pole beetle (= Micromalthidae, but article would be Micromalthus)
• Tsetse fly (= Glossinidae, but article would be Glossina)

or the various articles under WP:Lepidoptera?

• Butterfly => Rhopalocera
• Moth => Heterocera
• Skipper (butterfly) => Hesperiidae
• Swallowtail butterfly => Papilionidae
• etc.

This list is probably quite incomplete. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:07, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Well at this point, my main focus is the orders, anything below that I can compromise to, but I believe, yes, that the families should be moved. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 14:58, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support While this is a layman's encyclopedia, it seems that the use of scientific terms for (at least) the orders of insects would function the same way here as they do in entomology--in the avoidance of confusion. No one looking up "beetle" would be misdirected or misinformed by the article's heading being coleoptera, and once it has been established that this is the technical term, use of the folk taxonomy within the body of the article could probably be used interchangeably with the scientific terms. This would ensure, where common terms might overlap or be misleading, that the placement within actual taxonomy is correct.Lo, i am real 00:34, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
• Support for the same reason. Although it is no big deal in my opinion. Redirecting the scientific name to an article with a common name title also works for me.Ruigeroeland (talk) 08:26, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Note- Just a random note, the family Micromalthidae should be a full page and not a redirect to Micromalthus as it includes at least one extinct genus, Cretomalthus, found in Lebanese Amber. Similarly the extinct Cretocoma means that Pleocomidae should be a family page.

• Oppose. It's important that the scientific name be present in the article, but I don't see any overriding reason to disregard WP:COMMONNAME in this case - it's a widely accepted standard across the encyclopaedia as a whole. Birds and fauna both prescribe using the common name, and flora uses common names for any plants commonly known/used outside of botanical circles. For consistency-sake, insect articles should use common names with scientific title redirects pointing to the common name article. The articles themselves should make mention of the scientific name in the first sentence. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 01:05, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

If your looking for consistency, then you got it backwards, thousands upon thousands of insect related articles use scientific names, half don't even have common names. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 01:36, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

No, I have it the right way. I'm in favour of consistency across the encyclopaedia as a whole. For subjects that don't have common names, of course the scientific name is appropriate. Scientific-titled articles on insects with common names should be renamed, in line with the vast majority of other articles on living things, along with the vast majority of articles on any topic across the board. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 03:10, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Participants here will be interested in the recent discussion at Talk:Beetle#Requested move, which proposed moving the article to Coleoptera but which reached a rough consensus to stay with the common name (although my assessment of this outcome as been politely queried). Andrewa (talk) 06:52, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

• Support Right now there is no consistency between pages. Using scientific names with redirect pages from common names would fix that issue. Using redirects would also avoid any confusion by lay people looking up "beetle" or"fly". It is not possible to use common names to create consistency due to the fact that some orders do not have common names (e.g.Hymenoptera and Odonata). In fact, there isn't even consistency in using common names when one is available (e.g. the Hemiptera page is entitled Hemiptera, not "True Bug" ). AJseagull1 (talk) 21:54, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Agree with Ucucha, TechnoSymbiosis, etc. WP:COMMONNAME is the standard across Wikipedia, so adopting this proposal would actually cause less "consistency", not more. Kaldari (talk) 21:59, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose: I don't think there's an issue requiring correction. Wikipedia operates in net space, not a physical library. To that end, I reckon most people find there way in via google or a have a Wikipedia search bar. Either way, search by common name or binomial, and you'll pull up any good article. And if you're a student, you should be able to find your way in and drill down to specific articles using taxoboxes. Also, I don't think any WP below WikiProject Biology should set a standard for this.Heds (talk) 07:57, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Citation templates now support more identifiers

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} 02:59, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Anthidium

A couple of bee questions:

• The Anthidium article says they are commonly known as mason bees. But, the Mason bee article says mason bees are from the genus Osmia.

• Are all Anthidium species leafcutters?

I plan to make some Anthidium stubs and want a common lead. Is this sample okay? Should I move the stub tag down a bit? Is all correct? Can more info common to all species in the genus be added? Many thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:08, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I think if that's all you're planning to say about each species, it could happily be accomodated in the genus article, rather than dissipating the information over many very short articles. The only information not already included at the genus is the authority for the scientific name; that could easily be fitted into the genus article (and probably should be anyway). This also solves the problem of a "common lead", since the context will already be provided by the existing text. At the moment, Anthidium is poorly referenced, so I would consider improving that more of a priority. I expect some of the references used at Anthidium manicatum will provide information about the whole genus. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:37, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

You make good points. I was really undecided on the bare-bones stub matter, until recently. I stubbed around 30 leaf-cutter ant articles. Somebody came along and filled them in. I'm convinced that the content never would have been provided had the stubs not been created. I've even added tables to some list articles to encourage content, but so far, not much action. Now, after seeing what happened with the leaf-cutter ant stubs, I am quite determined to stub these bee articles. I would love to have your approval. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:24, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

It's difficult to know which is more inviting to the average editor – a red link or a bare-bones stub. I wonder if anyone has researched it. If there is good evidence that stubs are more likely to be expanded than new articles created, then that would be a strong argument in favour of your proposed action. Without it, I still think that a good genus article is more valuable than many short species articles. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:24, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I know what you mean. A bare-bones stub exists. A redlink does not. If you mean a genus article containing redlinks versus a stub, then I think the stub is more inviting because it's specifically about the subject, and invites improvement. Plus, it links to the genus article for broader info. But I'm not sure that that is the whole issue.

If you are simply talking about immediate usefulness to readers, then I guess this is a matter of eventualism. Stubs become progressively more useful as they expand.

I contend that if the stub is not created, and will only be created when either somebody writes the whole thing, or the genus list is expanded to include info on species listed therein, (thus warranting a break-away article), a lot of "would be" edits will never be made, which inhibits the very engine that drives Wikipedia. The leaf-cutter articles are a perfect case in point. If I had never stubbed them, that whole part of Wikipedia would be virtually unchanged.

I also think that if there is good evidence that stubs are not more likely to be expanded than new articles created, then that would be a strong argument against my proposed action. Without that evidence, I think that a good genus article is valuable, and many short species stubs with the potential and tendency to expand are also valuable. I also intend to begin expanding them myself once stubbed.

The crux of this issue, as I see it, is choosing between these two imperfect scenarios:

• Stubs:

Pros: Harnesses editor power to help project grow.

Cons: Search draws visitors to temporary bare-bones stubs are less useful to visitors.

• No Stubs:

Pros: Search directs visitors to immediately useful genera articles.

Cons: Little or no growth.

What do you think? Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:06, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Although I dont want to interfere in your discussion here, but I just wanted to say I am all for stubs, especially for species. If little or no info is available they are still valuable if they at least have the authority and distribution data. Furthermore, I urge everyone writing on insects to add synonyms and redirect them to the species page. If this data is up, the basic framework is done, making it easier for less experienced users to add info, without having to worry about technical wikipedia stuff like taxoboxes, categories, etc. Anyway.. just my opinion.. Cheers! Ruigeroeland (talk) 11:15, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Your comments are very welcome.

I'm sure distribution data will be among the first to land during expansion. I will personally get on that ASAP.

As for your synonym comment: EXCELLENT POINT! I've been stung a few times with that when first starting out. Is that written anywhere in policy in giant red letters? It should be. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:27, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Stemonitis: I'm going to go ahead and make some of these stubs. I don't mean any disrespect or defiance. I remember the very long thread on this topic months ago involving many editors. It seemed to be split, so I don't ever think consensus will be reached. I dug up as much on distribution and synonyms and I could, and I promise to do my best to find images and expand what I can. I hope you understand. If, in a year or so, the stubs are still bare-bones, you will have my total agreement of your point of view. But, for now, after seeing the leaf-cutter ant results, I feel compelled to stub these bees. Best wishes and good will. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:38, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Ruigeroeland, stubs are the way to go, as they can be expanded upon latter on. However, if its any help, I'll see what I can do myself to expand them. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 12:45, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I quite understand. My general concerns (about having numerous very short stubs) remain, but I don't think any of us really knows how the average editor acts. I think I am much more likely to write a new article that expand a stub, but I may well be atypical. I doubt that I would ever merge stubs into genus article if they contained information that wasn't in a genus article, or couldn't be easily accommodated there. In practical terms, this means that the sort of stubs you are planning to create, with indications of distribution and synonymy, would always be left alone. It seems that we now have broad agreement here. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:51, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I do appreciate your understanding, and I do fully see your point. I will do my best to make all stubs I start worthy. I am now adding images to external links wherever I can find them. Public domain images for this genus seem hard to come by right now. So, with a bit of synonymy, dist., and a pic or two, they seem off to a reasonable start. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:26, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Synonyms

Are the items below the main name synonyms in this link? Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:20, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes they are, this link here shows them as synonyms. --Kevmin § 05:02, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Splendid. Thank you. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I intend on adding synonyms to a section in the article, and not to the taxobox. I will add "see text" to taxobox. I want to do this because these bee names are really long and tend to wrap in an unclear way. Also, if the list becomes longer, it will mean extra work in the future moving them to a section. Any objections, please say. Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:11, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I want to do this even if there is only one. This is because it is likely that another will be added at some point anyway, and two or more in the taxobox looks really hard to read. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:13, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Case in point: Anthidium alticola. Only two syns and it looks like poop. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

On last thing. Should such a section title be "Synonyms" or "Synonomy"? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:21, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I would go for "synonyms" that's the heading I generally choose when Ihave synonyms in paleo-taxa articles I write. I still put the synonyms in the taxobox in most cases. In regard to Anthidium alticola I would have formatted the synonyms thus:

• Osmia superba Friese, 1920
• Anthidium (Melanoanthidium) alticola Tkalců, 1967

I am wondering if the subgenera are still in use for Anthidium, if so then it may be that Anthidium (Melanoanthidium) alticola could be left off the list and the subgenus level included in the taxobox. I also note that "homonym" is a descriptive term and not part of the name Osmia superba. If you include a Synonyms section in teh article also you have the option of leaving the authorities out of the taxobox. --Kevmin § 07:32, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I stopped using the small text after a project gastropod member pointed out how hard to read it is.

homonym: so that's what they mean.

I definitely prefer a section that includes auth. rather than leaving that out and shoving it into the taxobox.

Now, are you a computer person? I need some advice on how to mass-produce the syn redirect pages. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:01, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

Redirect pages needed

Per Ruigeroeland's advice, this is a list of synonyms that needs to be redirected to articles. I extracted the list from the synonyms listed in the new Anthidium stubs. The list is represented twice. The top part is ready for some kind of bot or AWB doodad to automatically create the pages. (I hope there is such a thing.) The bottom part is the same list, but with links to see what's already in existence. Anthidium cingulatum and Anthidium trochantericum are the only items that confuse me. Please advise. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 10:02, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm adding them manually, they're not too many. Hopefully won't confuse anything, heh.--Obsidi♠n^Soul 12:19, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done--Obsidi♠n^Soul 13:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you!! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 13:55, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done

Ok, here are the ones that eventually double redirected from my watchlist, you might want to either add them to the list of synonyms to the species they eventually redirected to or just doublecheck:

Anthidium luteiventre‎ . . Fixing double redirect to Anthidium oblongatum

Anthidium manicatum var undulatofasciatum‎ . . Fixing double redirect to Anthidium latum

Anthidium dissectum‎ . . Fixing double redirect to Anthidium latum

Anthidium oraniense‎ . . Fixing double redirect to Anthidium latum

Anthidium rufispinum‎ . . Fixing double redirect to Anthidium latum

--Obsidi♠n^Soul 03:13, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Coleoptera for GA

I've started working on the article to my own accord. It is the next project for Wikiproject Insects, and I decided to start early until we can get a reviewer for Lepidoptera. Maybe if we can expanding on the present sections, work out any concerns on its layout, add some more info, ect. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 12:44, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Anthidium synonyms with "homonym"

The following have synonyms listed in the synonym section that contain the word homonym. I don't know how to handle that. Please advise and I will fix them, or if you are up to it, click away. Many thanks.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthidium_atricaudum&action=edit
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthidium_collectum&action=edit
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthidium_diadema&action=edit
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthidium_friesei&action=edit
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthidium_maculosum&action=edit
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthidium_loti&action=edit
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthidium_oblongatum&action=edit
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthidium_semicirculare&action=edit
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthidium_sanguinicaudum&action=edit

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 14:28, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I think this may be a problem of using inappropriate sources. I have yet to find any circumstance where I would cite discoverlife.org. Taking the first example, Anthidium atricaudum, a more reliable (looking) source explains that Anthidium piliventre Friese, 1925 is a junior homonym of Anthidium piliventre Friese, 1913. That is, Heinrich Friese named this species A. piliventre in 1925, despite having already named another species A. piliventre twelve years earlier. The later name is therefore invalid. The earliest valid name is A. atricaudum Cockerell, 1926. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:59, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

A thousand pardons. I am just looking at moure.cria.org.br, and if you could give me another good source, I will look over all of them. I hope there aren't too many that are inaccurate. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:57, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

moure.cria.org.br

Synonyms

I'm not quite sure how to read it. For example this page has:

• "...Melanthidium Cockerell, T. D. A. (1947). A new genus of bees ..."
• "...Stenanthidium Moure, J. S. (1947). Novos agrupamentos genéricos..."
• "...Tetranthidium Moure, J. S. (1947). Novos agrupamentos genéricos e ..."

What does that mean? Are those synonyms?

Also, this a good source for distribution, right? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:16, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, Melanthidium Cockerell, 1947, Stenanthidium Moure, 1947 and Tetranthidium Moure, 1947 are all synonyms of Anthidium Fabricius, 1804. The site does seem to be authoritative, so I would trust its distributions, too. I hadn't seen it before yesterday, so I can't really vouch for it, but it appears to have been made by qualified specialists. Note, however, that it only covers the Neotropical ecozone. If Anthidium is endemic to that region, then the information should be complete. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:53, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay thanks. I will any any missing info to the stubs. I spot-checked some stubs against this source, and I don't see any major errors in terms of synonyms. I hope the stubs turn out to be an asset to the project and not just a bunch of malarkey. Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Exceptions

All of the Anthidium species listed at moure.cria.org.br are articles at Wikipedia. Three, however, are exceptions:

• Anthidium aterrimum currently redirects to Anthidium funereum
• Anthidium uyacanum currently redirects to Anthidium maculosum
• Anthidium zamoranicum currently redirects to Anthidium maculifrons

If that site is correct, then those three should be articles, and not redirects. Please advise, and I will stub them and add them to the list at Anthidium.

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:53, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Lepdioptera for GA

We have a reviewer for Lepidoptera! And he has started the review, for the most part it is grammar (of course). Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 12:40, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Free credo accounts

Free accounts and access to a large database of references on Credo is being given to the first 400 Wikipedians who sign up, sign your name before its too late! I suggest reading the requirements first though. Sign here: WP:Credo accounts and if you meet the requirements, they will send information to your e-mail (make sure your e-mail is enabled in your preferences). Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 19:22, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I am happy to announce that the account information finally has been sent, so check your e-mail. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 22:15, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

How to photograph a locust?

I've looked online for some tips but can't find any, I have caught five spur-throated locusts (classed as a pest in QLD and NSW) however, unlike other locusts it is hard to photograph alive without holding as it will fly off (can fly for a long distance). Bidgee (talk) 11:17, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

The only sugestion I can make is to be patient. Insects are sensitive to carbon dioxide, so avoid beathing on them. There also sensitive to shadows, try moving in as slowly as possible. Hope it helps, and tell me how it goes. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 11:40, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Wait until they pose for you? This one amazed me when I saw it at the Wildlife Photography exhibition.--99of9 (talk) 06:56, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Try chilling them. Insects slow down as the temperature drops, eventually becoming sort of catatonic. The main drawbacks are that it's short-lived due to warmth from lights, etc, and that subjects sometimes contract into unnatural postures. I haven't done it myself, so you'll need to experiment to get the length of time in the freezer right. I would suggest starting from the short end (maybe 10 minutes?) and work your way to longer- killing your subject by freezing it will end your experiment before you get to try alternatives.Chuck Entz (talk) 23:22, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

RFC at Talk:Copulation#Should_the_Copulation_article_exist.3F

You may want to participate in the RFC at Talk:Copulation#Should_the_Copulation_article_exist.3F --Philcha (talk) 11:45, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Wrong names

Sybilla Pretiosa:

Hello! I just came to ask one thing; ¿which is the correct name of "Sibylla pretiosa"? Because I knew it as "Sybilla..." and looking a lot of web pages, I saw that all of them call this insect "Sybilla...". If all of you think the name is wrong, we should change it... Sibylla Pretiosa. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Felias Snape (talk • contribs) 16:27, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, it is currently a redirect, and there seems to be equal amount of hits on google, so I don't see to much of a problem with leaving as it is. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 21:37, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

This seems to be a typo that has been reproduced in the lay literature quite frequently. However I dont find any use of the Sybilla spelling in the scientific publications. The Sibylla spelling is also supported by the Familial (formerly subfamilial) name spelling which uses the Sibylla spelling as its root.--Kevmin § 22:01, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

The original description has Sibylla: [8], which matches the Latin proper noun it came from —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chuck Entz (talk • contribs) 00:01, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

An update

• Collaboration: I haven't been working on Coleoptera yet, as I've been putting my full effort into Wing (insect) and Insect morphology. I'm not going to nominated these for GA, yet, but will after I start working on Coleoptera again (I'm almost done).

• Credo account:I'm sorry for those who missed this opportunity, but this would be amazing resource for any subject. Credo was releasing accounts and its resources to Wikipedia users, however the deadline passed. Does anybody know when we are expected to get our account information e-mailed? Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 02:03, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Coleotichus blackburniae

Hello. I can't figure out if the family is Scutelleridae or Pentatomidae. Thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:55, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

The assignment of Coleotichus to Scutelleridae appears to be more common than to Pentatomidae. It looks like Scutelleridae was formerly treated as a subfamily (Scutellerinae) of Pentatomidae, so that may be why there appears to be discord. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:00, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation opinions

Hi. I'd be grateful if editors which an interest in disambiguation could take a look at Tristis and let me know their thoughts on its talk page. Thanks SP-KP (talk) 10:16, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

No DYK Section?

Where is our DYK section to add insect related DYKs to? AshLin (talk) 06:50, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I think the only such list is the DYK section of Portal:Insects. I update it every month with all the insect-related DYKs from the most recent page of WP:DYKA. If you plan to compile a comprehensive list (which would be pretty long...), I also have a list of article titles going back further into the past (May 2006 – April 2009), but off-wiki. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:12, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I see that this is yet another task we would like help with in keeping upto date :(. Any takers? AshLin (talk) 10:53, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, updating the last month's batch of DYK entries isn't much of a problem. I go through the list anyway, to seek out the hooks for Portal:Arthropods, so it costs me relatively little additional effort (insect hooks are also repeated there), but would cost someone else quite a lot. I'm not saying it has to be me that does it, but it's probably not the most effective way of contributing. I think there is more effort to be spent in assessing all the articles (there are a few dozen without assessments), checking the assessments, and cleaning up any with outstanding issues. This project isn't signed up to Svick's cleanup listing, as WP:ARTH is, so I don't know how many articles are affected. I imagine it's quite a lot, though; there are 990 {{unreferenced}} insect articles, for instance (estimated with CatScan V2.0β). --Stemonitis (talk) 11:17, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Chlaenius needs some style love

The style for most of the species names at Chlaenius is severely screwed up.

Could somebody from the project please fix?

Thanks -- 186.221.141.36 (talk) 06:37, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

It looks OK to me. I'm not a fan of the "Genus (Subgenus)" style of presenting subgenera, but it's perfectly commonplace. You do realise that most of the entries on that list aren't species, don't you? --Stemonitis (talk) 06:40, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks much for checking.

"the "Genus (Subgenus)" style of presenting subgenera"

No, I'd actually never seen that before. TIL :-) -- 186.221.141.36 (talk) 00:56, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Advice wanted on periodical cicadas

The 13-year and 17-year Magicicada spp. of the southeastern US have seven "species," but ... I have worked on articles for the three so-called "decim species" (Magicicada septendecim, Magicicada tredecim, Magicicada neotredecim) but there is so much overlap that I think what would be better would be a unified article Magicicada -decim to which the three species names all re-direct. The two other groups are even simpler, a pairing of 13-year with an apparently identical-except-for-life-length 17-year species, Magicicada -cassini and Magicicada -decula. Could someone direct me to precedent, for or against, articles that unite closely related species? Sharktopus^talk 16:56, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

That would be an inappropriate use of scientific names really and would give the wrong impression that referring to them as Magicicada -decim is acceptable as a scientific name.

That said, it seems like the 'groupings' you referred to have common names based on this. e.g. Magicicada -decim is commonly known as Decim periodical cicadas. So if ever you create an article merging two or more closely related species they should be under their common names (Decim periodical cicadas, Cassini periodical cicadas, etc.) and not under a corrupted version of their SN's.-- Obsidi♠n^Soul 05:04, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

What a much-better-idea-than-mine! Thank you, Obsidian Soul. Sharktopus^talk 16:55, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I think you could easily leave these as seperate pages. The articles are long enough and the species are centainly important enough to have their own articles. Great work on the species by the way! Ruigeroeland (talk) 17:11, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!! What I think would work would be to keep the 3 species articles but also create the decim species one. Then I will put all the shared info, comparing and contrasting, etc. into the decim species article for great comprehensibility. So, persuaded by your advice, I'm not planning to rip apart the articles I already wrote, just point from them to a unified discussion in case anybody wants to see it. Sharktopus^talk 17:48, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

• Just a p.s. and thanks for the help and advice -- eventually Decim periodical cicadas and Cassini periodical cicadas were both featured (June 20 and July 1) on Wikipedia's front page via DYK. Sharktopus ^talk 11:09, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Mantoidea: Conflicting Taxonomies

We got an inquiry at BugGuide about two genera that are simultaneously in Hymenopodidae:Acromantinae and Acanthopidae.

Someone familiar with the taxonomic issues involved needs to make the changes necessary so that the pages in question are all using the same taxonomy.

Chuck Entz (talk) 13:51, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Both pages are unreferenced (the ITIS link is non-specific), which doesn't make it any easier, but here goes... The most recent reference I can find is Lombardo & Ipploito (2004); one would expect the genus' monographers to understand its placement, so that's probably a pretty reliable source. That article would therefore seem to indicate that the current thinking is that Acanthops belongs in Mantidae: Acanthopinae. That subfamily is the same taxon as Acanthopidae, but treated as a subfamily of a larger Mantidae. I see no mention of either Acromantinae or Hymenopodidae.

That said, it is possible for two conflicting taxonomies to be current and valid (in different works); it's all a question of circumscription. In this instance, I think it's just that some of our articles are unreferenced and out of date (WikiProject Mantodea died a fair while ago), but it is possible for a genus to appear to be in two different families at once. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:44, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Having looked at a few examples, it looks like our Mantodea content is full of copy-and-paste errors. There are a lot of contradictions, both within and between articles, and I wouldn't trust any of it unless there are decent references present. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:13, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

What kind of (bee?) is this?

nice nose buddy

Hello folks I know nothing about insects but I just got a micro 4/3rds camera which takes high res sequential photos like this. So I wanted to offer my services to take pictures requests of insects you can find in the average central oregon garden, if there are any. Also I would love to know what kind of thing this image shows so I can add it to the right page. 66.220.113.98 (talk) 20:52, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Judging by the picture and the location, it's most likely Bombylius major, which is found through-ought North America. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 05:33, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Help identifying insect

Who am I?

I found this bug crawling on my ceiling, here in Denton, Texas in July, and I photographed it. My best guess as to family so far is Alydidae, but I'm not even sure I've got the order right. I know it's not the best photo ever, but if anyone can give me a hint, I'll be very grateful, and endeavor to take better pictures of it next time.

Thanks in advance. -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:00, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

This one is tough for me. To what I found, you were pretty close, Darmistus subvittatus. However, I found some species in the family Reduviidae, such as a Nabis sp., (of Nabidae). Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 06:07, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh wow, I think you got it, or else real close. It's definitely (I think) in the subfamily Nabinae, due to the back markings. There are a couple of good contenders: [9], [10]. My guy doesn't seem to have the speckled legs characteristic of some members of Nabis. -GTBacchus^(talk) 08:16, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Heteroptera: Lygaeoidae: Rhyparochromidae - Ozophora picturata C4bugman (talk) 04:33, 14 June 2015 (UTC)c4bugman

Beetles

I believe that the article Beetles is nearing completion. IS there anything anybody would like to add? Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 01:08, 18 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 many about insects. 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 15:12, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

That sounds great! I'm just glad they sent invitations or else I would never know. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 06:47, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Reliable source?

I notice a lot of the pages on the smaller orders and their families such as Raphidioptera and Osmylidae use the website Mikko's Phylogeny Archive as a reference. The question is how reliable of a source is it and should it be used as such? The last major updates to it are from 2 years ago, and there doesn't seem to be any indication as to what sources the phylogenetic opinions are being taken from.--Kevmin § 23:23, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

To the contrary, they do have references (See [11] for example). And 2 years ago is really quite recent for a lot of taxa. You need to doublecheck it against recent literature, of course, if there are any. But otherwise, it's as reliable as you can get.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 02:07, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

The thing that troubles me is that it is/was a personal project of one person, which seems very close to being a one person phylogeny wiki.--Kevmin § 04:16, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't really think that's a problem. You can say the same thing about the other databases we use. Sepkoski's and Platnick's for example (fossil marine invertebrates and arachnids respectively) are also the work of one person. In terms of quality and reliability, PaleoDB for example, is far more innaccurate than Mikko's. Mikko's phylogeny merely compiles them, and he does document his references faithfully. If it contradicts phylogeny from a more recent work, then of course, it's better to use specialist references, but his site shouldn't be discarded merely because it's a personal project.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 06:49, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the real concern of any source are of how reliable are its own sources. And after taking a quick look, It already seems pretty well source, with references on each page. An example: Insect -> Archaeognatha -> Meinertellidae. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 11:58, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I need help

Hello, I have added some video content to a few diptera articles. Being a stupid "kraut" my English is a little bit poor and so I think it would be a good idea to control my last edits by a native English speaker. Also feel free to revert any unsuitable edit. Thanks, greetings from Germany, --Pristurus (talk) 23:34, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Pristurus (talk · contribs)

Checking.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 23:45, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Looks good, imo. Don't include "sp." in the italicization of scientific names, as well as "cf." It's also best to link the names if possible if the article they are on aren't specifically about them. And awesome videos. :) -- Obsidi♠n Soul 00:03, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

One problem is that you are showing high-resolution videos as thumbnails. Because the reader has to download the entire (high-res.) video to watch it, this can be extremely wasteful of bandwith. You should upload thumbnailed versions of the videos for display in articles, say at 320×240 px. See WP:VIDEO and WP:CUM for further explanation. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:42, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

First of all thanks to Obsidian Soul! @Stemonitis there are many issues related to video on wikipedia/wikimedia. Here in the German countryside I am conected via 384b/s-DSL to the internet and so for me it is no problem to confirm your qualms. However I am optimistic that things will go on (have a look here). Greetings, --Pristurus (talk) 11:23, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what point you're trying to make there. The videos need to be downsampled for display in articles. Wasting other people's bandwidth simply to avoid making a video in the appropriate format is not acceptable. Please make sure you produce videos at the appropriate resolution before continuing to add them to articles. Videos at 1024×576 pixels are more than ten times bigger than they need to be to display at 320×180 px. This is not a trivial difference, and it cannot be overturned by mere optimism. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:24, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea to contribute high resolution versions. It does seems reasonable to expect technical hitches to be fixed on the server side, ie to stream optimally at the required size if there is an issue related to it. In any case, the uploaded videos seem ok on my not-too-fast connection. Shyamal (talk) 15:53, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, upload the full-resolution version, but also upload a downsampled version. The servers do not serve "the required size", they serve the full resolution, which is then displayed at a lower resolution by the browser, effectively throwing away 90% of what the reader downloaded. Thus, for example, we use File:Acronicta psi - caterpillar 320px.ogv in the article (in this case, Lepidoptera), which links to the full-size version at File:Acronicta psi - caterpillar.ogv; the full resolution is there for whoever wants to see it, but the average reader isn't burdened by the unnecessarily large download. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:11, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for comments. The resolution of 1024×576px is only the display resolution on commons, the real resolution of my videos is anamorphic 720x576px (standard definition PAL, 16:9). Please have a look to bugzilla. But remember: not the resolution is the problem. The limitation is the bitrate of a video. To see a stream in real-time it must be smaller than the rate of your internet connection. Normally I encode my files at 1-1,5 Mbps (here in Germany the medium speed of internet connection tends to 2Mbps) as a compromise between size and quality. And I am to lazy to load up 3 versions of every file (with 64kbs upstream). But feel free to transcode the videos. Greetings, --Pristurus (talk) 19:23, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

If they are not downsampled, it is likely that the videos will be removed. They will still be accessible via the normal Commons links, but they are not suitable for inline display. The file size is the problem, not the speed of connection, and that depends almost linearly on the resolution. --Stemonitis (talk) 21:55, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Identification of butterfly

Anyone know what kind of butterfly this is?

Can someone help identify this butterfly so that I can rename the file? Thanks. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 13:40, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I cant help you, but for anyone to be able too, you would probably have to provide the location where the photograph was taken..! Cheers. Ruigeroeland (talk) 14:19, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Not stated by the uploader, unfortunately. He or she helpfully described the photograph as "butterfly on bridge". Aren't the wing markings distinctive enough? If not, looks like I will have to go with "Unidentified Lepidoptera". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

They might be, but it will make life easier if this information is known. Hopefully someone will still be able to identify it for you! Ruigeroeland (talk) 14:37, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

One of the other pictures by the contributor is of a hummingbird - so it would appear to be in the Neotropics, southern US perhaps and if so it would appear like a very damaged Question Mark Butterfly - see http://www.birrellfineart.com/Big%20Picture%20Pages/w%20butterfly%20question%20m%209%20big.htm Shyamal (talk) 07:01, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh, poor thing. Thanks. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:02, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Solva marginata

Is it Solva marginata or Xylophagus marginatus? Cheers. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:04, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

See also: List of soldierflies and allies of Great Britain

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:04, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Why do you ask? All the sources for that article call it Solva marginata. Xylophagus marginatus was the original combination, but Solva has been in existence since 1860 (I can't find exactly when X. marginatus was transferred to Solva). It is unclear to me why there would be any doubt about it. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:01, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I just saw a couple of urls that said that: This says it's a syn and the species, and this says it's the species. Plus I couldn't find other Solva species, and it is redlinked here. (I've since found Solva varia.) So, I thought I'd check. Thanks for the feedback, and sorry to be a nuissance. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:18, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh right. Now I remember. It was also because Xylomyidae didn't have a genus section. Just a mostly a bunch of ext links. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:27, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I gather that this list of genera is wrong. Is zipcodezoo unreliable? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:40, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

zipcodezoo is VERY unreliable. If it is a European species, use http://www.faunaeur.org/ Cheers! Ruigeroeland (talk) 10:24, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Wow. Great site. Thank you!!! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 10:26, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

About the article Goniaea and its species

Not an Acrididae? Totodu74 (talk) 08:53, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

You're right. Goniaea is a genus of Acrididae, although it appears there was a (presumably invalid) genus called Goniaea in Ulidiidae, too. All the articles you refer to are effectively unreferenced, and if I had had the time, I would already have merged them all into a single article. Does anyone have the time to write a decent stub about the true Goniaea? --Stemonitis (talk) 09:02, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I've done some work on it, so that there are pages for the Goniaea (Acrididae) and the replacement name Goniaeola, and the species pages for all the non-synonyms are correct. All that's left is dealing with redirects and deletions. First of all, I prepared a page for the single species in the Ulidiidae genus, but then decided to change the existing page instead and move it to the new name. Unfortunately, I accidentally saved the page I had prepared, which created a new Goniaeola foveolata page. That leaves the Goniaea foveolata in limbo: it's not linked to anymore by any of the regular Wikipedia pages, but now I can't rename it. I would like to delete the new Goniaeola foveolata page in order to preserve the edit history on the old Goniaea foveolata page by moving it rather than deleting it, but I don't know the procedure. The other unfinished business is all the synonym pages that should be changed to redirects. There again, I don't know the procedure for that. Here's the list, based on comparing GBIF [12] with Orthoptera Species File [13]:

• [List deleted- no longer needed]

Chuck Entz (talk) 09:22, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

After creating a page for G. sanginipennis and tinkeriing, I think I see how to convert the synonyms to redirects. They can always be reverted if necessary... Chuck Entz (talk) 00:12, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Everything's done except the Goniaea foveolata Goniaeola foveolata pages: all the old pages are updated or changed to redirects, with one moved to a name in another genus (I created the genus page for that and added it to the subfamily page). It should all be corrected and seamlessly integrated. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:21, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Taxonomy vs Classification vs Systematics vs.....

Debate on taxonomy sections listed at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_life#Taxonomy_vs_Classification_vs_Systematics_vs..... It follows on from discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants#General_structure_for_plant_articles_and_lists cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:44, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Help needed at Haplodiploid sex-determination system

I tried asking this at Wikiproject: Genetics, but there hasn't been any response; perhaps more knowledgeable people would be here. There have been repeated changes to a table about genetic relatedness ratios on this page that I think are wrong, from several anonymous IP addresses (I haven't reverted the last one).It would be helpful if knowledgeable people could check this. Am I making a mistake? Thanks in advance. Nadiatalent (talk) 21:29, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but it may be that both figures are correct. Since males have half the genome size of females, when a (haploid) male fathers a (diploid) daughter, then his entire genome is shared with the daughter, but only half her genome is shared with her father. Thus, either "1" or "1/2" could be correct, depending on how you calculate it. The critical question, then, is how "shared gene proportions" are normally calculated, and here, as always, we should defer to published sources. The table does not appear to be referenced at the moment; solve that, and you will probably solve the other problems, too. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:25, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that was good advice. In trying to follow it I find that the table might be correct (as you say), and that the Coefficient of relatedness page is way beyond any help that I can give it. The populations genetics text books that I have access to neatly avoid saying how the "probability that two alleles chosen at random are identical by descent" is calculated when one individual is diploid and the other haploid, i.e. they don't define the assumptions well enough. Nadiatalent (talk) 19:23, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, "probability that two alleles chosen at random are identical by descent" is probably enough information (and I should probably have known that definition already). Picking an allele at random from the male inevitably gives you the shared allele (i.e. probability=100%), since he only has one copy to choose from. The probability of picking the same allele in the daughter is 50%, so the overall probability is 50%. Similar logic applies for the mother and daughter, and there is no haploidy to confuse things in that instance. Thus, the IP was wrong; mother–daughter relatedness is 25%, and father–daughter relatedness 50%, in haplodiploid systems. --Stemonitis (talk) 22:30, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that was what I thought, and it is nice to see that you agree. However, Hartl, D.L.; Clark, A.G. (1989). Principles of population genetics. Sunderland, Massachusetts: Sinauer Associates, Inc.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) (undoubtedly too old a reference to be acceptable in wikipedia) talks about "coefficient of relationship" between the mother and her daughters as 1/2. There seems to be a severe problem with what is being defined, and some extremely similar terms for possibly different things. I'm quite surprised by it all. Nadiatalent (talk) 22:48, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Dead Link: Biografien der Entomologen der Welt

For those of us interested in the biographies of entomologists, this online database has been a great source for bare-bones information such as birth and death dates. It used to be at: [14] Later it moved to: [15] For a while now, any url with the domain "dzmb1.biologie.uni-oldenburg.de" results in the browser timing out while trying to connect.

I came across a page that uses the first (zalf) address as one of its few references, and I'm not sure what to do with it.

Does anyone know if the database has been moved to a new address that works- or was it just too good to be true? Chuck Entz (talk) 00:39, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Is it the same as this? --Stemonitis (talk) 08:47, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Thank you!! Chuck Entz (talk) 00:05, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

A search on "zalf" turns up dozens of pages with broken links to one of the older addresses. I'm sure there are many more with the other obsolete address. I fixed a dozen or so of the zalfs before realizing the size of the task. Is there any bot or other method that could do it globally? Chuck Entz (talk) 22:39, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Stenocara dentata

Can someone give an opinion on a question I left at this talk page concerning the correct scientific name of the beetle? Rmhermen (talk) 23:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Two articles for one species

Hi all, I'm not a member of this WikiProject but I edit articles on invasive insects every now and then. This weekend I noticed that we have duplicate articles for one species, Bemisia tabaci (one article under scientific name and one under common name): Bemisia tabaci and Silverleaf whitefly. They're both old (created in 2005 and 2006) and have extensive content, and I have no idea how to go about merging the content (I've never really worked with merges before), so I wasn't sure where to go for help on this. If anyone is willing to help me tackle this, or guide me to someone who handles this sort of thing regularly, I'd appreciate it! SheepNotGoats (talk) 15:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

The article at silverleaf whitefly is much better provided with inline citations, and should be the one to keep. The page at Bemisia tabaci appears to be taken wholesale from this page which, despite the claims in our article, does not appear to be in the public domain. Given that, it would be best to replace Bemisia tabaci with a redirect to silverleaf whitefly immediately, and add any information from issg.org later, citing it appropriately, of course. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that copyvio, that definitely makes things easier! I'll go ahead and do the redirect, and check to see if whoever imported this article from ISSG has done it elsewhere on WP. Thanks again, SheepNotGoats (talk) 18:21, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Tamamushi (Beetle and Shrine)

Hello, I'm working on Tamamushi Shrine, an early 7th-century National Treasure of Japan, which was decorated with the wings of the Tamamushi Beetle. Tamamushi beetle redirects to Chrysochroa fulgidissima; the Japanese article's infobox has English but it's a bit technical... The best sources for the shrine say its Chrysochroa elegans (or even, more precisely, Chrysochroa elegans Thunberg). This article is entitled Pseudocryptic speciation of Chrysochroa fulgidissima (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) and says, per this abstract, that there are various ?subspecies? My basic question is, is everything talking about the same beetle or not? Thanks, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 19:05, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Buprestidae world catalog gives Chrysochloa elegans as a synonym for Chrysochroa fulgidissima [16]. Chuck Entz (talk) 12:38, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Euh

Now moved to Pseudoxya diminuta. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:37, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:HighBeam

Wikipedia:HighBeam describes a limited opportunity for Wikipedia editors to have access to HighBeam Research.
—Wavelength (talk) 18:05, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Mistake transcribing from distribution tables of Fauna Europaea

Hi, I've noticed on a number of articles over the past year that the distribution given for a species within an article incorrectly transcribes the "Britain I" area from Fauna Europaea, and links to "British Isles". In many cases, the articles are of low importance and little more than stubs. For example, Anthrenus pimpinellae links to this page which displays a button to list the distribution table. Clicking this button shows the areas. "Britain I." is incorrectly transcribed as "British Isles" in the article. There's probably a number of articles making this same error. Any suggestions as to the best correction to make? My suggestion is to link to Great Britain. Thank you. --HighKing (talk) 12:35, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

That's a potential change, but it's far from the best. In general, we shouldn't be simply listing the countries in which a taxon occurs, but describing the distribution area geographically. As such, checklists are not the best sources. In the case of Anthrenus pimpinellae, descriptions such as "nearly cosmopolitan" or "known from Europe, northern Africa, Asia and portions of the Oriental region" are more appropriate. While it may be easy to replace "British Isles" with another term, this really doesn't address the issues that the article has. If one is really interested in improving the article, a different solution is needed. In fact, the whole thing should be re-written to contain real information; these substubs are of very little value. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:02, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Can you point me to a "good example" of a shortish article (what headings, etc) and I'm happy to start the ball rolling. In the meantime, I'm also happy to fix the transcription errors and as part of that, a list of substubs will be produced that will be recrafted as "proper" articles. I can publish the list somewhere suitable, so if anyone else wants to recraft a substub, they can use the list. --HighKing (talk) 14:07, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

That would seem to be contrary to the terms under which your topic ban was lifted and the advice given at the time. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:29, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Don't think so. The topic ban is lifted with no conditions other than I edit within policy. In what way do you believe it is contrary to the terms under which the topic ban was lifted? A little further on my Talk page to here adds some clarity to Cailil's initial comment (in my opinion). I believe Cailil was initially under the impression that I was saying that F.E. was wrong, and he was responding that it would be OR to "fix" a reliable source. (Again in my opinion) I believe that has now been clarified. He *suggested* taking it here to ask what the best way to proceed in terms of possibly multiple mistakes in transcribing from F.E. to articles, and that makes sense to me. But it was a suggestion, not a condition of lifting the topic ban. But you raise a good point - I'll request that Cailil revise his comment so that he's not suggesting it is OR to fix a transcription error. --HighKing (talk) 19:43, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi Stemonitis - Cailil has responded on my Talk page. The summary is In short you aren't banned from fixing errors, but mass changes are a bad place to go after a ban without a wide consensus. Also Stemontis's points are good and worth continuing to discuss. Fair enough? He's asked a number of questions. I believe there's a simple transcription error from Flora Europaea to a handful of articles.

• You appear to suggest that "Flora Europaea" is not a reliable source? Is that the case?
• Is there a transcription error from Flora Europaea to the article, or not?

Besides that, you suggest that listing countries isn't appropriate or the best. I can understand that. You've made suggestions for the Anthrenus pimpinellae article and provided references which seem fine by me. I can make those changes if there's no objections.

Anyone else watch this page? Any ideas? --HighKing (talk) 15:02, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't question that Fauna Europaea is a reliable source, just that it's not providing the sort of data we would ideally want. If you're after a country-by-country (or similar) checklist, then it's excellent. (Flora Europaea is even better, in my opinion.) If a taxon occurs in only a small number of countries / territories, then listing them all may be helpful, but even then it often isn't. Describing something that is restricted to the Pyrenees as occurring in "France, Spain and Andorra" suggests a much wider range than it really has. In such a case, we should say instead that it is restricted to the Pyrenees. Similarly, a species may be found across Europe, except the European Arctic, which is worth reporting, but you'd never discover it from a checklist if it's present in the southern parts of Norway and Sweden, for instance. To summarise, the data at Fauna Europaea is trustworthy, but it's not the best sort of data for our purposes. Given that, it doesn't really matter whether the data at Fauna Europaea has been misinterpreted, because any such listing shoudl really be replaced with a good prose description anyway.

I would be interested to know how many articles might be affected by your proposed edits. Cailil has suggested quite reasonably that mass edits might be best avoided in the interim. I don't know where the lower threshold for "mass edits" might lie, but it's worth ascertaining whether we're talking about a dozen articles, or a number in the hundreds. Do you have any idea? --Stemonitis (talk) 15:37, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Good points well made. In terms of numbers I have no idea. From memory I'd say an absolute upper limit of 10 articles, and in reality probably less than 5. Right now, I only know of this one. I'll try to make a list later. --HighKing (talk) 16:08, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Phew. This has taken a while, but here's a list of articles - 31 in total, more than I thought. Many of the transcription errors appear to have been performed by User:Phn229.

• Tachypodoiulus niger
• Cicindela sylvatica
• Cicindela maritima
• Carabus nitens
• Carabus monilis
• Carabus smaragdinus
• Cychrus caraboides
• Leistus terminatus
• Leistus spinibarbis
• Leistus ferrugineus
• Nebria livida
• Notiophilus biguttatus
• Notiophilus rufipes
• Notiophilus aquaticus
• Agonum muelleri
• Callistus lunatus
• Diachromus germanus
• Dromius agilis
• Dromius quadrimaculatus
• Panagaeus bipustulatus
• Poecilus versicolor
• Hydroporus erythrocephalus
• Hydroporus pubescens
• Ilybius ater
• Ilybius quadriguttatus
• Gyrinus natator
• Gyrinus marinus
• Noterus clavicornis
• Noterus crassicornis
• Lyctus brunneus
• Anthrenus museorum

Thoughts? --HighKing (talk) 14:52, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, one springs out straight away. The first of those is an article that I wrote, and what it states is entirely accurate. "British Isles" is an appropriate and concise term in the context, with no errors in transcription involved (you'll notice I also agglomerated three sovereign states into "Benelux" for brevity). Unless the affected articles can be accurately determined, it will be very difficult for anyone to agree to your proposed changes. Are you still proposing the easy (but ultimately unhelpful) edit of replacing "British Isles" with "Great Britain", or are you proposing to make the effort to describe the distributions more meaningfully? How do you propose to deal with cases such as Noterus crassicornis, where the species is present in both RoI and GB (and NI for that matter), where "British Isles" is the appropriate descriptor? --Stemonitis (talk) 15:09, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Two separate things. First is transcription errors - we both agree they need to be fixed. The simplest way is to fix the incorrect transcription of "Britain Is". That said, I'd be equally happy to fix the transcription errors in whatever form you think is best is it means rolling up a list of states into a better group description. My preference is to avoid the mistake of mixing apples and oranges, so either use "country" names (sovereign states) or use "geographic" areas in a list where it makes sense. I'd be happy to describe distribution using the largest appropriate geographical areas involved. So what to do? I'm pretty easy on that score - I'm not sure if I'd be best placed to come up with the geographical areas - do you have the time? --HighKing (talk) 22:52, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't really have the time to do it properly, which would involve finding prose descriptions of the distribution areas. They're not always available; it was a long time ago that I wrote T. niger, but I suspect the checklist was all I could find. If you're going to use the checklist data, then it requires a fair deal of common sense. If it's present in all countries, or all countries bordering the Mediterranean, then describe it that way. If it's present in all countries except a particular group, then describe it that way. I think it makes sense in a long-winded list to keep it as short as possible, even if that means grouping countries together. The species won't follow national boundaries, so there's no reason why we should either. If a species occurs in both Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, then it should almost always be reduced to "British Isles" in such cases (in my opinion). (Actually, that's probably true of GB + NI distributions, too; saying it occurs in the "United Kingdom" doesn't give that information, unless you've clarified that you would have said "Great Britain" if it weren't present in Northern Ireland.) I'm not sure what you mean by the "largest appropriate geographical areas". Wouldn't that generally be "Europe"? And bear in mind that many of these species may occur outside Europe, and Fauna Europaea will not necessarily record that fact, and certainly not in the same detail. Biogeography is rather too complex for me to be able to give a good primer on it here.

You worry about mixing apples and oranges, but all we've got at the moment are oranges, and what we need is apples. Using geographical terms like "British Isles" is an step in that direction, even if it mixes classes of entity. Frankly, I see the transcription error as a minor irritation compared to the more arduous task of providing good distribution descriptions. All the articles involved are low-value sub-stubs anyway, and every one of them could do with being replaced by a proper article, with morphology, ecology, taxonomy, and the rest. (See, for instance, the German article on Anthrenus museorum.) The transcription error really is just a drop in the ocean, and I fear that the harm done by "fixing" it badly could outweight any potential benefits. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:49, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree with just about everything you've said above. And I agree that if it occurs on the island of GB and the island of Irl, then British Isles is appropriate. No probs with that. But let me pick you up on that last point. Does fixing a transcription error where the source says "Britain Is" and it has been transcribed as "British Isles" count in your mind as fixing it "badly". Cos that's the minimal change. I'd be more concerned when rolling up countries that a bad description was given. --HighKing (talk) 08:32, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Still looking for some guidance. I see little point in letting transcription errors stand in article. You've already pointed out that using these lists isn't the best way - and I agree. But then you also said you don't have the time to write the articles in full. And I don't have the expertise. So in the meantime if the article are to remain as "low-value sub-stubs", doesn't it make sense to fix the transcription errors? --HighKing (talk) 23:23, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

OK, provided it's limited to the articles listed above (excluding Tachypodoiulus niger and Anthrenus pimpinellae, which I've already fixed), and you do it carefully. There are other errors in the lists that will need to be fixed concurrently; they should be obvious. If this turns out to be another excuse to purge the term "British Isles" from Wikipedia, there may well be serious consequences. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:31, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Anybody else have an opinion or anything to add? --HighKing (talk) 13:39, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

De-orphan with Navbox

I created {{Navbox Copelatus}} to add to the articles for the beetles in the Genus Copelatus in order to de-orphan those articles. Would that be an acceptable addition to the articles? Since it is a rather large navbox (26 groups) I have it default to collapsed. Ryan Vesey Review me! 20:11, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

If they're linked from the article at Copelatus (as they appear to be), then they're not orphans. The navbox is too big to be useful, in my opinion. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:40, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Orphan, an orphan tag should only be added when there are zero links; however, a minimum of 3 is ideal. I've seen the navbox usefully added to smaller genera and began making this one not realizing how large the topic was. That being said, I find that while the Navbox is collapsed it causes no difficulties and could serve at least some use to those researching insects. I find that the benefits for adding the Navbox outweigh any drawbacks. Are there any drawbacks to including the Navbox that I have not considered? Ryan Vesey Review me! 20:46, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

There are exceptions for biological taxa (especially beetles!), where it is likely that incoming links will be limited to the next higher taxon in the hierarchy. Thus, one incoming link is entirely sufficient. The size of the collapsed navbox is irrelevant, because it's useless when collapsed. I think the real problem here is that the Copelatus species articles are, without exception, almost entirely worthless. A few have images, but the remainder merely repeat information present on the genus article, and should be merged into that article preferentially. There's little point in helping people navigate around dozens of empty articles when you could give them all that information in one place. Even if one wanted to produce navboxes for articles such as these, this is now how it would be done. The genus is apparently divided into subgenera, so one would use them rather than making a single navbox for 470 species. (It's also apparently paraphyletic with regard to a couple of related genera, so they would probably have to be included, too.) Your proposal is simply the wrong solution. The total amount of content is orders of magnitude too little for the number of articles it's being stretched over, and a navbox will not solve that. If you're going to make automated edits to solve the problem, they should be to merge the articles, or just to remove the misplaced {{orphan}} tags. (I would also be happy with deletion, but that's probably harder to justify under existing policy.) --Stemonitis (talk) 20:57, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I highly disagree with your statement on the size of the collapsed navbox being irrelevant; however, I do agree that the navbox as it stands is not useful. You state that there are subgenera, I believe that a navbox organized by subgenera may be useful, or a separate navbox for each subgenus. Is there a way I can discover which ones belong in which subgenus? I know almost nothing about insects so I can't make heads or tail of it. I didn't even know subgenera existed. Furthermore, do you think that simple navboxes for genera containing 3-20 some species would be useful? Ryan Vesey Review me! 01:28, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I think that navboxes could be useful, but the ones I've seen rarely are. For a genus with three species, it's unlikely to be useful, because each species is likely to have been contrasted with the other two in the text. Thus, all the links will already be in place, removing the need for a "See also" section, which is what the navbox replaces or supplements. For instance, Planes minutus already links to the species Planes marinus and Planes major. (In this case, there's also a fourth species, but you get the point.) Some navboxes are absurdly oversized, and excess navbox usage is one of the leading causes of articles landing up in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded. (See, for example, serotonin–norepinephrine–dopamine reuptake inhibitor, where several of the navboxes are over a page long in their expanded state; it is simply unthinkable that the hundreds of links in those templates would all be included as "See also" links.) The purpose of a navbox must be to aid navigation around a group of related articles, not to de-orphan them; in my opinion, template-derived incoming links should be discounted when assessing orphan status, anyway. But to recap, for small genera, any unmentioned species can be separately listed in "See also"; for medium-sized genera, there may be arguments in favour of navboxes; for large groups – and I don't know where my lower threshold for "large" would be – it probably doesn't make sense. 470 is definitely too large. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:50, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Help in identifying these perverts, please !

A threesome involving three flies: two males and one female

There's a fair amount of detail if you click-through, twice (or 3x?), and a 'related' photo with a rear-view. Location, Northampton, England, early May. I'm at a loss how to identify species - can someone link to handy keys that an observant novice could use. Or are they like spiders where you have to scrutinise adult genitalia under the microscope and measure the precise location of a specific hair on one leg ? They are probably a very common species (or is the bottom one a different 'prey species' ?)

Can any behavior experts explain what is going on ?
My guess is the male on the bottom may be being eaten by the female in the middle (I'm into spiders really, so that's a natural suspicion !). Rear view looks like the male on top is mating with the female. I first spotted them airborne - I don't know how many wings were used. Note the guy on top has stepped from one leaf to another, suggesting the trio can hang by one leg - I'm sure they didn't take-off and land again. I wonder what aerobatics are necessary for the trio to 'stack' in mid-air ?

Will I get in trouble for putting it on Threesome#See_also ?
I cite Talk:Copulation#Redirect_to_Sexual_intercourse_committed as justification ! Also some people turn to nature for a definition of 'unnatural acts' ...

Talk:Sexual_intercourse#Human_fleas_are_they_real.3F is also of interest !

I'm new to this, so please go easy on me ! ---19S.137.93.171 (talk) 02:30, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

This are Empididae, members of the Genus Empis. You see here a pair of Empidid flies: the male holds the female and she eats (the donation from him) during the copulation. That´s the normal copulation behaviour in this genus. --Pristurus (talk) 23:03, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks ! I just found this, too. Nature!Sex!TopTips! — A chivalrous gentleman caller should always take a gift --195.137.93.171 (talk) 03:25, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Black carpenter ant range?

See my comment on the talk page there. --Haruo (talk) 19:06, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Substitution to transclusion of navboxes

I have found a number of articles like Agonum extensicolle that contain {{Navbox Agonum}} substituted rather than transcluded. There are also other navboxes that have been incorrectly substituted in the same way. I will have a full list of templates that need to be transcluded rather than substituted in a couple of days. If there are no objections to to me fixing this, I'll put in a BRFA in a couple of days. If consensus is that those navboxes should not be in the articles, I can also put in a BRFA to remove them; however, I think the smaller size of these templates makes them appropriate/useful in ways the navbox in the above section wasn't. Ryan Vesey Review me! 23:58, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

ID Please (Cixiidae)

Cixiidae by kadavoor

I suppose this is a Cixiidae. It is taken at Kadavoor, Kerala, India. Could you able to suggest the species or genus, please. Thanks, Jee Jkadavoor (talk) 09:23, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Seems more like Nogodinidae and possibly the same species as what I have at File:Nogodinidae Wynaad.jpg (from Wayaand). I think this one is probably genus Varcia (see description). Cixiids lack cross veins and tend to be smaller. Shyamal (talk) 13:01, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Shyamal; it looks very much like yours. Jkadavoor (talk) 09:15, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Owlfly (Ascalaphidae)

Could you help me any further on the ID of these Owlfly (Ascalaphidae) couples found at Kadavoor, Kerala, India. Jkadavoor (talk) 09:43, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

• 
  Male
• 
  Female

The compound eye is divided by a furrow making it subfamily Ascalaphinae. Afraid not much has been published in post-Independence India. If anything the literature and specimens probably languish in the ZSI and can only be obtained through RTI activism or more serious legal actions via Indian courts. My guess based on old literature would be genus Ogcogaster. Shyamal (talk) 06:38, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Jkadavoor (talk) 09:55, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Strike that genus id. It needs a specimen and more careful examination of details to work on this, but do try to post on the Facebook group InsectIndia, several people with access to collections there. Shyamal (talk) 11:26, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Philodicus sp.?

Asilidae 3 by kadavoor

Could you help me any further on the ID of these Robberfly (Asilidae) found at Kadavoor, Kerala, India. Jkadavoor (talk) 10:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

There is no possibility for a species identification. It looks like a Philocdicus species, but Pavel Lehr published some related East-Palaearctic genera as well, which can be separated only by checking the internal structures of the male genitalia. In addition the genus Philocdicus isn't revised yet and Indian authors, like Joseph & Parui weren't able to describe species in the correct genus in several cases. Therefore you have to check both, male and female, and you need a revision of the type material. Sometimes photographs are enough for identification, but not very often, more than 7,000 species are already described. Best regards. --Dysmachus (talk) 18:19, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Dysmachus; I'm happy with the genus level. But some people in the Commons always complain and consider such work as unidentified and useless. :( -- Jkadavoor (talk) 07:25, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Mesembrius insignis?

Or Helophilus sp.? Or they are just synonyms?

• 
• 

Found at Kadavoor, Kerala, India. Jkadavoor (talk) 09:27, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Seems to me it could be Helophilus pendulus as well as Mesembrius insignis. Probably need a second opinion on this. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 18:31, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Never mind, it's definitely Mesembrius insignis based on the patern on the thorax.

Thanks, a lot. Jkadavoor (talk) 09:09, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Bushbrowns

Could you distinguish these bushbrowns:

• 
  Mycalesis mineus, I guess
• 
  Mycalesis perseus, WSF; I guess
• 
  Mycalesis perseus, DSF; I guess
• 
  Mycalesis mineus, I guess

Taken all at Kadavoor, Kerala, India. -- Jkadavoor (talk) 09:35, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks Robert for the ID notes. -- Jkadavoor (talk) 08:36, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Need of participation as FPC reviewers

It will be nice if some of us spend a little time to review images of insects in FPC and QIC. Now there are not enough subject experts; so valuable images are often neglected. -- Jkadavoor (talk) 09:33, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Help in identifying Heteroptera

Place : Onex, Geneva
Date et contexte : 22 June 2012, suburb of Geneva, window first floor
Temporarily in Unidentified Pentatomidae
-- MHM 22 June 2012
First asked on fr:Projet:Zoologie/Quel_est_cet_insecte_?#Identification_de_punaises
          

Elasmostethus interstinctus ??? see Commons:Category:Elasmostethus interstinctus

Look up Elasmostethus cruciatus or Red-Cross Shield Bug. --Bmattor (talk) 20:58, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Ants of Kansas

Ants of Kansas (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is a bit of an odd one out. There is no Ants of the United States and my guess is that it will take a long time for such an article. A major contributor to the article no longer has an interest in it. I would suggest deletion. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 05:18, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

cicada

Large Brown Cicada 23aug12

Any help on ID of this cicada? -- Jkadavoor (talk) 09:34, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Seems to be Graptopsaltria nigrofuscata (Motschulsky, 1866), commonly known as abura-zemi. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 10:32, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, a lot. -- Jkadavoor (talk) 09:37, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Stylops melittae

Someone translated my german article. In german Wikipedia usually the version history is imported n these cases. Maybe here is an admin who could do this now? --Kersti Nebelsiek (talk) 19:43, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Fauna Europaea lists (again)

Hi, this topic cropped up previously (see here). I had it on the long finger to get round to fixing the transcription errors in those substubs, but for a number of reasons, haven't gotten round to it. I recently changed 3 articles: Ilybius ater, Cicindela maritima and Carabus nitens, and fixed the bad wikilink. The lists incorrectly linked "Britain I." to British Isles - I changed it (as per previous discussions) to point to Great Britain and moved the "Fauna Europaea" link from an external link to a reference. That's it. A new article has been created called Britain I. - is this a better place to link to? --HighKing (talk) 11:10, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Several points occur to me. Firstly, I don't think we should have an article on "Britain I."; this is a term (and certainly an abbreviation) that only occurs within Fauna Europaea. Secondly, Ilybius ater (the only one of the three I've looked at in detail) occurs in Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands; "British Isles" is a uniquely good way of referring to this. The main point, however, which I have made before, is that altering the target of the "British I." link is solving the wrong problem. The distributions of these taxa should be described in prose; in the case of Ilybius ater, the distribution covers part of almost all European territories, except the islands, and except the Iberian Peninsula and parts of the Balkan Peninsula. Wherever possible, the list should be replaced with a prose description of that kind. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:28, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I've nothing to do with the "Britain I." article creation - but it looks like the editor who created originally reverted my edit at Ilybius ater, and shortly afterwards created the article. My initial reaction was that it was unnecessary - but now I'm not so sure....

As per the previous discussion, I agree completely and utterly that "British Isles" is a perfectly fine way to describe distribution areas especially in prose. Makes sense.

But if the article consists of nothing more that a list of scientifically defined geographic distribution areas taken from Fauna Europaea, I believe it's better to simply fix the bad wikilink than leave it.

I know some editors would prefer to have the article expanded, and view that change as an extremely minor fix.

I also know that if I were to rewrite the sections in prose, and used your suggestion of "Occurs in almost all of Europe except the islands" or something similar, I've no doubt that I'd be accused of being on a campaign to delete "British Isles" from Wikipedia.

So what's the answer? I see fixing the bad wikilink as *fixing* and *error*. If someone from here wants to rewrite the list as prose, I've no problem with that. But I know if I do it, it would lead to more drama so I'd like to avoid just me making those changes. But I'd be happy to help. In the past, I've offered to do some maps. The current drama involves changing the "Britain I." link back to "British Isles", and removing any occurences of "Northern Ireland", "Republic of Ireland" and "Channel Islands" that also might occur. That's also wrong. We end up with an article that lists scientifically defined geographic distributions regions within the EU, *except* when an editor would rather use "British Isles".

I'd be delighted if someone here could make it clear that fixing the wikilink - pointing "Britain I." to "Great Britain" (or even to the new article "Britain I.") is not vandalism or bad editing, but is fixing an error. Thanks. --HighKing (talk) 13:28, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I wonder why it was created in the first place? All very strange... Jamesinderbyshire (talk) 23:20, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

It was probably created because people seem to confuse the scientifically defined geographic distribution region used by Fauna Europaea "Britain I." with the larger region "British Isles". What's strange about it? I've seen worse articles created. At least this article makes it clear what the definition is, and might even remove objections to wikilinking "Britain I." to "Great Britain" as you have done. --HighKing (talk) 23:57, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Conflicts in Social Hymenoptera

Hi all, I've been doing some reading on eusociality and conflict in insect communities. In particular, I noticed that more info could be added about colony reproduction dynamics in honeybee hives, where the phenomenon of "worker policing" occurs. From what I have read, this is a relatively rare occurrence, but I think it's worth mentioning. Should I link to a new article or add a paragraph directly to the article page for Apis mellifera? GenesBrainsBehaviorNeuroscienceKL (talk) 08:13, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Depends on the amount of text I guess, but if it is a rare occurrence I would suggest adding a paragraph, but both options are fine Ruigeroeland (talk) 08:22, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject tagging

Greetings insect fans. I operate a WikiProject tagging bot. I was wondering if there would be any objection if I were to run the bot on articles related to insects. This simply means that articles that currently do not have any talk page that are about insects will have the relevant WikiProject tag added to the article. Articles where the talk page already exists will not be affected. I am working my way through a complete list of articles without WikiProject tags, of which there are around 250,000. When I spot ranges that are all similar (Latin species names for instance), I locate the relevant WikiProject.

If you have any concerns or questions about this, please do say. If you have specific tasks for a WikiProject tagging bot, please get in touch. Thanks. —Tom Morris (talk) 09:44, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good. There have been a bunch of mass-produced substubs that I haven't been able to keep up with tagging, so there are likely to be several hundred pages at least needing tagging. I trust you will automatically assess them as |class=stub |importance=low at the same time? Without that, it makes as much work as it saves. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:31, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Yep, will do. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:52, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

identification needed.

Identification needed for this bug. Thanks in advance. -- Joydeep (talk) 10:10, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Looks like Henosepilachna vigintioctopunctata Shyamal (talk) 10:29, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you -- Joydeep (talk) 10:41, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

June Bug

I have no idea what I'm doing right now, sorry. I just wanted to say that the article on the June Bug is lacking, it's found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllophaga_(genus)

The text describing the life cycle repeats itself and doesn't feel complete as it doesn't mention the adult life of the June Bug. I don't think the actual wiki page gets much notice so I thought this might be a better place to comment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.235.217.208 (talk) 03:36, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

id needed

Any help identifying this? And what is the change in tail portion? Thanks in advance. --Joydeep (talk) 06:23, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

This is apparently Parotis sp., (possibly Parotis_marginata but cannot be told with certainty without specimens) Crambidae. See Hair-pencil for the rest. Shyamal (talk) 07:43, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much. -- Joydeep (talk) 08:12, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

id needed

File:Caterpillar, Burdwan, West Bengal, India 12 10 2012.JPG

Any help identifying this?? It is very small in size, less than 12mm. Thanks in advance. --Joydeep (talk) 10:08, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Possibly a sphingid caterpillar. Your best bet is to look for larger ones near where you found it on the host plant. If you are on Facebook there is an excellent discussion group on Indian moths at https://www.facebook.com/groups/IndianMoths/ where you can ask. Shyamal (talk) 10:58, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't have a FB account, will join the group when I have one. -- Joydeep (talk) 09:45, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

id

Any help of its identification? --Joydeep (talk) 09:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

It is a nymph of a grasshopper, Orthoptera:Pyrgomorphidae is as far as it can be identified from a photograph. Shyamal (talk) 03:35, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. -- Joydeep (talk) 09:42, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Input requested at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Cultural entomology

This article is up at WP:AFC, and looks interesting but I lack the technical knowledge to rate it. Can any experts here weigh in? You can leave feedback at the top of the page with the "afc comment" template if you like. Article here: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Cultural entomology. MatthewVanitas (talk) 15:48, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Certainly looks like it could be redirected/merged to Ethnoentomology. Shyamal (talk) 06:15, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons beetle pictures

A large number of high quality photos, mostly of beetles, have been uploaded at this page. I'm muddling along in a non-expert way to match as many of these to articles as possible, but I thought I'd post a note here as well. Some of these don't yet appear to have stub articles for species or genus, such as Ixodina abyssinica tangana; perhaps this set of images might spur a few stub creations? Cheers, Khazar2 (talk) 17:10, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

locust id

Hi, could someone id this  ? It was several inches long. Bendž|Ť 15:41, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

We have a single similar species of Poekilocerus in India, but it appears like there are a fair number of species in the Ethiopian region to separate from. Shyamal (talk) 04:38, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Expert needed: Mordellistena fuscocastanea / Mordellistena fuscocastenea

These two similarly named articles are identical. I've held off merging them as duplicate articles as the reference given (the same in both articles) lists both names. I suspect it's an error in the source, but really need an expert to figure it out. Can anyone here oblige ? - TB (talk) 21:04, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Another pair with very similar names for which the reference material cited is unclear: Mordellistena koelleri / Mordellistena kolleri - TB (talk) 18:51, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

castanea should be right (here meaning chestnut coloured) and Mordellistena koelleri would appear right, the other alternative being kölleri Shyamal (talk) 04:35, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Why is Joel Hallan’s Biology Catalog the most popular entomology reference on Wikipedia? It's not a reliable source (IMO) and it's full of errors and outdated information. I suspect it is so popular simply by virtue of being accessible, unlike 99% of entomology sources. Every time I see it as the sole reference for a Wikipedia article, which is quite often, I have to cringe. Kaldari (talk) 05:16, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's because it's accessible and ostensibly complete. National and regional lists of taxa are often fairly easy to get hold of, but global resources are scarce. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:19, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

The name pairs are almost certainly identical species. For one thing, fuscocastenea makes no sense in Latin/Greek, and I have never seen such a spelling used as valid. The koelleri pair has to do with diacritics in binomials, and is complicated, but it is the same species. At any rate, Mordellistena is a big and chaotic genus taxonomically, so these are just names, and may well not correspond to valid species of the genus Moredellistena, so there is very little or no point even mentioning them ... Entomologist2 (talk) 08:24, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Identifications

Quite some time ago I inquired here about identifying some of my photos and User:Bugboy52.40 kindly offered to help. But now that I’ve finally gotten around to collecting a few, he seems to be on a bit of a Wikibreak. I was wondering if anyone else would care to look at these images, identify them, and advise whether or not they’re worth uploading to Commons? Thanks in advance.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 04:20, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Can you tell us what country these photos were taken in? It makes identification much easier. Kaldari (talk) 04:29, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Sure: 1 (bug?) & 2 (beetle) – Turkey, Aegean coast; 3 (cricket?), 4 (spider), & 7 (mantis) – Greece, Ionian islands & coast; 5 (dragonflies) – Canada, southern Alberta; 6 (damselfly) – Canada, central Alberta. (I can be more specific if it helps.) It was early summer in Turkey & Greece, early autumn in Alberta.—Odysseus1479 (talk) 09:38, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

It is not an easy task to ID species in these big and complex groups. The mantis (7) is immature, which makes it even harder. 3 is a longhorned grasshopper (Tettigoniidae), not a cricket ... Entomologist2 (talk) 08:10, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

The Canadian ones you can put on bugguide.net and they will probably be identified quickly. Kaldari (talk) 08:27, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Good article review request

Hi there, I'm wondering if anyone could take some time to review the article on Worker policing for GA status. It's a recent nomination and it falls under the scope of Wikiproject Insects. I'm fairly new to writing articles on behavior so I thought someone here could help. Thanks! GenesBrainsBehaviorNeuroscienceKL (talk) 23:24, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Troilus luridus

In picture are not Troilus luridus, but Dolycoris baccarum. We need a correct adult picture they are common in England. I have seen them in New England (likely brought here) but are not common yet. So do we delete the incorrect picture and ask an English person to snap a new one? We can ask the people at http://www.britishbugs.org.uk/index.html for a print. They have several nice ones. I am new to this so what is the correct way to bring this sort of thing up next time?

Best to comment on the talk page of the article in question - Talk:Troilus luridus, Talk:Dolycoris baccarum - also on the talk page of the images on commons. This is fine too, no single correct way. Shyamal (talk) 12:23, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

New article

Hi all. I just created Messor pergandei, having never created a taxonomic article of any type before. I guess it just broke my heart to see Messor all full of redlinks! Well, it's definitely a stub for now, but I think there's a good number of references considering that. Any feedback you can give me—or, of course, direct expansion of the article—would be appreciated. Best, BDD (talk) 00:38, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Stubs based only on Carabidae database

A number of new articles are being created based solely on entries in the database at carabidae.org. I'm concerned that the content in the articles exceeds what's in the database entries. For example, Nebria grumi states that this beetle is endemic to Kyrgyzstan, but I read http://carabidae.org/carabidae/grumi-glasunov-1902.html as indicating only that it is found there. In another example, Mastax vegeta describes the beetle as having brown pronotum and yellow dots on its black body, which appears to be the contributor's description of the image at http://carabidae.org/carabidae/vegeta-andrewes-1924a-110-a-hp-sd-up.html . Without a description in the source, I would not be so bold as to say that this coloration is a characteristic of the species. I'm wondering how regular contributors to insect articles feel about this use of a database to generate species articles. --Orlady (talk) 21:49, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Vandalism

I'd just like to report that there's an unregistered user who has repeatedly vandalized the Armadillidiidae page. His IP address is 209.235.105.107. Is there an admin available to deal with this? Pinguinus (talk) 20:00, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Seems like passing "schoolboy vandalism" - will keep an eye. Thanks for reverting. Shyamal (talk) 03:00, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

To whom it may concern

O.K. my title suppose to be who will respond to this but I felt acward on leaving it there. Note, my spelling isn't good, and I appologize for any typos that I might leave...

I joined project insects a year or 2 ago, and wrote a hefty amount of articles. I do have a question though about the use of this site? You see, on one hand Wikipedia doesn't allow to use blogs, but on the other hand, the current blog have details describing 2 species which I would like to write about. If its not O.K. to use such blogs (even if they contain a hefty amount of info and are written by what I can see an entomologist himself (4,000+ species are in his collection as far as the site says)), tell me if there is any other sites that have the same amount of info about insects... Just for heads up: I use Fauna Europaea and Carabidae.org for my european and carabid articles. I use Google Books as well, but I can't find a description for those ones, besides being listed in catalogues which don't specify their size, habitat, or ecology. I will be happy to receive any suggestions or feedback!--Mishae (talk) 21:00, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Not sure about the exact context here but the blog mentions that an important reference is "Lindroth, C.H. (1974) Coleoptera, Carabidae. Handbooks for the identification of British insects, vol. 4, part 2. London: Royal Entomological Society." - can't that be examined and cited? I am quite sure that the blog author has mainly put in what is already in the literature and only a few additional points. Out of curiosity I entered Philorhizus into biodiversitylibrary.org and examined the link on Hope's Coleopterist's manual page http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/35196875#page/85/mode/1up and it gives the difference between the genera Philorhizus and Dromius - and then looked up what the synonymy for vectensis was and it shows up as Dromius vectensis. So I certainly think there are enough Reliable sources to examine before citing a blog. Shyamal (talk) 03:27, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, Biodiversity Library is something that I don't understand well. So in other words, I shouldn't use the blog no matter how big the info is there? Can you give me a link for the "Handbooks for the identification of British insects"? I tried Google Books and I can't find it (with the species added)!--Mishae (talk) 05:55, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Not all material is on the BHL site due to copyright - you can request reliable sources on WP:RX and conduct searches like https://www.google.com/search?q=Dromius+vectensis+site%3Aarchive.org and https://www.google.com/search?q=Dromius+vectensis+site%3Aarchive.org to find reliable sources. Shyamal (talk) 09:00, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Category:Insect fighting

Category:Insect fighting contains only two relevant articles and only one relevant category. I would like to see it put up for deletion per WP:SMALLCAT. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 05:46, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Miomantinae

Could an expert have a look at this, please? I've removed it from a martial arts category to which the second editor assigned it (Category:Praying Mantis (wushu)) but I wonder whether anything else needs to be fixed. The image's file description doesn't mention it being an adult female as it's captioned, ... PamD 19:23, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Nothing wrong that a complete gutting and replacement couldn't fix... :) The image's caption is actually one of the only things in the article that wasn't wrong (or at least wrong for a subfamily page). Female mantids tend to be larger and have their abdomen swollen with developing eggs, and adults are the only ones with wings, so it's pretty easy to tell this is an adult female. I combined the formatting from the Mantinae article with data from the Orthoptera Species File, along with a little bit of author information from my own databases. It probably needs some work to synchronize the taxonomy with Wikipedia's treatment, but it'll do for now. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:17, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Libellula jesseana pictures wrong

I'm currently in the process of researching the Purple Skimmer (Libellula jesseana) and noticed that the images for this species are completely wrong and show a damselfly instead of a dragonfly. There are a number of images showing what the species actually looks like on the ARKive website (arkive.org). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nkay89 (talk • contribs) 09:54, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

"Fruit Fly News" newsletter

• File:Fruit Fly News n1-1972.pdf
• File:Fruit Fly News n2-1973.pdf
• File:Fruit Fly News n3-1974.pdf
• File:Fruit Fly News n4-1977.pdf
• File:Fruit Fly news n6-1981.pdf

has been nominated for deletion -- 65.94.79.6 (talk) 03:39, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Image source

Hope someone here can make use of this resource from the the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences http://projects.biodiversity.be/openuprbins/ Shyamal (talk) 13:18, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Beetle copyvio concerns

Please see Talk:Beetle#Copyvio_concerns. Thank you, 86.161.251.139 (talk) 10:44, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Adding: The contributor in question seems to copy and paste habitually. For example this is still present at Eating behavior in Insects, though here I don't know whether or not the source [17] is actually under copyright. 86.161.251.139 (talk) 11:05, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Hoverflies

A posting at the helpdesk claims the title of Hoverflies should be changed. Can anyone comment over there? Thanks in advance, XOttawahitech (talk) 19:42, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Green June Beetle (Green Junebug)

I personally saw this beautiful bug maybe 5-10 times in a month and a half walking around San Diego, California. I think the range of the bug should be extended farther west than Kansas to include California. See: http://www.scottslawnservice.com/sls/templates/index.jsp?pageUrl=slsgreenjunebeetle — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.37.249.116 (talk) 22:29, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

How a Mosquito Operates FAC

I've put up the article for Winsor McCay's 1912 animated film How a Mosquito Operates as a Featured Article Candidate. Any and all participation in the nomination page would be enormously helpful. Thanks, Curly Turkey (gobble) 13:37, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Genus authority for Micraspis (Coccinellidae genus)

Hi all. According to ITIS the genus authority is "Chevrolat in Dejean, 1837". Erm, that means Chevrolat described it in 1837 and the description was published by Dejean sometime later on, right? Or that Chevrolat described it earlier on and the description was published by Dejean in 1837? To be honest, I don't really know what "Chevrolat in Dejean, 1837" means. Help plz! . Pete aka --Shirt58 (talk) 14:17, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Please have a look here. --Pristurus (talk) 16:01, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

In general it usually means that the description was published in the year given in a work by the "in" author, but that author gave credit to the other author as the source of the description. It can range from the primary author receiving a piece of paper or a letter with the description to the primary author asking specialists on particular groups to contribute descriptions for those groups in a large work. These days it would be handled by adding a string of co-authors, or "et.al.", but things were different a century or two ago. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:24, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello, there is fascinating new research about ants sericomyrmex, megalomyrmex symmetochus and gnamptogenys: From Parasites to Protectors. Socially parasitic ants can serve as protective symbionts for their fungus-growing hosts in the face of attacks from predatory raiding species.

• R.M.M. Adams et al., “Chemically armed mercenary ants protect fungus-farming societies,” PNAS, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1311654110, 2013.

Sadly i'm too imcompetent to add something myself in this field. I hope you find this useful! --Atlasowa (talk) 11:33, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Hey, no fair - I'm the one staking the claim to be sadly too incompetent here!

Thanks for the explanation, Chuck Entz - good to hear from you;

Thanks for the pdf, Pristurus - explains a whole lot - please fix my genus authority attribution if I got it wrong;

Thanks Atlasowa: so much there to work with!

Pete aka --Shirt58 (talk) 11:58, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

New ant task force

Hello everyone! I boldly created an ant task force subpage, mostly to make it easier for editors to find ant-related open access articles, but also because keeping a centralized list of open tasks makes cleanup efforts much easier. Check out the task force's subpage and see if you're able to help out with any of the open tasks (or add new tasks). These links to OA articles may prove useful for expanding and creating new articles. Cheers, jonkerz ♠talk 21:53, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Nice work! I am working on Lepidoptera myself, but love to see other people getting involved in creating insect articles. Keep it up! Ruigeroeland (talk) 15:02, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! You should check out Zootaxa's articles on Lepidoptera, they have more than 100 open access articles in their archives. jonkerz ♠talk 12:37, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

I know.. So much to do, so little time... :) Ruigeroeland (talk) 14:03, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

It will take some time, but if we manage to write 100 GAs per month, it will only take 150 years to cover the ~175,000 described lepidopterans... :) jonkerz ♠talk 14:20, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Harvester ant

Members of this WikiProject may be able to help in creating a broad-concept article in place of the current disambiguation page at Harvester ant. Cnilep (talk) 02:24, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

 Done! Thank you Cnilep for bringing it up here, jonkerz ♠talk 20:22, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Aegomorphus is probably Acanthoderes

Xx236 (talk) 09:38, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Move

Belated notification of Talk:List of dragonflies of Minorca → List of dragonflies of Menorca. Can't imagine that Insects Project editors care either way, which in itself is a very healthy thing :). In ictu oculi (talk) 07:05, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Abacetus - wrong references

All Abacetus articles quote wrong reference.Xx236 (talk) 12:09, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it should be http://carabidae.org/carabidae/taxa/abacetus-dejean-1828-195.html (not "carabidae.pro"). This would be a good task for a bot request, but I question the value of these articles, so it may be more appropriate to have the bot redirect them all back to the genus article anyway. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:13, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

If a bot request does go ahead, please also add the task of recategorising these worthless substubs. The redundant Category:Carabidae should be removed from all of them, and they should probably all be put into a Category:Abacetus instead of Category:Pterostichinae. What a mess! --Stemonitis (talk) 12:19, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Electron microscope images

Hi All

I'm the Wikipedian in Residence at the Natural History Museum, London. I've been offered a small amount of time for someone to take electron microscope images of entomology specimens in the collection. What would be the most wanted images? Given the size of our collection we will probably have a specimen of most species. If you reply on my talk page in the next day or so that would be really good.

Thanks

--Mrjohncummings (talk) 14:48, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Thopha saccata

Thopha saccata the world's loudest cicada is at FAC Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:00, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Potential deletion of Furchaspidini

Before I put the article at Furchaspidini up for deletion at Afd, I thought that I'd mention the problem here and see if there is an easy, informal solution, or if I missed something. See Talk:Furchaspidini#Potential deletion for details. --Bejnar (talk) 21:07, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

• The article was deleted. No sources were found. --Bejnar (talk) 11:00, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/List of mantids of Trinidad and Tobago. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:09, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Two articles and a redirect, one animal

Hi, I did a bit of work on Crowsoniellidae. It is a monotypical family containing only one monotypical genus. The species C. relicta redirects to the family, however, Crowsoniella is a substantive article. This does not seem consistent. My gut feeling is actually the (somewhat further developed) content of Crowsoniellidae would be placed best at the genus with redirects from family and sole species to it. Please feel free to solve this, if it needs to be solved. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 22:12, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

The genus article only has one sentence. Until other species and genera are established in this family, all of the articles should redirect to the family article. Kaldari (talk) 04:38, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

USGS high res insect photos

Just learned of this Flickr account: [18] I don't know why these wouldn't be public domain as works of the federal government, but they're labeled as released under {{cc-by-2.0}} anyway. postdlf (talk) 20:19, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Beautiful Demoiselle

I plan on running this article in POTD at the end of the month, but it has been (roughly) translated from German by Mattximus. The only native German speaker I know, Gerda Arendt, said she is not familiar enough with the terminology to clean this up. Would anybody from the project be willing to fix this up? If not, I'll probably schedule something else, as this is far from MP ready. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:27, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

I think it would be better to delete the text and start over. The entire article should be verified for factual accuracy, and I find it's generally faster to write new material than to try to verify large amounts of obscure information. A fundamental rule of Wikipedia sources (WP:RS) is that you should never trust sites like Wikipedia to be reliable! Agyle (talk) 21:23, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

expert attention needed at all Chalcosoma species

The four articles of Chalcosoma species can use some heavy cleanup. Lots of unsourced fan trivia, sentence problems, etc.--Animalparty-- (talk) 02:10, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Hello. I think we should consider merging Culicoides annettae, Culicoides chaverrii, Culicoides cummingi and all the other Culicoides stubs into the main article, Culicoides. Since the individual stubs consists of barely a line of text each, it would be more practical for readers to find all the information centralised in just one article. What do you think?--Leptictidium (mt) 19:49, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Request for article reviewers

Questions have been raised about the accuracy of science articles written by the prolific author Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs). The background can be read in a regrettably long and bad-tempered thread at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive835#Harassment. If you do not want to read the whole thing, start here. To her credit, Cwmhiraeth has initiated Wikipedia:Editor review/Cwmhiraeth. It would help to generate light, rather than more heat, and to decide whether there is a serious problem, if scientifically-qualified editors uninvolved in the row could review some of Cwmhiraeth's articles and comment at the editor review. JohnCD (talk) 21:13, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Links to archived thread updated. JohnCD (talk) 13:24, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Social Behavior in Lepidoptera

Dear insect experts: This page was never submitted at Afc to be part of the encyclopedia. Is this a notable topic, and should the page be kept and improved instead of being deleted as a stale draft? —Anne Delong (talk) 22:41, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Nothing in that article is specific to Lepidoptera and it would probably be better to title it as "insect aggregation" and write about it in a more general way. I think the word "social" is a far more complicated term that would not apply here. Lepidoptera are not even considered presocial. See eusociality, sociality. Shyamal (talk) 05:23, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, changing the title is easy, but the original editor hasn't worked on it for at least six months, and the references are all about lepidoptera, so someone would have to take serious interest in it to find examples and sources for other insects in order to turn it into a general article. I thinks it's an interesting topic, but I don't have expertise in this field. If anyone wants to do this, he/she should edit the draft at least once soon so that it won't disappear. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:17, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I suspect it would be easier to write afresh because the structure would be quite different. No major loss if this is put into the attic. Shyamal (talk) 04:48, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for checking this out. —Anne Delong (talk) 22:45, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Common name of species are not capitalised

For your information, following discussions on Talk:Crowned crane#Requested move, on Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2014 March#Black crowned crane and especially on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Bird common name decapitalisation, it is now clear that the consensus is not to capitalise the common (vernacular) name of all species.

The guidelines are detailed on Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Animals, plants, and other organisms.

Coreyemotela (talk) 20:05, 4 May 2014 (UTC).

NewBees

Wikipedia can have information about NewBees.

• NewBees - YouTube (2:21)

—Wavelength (talk) 02:19, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Probably not. Unless something happens to make it notable it's just a one-off joke/hoax posted on YouTube. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I have just found the article "RoboBee".

—Wavelength (talk) 14:37, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The Scientific name and Scientific name's

I tend to never use e.g. "The Lasius niger is", simply "Lasius niger is" and rewrite "Lasius niger's distribution" to "distribution of Lasius niger'". I'm currently making basic copyedits to a set of articles written in the above style and would like to know if we have any guidelines on this? jonkerz ♠talk 09:48, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Dioctria atricapilla rating

Hello all, can someone do a check on Dioctria atricapilla? It's still listed as stub-class, but I'm pretty certain that it's much better than that now. I don't know much about bugs (not sure how I stumbled into this one....maybe a random page patrol?) and I've edited it way too much to give it a fair rating, so could someone check it out? Thanks, Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 19:02, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

@Supernerd11: There is no set size at which articles stop being stubs; some use the DYK stardard of 1,500 characters of readable prose. Dioctria atricapilla is currently at 961 bytes, but I've no problem assessing this article as start class given the number of references and due to the fact that low-importance GA-class insect articles are generally shorter than the average GA. Upgrading stubs to start-class articles is not a big deal and it's not frowned upon to assess articles as start-class even if you've worked on them yourself. I've changed the article from stub to start-class, but feel free to make the edit yourself in the furute, cheers, jonkerz ♠talk 09:56, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

@Jonkerz: Oh, okay. Thanks! Supernerd11 _{Firemind ^_^ Pokedex} 15:54, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 06/06

Not sure whether Draft:Caddisfly silk (fibroin) should be merged with Fibroin. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 16:39, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Onthohpagus and Onthophahus

Onthohpagus and Onthophahus look to me like misspellings for Onthophagus. Any expert opinion on whether we keep these two or delete them? Nurg (talk) 04:31, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, misspelled. Delete. Shyamal (talk) 08:50, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Done. Well, replaced with redirects to Onthophagus. Nurg (talk) 09:52, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Merging Knulliana with Banded hickory borer

Please see Talk:Knulliana, where I've just posted a suggestion to merge these two pages. They are both about the one species in the monotypic genus Knulliana, namely Knulliana cincta. I'm not sure which title is best to use for the page, but the current setup is certainly redundant. Thanks in advance for any input that anyone here can contribute. -GTBacchus^(talk) 16:33, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

@GTBacchus: I've merged the articles and nominated the substub Knulliana for speedy deletion per Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(fauna)#Monotypic_taxa. Thank you for bringing it up here. jonkerz ♠talk 17:19, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

That's great! Thank you. I've gone ahead and created the redirect from Knulliana cincta. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:45, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Good Article & Featured List nominations

Myrmecia nigrocincta written by User:Burklemore1 has been nominated for WP:GA and List of ant subfamilies written by myself for WP:FL. Any help would be much appreciated, and everyone is invited to contribute to the discussions concerning these article's nominations. Thanks, jonkerz ♠talk 16:52, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Update: Another of User:Burklemore1's articles, Jack jumper ant (talk page) is up for review. Myrmecia nigrocincta passed and is now listed as a Good Article. List of ant subfamilies (nomination page) is still under review. jonkerz ♠talk 20:08, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Cleanup request - Carolina mantis

Hello, not my usual editing area, so I'm hoping for some help cleaning up a real mess, particularly the "range" section. It looks as if someone simply listed everywhere pictures of it on "bugguide.net" are identified, rather than using a proper reliable source that summarized its documented range. I'd imagine the whole "additional images" section could also be removed. Cheers, postdlf (talk) 20:17, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Megachile campanulae Did You Know nomination

the article Megachile campanulae is currently under consideration as a Did You Know. Please help improve article in next few days if possible. --—Gaff ^ταλκ 16:14, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Monarch butterfly page views

Monarch butterfly has been viewed 100,247 times in the last 90 days. See it here: http://stats.grok.se/en/latest90/Monarch%20butterfly

  Bfpage |leave a message  21:51, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Inconsistency in taxonomy: Campichoetidae and Campichoeta

In this case the use of recent (Campichoetidae) and more classical (Campichoeta) taxonomy is confusing. --Pristurus (talk) 12:57, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject Hymenoptera

Would anyone on here be

• 1) Interested in participating in Wikipedia:WikiProject Hymenoptera or
• 2) Object to me setting up such a project, as too specific?

(Since we have a project for Wikipedia:WikiProject Lepidoptera, this seems a reasonable proposal) —Gaff ^ταλκ 15:51, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject Anatomy

There is a discussion at the Anatomy Project about a mismatch between the title of the project and its scope. The title refers broadly to anatomy, but the project rejects all articles that are not primarily about human anatomy. For example, none of the articles in Category:Insect anatomy are accepted by the project. There is a similar issue with WikiProject Physiology. --Epipelagic (talk) 09:38, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Expert attention

This is a notice about Category:Insects articles needing expert attention, which might be of interest to your WikiProject. It will take a while before the category is populated. Iceblock (talk) 20:56, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Megaponera analis (new article)

Hi, I just started writing in Wikipedia and I completely rewrote the article for Pachycondyla analis (which was only a short stub). I was wondering about what you think of it and if I rated it correctly as C-Class. The species was also renamed in April 2014 but unfortunately I dont know how to change the name of the article from Pachycondyla analis to Megaponera analis. --ETF89 (talk) 18:39, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi ETF89, what a great start! The article is definitely better than C-class. I've moved it for you to the new name and started on a copyedit. I gave some information on the changes in my edit summary for you to look at. They are mostly just minor formatting points, the article overall is written very well. I have to leave for an appointment now but when I'm back I'll give the article another look as there are some other things I spotted that could do with changing. Julia\^talk 20:08, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback and changes, glad you like it! I am looking forward to your corrections and please feel free to appropriately rate the article (since I lack a bit of experience considering the rating and also it feels kinda weird to rate my own article)--ETF89 (talk) 09:50, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Good article candidate in need of some assistance

Megachile campanulae is under review. See discussion on article talk page. Any assistance would be appreciated. Thanks! —Gaff ^ταλκ 17:14, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Dragonfly common names

Should they be sentence case or lower case? Cheers. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:41, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Butterfly misidentification?

As per File talk:Regentskipper.jpg, File:Regentskipper.jpg is misidentified. However, I'm reluctant to rename the file based solely on the word of an anon -- can anyone confirm that? DS (talk) 15:11, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Honestly, this would be to the point of original research since we're trying to interpret a primary source. It would probably be best to find a confirmed picture of the species we can use to replace this one with. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:22, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

If it were a skipper (Hesperiidae) it would show a hooked antenna. Comparing reliable images on the net of Agarista agricola and Euschemon rafflesia, it seems that the former is more likely to be correct and that it is not a Hesperiid even (ruling out Euschemon rafflesia). Shyamal (talk) 13:03, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

spelling error in firefly subfamily

The subfamily "Ototetrinae" (ototEtRinae) is a misspelling of "Ototretinae" (ototREtinae) -- see spelling used in reference 1, also in this article: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0044523112000113

Well caught. Fixed. Shyamal (talk) 15:07, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Common whitetail: on Commons Plathemis lydia or Libellula lydia?

There are two categories at Commons for the same species: Commons:Category:Plathemis lydia and Commons:Category:Libellula lydia. I'm not sure which name is valid (although the Wiki article uses Plathemis lydia). Someone with more familiarity than I should make one commons category a redirect to the other and recategorize the files. However, any species names in file names or descriptions do not need changing, just as long as they all are within the same category. Cheers, --Animalparty-- (talk) 03:00, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Genus names with parenthetical disambiguation

There seems to be disparity and inconsistency across animal article titles when the genus is a disambiguated title and there is no common name (e.g. Larisa (genus), Adela (moth)), and Carnarvonia (fossil)). Please see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (fauna)#Genus names with parenthetical disambiguation for discussion of whether a new naming guideline should inform animal titles. Cheers, --Animalparty-- (talk) 17:47, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Parenthesis and species authority

I have noticed that in taxoboxes and lists of species or other taxa there is no consistent usage (or non-usage) of parentheses for the species authority. Species in the same list are being displayed as "Species genus (Name year)" with and without the parentheses. It seems the vast majority of taxoboxes do not have parentheses, and I think this makes sense since the species and authority are on separate lines within each box. On pages such as Dytiscus and Cybister, among many others, there is an inconsistent mix of both uses. So what is the proper way to display species authority, or what should it be if this has not been decided yet? Or should the authority even be included in lists? Fredlyfish4 (talk) 14:36, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

@Fredlyfish4: While not very obvious, the parentheses around the author citation indicate that this was not the original taxonomic placement (see Author citation (zoology)). For example, Cybister lateralimarginalis was originally described in 1774 by De Geer as Dytiscus lateralimarginalis, but was later moved to Cybister, hence the extra set of parentheses in the new name. Personally, I prefer to include author citations in lists and taxoboxes, but not in running text. Cheers, jonkerz ♠talk 20:57, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

What Jonkerz said. As there is a rule for when parentheses should be present, you'll see a mix on Wikipedia of authorities with and without parentheses. What should be consistent is following the usage of reliable sources for the presence or absence of parentheses for a particular species. Many editors aren't aware of the rules for including parentheses with authority citations, so there are sometimes cases where parentheses should be present, but are missing (I've never seen parentheses added where they don't belong, but I suppose that might happen occasionally as well). Plantdrew (talk) 21:15, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Class issues

Just as an FYI, we've run into issues with a class that seems to be primarily focusing on wasp articles as part of course. [19]. The class can be found here [20] and it also appears they started Wikiproject Vespidae [21]. We've run into the general issues with students plagiarizing, not particularly sticking to Wikipedia's general layouts for articles, leads, etc., so I'd ask that if anyone has time, to check out the articles listed in that class. I'm going to try working on what I can when I have time, but I figured it might be helpful to have a few more hands or just let folks know about it. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:36, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Plagiarism when identified should be dealt with first (as is currently proceeding at Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard/Incidents#Copyvio_checks_needed (restating above link for clarity)). Issues such as formatting (lead length, heading capitalization, etc) are relatively minor and/or easily fixed from what I've seen. From casual browsing, most of the Vespidae articles appear to provide quality in-depth coverage of select taxa, and we should be accommodating for contributions by new editors unfamiliar with the myriad style guidelines, although additional eyes, especially outside of the class/project, are always welcome for quality control. Another issue I have encountered in some Vespidae articles are images that are not freely licensed (some are clearly copyrighted, some only released in non-commercial CC licenses, others have unclear or unstated license, etc). These should be simply flagged for deletion or license clarification when encountered- assuming good-faith misinterpretation of licensing policy- rather than becoming embroiled in ongoing discussions regarding textual plagiarism. --Animalparty-- (talk) 20:14, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

It requires more of a fine-tooth comb, but I have found some articles that are a bit too in-depth to the point it's written like an essay, or it's more summarizing of info about the genus than the actual species. Again, not super serious, but more of weight questions that would be better addressed by folks good at condensing material and dealing with essay-like content. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:50, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Tagging user - @Agelaia: Shyamal (talk) 02:41, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject Beetles

Who is interested in beetles? If you are, please join WikiProject Beetles now! To join, go to the section "Participants" and just add your name there. Gug01 (talk) 00:28, 29 December 2014 (UTC) Gug 01

Identifying an insect

@Bugboy52.4, @ADerksen, @A little insignificant, @AJseagull1, @AshLin, @Funkamatic, @Acetotyce, @Heds, @Pro bug catcher, @Ruigeroeland. Hi. I have taken a picture of a beautiful caterpillar, but I don't know, what its name is. Can somebody tell me, what kind of insect it is? This is the picture of the caterillar:

Seems to be a Sphingid caterpillar. Shyamal (talk) 04:12, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Cicindela

Hi! Cicindela is a B-class article, and I am thinking to nominate as a good article. Do you think it should be done or not? Gug01 (talk) 00:17, 23 January 2015 (UTC) Gug 01

I don't see how a short article that only cites three sources, (one of which is BugGuide) entirely omits description, behavior, life history, etc. warrants even a C, let alone is anywhere near meeting the Good article criteria. A couple paragraphs and a list of species is not even a finished article. You might want to see Category:B-Class Insects articles for what to shoot for when you assess articles. Cheers, --Animalparty-- (talk) 01:58, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Telenomus farai

Hello all. New to this editing thing but I have been (probably overly) bold and just fired straight into creating an article
Telenomus farai
Still needs a lot of work but found some good references I haven't tapped yet. Please do let me know what you think and if there any improvements to be made, well fire in.
Man Over-bored (talk) 19:57, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

@Man Over-bored: There's no such thing as too bold ;) I've made some minor cosmetic changes to the article; the br tag should be avoided (just use an extra newline) and remember to add italics (double apostrophes) to taxa at or below genus rank. Keep it up, cheers, jonkerz ♠talk 20:12, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

@Jonkerz:@Jonkerz. Nice one, thanks for the pointers. Good to know it wasnt a FUBAR on my part.

Man Over-bored (talk) 20:19, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

@Man Over-bored: It's a good start - if the the number of words triples, it can be a candidate for WP:DYK Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:47, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

@Casliber: Cheers. The references are certainly deep enough that I can probably add a fair bit more. Delve I shall. Man Over-bored (talk) 11:51, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Cool - will look a bit later. Need to take the dog for a walk....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:55, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Ant task force tagging

Hello everyone! The number of ant articles is growing every day; time has come to add an ant task force parameter to Template:WikiProject Insects. I've requested project tagging help from User:Yobot here. The change should be fairly straightforward, but if you have any objections, please voice your concerns.

A sandbox version of the improved template is available at Template:WikiProject Insects/sandbox (thanks to Redrose64).

Ping: satusuro, Burklemore1, Kevmin

Thanks, jonkerz ♠talk 16:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

As there seems to be no opposition I've updated the banner. jonkerz ♠talk 13:51, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Missing insects: the 20 most written about

These insect species are the most commonly found scientific names in Google books which we don't already have articles or redirects for. I welcome you to create articles for these (or redirects if necessary).

Each of these 20 scientific names is found in at least 516 books or volumes. They are all within the top 6000 most common scientific names of any kingdom (out of 2,485,495 binomial species and synonyms searched).

1. Glossina morsitans, Glossina (Glossinidae, Diptera)
2. Calliphora erythrocephala, Calliphora (Calliphoridae, Diptera)
3. Chironomus tentans, Chironomus (Chironomidae, Diptera)
4. Glossina palpalis, Glossina (Glossinidae, Diptera)
5. Rhopalosiphum padi, Rhopalosiphum - bird cherry-oat aphid (Aphididae, Hemiptera)
6. Drosophila subobscura, Drosophila (Drosophilidae, Diptera)
7. Simulium damnosum, Simulium (Simuliidae, Diptera)
8. Schizaphis graminum, Schizaphis - greenbug (Aphididae, Hemiptera)
9. Thrips tabaci, Thrips (Thripidae, Thysanoptera)
10. Empoasca fabae, Empoasca - potato leafhopper (Cicadellidae, Hemiptera)
11. Melanoplus sanguinipes, Melanoplus - migratory grasshopper (Acrididae, Orthoptera)
12. Sitobion avenae, Sitobion - english grain aphid (Aphididae, Hemiptera)
13. Hypera postica (provisionally_accepted_name).
14. Anopheles maculipennis, Anopheles (Culicidae, Diptera)
15. Acanthoscelides obtectus, Acanthoscelides - bean weevil (Chrysomelidae, Coleoptera)
16. Aedes taeniorhynchus, Aedes (Culicidae, Diptera)
17. Eriosoma lanigerum, Eriosoma - woolly apple aphid (Aphididae, Hemiptera)
18. Teleogryllus commodus, Teleogryllus - black field cricket (Gryllidae, Orthoptera)
19. Megoura viciae, Megoura (Aphididae, Hemiptera)
20. Chironomus riparius, Chironomus (Chironomidae, Diptera)

I've also uploaded the top 1000 missing insects so that you can search through for your favourite order. —Pengo 08:29, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Excellent target identification. Some years back I was quite shocked to notice the lack of Helicoverpa armigera, which although not a red link is still in need of work. Shyamal (talk) 10:14, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Scratch Megoura viciae off the list. Its not huge but its a start. Man Over-bored (talk) 11:40, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

You can scrub Chironomus riparius as well :D Man Over-bored (talk) 12:16, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I've nominated both for DYK. cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:35, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

So I saw, nice one, thanks Man Over-bored (talk) 13:41, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

And Acanthoscelides obtectus is down too Man Over-bored (talk) 14:34, 3 February 2015 (UTC)