User talk:Aranae/Archive2

This is an archive for my user talk page. It contains all discussion from my second year as an editor. For current messages, see User talk:Aranae.

Wiki Birthday!

Award

Wiki birthday to you! Wiki birthday, dear Aranae! Wiki birthday to you! Congratulations on your first Wikibirthday at Wikipedia (November 19, 2005.). On behalf of the community, we'd like to thank you for your countless edits in the past year! Keep it coming!. This Wiki Birthday Balloon was awarded to you by: SoothingR

Black Rat

Aranae, I will be happy to help with the Rat story (which is quite interesting). Right now I'm a bit in a hurry; I will get to it either tonight or tomorrow night. Cheers, AxelBoldt 16:09, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

... for reverting the deletion of the Pathology page. Next time, make sure to post a warning in the vandal's page; it facilitates blocking of IP adresses. See Wikipedia:Vandalism for details. Emmanuelm 18:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Western harvest mouse

thanks for your constructive help with this rodent. sorry for my folly in the incorect taxonomy at first...i think we re on the same wavelength :)....i plan to expand the article soon...what part of the world are you in? cheers Anlace 01:01, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Canids and Canines

Hello, fellow biologist (I presume). I've seen your comment on the Canines category , when I went there to leave the same comment :) and I added a reply to yours instead. Unfortunately it seems nobody is interested in correcting that, since it's been a long time since you left that comment and nobody reacted. Maybe we could do something about it if you are still interested? Create a voting somewhere, or something? I also see you are active on many zoology based articles, so if you need some other help regarding that, I'd be glad to do it. Although zoology isn't quite my branch, I'm more into physiology and molecular genetics, I'm still interested in it, not much of an expert though. --Arny 16:56, 28 February 2006 (UTC) P.S. I've seen the same naming problem as with Canines exists with Felines.

I dropped a note on Talk:Canidae. I'm thinking it will likely get hashed out there. Thanks. --Aranae 03:41, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Nesophontes, West Indies shrew merge

I have merged the Nesophontes and the West Indies shrew articles as you have suggested. Since only one genus exists in the Nesophontidae family I thought it was a good idea to merge them. Joelito 12:45, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the cleanup. Merge was done in a hurry. Joelito 18:20, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Nah, it looked good. Clearly I was in more of a hurry initially for not doing it myself in the first place. --Aranae 20:16, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I see you are a biology enthusiast. Could you look over other articles I have started such as Elfin-woods Warbler and Puerto Rican Spindalis and see if I am missing anything?. Thanks. Joelito 20:24, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Diatomyids

Do you know that there are two additional species of Fallomus? See Marivaux, L. & Welcomme, J.-L. 2003. New diatomyid and baluchimyine rodents from the Oligocene of Pakistan (Bugti Hills, Balochistan): Systematic and paleobiogeographic implications. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 23:420-434. (I can send a PDF if you want)

Furthermore, Diatomys apparently also occurs in North Africa (see Marivaux & Welcome, again). By the way, what's your reference for its supposed occurrence in Japan? I can't find that one. The Pakistan records seem to represent some more undescribed species. Ucucha (talk) 14:51, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

The occurence in Japan is based on the Dawson et al. (2006) article that prompted the whole thing. I couldn't track down what their reference was, just that it was on the map. North Africa's quite significant biogeographically, I wonder how Dawson et al. missed it. I checked your list and found the other Fallomus. Thanks.

In other news, have you seen the paper on Phillipine murines in the latest Systematic Biology? --Aranae 15:57, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

No, I hadn't, but now I have ;-) [1]. There's also something in the very last issue on tenrecs [2].

Thanks for the explanation.

Could you please send me the Dawson article and the one on Philippine murines? I don't have both yet and I'd greatly appreciate to have them. Ucucha (talk) 06:14, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Honors

In appreciation of your splendid work on mammals. Walter Siegmund (talk) 02:48, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Howdy

I looked over your edits last night and I think you do good work. I see no reason you wouldn't make a fine admin if you wanted this position. There may be some opposition based on having too few edits in the Wiki namespace...but I don't know if that would result in a failing admin nomination or not. The whole admin thing is no big deal, all you get is the ability to easily rollback vandalism, protect pages, and block vandals from editing. If you are interested, I recommend you read through Wikipedia:Administrators and the Wikipedia:Administrators' how-to guide and lastly, the Wikipedia:Administrators' reading list....all of this stuff is pretty dry so if you prefer to just edit and not get caught up in the red tape, then I wouldn't worry about it. But we are always looking for a few good folks to help us deal with all the junk and all the jerks, so just let me know if you decide you want to be an admin.--MONGO 05:11, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe I will forgo the attempt at this time. Thank you much for the consideration. --Aranae 01:47, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

orangutan

There is some controversy over the spelling indicated in the opening line of this article. Please come to talk:orangutan and weigh in if you please. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:32, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Horned gopher

Since you don't have a preference, I would much rather merge C into HG, instead of vice versa. I will consult the author of the cited article to verify whether or not Cerato and Epi are synonyms. DS 13:52, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Pbdb notes the synonymy and cites Korth, 2000 (W. W. Korth. 2000. Annals of Carnegie Museum 69(4):227-280). This appears to be what the author in the reference cited on both article pages is employing as I can't find any evidence for Epigaulus species except for hatcheri and minor. --Aranae 15:31, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah, so it does; I concede the point (a redirect from Epigaulus would thus be useful as well). I note that the Pbdb cites four separate species of Ceratogaulus (which are presumably quite similar); were these all horned? DS 18:19, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

According to Hopkins 2005 (cited on both the wikipedia pages in question), they all had horns and only these had horns (although there was a bit of prelude to horns in related genera). See node 6 in Figure 1 of that paper. --Aranae 22:50, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I see, and I take your point. Note that Hopkins herself used the term "horned gopher" in the paper, by the way; I feel that it would be more immediately comprehensible to the reader brought there by the "Random Article" function. Also note, for the sake of accuracy, that the four Cerato are not the only known horned fossorials; Hopkins mentions the horned fossorial xenarthran Peltiphilus (saying that the co-occurence of horns and fossoriality is so rare, it is only known in the four fossil Cerato, and one fossil xenarthran). DS 15:15, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

It sounds good to me. --Aranae 01:03, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia survey

Hi. I'm doing a survey of Wikipedia editors as part of a class research project. It's quick, anonymous, and the data will be made available to the Wikipedia community later this month. Would you like to take part? More info here. Thanks! Nonplus 23:55, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Flying and gliding animals photos

Thanks for adding the photos to flying and gliding animals. I think they are a good addition to the article. <smalll>(unsigned from Nicolharper)

Happily. --Aranae 15:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Gerbil classification

I created a page called Meriones hurrianae which was renamed to Indian Desert Jird. I see that you are the keeper of the Category:Gerbils. Some articles on gerbils are named after the common names, others after the scientific name. Do you have any guidelines? Should I revert the renaming? AshLin 15:30, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

There is truly no hard and fast rule. It can get really annoying. I've had some really active pages switch around every few weeks from scientific name to common name in lowercase to upper case common name to a different common name and back. I tend to title pages by capitalized common name since they seem to be most stable there. I'm not sure that really indicates a consensus toward that decision, just that the more pushy editors tend to hold that opinion. Sorry I couldn't help. --Aranae 08:38, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Footnoting - sorry, I put this on the vole's page

To correctly cite references or sources see:

• Citation templates

• Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles/Generic citations

To see and example of the preferred Wikipedia standard see Fidel Castro, noting the method of footnoting. KarenAnn 20:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

P.S. You might look at the Wikipedia page naming stardards. Only the first letter of the first word is supposed to be capitalized. If you don't follow these conventions, it can cause problems later. (I can't remember the technical explanation of why that is the case.) KarenAnn 20:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I'm wrong about the page naming

I don't know -- to tired to read it all. See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions KarenAnn 20:27, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rat-baiting

I noticed that you voted "keep" on this discussion. You may also be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human-baiting and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Monkey-baiting, both nominated by the same editor as Rat-baiting and an obvious attempt at WP:POINT. Thanks. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 17:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks!

Just wanted to thank you for your comments on the sequence alignment peer review and FAC - glad to know I've contributed something useful. Opabinia regalis 04:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for putting so much work into a tough set of articles. --Aranae 04:22, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Common names in taxoboxes

Thanks for your feedback - I have been adding common names wherever a species list occurs, whether thats in the taxobox or the main text, but of course I take your point. Do you not think, however, that duplicating the species list looks a little untidy - maybe just putting it in the text and adding a "see text" note in the taxobox would look better. I'll leave it for the moment, let me know what you think Richard Barlow 08:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I would argue that the taxobox serves to highlight the taxonomic rank that the article deals with (such as genus), provide a quick link to page for the immediate rank above (i.e. subfamily) and to the main ranks above (family, order, class, etc.) and a quick link to the ranks below. The list in the text would ideally include some phylogenetic information beyond the taxonomy (such as clustering species into established clades), phylogenetic ranks that no one would suspect would warrant an article (i.e. subgenera, and species groups), ranks below the listed taxa (subspecies) if they are few enough, common names, and perhaps basic geographic distribution. This is, of course, my opinion only. --Aranae 18:08, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

DYK for Claire's Mouse Lemur

Thanks for the nomination! It's on the Main Page now for DYK! Cheers -- Samir धर्म 07:04, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Samir, I don't normally edit others comments on my talk page, but didn't want to take credit for an article I merely nominated and had no hand in creating. I see you've already notified UtherSRG. Thanks for your work on DYK. --Aranae 10:24, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks

Many thanks for checking on Vandeleuria elliotti. I dont know how it had crept into List of mammals of India. Shyamal 03:34, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Symbols on 1 Ceres

I disagree. The variants add no real information to the article (they're all very similar), and they look bad all together like that. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 14:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm gong to move the discussion to Talk:1 Ceres since it's something that should probably be discussed there. --Aranae 08:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Rodent articles

Thanks for helping me to fix all those rodent articles. Don´t worry, I´ll also follow your sugestions. Exlibris 01:10, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Gladly. --Aranae 01:25, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Pakistan animal categories

Re User:82.0.150.205 it seems he has added categories to several hundred animals. My biology is 20 years out of date, but it seemed like vandalism, so I started reverting them all. Perhaps a few seemed vaguly justified, but it seemed safer to remove all his changes. Anyway, I'm half way through reverting and though I should get consense before I removed the rest. Let me know please. --ArmadilloFromHell 04:14, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Almost all of it seemed to be in good faith. There were two main problems. The first is applying the category to articles such as vole and hamster which are broad pages that pertain to many species at once. There are several species of vole in Pakistan, but many more that aren't there. The category should just be used on species-level pages. The second problem I have is that the category Fauna of Pakistan and Mammals of Pakistan were used at the same time on many pages. If Mammals of Pakistan applies, it should be the only one used. My answer in most cases would be no, don't revert everything. The edits are largely valid; there are just some that are problematic. Nothing I've seen is erroneous, though. --Aranae 05:12, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Then I'll just leave it as is. Note that is some cases he was putting in three categories. You might want to check changed Categories - e.g. should Category:Fauna of Pakistan be in Category:Wildlife of Asia it seems redundant? --ArmadilloFromHell 05:24, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank for editing our pages on bats. --Tabdulla 22:11, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

"However"

If it's common, it's "proper", since use determines rules, not the other way around. Of course, since the other editor was changing a previous use, you were right to change it back. _└ ^OzLawyer / _talk ^┐ 03:05, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Your info on the talk page of "Mouse"

Hi Aranae,

You put some very interesting info regarding mice onto the talk page of mouse Talk:Mouse/Archive 1#Essential.2C_yet_missing_data. This info shouldn't just been hidden away on the talk page. Therefore, I moved it into the article. Have a look at it here. I couldn't figure out what HB meant regarding the dimensions of a mouse's body, so I left it out. Please link in your references if you have some time. So far I left them as you wrote them: (Novak..).

Kudos, you provided some interesting info.

All the best,

Jasu 15:35, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I added the Nowak reference. --Aranae 15:56, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, and a question

This is partly to thank you for your kind words on my RfA and partly to ask you if you might have any more comments/suggestions/modifications especially of the morphology material in computational phylogenetics - the morphological characters section is still, I think, more of a string of related material than a well-put-together paragraph. I've also had expansion of UPGMA and creation of covarion on my mental to-do list for a while now and haven't gotten around to them yet. Opabinia regalis 05:01, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to get a closer look at it. My first impression is that it deals quite a bit with continuous characters such as measurements. It's very rare that tree reconstruction is performed using continuous characters. Some ways have been proposed, but those are difficult to implement and controversial. The vast majority of morphological analyses concern only discrete characters. Usually these are coded as binary characters (Does it have a backbone? no=0, yes=1; Does it have an amniotic egg? no=0, yes=1; Does it have mammary glands? no=0 yes=1). There are some instances where more than one option is possible (How many eyes does it have? none=0, two=1, five=3), but these still aren't continuous characters (2.764 eyes aren't an option). Computational phylogenetics was really developed on the basis of these coded discrete characters. --Aranae 08:11, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you're right. It seems to me, as someone not terribly familiar with the method, that continuous characters require more explanation; it's fairly easy to see how you classify organisms into 'backbone', 'no backbone', but not so easy to see why you'd pick 'no tail', 'tail <=x inches', 'x<tail<y inches', 'tail >= y inches' for some seemingly arbitrary values of x and y. Opabinia regalis 09:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)