Wikimedia Commons

Commons:WikiProject Insects

This WikiProject aims primarily to document in photograph, sound and video all species of Insecta. For this, we need a taxonomy. There is a project wikispecies, and I suggest we adhere to that taxonomy as much as possible.

There are about 800.000 species of insecta, and it sounds impractical, but I suggest our aim is to describe them all.

This WikiProject descends from commons:WikiProject Tree of Life.

Of course we already added a large amount of photos and illustrations on insects, especially lepidoptera, but this project might help to establish common quality wishes (what do we aim for?), and as a place to exchange ideas and suggestions.

Article titles and common names

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The scientific name should be used wherever possible. Even if there are generally accepted english names, remember that this is an international project. Note that

  • Names of genera are always italicized and capitalized— Homo, Rosa, Saccharomyces.
  • en:Species epithets are always italicized and preceded by the name of the genus Homo sapiens ( The shorthand H. sapiens should preferably be avoided), and never plain sapiens, since such identifiers need not be unique. They are never capitalized.
  • Names of higher taxa are capitalized but not italicized— Hominidae, Mammalia, Animalia.

Media should preferably be linked from articles on species level or lower.

Categories

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Major groups should be given their own categories. When possible, these should use the common name in the plural. In general, only articles about major subgroups should be added, and more specific articles should be included in subcategories. However, when there are only a few articles about members of the group, they can all go directly into the main category. Use your judgement on when to split, aiming for an approximate category size of 10-50 articles.

Note that in addition to taxa, categories may also contain informal subgroups. For instance Category:Lepidoptera may include an article or subcategory for 'butterflies', although they are not treated as a formal group.

Status

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Discussing strategies & organization. (and collecting stuff, of course)

Quality

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There are several types of media (photos, drawings, video and sound). Photos, video and sound seem to be most apt for insects. Ideally, of every species of insecta the insect in all stages of development, male and female (often different) should be photographed and recorded in video and sound.

It would be great to have videos of at least the movement and sexual reproduction process.

Resources

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Photos

  • Stock.xchng - thousands of photos (e.g. over 9,000 in category 'animals', over 7,600 in category 'plants'), mostly free use ({{PD}} {{Copyrightedfreeuse}} - only use {{PD}} if it is explicitly stated); many un-named, but a good source for those able to identify the pics

Taxonomy, identification, etc.

  • BugGuide. Extensive resource for taxonomy and identifcation of North American insects. Run by volunteers, mostly amateur photographers, but now administered by an academic entomologist, and with taxonomic review by visiting experts in many groups.

Requests

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See Commons:Picture requests#Animals and zoology

Sister WikiProjects

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(not all exist already)

Participants

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  • User:TeunSpaans Initiator. Contributing Lepidoptera from the Netherlands and occasionally Germany and Belgium.
  • Svdmolen Contributing lepidoptera pictures of my own and searching for PD pictures.
  • Kulac Contributing lepidoptera and other insect pictures of Austria
  • Keith Edkins Contributing insect pictures from Britain
  • Giancarlo Dessì I hope to contribute for insects of Sardinia (Italy) soon.

Sample articles

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None yet.

Cleanup

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