User talk:Ucucha/Archive3

Archives

• /Archive1 (2004-31 March 2006)
• /Archive2 (31 March 2006-29 August 2006)

September Esperanza Newsletter

For your reading pleasure, the newest Esperanza newsletter can be found at Wikipedia:Esperanza/Newsletter. —Natalya, Banes, Celestianpower, EWS23, FireFox, Freakofnurture, and Titoxd 04:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

invalid Saguinus taxon

Can you confirm that this is invalid? - UtherSRG (talk) 18:36, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

November Esperanza Newsletter

For your reading pleasure, the newest Esperanza newsletter (November '06 edition) can be found at Wikipedia:Esperanza/Newsletter. —Natalya, Banes, Celestianpower, EWS23, FireFox, The Halo, Shreshth91 and HighwayCello, 20:33, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Tarsiers

Thank you for reporting the edit war. Something needs to give. Cheers, Arjuna 10:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Articles you might like to edit, from SuggestBot

SuggestBot predicts that you will enjoy editing some of these articles. Have fun!

Stubs Blaricum New World monkey Uitgeest Peters' Mouse Lemur Caviidae Landsmeer Coquerel's Dwarf Lemur Huizen Spermophilus Uithoorn Sambirano Mouse Lemur Oostzaan Equidae Wervershoof Gray Mouse Lemur Coraciiformes Atelidae Medemblik Bennebroek

Cleanup Hystricomorphous Great American Interchange Ecoregions of Madagascar Merge Sciuridae Gray Whale Molecular phylogeny Add Sources Mesonychid Crepuscular Wound Badge Wikify William Wood (U.S. Army Lieutenant) Visalia, California Central Highlands (Central America) Expand Pygmy Zebra Loon

SuggestBot picks articles in a number of ways based on other articles you've edited, including straight text similarity, following wikilinks, and matching your editing patterns against those of other Wikipedians. It tries to recommend only articles that other Wikipedians have marked as needing work. Your contributions make Wikipedia better -- thanks for helping.

If you have feedback on how to make SuggestBot better, please tell me on SuggestBot's talk page. Thanks from ForteTuba, SuggestBot's caretaker.

P.S. You received these suggestions because your name was listed on the SuggestBot request page. If this was in error, sorry about the confusion. -- SuggestBot 03:15, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

carnivores

Please see and comment on Talk:Carnivora#Updating Carnivora, starting with Feliformia. - UtherSRG (talk) 04:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Insectivora

Hi. I think you'll find that paraphyletic is correct in this case. Polyphyletic is where the group doesn't contain the common ancestor of everything that's included in it. Paraphyletic is where the group contains the common ancestor of all included species but also of some non-included ones. As long as the so-called 'Proteutherian' fossil forms were traditionally assigned to Insectivora, the order included the common ancestor of all insectivorans and all other placental orders as well, which makes it paraphyletic by my understanding of the term. If I'm mistaken about this, please enlighten me :) Gnostrat 19:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Mind if I jump in? It's beginning to sit in the grey area, but I would agree with "polyphyletic". Usually in paraphyly the group unites everything except for a single monophyletic group which is excluded. Reptiles are paraphyletic because they exclude the monophyletic birds. Marsupionta (monotremes marsupials) is paraphyletic because it excludes the monophyletic placentals. Although the earliest placentals were all placed in "Insectivora", the remaining "insectivorans" are scattered amongst the placental orders. I would not be comfortable with "paraphyletic" in this case since the remaining placentals do not form a monophyletic clade. --Aranae 04:35, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I've nothing to add to that. ;-) Ucucha 06:36, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm still not really convinced. Seems a bit arbitrary to differentiate between paraphyly and polyphyly on the basis of the number of monophyletic lineages that are excluded. But I'll defer to the currently prevailing opinion unless somebody else jumps in with a really strong objection. Thanks for explaining it anyway. Gnostrat 13:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Wolf and muroid categories

Ucucha, I left a note at UtherSRG's talk page that I was hoping you'd have a look at too: Here. --Aranae 04:35, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

ROCOR

No problem! I think most people are not aware that it actually took almost a decade for the churches to complete the divorce. And the article is far from perfect, to say the least... --best regards, Camptown 20:24, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

About your bot in commons

I realize if your can check where the images come from which were moved by your bot: UcuchaBot. As I find one image: Image:Damaliscus lunatus.jpg which tagged "This image was copied from wikispecies:wikispecies", and I also find Image:Tessebe Botswana.jpg. I don't know if these two image are the same. I think the latter is the original one, could you please check it? Thanks. Chanueting 13:51, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Gorilla

Could you take a look at Bobisbob's changes on gorilla and see if they are good? - UtherSRG (talk) 13:42, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Grey-faced Sengi

Could you please have a look at the talk page of the Grey-faced Sengi? Lampman (talk) 10:26, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

DYK

On 2 April, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Pseudohydromys germani, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

--Bobet 12:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Request for Peer Review help

Thank you for you work as a peer review volunteer. Since March, there has been a concerted effort to make sure all peer review requests get some response. Requests that have gone three days or longer without a substantial response are listed at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog. I have three requests to help this continue.

1) If you are asked to do a peer review, please ask the person who made the request to also do a review, preferably of a request that has not yet had feedback. This is fairly simple, but helps. For example when I review requests on the backlog list, I close with Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, ...

2) While there are several people who help with the backlog, lately I have been doing up to 3 or 4 peer reviews a day and can not keep this up much longer. We need help. Since there are now well over 100 names on the PR volunteers page, if each volunteer reviewed just one PR request without a response from the list each month, it would easily take care of the "no response" backlog. To help spread out the load, I suggest those willing pick a day of the month and do a review that day (for example, my first edit was on the 8th, so I could pick the 8th). Please pick a peer review request with no responses yet, if possible off the backlog list. If you want, leave a note on my talk page as to which day you picked and I will remind you each month.

3) I have made some proposals to add some limits to peer review requests at Wikipedia_talk:Peer_review#Proposed_limits. The idea is to prevent any one user from overly burdening the process. These seem fairly reasonable (one PR request per editor per day, only four total PR requests per editor at a time, PR requests with cleanup banners can be delisted (like GAN quick fail), and wait two weeks to relist a PR request after it is archived), but have gotten no feedback in one week. If you have any thoughts on these, please weigh in.

Thanks again for your help and in advance for any assistance with the backlog. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:40, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

regarding your revert in the article hamster

i dont think you should have reverted the image. the new image is perfectly fine and looks better than this old one. this old one has a pig-nose. Ferryhalim (talk) 07:05, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

But the new one is a bit too visibly in a cage. However, a wild hamster is preferable here, so I included another image that looks like it is in the wild (I'm not sure if it really is). Ucucha 07:26, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I see no reason why "Peach.jpg" was replaced with the inferior "Hamster named Hammy.jpg" . But we're better off with "Phodopus roborovskii sand.JPG" than with either of the prior two. --Aranae (talk) 01:29, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Oryzomys

Feel free. At the moment i'm a bit busy (i'm working on a proposal to create a policy for how species/genus/so on names are displayed within a genus/tribe/family so on article) so do as you will; articles dont belong to editors anyway, but I appreciate you asking :). When did they get divided into new genera? After the current publication of the standard taxonomy textbook, i'm guessing, or they'd be shown as such. On the other hand, rodent-related species seem to have been left out a bit, although it might be mammals as a whole with the small scale of WP:mammals. Ironholds 11:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you.

It's in a 2006 article, Weksler et al. 2006 (now cited at Gray Rice Rat). They described ten new genera for species until then placed in Oryzomys and transferred some others to Handleyomys pending the creation of another new genus. There are also changes in the species-level taxonomy of quite some groups (notably Nephelomys, one of the ten new genera).

Probably, there's a strong positive correlation between body size and Wikipedia article size. ;-) Large mammals are just considered more interesting; I don't think it's specifically a rodent thing (in fact, bats, shrews, and golden moles may be worse). Ucucha 11:26, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

2006, that explains it; the last standardised taxonomy book was 2005. Handleyomys is a tricky genus; I was going to work on it myself but couldn't get my head around it, so hopefully you'll be able to shed some light on it. The next issue of "mammals of the world...." may disagree with weksler's study, so dont be suprised if it gets all jumbled up again in a few months. Ironholds 11:45, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Ooh, and some advice; when creating articles such as Gray Rice Rat it's probably best to include subfamily and tribe in the infobox; I find with rodents particularly going to a family page "zooms out" too far to be useful; you can't really find the link between family and species/genus without prior knowledge. Ironholds 11:49, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I actually did so, but I forgot to check if it actually worked. Mea culpa. I fixed it now.

Yes, I know about the taxonomy reference (I've even got the paper version of the book).

It is pretty likely that the next edition of MSW will actually agree with Weksler's reclassification. It is pretty well-supported with both morphological and molecular data, and the old classification was rather the result of inertia than anything else.

To explain that, I need to add a little taxonomic history. The recognition of the tribe Oryzomyini dates back to about 1900, when Oldfield Thomas vaguely recognized such a group. However, originally, just about everything was put into the genus Oryzomys, with only the most specialized groups (such as spiny Neacomys and watery Nectomys) receiving separate genera. Some subgenera were also recognized for the slightly less differentiated groups (such as pygmy Oligoryzomys and arboreal Oecomys), but those were reclassified as separate genera after the 1970s. What remained in Oryzomys were basically leftovers: everything that was not differentiated enough to receive a separate genus. You may understand that such a genus is unlikely to be monophyletic, and that was exactly what was found when they used molecular phylogenetics in the oryzomyines. Weksler produced a quite comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the oryzomyines, first (2003) molecular and then (2006) also morphological. It turned out that there were about 12 clades of Oryzomys species, one of which corresponds to Oryzomys proper. He described another ten as new genera and put the last one in Handleyomys, to which it is sister, pending the description of a new genus by Carleton and Musser (coincidentally, the authors of the MSW section on muroids). They are working on describing that group (the alfaroi-saturatior-group) as one or two new genera and revising its internal taxonomy. Ucucha 13:36, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah ok, I get what you mean. The last genus I was working on had a similar situation; particularly distinct groups of species got their sub-genera and everything else was crammed together higgledy-piggledy. Eventually they'll be no more new species being discovered and this job will be a lot easier. I'm a political science student, and this is similar to politics; everyone has their different view of what is/isn't appropriate classification, and it is unlikely to ever be settled. You have 4 studies claiming that X is a species, 3 later revisions claiming X is a subspecies of Y, genetic tests proving X is distinct from Y and then occular patterns and physical appearance showing X is related to Y. It goes on and on. Ironholds 14:01, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Nicaraguan Rice Rat DYK

On 8 July, 2008, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Nicaraguan Rice Rat, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Congratulations! --PeterSymonds (talk) 21:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! It's a pity that it's apparently gone already; I actually missed it. Ucucha 05:52, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Ucayali Water Rat

Hey, thanks for updating the article! I thought I was the only user who even looked at rodent articles; I spent a month filling in redlinks. Where did you get this info from? Ironholds 14:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, from my memory, but you may find it back in MSW 3 (also on the Internet at http://www.bucknell.edu/msw3/, as I think you know). As I wrote to you previously, I am planning to update all articles on oryzomyines. This one was not particularly in need of updates, but I expanded it a bit anyway. Ucucha 15:06, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Excellent :). I've moved over to correcting various problems in bat (specifically vesper bat) articles; you're right, they're even worse than rat articles! There are some so badly stylised that it's actually easier to delete the whole thing and start over than rearrange everything. I've also decided that polbot must be destroyed, or at least it's entire fauna run corrected; since the intro to every article it creates is standardised, you get "The Paradox Vole is a species of vole..." (correct) but also "The Vespucci's Rodent is a species of .." (gramatically incorrect) which muggins here then has to correct. Ironholds 15:22, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Oryzomyini

Great job on the Oryzomyini pages. Marwek (talk) 14:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)marwek

Tribes of murines

Have you seen this? --Aranae (talk) 19:54, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

No, thank you! It's a bit of a pity, since I was working on an article on the same subject to introduce a similar classification. Apparently, many of Lecompte et al.'s tribes are nomina nuda, however. Ucucha 06:29, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Belated message

It might have been a little delay in the answer, but I'm mainly active on the English Wikipedia Calamarain (talk) 09:29, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I am afraid I have no idea what you are referring to, but thank you for your message anyway. Ucucha 17:58, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I admit it was a bit of a puzzle. At my user page at wikispecies is the answer. Calamarain (talk) 12:22, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I see, thank you. I am afraid I tend to forget minor things I wrote three years ago. Ucucha 12:37, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Why???

Why did you revert my edit to Bat? The picture i uploaded is of far superior quality to the one you just reinstated!!--Tufacave (talk) 20:33, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, first, I am generally not supportive of editors replacing pictures in important articles with their self-made ones; I find it better to go the conservative way and keep pictures that have been in their articles for a long time. In this particular case, I do not really see why your picture would be of far superior quality; if it has slightly higher resolution, it is because more of the background is included. Your picture shows P. pipistrellus from the side, the other shows it from the front; I do not see why either view should be very much preferred. Now that you reinstated your picture, I do not have much against keeping it either.

Though it is not really important here, I am also interested in how you have identified your bat as P. pipistrellus and not the Soprano Pipistrelle, P. pygmaeus. Don't both species occur in northern England? Ucucha 06:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have to hold my hands up and say I'm no bat expert. The vet I took it to identified as a P. pipistrellus, but as he specialises in domestic animals, it is possible that he was wrong. The bat was released back into the wild last night by the RSPCA, so I can't go back and check. If you think the caption is wrong, though, please do feel free to change it. In the meantime, I'm working on an upgraded version of the picture - less background etc.--Tufacave (talk) 11:11, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I honestly don't know--I don't think the two species can be distinguished based on external morphology. Personally, I do not see any reason to identify it as either P. pipistrellus or P. pygmaeus, but I am not well acquainted with those two species and how to differentiate them. Ucucha 17:14, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:Rodents

You may be interested: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals/Rodents. By the way, did you see Kris Helgen's revision of Spermophilus? --Aranae (talk) 02:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for noting; I added my name there.

Yes, I saw Helgen's paper. I think he did a good job there; the one thing that is a pity is that he didn't address fossil species previously placed in Spermophilus, of which I think there are quite a lot. Ucucha 11:27, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Rodents

the new project is up at WP:RODENT, we're still doing fun things putting together a project banner and all that, but feel free to sign up, and leave a comment on the talk page. -ΖαππερΝαππερ ^Babel_Alexandria 21:08, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Brazilian False Rice Rat

On August 9, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Brazilian False Rice Rat, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Wikiproject: Did you know? 08:15, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Ucucha

Thank you for the welcome message. I think I will do as you suggest and join the Wikipedia Rodents Project. I was hoping to contribute to the Sciuridae pages by expanding some of the many stubs but wanted to get more experience in editing first. A question - the title of the Kinabalu Squirrel page is incorrect (Inabalu Squirrel) but I could not see anywhere how to change the title of an article. Maybe I am looking in the wrong place.Orenburg1 (talk) 10:40, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

There is indeed a lot of work to do. The vast majority of mammal species do have articles, but they are stubs created directly from the Red List, without much substantial information.

Wikipedia has many things that it is good to know about when editing. You may have found at least some of it yourself, but there are quite some help pages with information on that (for example, how to edit a page). When you want to extend stubs on squirrels, it might be useful to have a look at some of the featured articles that already exist on mammals (WP:MAMMAL#Featured articles; the only rodent featured article is Guinea pig, which as a domesticated animal is somewhat different from most articles).

Specifically on that "Inabalu" squirrel, there is a button "Move" at the top of each page, which allows you to move the page to a new location. When you click on it, a form appears that allows you to correct the title.

Please let me know if you need any more help (I'll be moving to college in a few weeks though, so my time will probably be quite limited). Ucucha 14:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Large Mindoro Forest Mouse

On August 21, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Large Mindoro Forest Mouse, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

You deserve this too. --Aranae (talk) 00:11, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, mentioned you on my user page as well. --Rubseb (talk) 11:04, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! We might continue work on the article to get it to GA standards or so, although that is likely diffcult without a picture. (I wrote to Ruedas some time ago to ask if he could release a free picture of the animal, but received no response.) For now, I'm in introduction programs at college, but things will be less hectic in a few weeks. Ucucha 21:55, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Luzon Montane Forest Mouse

Hello again. I sorta got the hang of these Filipino rodents so I started translating your article on Apomys datae from the Dutch wiki. Question though: you describe the animal as a "rat" (the Dutch word, that is) in the original article, while the English common name obviously suggests that it is a mouse. Now I know that these words are often used almost interchangeably and what I get from the article doesn't quite clinch it for me (it's an Apomys, i.e. a Mouse from Mount Apo, but was also previously identified as a Rattus, etc.). So which term do you think should be used? On a side note, I e-mailed Lawrence Heaney with a request for permission to publish his photograph of a specimen of A. datae in the articles, let's see what he says. --Rubseb (talk) 21:37, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I really don't care. "Mouse" and "rat" are just convenient labels that don't mean anything. I think you should just follow the English common name convention, which is apparently "mouse". As a side note, the "-mys" part does not really mean specifically "mouse" or "rat"; it usually means "rodent" although there are also some non-rodents with "-mys" in their names. Even giant rats like Phloeomys, Sundamys, Mallomys, and Megalomys are called "-mys". Rattus is virtually never used in compound names.

Good luck with A. datae; I'll be happy to help you out with any further problems. I hope you'll get image permissions from Dr. Heaney. Ucucha 22:06, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Carletonomys

Hello! Your submission of Carletonomys at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! Smartse (talk) 03:55, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Carletonomys

On September 10, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Carletonomys, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Wikiproject: Did you know? 17:23, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Oryzomys hypenemus

I was slightly surprised by our assessment of the article on Oryzomys hypenemus as Stub-class. Could you please explain? Ucucha 14:04, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

And thanks for nominating it to DYK. :-) Ucucha 14:08, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Ooops... That was a careless mistake of mine. I did a copy-&-paste from another talkpage to get the template codes and I forgot to make the necessary changes. Thank you for pointing that out to me. --PFHLai (talk) 14:13, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

No problem. Thanks for fixing it so quickly! Ucucha 14:15, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome, Ucucha. Embarrassing mistakes must be removed ASAP! :-) --PFHLai (talk) 14:20, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm coming over as very arrogant now, aint I? Should I immediately nominate it for FA, you think, or is it better to wait a little? ;-) Ucucha 14:22, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you can go for a GA right away. The subject matter might not allow for an FA. Please consider asking Dr. Ray and his Harvard colleagues to publish more often on this animal. Then you'll have more materials to write about. Good luck on that. :-) --PFHLai (talk) 14:48, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Could you add a footnote or two in the article (not necessarily in the intro) for the fact that this rat is "extinct" and that it's the "largest known oryzomyine", please? I've posted a new DYK hook here. Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 15:48, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. Ucucha 15:59, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Oryzomys hypenemus

On September 28, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Oryzomys hypenemus, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Gatoclass 20:43, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Mongooses

It seems to me that the issues we are currently having with shrew are similar to those raised by a discussion I recently had about the mongoose article. We haven't reached consensus on the best way to proceed there; I wondered if you might have any input? Anaxial (talk) 15:41, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for noting. I've added my thoughts on the issue. Ucucha 18:51, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Brazilian False Rice Rat

I've left some notes at Talk:Brazilian False Rice Rat/GA1 - good luck. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Category:Cetaceans

Why is it "nonsense" to include cetaceans within Category:Carnivores? You might be thinking of filter feeders, but Krill are animals, and "carnivore" =/= Carnivora. Fences&Windows 21:48, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Until a few hours ago, the Category:Carnivores looked mainly like a category for members of the order Carnivora, and the cetaceans appeared as one of the subcategories in the middle of all the carnivoran families. I thought that was out of line and deleted he category, but when I looked a little further I realized that I needed to fix the whole problem by creating Category:Carnivorans for members of Carnivora and leaving the other stuff in Category:Carnivores.

Now that the taxonomic and diet categories are separated, I agree that it is no longer "nonsense" to place cetaceans in Category:Carnivores, but I don't think categorizing animals according to their diet is a good thing, so I'd prefer to leave the category off. I am sorry for being slightly too rash earlier today. Ucucha 23:31, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Good category change. What is wrong with categorising animals according to diet? It's an important part of their ecology, no? Fences&Windows 00:55, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

In general, I am opposed to using categorization for too many properties of organisms; I think I would prefer limiting it to taxonomy, age, and perhaps geography. That keeps the categories and articles clean and neat. At this moment, our organization of categories for mammals at least is a mess, and the fact that we didn't have a category for the order Carnivora until today is but one example of that.

Categorizing animals according to diet is subjective and it may apply labels that don't really say much. To keep the focus on whales, there's a huge difference in diet between krill-eating big whales and true meat-eating orcas. Terrestrial insectivores like shrews are again very different. We can explain such situations in the articles on these animals and again in general articles on things like carnivory, insectivory, and suspension feeding, and I honestly don't see the need to want to put discrete labels unto organisms when a continuum of very distinct feeding ecologies exist.

I don't feel very strongly about it, though; if someone insists on categorizing animals according to diet preference, I'd have no serious problems with it except that I wouldn't like to be the one creating or maintaining it. Ucucha 02:19, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I started looking at this as I came across List of herbivores and it was awful - still pretty bad - and discovered that there was a "Carnivores" category, but no "Herbivores" category. It seemed like an oversight, it may have been deliberate. More discrete categories describing feeding ecologies would be better than broad-brushes like carnivore/herbivore/omnivore. It's certainly the kind of thing readers will be interested in, e.g. which are all the ruminating animals, which eat wood, which other animals only eat plants, etc. Fences&Windows 00:19, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

If you think you'll be able to create and maintain a decent categorization scheme on the basis of diet, by all means go ahead and do it. But you need to keep in mind how complex the issue is--for example, the big whales not only eat krill, but also phytoplankton, and there may well be variation among the species in exactly what they eat. There are thousands of animal species with Wikipedia articles, and it's going to be a huge task to organize them accurately and precisely according to what they eat, not least because in many cases we simply don't know. Ucucha 01:34, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Marco Polo sheep GAR

Hello, I responded to your comments here if you're interested. Thanks for taking the time to look this over! Fleetflame · whack! whack! · 16:10, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Megalomys audreyae

On October 9, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Megalomys audreyae, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

SoWhy 00:28, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

DYK Sydney Rippon

I've reffed the fatherhood point in this: the book cited actually quotes from the son about this incident in his father's cricket career, but the incident is attested in Wisden as well. If you wanted to change "Conservative minister" to "Cabinet minister" it would work as well. Just thought it was appropriate in the light of the UK fuss about politicians and their financial affairs that's stoking itself up again this week: something of a "fun" item. Thanks for looking at it. Johnlp (talk) 07:12, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I responded at the DYK talk page. Ucucha 12:06, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Lund's Amphibious Rat

On October 13, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Lund's Amphibious Rat, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

{{User0|Giants27 09:29, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Rodents of the Caribbean to DYK

I'd like to see this article on the main page. It's really a great addition. I was thinking that it might help if it could get verified explicitly. I added a specific citation referring to Amblyrhiza as bear-sized. It's a statement that I know Nowak uses. Do you have a reference for "cat-sized" Megalomys? It also may help to add that phrase to the article. At that point I think I'll just verify it myself and it will be ready to go. Is ALT5 okay for you? --Aranae (talk) 13:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

ALT5 is okay. Thanks for taking the time to cite that. I am afraid I don't know exactly where "cat-sized" comes from. It may have been in Allen, 1942, Extinct and vanishing mammals of the Western Hemisphere. I would have checked it myself, but I need to go to class now. Ucucha 13:51, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Antillean Giant Rice Rat seems to suggest that Flannery & Schouten (2001) use that phrasing, but I don't have that source either. I'll look around for it too. --Aranae (talk) 14:23, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Google Books helps: it was Flannery and Schouten who said that. It's cited for now. Ucucha 18:46, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

DYK nomination of Holochilus primigenus

Hello! Your submission of Holochilus primigenus at the Did You Know nominations page has been reviewed, and there still are some issues that may need to be clarified. Please review the comment(s) underneath your nomination's entry and respond there as soon as possible. Thank you for contributing to Did You Know! -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 23:13, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Rodents of the Caribbean

On October 14, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Rodents of the Caribbean, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Thank you - have a rest! Lots of time to get a Halloween hook Victuallers (talk) 21:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Holochilus primigenus

On October 16, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Holochilus primigenus, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

{{User0|Hamiltonstone 09:28, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks...

...for your help with the Malagasy carnivores. Excellent work! Chrisrus (talk) 18:56, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. I added a little more now. Ucucha 19:59, 17 October 2009 (UTC)