Give me five

im just about to explode on his talk page so the problem will be dealt with swiftly. ZooPro 22:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done here is the link ZooPro 23:07, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

If there is any further issues please let me know. Cheers ZooPro 23:57, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Problem has been dealt with at ANI, i am requesting a ban from wikiprojects. ZooPro 05:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

European Starling

Hi, I noticed that you wrote me concering the Starling. I'm not sure if you were referring to cultural references, but there is a subspecies in the Faroes: Sturnus vulgaris faeroensis (I don't know Latin, so pardon my errors), and since it is endemic to the Faroes, yes, it's special. Culturally, there are some references to the Starling, but I haven't looked through them yet. I could ask around, if the biology isn't sufficient. Cheers. Mulder1982 (talk) 15:57, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

As noted at talk: it was the House Sparrow, not the starling. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 16:06, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Bleh... sorry, yes... Sparrow... No, not that I can think of at least, except that it's breeding in the Faroes. Mulder1982 (talk) 16:11, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Re:Wikiproject Squirrels

The project is going to be revived.--Domestic CAT 22:22, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you interested in squirrels?--Domestic CAT 22:26, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Time will explain everything.--Domestic CAT 22:29, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

You need not get anything yet. Please be patient and if you really want to know what is going on, then, soon enough, you will know.--Domestic CAT 22:31, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

There are no secrets. There is just currently not a lot worth knowing.--Domestic CAT 22:34, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

All I will tell you at this time is that this is slightly different. This is not a new Wikiproject this is an old one that is getting revived. Communication is little at this current time, because it is not worth extensive knowledge until the intended later date that is is revived.--Domestic CAT 22:40, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I saw your message to ZooPro. By the way, he has not been informed of this so he will not be able to help. Also, I am by no means a one-editor wikiproject, in fact I have very little to do with the project's revivial at all.--Domestic CAT 22:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Just to chime in here, Domestic Cat i would consider it a personal favour if i could be informed when any projects are revived as to keep up to date with whats going on and to ensure everyone is on the same page. ZooPro 10:07, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I won' be starting any new project, in fact, I have very little, if anything to do with the 2010 operations of the squirrels.--Domestic CAT 22:46, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I will ask them if it is wise to go public on this.--Domestic CAT 22:48, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

User:Domestic Cat

I have left a message. The user probably got frustrated and decided to leave, though probably not permanently. Intelligentsium 23:32, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry if you took my calling of "harrassment" to heart. You were definitley acting in good faith. Yes, I think I will leave permanently, but please don't feel bad about it. In fact, the animals WikiProject was doing fine before I came along anyway. Believe me, I am just not fit for Wikipedia. I wish you and all the other editors here all the best.--Domestic CAT 02:48, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

For whatever benefit I could be, I've been convinced to stay.--Domestic CAT 07:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I would hope i had a small part to play in convincing Domestic Cat to stay, i have made it clear the reasons wikiproject squirrels was merged any why it should remain for the time being with wikiproject rodents. For your benifit Innotata this was my little bit of input. ZooPro 10:02, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing things up. Now i just need to remove all those squirrel banners, and Wikipedia won't lose another contributor over this matter. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 16:16, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking of a master change over, replace the template with the rodent one that way you dont have to go through every article to add/replace it, then go through the page listing and it will tell you if you have duplicate articles then simply remove the templates from them maybe something for Domestic Cat to do. ZooPro 22:49, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I'll make it a redirect, as you think that's a good idea. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 02:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

It seems to have done the trick. ZooPro 04:06, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: Your apology on my talk page

Don't worry about it. I am happy to say that you had good intentions. But thank you for your kind words. I am sure that you would be a rewarding editor to collaborate with. Also, I am appreciative of your edits to the articles I created. Cheers.--Domestic CAT 08:04, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Various

• Eurasian Tree Sparrow - inaccuracy: fine, fix it, I assume you have a ref
• Passer suggest contains about 25 species, those included depending on the authority with refs to Howard and Moore and the IOC
• "Would you mind expanding the description section at House Sparrow soon?" sure, but it won't be immediate, I'm very busy in real life at present
• Crested Shelduck needs a ce for prose (too many "howevers" for a start. Much of the stuff missing, eg eggs, probably doesn't exist. Anything about predators or parasites? What's definitely missing is a discussion and explanation of the IUCN status under Conservation
• Chestnut Sparrow is up for GA review - noted
• page number citations to The EBCC Atlas of European Breeding Birds and The Birds of the Western Palearctic I think the first is an online atlas, I can definitely do the second

Yes the EBCC is here, so no page number. BWP is 1506-1509 Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:38, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:29, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Bird task template

I unlinked the articles you linked there. I was working on the Corcoracidae, but after I moved it I could not find which articles linked to it because every single talk page the template is in was shown in the what links here page! Sabine's Sunbird talk 06:50, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Move page

Unluckely 60% of the indian cities capital of districts must be moved, because thet don't speak about the city, but about the district, that has own page. I warned in many discussion pages, but nothing was never changed. I modified many dates when possible but i can't modify articles because I don't speak english. At end I used the template "move" to call your attention (with success as I see). Many articles about indian cities ara of very low level (even me, that don't speak english, I can see language mistakes o poor phrases) and if furthermore the article is unrelated (you must consider that, in general, the people that ask for the city is not searching for dates about the district, or viceversa) the prestige of wikipedia suffer too much. In favour only I can say that no many people is able to recognize the errors; i.e several times the wrong population of the city (in fact the district population) is reproduced houndred of times in Internet; then cities of about 100.000 are, by magic art, converted in cities of 1.500.000 people (district population) or so, and quoted and requoted in all the net. The scholars blame then wikipedia with good reasons, because is not a typo. Certainly Raipur is not the worst article (some of them are fully devoted to the districte, less words about the city) but notice i.e. that i changed the population in Raipur, before a city of 300.000 was a city of 1.400.000. --83.33.216.35 (talk) 17:38, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Coregonus

I hope you do not mind my low level of English ... It is true what you say: I include several general references in the articles I write about the different species of fish and now that I reread it, I realized that in some it is not important nor relevant ... I will try to solve it as soon as possible. Thank you very much for your valuable contribution. Greetings.

I used to know a lot more English than now (I lived in London for five years) but, since I returned to Barcelona, I lost a lot of ability to speak it and write it... Please, remove anything that you consider irrelevant and add all sorts of useful information (links and pictures). Thank you for your valuable advices and you can ask me everything you want ... Now I'm focusing on the family Gobiidae.--Panellet (talk) 16:49, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe, I have more articles on some genera or families of fish but yours have more information. For example, your article on Cepola macrophthalma is much better than mine! Ah, I have corrected "Lacépède" on it because it lacked an accent ... It is best not to anger our French neighbours!--Panellet (talk) 19:06, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Animals January Task List

Below is a task list for WikiProject Animals. There are more tasks available at the missing articles page, expansion-needed page, and Category:Animal articles needing attention

• Maintain: Portal:Animals; nominate DYKs.

• Expand: Junqueira cow, Muraenesox bagio, Nyctibatrachus minimus (also known as the night frog), Goldador.

• Recruit more members!

Intelligentsium 20:16, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: Link

I do. But I also make about 500-600 disam edits a day, so mistakes will happen, especially with a subject such as that. So. I apologize but it happens. --User:Woohookitty ^{Disamming fool!} 02:42, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry :( I thought it was just one link. How many were there? --User:Woohookitty ^{Disamming fool!} 00:31, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

It would probably be easier to pinpoint the time in my contributions and then go by that. If you give me a time frame, I can find the range in my contribs. I could also simply revert my edits from that time. --User:Woohookitty ^{Disamming fool!} 00:53, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

User:Domestic Cat

It will interest you to know that User Domestic Cat has been blocked as a sockpuppet, was a shock to me. Just thought i would let you know. ZooPro 07:11, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Paul Kammerer

Hi Innotata, I should probably take myself off that list, I don't usually have time to translate German. Sorry! Looks like an interesting article though. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:47, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Hello!

Hello, Innotata! I just wanted to suggest that you read (or participate in) [[Talk:History of Bosnia and Herzegovina#[1535 or 1527 instead of 1463|this discussion]]. It is related to this move request. Thank you, Surtsicna (talk) 20:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

The matter seemed straightforward, but I've lost track of the discussion, and I don't care. It is sometimes considered bad form to leave the sort of note you left me, I forget why. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 21:10, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

What I wrote to you cannot be considered bad. Please see Wikipedia:Canvassing; I wrote to you in a neutral manner, suggesting that you participate in a discussion I believed you were interested in. There is nothing bad about that. Regards, Surtsicna (talk) 21:24, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

OK. I don't really keep track of that sort of thing; and clearly the Bosnia history thing is complicated. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 22:28, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Rough illustration

Here Shyamal (talk) 14:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I award you this award

		The Bio-star
		For all your bio-related contributions and first GA on what is a pretty obscure and hard to research species. Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:57, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Mammals Notice Board

In line with the recent upgrades to WikiProject Mammals a bulletin board has been created to keep all members up to date with the Project, consider it similiar to the Wikipedia Signpost however focused on WikiProject Mammals. I would ask that you add this page to your watchlist in order to get the latest information about WikiProject Mammals. Kind Regards - ZooPro and The Arbiter★★★

Horn

Good question - I suppose pale grey? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 08:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Image

I searched for a public domain image that I could use and all that I could find was . I could upload it to Commons if it's good enough. Joe Chill (talk) 18:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

This is a good image, but it is not the best for the main page. I'll upload a high-resolution image with the proper information immediately. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 18:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The image is now at File:Gymnothorax pictus illustration.jpg. You can find more of these at this government site. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 18:22, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I have changed the image to that. Joe Chill (talk) 18:25, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Problem

The picture appears to be of Spotted moray. Joe Chill (talk) 19:02, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I won't add an image. Joe Chill (talk) 19:07, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I've cleaned this up and some other things, like peppered moray, as well. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 19:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Rate

I see that you have been marking articles that you have edited a lot up to a B class. This may be a conflict of interest, and it may not be advisable to rate an article that you have a potential conflict of interest higher than Start class. Articles to be rated can be listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Assessment for inspection by a more independent reviewer. Snowman (talk) 15:48, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

If you like. I don't make much of the whole matter of rating, and I don't see any or much conflict of interest, but I'll list bird pages (but not rodent and amphibian pages, as nobody else will assess them) at the project assessment page as you like. Can you add the c-class to the assessment subpage? —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 16:21, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

More specifically, I started reassessing those pages after reading the Version 1.0 rating page more closely. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 16:28, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Please disregard that comment. I have crossed out my comment above because, I can not find anything specific in the guidelines about major contributors of articles grading their own work. However; there are some comments and thoughts on the topic at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Birds/archive_32#Requesting_as_assessment. Snowman (talk) 17:28, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I will, however request assessments from others when I am unsure about the grade of an article. Perhaps I ought to do that with Saxaul Sparrow, which seems to me to be between B and C, which I've changed to B recently. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 17:32, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Without knowing much about sparrows, I think it is B. Snowman (talk) 22:02, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Grading

When grading articles use the capitalised format, so use Mid, Low, High, and Top for importance and rate with Start and Stub. Snowman (talk) 18:04, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Does it matter? —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 18:05, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

On schools pages there was a bot to change all these capitalization errors, but the BirdTalk pages have not got such a bot, so it is up to editors to comply with the guidelines. Snowman (talk) 18:10, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, but does it matter? —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 21:54, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Assessment#Assessing_articles - It says; "For example, to rate an article as "B-Class", use |class=B". It even shows the spacing as well as the capitalisation. Also see the redirects of the templates; see Template:Fl-Class, Template:ga-Class and so on. The link made by using lower case "stub" has to be transferred from Template:stub-Class to Template:Stub-Class. Uniformity is a key issue on this encyclopaedia, and as far as I can see capitalisation runs consistently with the names of the template pages that need to be linked. I think this applies to all wikiprojects. Snowman (talk) 22:37, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how this is an issue, and remember that there is no difference on Wikipedia between stub-Class and Stub-Class templates. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 01:01, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

House Sparrow

Invasive species is a bit pov anyway, introduced species would be better. A separate section for this with other bits between it and distribution doesn't make sense. You could

• Keep most of that material and move it to "Distribution" either as continuous text or a subheading (disproportion amount on introduced range)
• Make a short summary of the content and move it to "Distribution"
• Make a short summary of the content and move it to "Distribution", hive off rest as a separate article

I think that for a species with so many literary references and so familiar to people, you need a relationship with humans, like Tree Sparrow. I could help with this, but it will be at least three weeks before I get time now Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:42, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

OK. I don't like shifting it to the body of distribution and habitat, or making a separate article, and it would be rather hard to reduce it and have only the one sentence on the subject, so I'll add it to the distribution and add details of the native range as well, keeping the current sections as a summary at the top. This will take some time, so I'll temporarily change "invasive" to "introduced". —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 15:25, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I thought the two had subtly different meanings. Not all introduced species are invasive, for example, and species can be invasive without being introduced. Invasive refers to their ability to spread after an introduction event. Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:11, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Sparrow Taxonomy

As you have no doubt noticed we have no standard taxonomy that we follow. Our old default position was to defer to HBW, which in a way we still do when we don't have any thoughts one way or another about a species. Otherwise the editor working on a particular taxon is pretty much free to decide where to put things, only if someone else disagrees do we discuss it in the BirdTalk page. Since you are the guy who works on sparrows and clearly know more about them than the rest of us, if you think treating it as a species makes sense, then do it. The HBW does, if memory serves. Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:57, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I can see from the article you sugested that it is very complex, if you think the matter is unresolved, it is fine to leave it as such too. Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:12, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

How do you leave it as unresolved? Unless we do away with taxoboxes and the like, we need some taxonomy. Of course, whatever is done, the articles will have plenty of information on the debate. I've summarised the facts of the matter at House Sparrow#The willow sparrow and Spanish Sparrow#Taxonomy. I think, like all the authors who have examined the situation closely in recent years (eg, Summers-Smith, Töpfer) that the integradation evidence shows the Italian Sparrow to be a subspecies of the Spanish Sparrow, regardless of its origins or DNA. This taxonomy seems to narrowly be the most common, and I'd bet it is the one followed by the HBW (though would I win?). The other taxonomies are: the Italian Sparrow is a subspecies of the House Sparrow, the Italian Sparrow is a separate species, and lastly, the Italian Sparrow is a "simple hybrid"—ignore it. I don't know which taxonomy most lists follow: most leave out the Italian Sparrow, which means that they could be following any of the taxonomies except the one that ranks it as a separate species. There is a further problem here: one of nomenclature. Most authors who consider the the Spanish and Italian Sparrows to be the same species use the name hispniolensis, wheras italiae is correct. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 15:51, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

HBW justifies treating it as separate based on breeding season length, and the fact that it is stable (with its orgins, whatever they amy be, being in the long past), and for simple convenience. Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:04, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

That seems to ignore the integradation. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 21:06, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Namely, there is more of Italy where the Italian Sparrow integrades with the Spanish Sparrow than space where it occurs in "pure" form; it really is a cline. It also integrades with the House Sparrow, but only along a very narrow line. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 21:31, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

No, they state that the species does hybridise in a broad zone south from Naples. Sabine's Sunbird talk 22:21, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Cepola pauciradiata

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Cepola pauciradiata, and it appears to include a substantial copy of http://www.barcodinglife.org/views/taxbrowser.php?taxid=83356. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. See our copyright policy for further details.

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 19:49, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Hound shark

Did you see the RM at Talk:Hound shark? No one has commented yet, and I'm a bit hesitant to close it when the initiator seemed to be asking for input more than requesting a move. Ucucha 17:15, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

By the way, I love this edit summary. :) Ucucha 17:36, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I've commented. In regards to the edit sum, you seem to notice every edit to mammal articles! I certainly don't: the closest I get is my patrols of various taxa, checking everything. By the way, I've decided not to focus on one rodent group, but certain ones are of particular interest to me. Besides the holarctic squirrel groups and dormice, there are the mole rats, which my public library curiously has a large collection of books about. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 18:24, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I once dumped everything that linked to rodent and everything at User:Ucucha/List of mammals and subpages on my watchlist. It is usually manageable, and I catch quite a bit of vandalism with it. Thanks for commenting at the shark; I think someone will come by soon to close that as move. Which mole rats? Ucucha 18:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Which mole rats: except the Bathyergidae. I thought they were related. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 18:44, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I've altered the dab page: is that right? They are related, I was thinking Spalacidae. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 18:48, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

They are related as follows:

But not all Spalacidae are called mole rats (Myospalacinae are zokors or mole-hamsters and Rhizomyinae are root rats or bamboo rats), so I don't think your edit is correct. Ucucha 18:52, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I've seen it used as such. Rhizomyines I know to be called mole-rats, and maybe zokors are too. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 18:54, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, then add that to the relevant articles with refs. It's probably fairly rare usage, though. I tweaked the dab page a little. Ucucha 19:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Possible

I probably will be able to cite the use of the term mole-rat for Spalcidae, but I'm not sure I'll be able to find the rest. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 22:38, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Russet Sparrow

On February 6, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Russet Sparrow, 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, quick check ) 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.

Honor Roll

Congratulations! YOU have been selected for Belugaboy535136's Honor Roll! Please sign your signature next to your name using 3 tildes. Again, congratulations!! Belugaboy535136 ^contribs 02:50, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Robert Fitzwalter

On February 8, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Robert Fitzwalter, 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, quick check ) 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.

Syrian hamster variations

Hi. I noticed you placed the {{refimprove}} and {{cleanup}} templates on the article syrian hamster variations. While I agree with the cleanup one (I'm not yet finished the article), I'd like to know why you've used the refimprove template as I have provided references throughout the article from four different reliable sources. --Tb240904 (talk) 15:53, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I need to find the right tag. It seems rather inaccurate, so I think I'll note this on the talk page and add an appropriate tag. I think I'll wait a bit first, to see if the article shapes up. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 16:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Edit warring

He, edit warring does not work. Discuss the issue. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:36, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I started by incorporating what had been added, and working on the article some more. Was a lot of help with what I intended to do myself to the taxonomy section. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 15:01, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, looks like there might be room for a good solution. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 16:05, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Why? —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 16:06, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Starlings

No he didn't. I clearly messed up with the copy-paste of the template. Good catch, I'll fix it when I get home and get the full proper ref. Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:14, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Craig and Feare, obviously. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 23:46, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

FishBase

Thanks for telling me about FishBase; I added a FishBase reference to the Pimelodus pictus article that I created, along with new information (sourced to FishBase) about P. pictus' trophic level. I'll be sure to keep that site in mind as a reference for any future fish articles I create. Stonemason89 (talk) 20:47, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Russet Sparrow GAN

I'm going to be very picky. With a fine tooth comb GAN this can probably make the jump to FAC afterwards. there isn't much more that needs doing, so do the annoying picky shit right and you should be golden. Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:48, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Soz about the referencing thing. I'll look at Sauxal Sparrow when I get home. Sabine's Sunbird talk 23:03, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

My, I don't know much internet slang! —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 23:04, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Coregonus hoyi

On February 23, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Coregonus hoyi, 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, quick check ) 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.

Merriam's chipmunk

I saw this edit of yours. Actually, the reason the "J.A." was there is that there are several people named "Allen" who have described lots of mammals (Joel Asaph, Glover Morris, and Herbert); therefore, the initials are usually added in the literature. (Besides, plant authorities would omit the year and the space between the initials and the last name.) Ucucha 03:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I thought read that they are not included in the ICZN, and this has been changed often on bird articles. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 15:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

The relevant article is Art. 51, which does not say anything about initials. However, the initials for Allen are commonly used in the mammalogical literature, and the Guide to Mammalian Species recommends to use them when ambiguity is possible , giving Allen as an example. I think we should also do that. Ucucha 18:52, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

OK. I thought I read this somewhere, but I'm not that familiar with these short synonymies. If there is an article about somebody, should we still give the initials? —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 23:14, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I would always include initials for Allen and a few other people. That's also the way McKenna and Bell in Classification of Mammals (for example, Zygodontomys J. A. Allen, 1897, on p. 145) and Musser and Carleton in Mammal Species of the World (for example, Oryzomys keaysi J. A. Allen, 1900, on p. 1149) do it. Ucucha 00:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Our fishy friend

Oh, DYK, I say! You have expanded it marvellously compared with the poor thing I first saw this afternoon. I see you are a sparrow bod - I have just bought my first ever house sparrow house from the RSPB. The cheep cheep of house sparrows was the accompanying sound of my childhood and I remember being annoyed by the monotony of their calls as I lay in bed on long summer evenings trying to get to sleep when it was still light outside (so unfair!). Now, more years later than I care to remember, there are precious few about and my ears prick up on the rare occasions I hear them. So sad. So fingers crossed I get some new lodgers this spring. 82.32.238.139 (talk) 20:57, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Just had a look at DYK - v good - could the photo be added to the hook for extra oomph? 82.32.238.139 (talk) 21:03, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

OK. As for the photo, I don't think it would look good on the main page. As for the sparrows, yes, I wrote nearly the whole of the section of the House Sparrow's article on its status; that is rather interesting. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 22:43, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Broad whitefish

On February 26, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Broad whitefish, 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, quick check ) 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.

Russet Sparrow

I'll have a look, but it won't be today. Why not ask the project to comment? FAC is a tough road, and other experienced editors like Caliber and Shyamal may pick up bits that we miss. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I think the stamps are OK as Russet, and the hokusai must be out of copyright, but I wouldn't bother with an "in culture" section unless you have enough for a couple of paragraphs - ie more than just the stamps. The dance picture I would expect to be based on the more familiar Tree Sparrow, although no way to be sure. Goldfinches are much prettier, I think you should add some to this article {: Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:23, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I never intended to make an entire "in culture" section, but there is a very small "relationships with humans" section, with a mention of Hokusai's art, and the stamps. The stamps are pretty certainly Russet Sparrows: they are from Kjell Scharning's website. As for the image, it seems it is "some rights reserved", whatever that means. I'll look into it some time, as it would be a worthwhile addition. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 16:10, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

The image is fine, as per commons:Commons:When to use the PD-Art tag. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 21:31, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I think this particular image (but not others by Hokusai, not available online except as Scharning's stamp images) looks more like a Tree Sparrow, but I'm not certain yet. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 21:45, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Further comment: I think this image, and the sparrows that are said to have inspired the dance and art could be said to be generic sparrows: Eurasian Tree Sparrows to most types, but equally russet Sparrows to artistic/poetic types in Japan, who would frequent the Russet Sparrow's habitats. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 21:50, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I suspect that the same is probably true for Lesbia's sparrows. Poets often take... well, poetic licence Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:00, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I think Lesbia's sparrow was almost certainly a Eurasian Tree Sparrow (archaeology shows Romans kept them, and they are the obvious common species in Rome, then there are the descriptions of the birds's behaviour which point to Passer) —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 18:48, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

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