Talk:Automimicry

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recent changes and future work[edit]

Recently added a synopsis of work done on automimicry, as explained in Ruxton et al. 2004.

Created a subheading for examples of automimicry from the animal kingdom. Many are given in Ruxton et al., but I have not had time to list them.

Remaining material needs more references, as I have been unable to find any that support other definitions of automimicry. The exception is Guthrie and Petocz 1970, but their definition appears to be about signal efficacy, rather than mimicry. Dwkikuchi (talk) 07:43, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Good work. Clearly, if there are no reliable sources for other definitions, then the article should not discuss them. The article's domain is what the sources cover.
The initial section is currently not a summary of the article, but contains an extended (and cited) discussion of the strategy as an ESS involving honest signalling. All of that needs to be in the body of the article, and then briefly summarized in a (new) lead section. I'll make a start on it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:57, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Items also/partially covered in other articles[edit]

Dwkikuchi - you've removed a large amount of the topic's coverage on the dubious grounds that these things are covered by a more general article, mimicry. That was already written before we began here, so of course overlap is likely. If the term automimicry is used to cover abc, then abc a priori belongs here. Further, a reasonable amount of overlap can be useful in making articles more complete and self-contained, without requiring readers to jump about to understand a topic; and of course, the other article can be cut down leaving a "main article" link and a short summary when a topic more properly belongs here. I'm inclined to revert all your deletions, unless there's very good reason why not. What the other article says is, first off, its problem. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:28, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review[edit]

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Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:Automimicry/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 02:20, 28 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for taking this on. I'll get to the comments promptly! Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:45, 28 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

First reading[edit]

@Chiswick Chap: Some detailed comments before I evaluate passage of the overall GA criteria:

  • First sentence: says almost about what the subject actually means, instead saying that it's something that occurs within a single species. But actually, it occurs in many different species. A proper (but short and nontechnical) definition would be appropriate here.
Done, with no technical words at all!
  • "an aposematic species": too WP:TECHNICAL a term to use in the lead without a gloss. Maybe better "a species with warning coloration"?
Done.
  • In general the lead does a good job of summarizing the rest of the article. Because it (appropriately) does not introduce new claims of its own, it is appropriate for it to be unsourced as it is. Similarly, all images illustrate sourced claims for the articles, and don't need claims for their captions. The images all appear properly licensed.
Many thanks.
  • "Automimicry was first reported by the ecologist Lincoln Brower": this is sourced to one of Brower's own papers, with two other authors. It cannot be used to source the claim that Brower was the first to report, and why is this suggestion credited only to Brower and not his coauthors? The footnote does cover more of the paragraph up to "vomited", though, so would perhaps be better moved to that point.
Added colleagues, moved ref down, repeated Ruxton ref for clarity.
  • "Subsequently, Brower put forth" in what publication?
This is covered by Ruxton et al, but it was Brower 1968.
  • Ruxton et al need page numbers. The appropriate point appears to be 12.5 automimicry, pp. 176–182, https://books.google.com/books?id=P38SDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA176 (the content on these pages does appear adequate to source the entire first paragraph of the "other morphs" section, however, so this is only a minor issue).
Page range added. I'm using a paper copy, aka "print" in Wikijargon, but have added the URL also.
  • The second paragraph of the same section seems misplaced — it is about sexual mimicry rather than aposematic mimicry. And on the other hand, the "other morphs" title of the section seems overly specific, since the aposematic mimicry of the first paragraph may be about other diets rather than other morphs.
Cut the paragraph, and renamed section.
  • "In this form of automimicry, the mimic imitates other morphs within the same species. In a species where males mimic females or vice versa, this may be an instance of sexual mimicry in evolutionary game theory. Examples are found in some species of birds, fishes, and lizards.": this Wikipedia article, and this section of the article, is about "mimicry" meaning similar physical appearance, right? But the source appears to be primarily using "mimicry" in a much broader sense, meaning any kind of imitation in behavior. In particular although it mentions birds, fishes, and lizards among many other kinds of creatures, it says nothing about them having some males look like females physically while others have a significantly different appearance. Either the distinction between physical and behavioral mimicry needs to be made much clearer, or a better source that is actually about physical mimicry should be used here.
See item above.
  • Reference 4 is from a blog [1]. Does Schell meet the recognized expert clause of WP:SPS? This has the appearance of a student report supervised by Schell, in which case it is probably not reliable. In any case it also looks irrelevant: it describes a system of coloration in which males who adopt different strategies also have different physical appearance, but says nothing about mimicry.
OK, removed claim and ref.
  • "there are qualitatively different examples in many other species, such as some Platysaurus lizards": different from what? This is vague to the point of being uninformative. Reference 5 (Lewis thesis) needs page numbers to pick out where in the thesis the cited claim (whatever it is supposed to be) can be found. I searched for the word "mimic" in the text but found it only in the title of one of its bibliography items.
Removed that too.
Linked and spelt out.
  • The general discussion of honesty of signals and evolutionary stability needs a source. Footnote [7] (on page 485) sources the suggestion that "toxins may not be costly" but I see little or nothing in that source about cheating or automimicry.
Review source added.
  • The second (frequency-dependent) hypothesis needs a source; footnote [8] sources only the third (go-slow) hypothesis.
Ref added.
Fixed, thanks.
Done, thanks. Again, I have an axe- and goose-quill-chiselled "hardcopy".
  • The snake and butterflyfish claims are unsourced and the pygmy owl source is a deadlink
snake: name species, ref.
butterflyfish: ref.
pygmy owl: added archive link.
  • The final paragraph of the false head statement belongs in the other section, and would be less WP:TECHNICAL with common names instead of Latin species names.
Moved, and used common names.
  • In what sense is the Churchill armoured recovery vehicle an instance of automimicry (copying within the same species or type) and not just mimicry more generally?
The false main armament is an attempt to resemble a Churchill battle tank.
  • I am unable to check the offline A-10 Thunderbolt (Warthog) sources. It seems a strange thing to do though. What was the purpose of the automimicry in this case?
Added explanation.

Overall summary: Pretty good but some sourcing needs to be improved (criterion 2b and 2c) before this can be a good article. No issues with other GA criteria found. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:44, 28 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Second reading[edit]

All issues from the first review have been addressed. I think the last few sentences of the "Mimicry of distasteful" section are still a bit misplaced — they're in the right section now but they're general background about this kind of mimicry rather than belonging towards the end of a paragraph about evolutionary stability — but that's a minor issue that doesn't really fall into the GA criteria, most of which were passed the first time around and the rest of which are now also good. Passing. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:33, 28 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks! I'll tidy up those sentences now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 03:54, 29 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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