Talk:Horseshoe bat/GA1

GA Review[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 11:27, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'll do this one. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:27, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your time! Enwebb (talk) 16:19, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

The article is well-constructed and cited, so I shall have only a few minor comments to make.

"which resemble horseshoes." By being large, heavy, and made of iron? Perhaps reword "which are shaped like horseshoes."
- rephrased
"the litter size is one individual." Perhaps could be better worded, specially for the lead.
- rephrased
"There are records of various species being used" Perhaps "Some species are used".
- rephrased
"as well as the species now in Hipposideros." Perhaps add "(roundleaf bats)".
- rephrased
"a few other attempted to split Rhinolophus" needs editing.
- rephrased

The discussion of clades and the tangled taxonomic history makes an "internal" (inside the family) cladogram very desirable. Why not use Demos et al 2019.
- Demos et al. 2019 is only the African clade, which is only one of the six subgenera given in Csorba et al. 2003. I'm looking if there's a reasonably complete, reasonably recent publication with cladograms.
It would also be helpful to have an "external" cladogram simplified from the one in Bat (maybe I'll add that one).
- Thanks for adding one. I revised it somewhat to have a more complete representation of Rhinolophoidea.
A photo of a fossil would be useful, if one of the CC-by-SA papers has one.
- Found an illustration of the jaws--added
  - Is that a fossil or recently extinct? The geological age would be helpful. Also, names often change: is that Victorian era name still current?
    - Fossil. The Plate description (Planche 1) captions it as "Maxillaires superieur et inferieur de Palaeonycteris robustus, grossis 3 fois --Collection Pomel" and Pomel is given as the authority of the genus. I added a more recent citation (1992) that lists Palaeonycteris as the "sole fossil genus" of Rhinolophidae. I give the Lower Eocene as the age in the text. Do you mean adding that also to the image caption? Enwebb (talk) 16:58, 28 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      - Oh good. Yes, "Lower Eocene" would be helpful in the caption.

"Most have low or very low aspect ratios, which relates wingspan to wing area. Higher aspect ratios are associated with faster flight speed.[16] Their wings are broad and rounded at the tips.[15]" Sentence 3 repeats sentence 1. All this says that the wings are exceptionally broad for their length, making them slow but extremely agile; it would be desirable to find a source that says this in so many words. This ought really to be related to their lifestyle as described in Diet and foraging.
- I've moved this content to the diet and foraging section and expanded a bit. Enwebb (talk) 16:19, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It would be very desirable to have an image comparing a horseshoe bat's silhouette (i.e. mainly the wing outline) to, say, a vesper bat's.
- I decided to go for a more visually dramatic comparison between it and free-tailed bats. Comparative silhouette added.
  - It's very effective, thanks.

The coronavirus origins from ref #29, Luk et al 2019, would be well worth graphing, I'd suggest as a horizontal bar-chart, with the longest bar for 30-----Chinese rufous horseshoe bat, the other bars decreasing beneath it.
- Many thanks. I've tried dropping the Latin extra labels in parentheses; see what you think.
  - That looks better, thanks.
Perhaps Coronaviruses should be a section heading, in which case we'd also have a heading "Other" for the other viruses.
- split

List of species: I'm a bit dubious of the value of listing species in a family article; the groupings are unstable, the matter overlaps with the Evolution/taxonomy sections, and the citation status is fragmentary - indeed, the grouping and use of multiple sources could be read as WP:OR by synthesis. I'd have thought all of this much better left to Commons and categories really. A properly sourced cladogram down to the current species groups would say all that needs to be said.
- What would you think of splitting this off into a daughter article, List of horseshoe bats? Part of the reason the citation status is fragmented as I was primarily going off of MSW3, but many horseshoe bats have been described since then, requiring alternate sourcing. The other reason this is a bit of a mess is because I wrote and reorganized that section back in 2017 when I had only been editing for a few months, so I agree, it isn't great. I agree with removing it, but I think a list would be a good alternative (along with adding a cladogram here). Enwebb (talk) 16:19, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:20, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I think that's all done. I hope you are pleased with the result and will consider reviewing another GAN or two. It seems a worthy GA to me. By the way, the coronavirus link would make an excellent hook for a DYK to put this on Wikipedia's front page. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:15, 3 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.