It seems nom is long gone, and the article has been sparsely edited in the past few years. I've ditched the wilder claims and supplied refs for the remainder. Happy to help if I can. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:48, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
lead links: order, diversity, pair bond, fledgling, endangered, taxa
done
the etymology section is pretty short and I think it cold be easily subsumed into the Taxonomy section
merged
Biology
possibly useful links:tropical, temperate, polar,
done
Southern (and Northern) Hemisphere should be capitalized (check for instances throughout article)
done
Ok, I got this far and then noticed that several paragraphs and end-of-paragraph sentences are missing sources. I've added "citation needed" tags to these; will continue the review when these have been addressed. Sasata (talk) 15:36, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
some other refs may need help ... OK, have cleared all 'citation needed' tags with new refs (and added a couple extra citations with new details, too).
"and a 3.6 m (12 ft) wingspan", "and a 32 cm (13 in) wingspan." these sizes are used adjectivally, so should be hyphenated (parameter "adj=on" if using a convert template)
done, it demands abbr=off, it seems
"The beaks are made up from several plates." -> made up of?
done
link plumage
done
does Maxillary unguis need to be capitalized?
no, nor to be linked; done
"and is used mainly for storage of energy rich food during their long flights,[15] and is fed to their young, as well as being used for defence." tweak wording to remove repetitive "and"
done
"Procellariiformes have a need to lower their salt content due to their drinking of ocean water." awkward prose
reworked
"species that don't require it." avoid contractions in formal prose
removed
"5% saline" -> percent (review throughout article, usage of symbol or word is inconsistent)
replaced all "%" with "percent" and used "to" instead of dash for percentage ranges
suggest writing out Na+ and NaCl in full, and linking
done
"The current model for the secretion of salt itself is attributed to an electrochemical gradient, specifically Na+/K+-ATPase." am thinking that this sentence could be left out, as it's not particularly specific to this group of birds
removed
link carrion
done
"The importance of each of these food sources varies from species to species and family to family, for example of the two albatross species found in Hawaii, one, the Black-footed Albatross, takes mostly fish while the Laysan feeds on squid." split into two sentences?
split
"The albatrosses feed on fish, squid and krill, among the procellariids the prions concentrate on small crustacea, the fulmarine petrels take fish and krill but little squid, whereas the Procellaria petrels take a lot of squid." this sentence sounds run-on and awkward; rephrase?
split
"The storm petrels will take small droplets of oil" where do they get these oil droplets from?
surface, ref added
"Breeding behaviour: See also Unusual Seabird Breeding Behavior it looks odd to have two spelling of behaviour; suggest piping a link for the second
done
"In the ringing studies birds ringed as chicks are recaptured close to their original nests, a tendency which can be extreme at times" awkward
yes, ouch, reworded
"In Russian, many petrel species" In Russia, or in the Russian language
done
"When in 1901, the Russian writer" ->"In 1901, when the Russian writer"; perhaps link revolution
done
"only been seen a handful of times" colloquial
replaced
most of the first paragraph of the "Threats and conservation" subsection is cited to ref #55, but this source only covers the Bermuda petrel, not the many other numbers given for other species
added refs from IUCN and other sources; NZ Storm Petrel's breeding ground has just been found!
"However bad this number is" not NPOV; also "This has led to spectacular declines in some species"
done
please review all figure captions to see if they require fullstops or not per WP:Caption
done, added one ".", removed another.
link understory, oil spill, F. DuCane Godman,
done
who first used the name Procellariiformes for the order? (I'm guessing it was Fürbringer in 1888, says the taxobox, but any more details and perhaps a citation would be good)
seems so, added claim and ref
"There are a total of around 125 living species of Procellariiformes worldwide" the taxobox says 108 species
both now say 125 (Brooke)
link Oligocene, Miocene (is linked next section, should be earlier), phylogeny, clade, Paleogene
linked earlier, unlinked later
article needs to be trimmed of duplicate links (do you have Ucucha's dup link script? [1])
thanks, done
I have no expertise about this subject, so the best I can do to assess criterion 3a & b is to look at other comparable sources and see if there's anything missing. To wit:
Brittanica mentions some interesting facts which might be added to enhance our article: (don't feel compelled to add them, I'm partially thinking out loud)
Maori people harvest titi, "a right assured them in perpetuity by treaty with Queen Victoria" (is this related to kaitiakitanga?); they also mention similar situations with Manx shearwaters and Greater shearwaters. There's some other examples that could be used to flesh out our section on "Exploitation" (but it would be preferable to find better sources)
Added Fisher's estimate of Fulmar usage on St Kilda, refs
"One species, the waved albatross (D. irrorata), is unique in that it breeds only in the Galapagos Islands at the Equator …"
this source says the smallest members of the order are the prions, with wingspans of 9–12 inches
added details and ref for the smallest prion, the fairy prion
"The giant petrel is probably the only tubinare agile enough on land to kill other birds; at its nesting grounds it will attack young penguins inadequately guarded by their parents."
"The down grows rapidly; a second down sprouts (to which the first remains attached), and the baby is soon homeothermic…"
"Before it leaves the nest, the chick is deserted by the parents, who retire to molt at sea. This begins a starvation period, which may last a week in the smallest petrels, 12 days in the medium-sized shearwaters, and considerably longer in the largest species, before the fledgling goes to sea." there's more interesting information shortly following about the great distances and the speed various species have to fly on their migration routes
added section on long flights, navigation in Manx shearwater, refs
"The oldest tubinare fossil is a giant albatross (Gigantornis) from the Eocene Epoch (about 50 million years ago) of Nigeria." - this contradicts what we have
Mayr has just published all you need some months ago methinks ;- ). And FWIW Bourdon has some new and cool work on Gigantornis (Finally! Yay! :D)
Conclusion of Mayr & Smith (2012b) "Phylogenetic affinities and taxonomy of the Oligocene Diomedeoididae, and the basal divergences amongst extant procellariiform birds":
The present analyses confirm a position of Diomedeidae outside a clade including Hydrobatidae [including "Oceanitidae"], Pelecanoididae, and Procellariidae. [...] The fossil record is also in accordance with an early divergence of Diomedeidae, which are the only procellariiform crown group taxon with definitive Palaeogene representatives [Tydea septentrionalis: Rupelian of the North Sea] (Mayr & Smith, 2012[a]). Disregarding the early Oligocene 'Larus' [= "Puffinus"] raemdonckii (see comments [below]) as well as undescribed late Oligocene and questionable early Miocene records (Olson, 1985; Warheit, 2002), the earliest fossils of unambiguously identified Procellariidae are from the middle Miocene (Olson, 1985, 2009; Seguí et al., 2001; Warheit, 2002). The oldest fossils of Pelecanoididae date from the early Miocene (Worthy et al., 2007), and the first Hydrobatidae are from the late Miocene (Howard, 1978). Although occurrence of stem group Diomedeidae in the early Oligocene (Mayr & Smith, 2012[a]) indicates that stem group representatives of the clade including Hydrobatidae, Procellariidae, and Pelecanoididae must have also existed by that time, the diversification of the crown group appears to have occurred at a later date.
(I have not personally checked out "P." raemdonckii, but as per Mayr's description it is the best candidate for a "stem group representativ[e] of the clade including Hydrobatidae, Procellariidae, and Pelecanoididae" we know ATM. You can write that in the article[*] and cite Mayr & Smith (2012b), they don't say it verbatim but their data (Appendix 2 Character 32) say so - the one remarkable trait of "P." raemdonckii (a single broken bone) is a tell-tale autapomorphy of that clade.)
[*] "While little can be said about "P." raemdonckii – originally described as Larus raemdonckii – until the fossil (a single piece of ... found ... [add details from literature]) or additional remains are found and thoroughly studied, it may well have been just such an ancestral shearwater: the fossil was described as having a characteristic knob near the elbow joint, which is absent or vestigial in the more basal ProcellariiformesMayr & Smith (2012b)." for example.
This paleomap is approximately correct for the day and age of "P." raemdonckii & Tydea, which both were found in Belgium, i.e. inhabited at least the North Sea basin and probably (plausibly, given the range requirements of crown taxa) W or SE (there is sime Turgai-ish fossil record I think... Olson 1985 should have it. The data accompanying the map are strange or obsolete (35 Ma Oligocene?!) and it's best dated vaguely as Eo-Oligo boundary-ish... you might wanna make one where X marks the spot or some such stuff.
Code as copypasta:
[[File:Blakey_35moll.jpg|thumb|right|[[Paleogeography]] at the time of the ancient albatross ''[[Tydea]]'' and the enigmatic ''[["Puffinus" raemdonckii|"P." raemdonckii]]'']]
"Until the beginning of the 20th century, the family Hydrobatidae was named Procellariidae, and the family now called Procellariidae was rendered "Puffinidae." The order itself was called Tubinares." needs a source
done
I think we have covered all of the GA criteria. I've checked the images, and all are suitably licensed. A few random spotchecks revealed no problems with close paraphrasing or otherwise, and I'm confident the article meets the broad coverage criterion of GA. Thanks for the work you've put into this article, Chiswick Chap (and Sabine's Sunbird); I'm happy to promote to GA now. Sasata (talk) 23:07, 10 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
