Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bivalves/Archive 1

ARCHIVE PAGE 1: January 2012 to December 2012

The most pressing first task?

Hello bivalve enthusiasts! We have a project now, so let's all clap our valves together! Yay!

However we need to mark all the pre-existing bivalve articles with the new bivalve template on their talk pages. That way we will have some idea of how many articles we already have, and eventually after they are assessed we will know what kind of shape they are in. Ganesh, can I ask you, it that something we can automate by asking a bot to search for articles that have "Class: Bivalvia" in their taxoboxes, and then dropping the template onto their talk pages? If so perhaps we can make it the one that also has class, importance and needs-photo fields in it? Thanks, Invertzoo (talk) 21:39, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

As it says on the project page:

Please place the following template at the top of every bivalve article's talk pages:

{{WikiProject Bivalves}}

Or, better yet, its expanded form:

{{WikiProject Bivalves|class=?|importance=?|needs-photo=?}}

This will help to direct editors to this page for guidance. If you can also fill in the class, importance and needs-photo entries in the template, that would be great.

Best wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 21:43, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Project templates

I just now added a few by hand to a few articles just to get the process started. Invertzoo (talk) 22:02, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Invertzoo! I just took the time to add project templates to most of the higher order levels of taxonomy in the Bivalves (from Family on upwards) by hunting through the existing pages. The taxonomy of the Bivalvia needs a lot of help to update it so that it is congruent with the latest studies which are briefly mentioned in the main article Bivalvia. Amazingly I have already done a lot of this research for personal reasons for my collection and database program, so I have the research papers to work from. I will make it my task to revise the main article to spell out the modern taxonomy based upon cladistic studies and nuclear DNA testing that has been done to date. There is a lot more than just "small white clams" to work with here!Shellnut (talk) 23:36, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that would be really great to get the high level taxonomy sorted out to be more up-to-date! And thanks for getting some more of the most important articles fixed up with the project template. Thanks so much, Invertzoo (talk) 23:56, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I've gone through and bannered as many of the fossil bivalve articles that I could find.--Kevmin § 00:50, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Wow, fantastic! Thanks so much Kev! Invertzoo (talk) 14:34, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I had the bot go through all the articles under Category:Bivalves and tag their talk pages. We have a total of 996 articles. The bot was able to classify some articles with the stub class, but is not capable of adding importance. — Ganeshk (talk) 13:57, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

(Actually importance ratings can be added by a bot, at least to taxon articles, because family level articles have high importance, genus articles are mid importance and species articles are low importance. Any exceptions to this can be altered by hand subsequently. Invertzoo (talk) 14:53, 2 January 2012 (UTC))

Excellent work! I am sure there are a few more bivalve-related articles out there, but we will find them over time. I added Pearl and Nacre for example. Great start everyone! Invertzoo (talk) 14:34, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Yesterday I added our template to the articles Byssus and Sea silk. Invertzoo (talk) 14:41, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Bivalvia taxonomy

I am starting work on a draft taxonomy section for the Bivalvia article in my Bronze Sandbox. There are some nice new articles out there including cladistics studies using rRNA studies, as well as a couple of 2010 articles. WoRMS has apparently adopted the newest studies, using clades instead of Subclass, Infraclass, Order, Suborder, and the like. Mind you my work is in a very rough format right now.Shellnut (talk) 20:04, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Looks good, how well does it handle the incorporation of extinct taxa groups such as Inoceramidae?--Kevmin § 21:18, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Or Bakevelliidae, which I just wrote up btw.--Kevmin § 23:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Just created Cassianellidae, needs rating.--Kevmin § 11:55, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Kevmin, both articles represent families of fossil Pterioida so we probably will want to add links to them on that article. BTW, nice articles!!!Shellnut (talk) 02:25, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Hammer oyster
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Bivalvia
Subclass:	Pteriomorphia
Order:	Pterioida
Superfamily:	Pterioidea
Family:	Malleidae
Genera
See text

I tried looking up Inoceramidae on WoRMS and it is NOT listed. We will probably have to put in the fossil groups separately.Shellnut (talk) 03:42, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

That's what I was worried about. Sadly the more recent studies often do not include extinct taxa due to the restriction to only morphological characters when examining them. It will take some careful work to try to fit them into the taxonomies where they are currently accepted. The paleontologists and the malacologists often come up with differing taxonomies as a result.--Kevmin § 06:47, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello again Kevmin. The incompatibility of the taxonomies between Recent and fossil creatures is a very difficult problem, and it occurs also with some of the gastropod taxa. I don't know quite what to do about it. I suppose we may be forced to create an article on fossil bivalve taxonomy (is there one single source that is the best source to use, like the Paleobiology database or similar?). If we create an article like that, then we may also have to have a note on every fossil bivalve page that does not fit into the Recent bivalve taxonomy, explaining the problem concisely and linking to the fossil bivalve taxonomy page. Does that sound reasonable? If not, do you think there are there any alternative ways we could handle this? Invertzoo (talk) 15:48, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I just updated the Malleidae article to reflect the taxonomy available on WoRMS. Why bring in clades now? — Ganeshk (talk) 21:54, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Ganeshk, after reviewing the taxonomy in detail on WoRMS I do not believe that "clades" are necessary in the higher taxonomy of the Bivalvia. Subclass names have changed, some Orders have changed, and some Families and Superfamilies have been merged, moved or had their names changed. The bulk of the taxonomy from Superfamily on down remains as it was before 2010.Shellnut (talk) 02:17, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Glad to hear. Thanks for all the hard work on the taxonomy. I need to get bot approval for creating bivalve articles. — Ganeshk (talk) 11:46, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Kevmin, I believe I did pull up and cite The Paleobiology Database as an outside source. You can do a search on there for the Bivalvia taxonomy and limit its detail by degrees of branching. I ran it in July 2010 to prepare my higher level taxonomy initially for my personal collection and my database program, and compared it with the Bieler et al. article, it was quite similar. I believe that it is just a matter of adding fossil families where appropriate. In the few higher level taxonomy articles I have worked on in Bivalvia in the last few days there are fossil taxon prominently listed.Shellnut (talk) 15:41, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I have noted the similarities between the midlevel taxonomies there and in the updated Bivalve page here. One problem is that PBDB is not up to date on a lot of the taxa. Note the amount of unplaced genera in the Pterioida entry and the continued use of Autolamellibranchiata as a subclass.--Kevmin § 01:46, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Status note

I just updated the Bivalvia article with more recent studies (2002 through 2011) in the taxonomy section, and added the 2010 proposed taxonomy by Bieler, et al. which has been accepted by WoRMS. I painstakingly compared the classification to what is listed in WoRMS and made all changes necessary to reflect WoRMS taxonomy. The red links are for families, superfamilies, Orders, etc., which do not currently have articles. Since the existing articles were written based upon old taxonomy (various schemes) it will be necessary to update them to current taxonomy. A lot of families were moved around as a result of these molecular phylogenies and cladistical analyses.Shellnut (talk) 03:40, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Invertzoo! I saw your changes to my Bronze Sandbox, and since the article edits have gone live in Bivalvia I simply incorporated your changes into the class article. I should probably erase my sandbox now, but may use portions of it to cut and paste for other articles, e.g. an article on a particular Order of clam shells.Shellnut (talk) 04:38, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, OK thanks, sounds good! Invertzoo (talk) 14:33, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Subclass Protobranchia

Query for Ganeshk. The new taxonomy used in WoRMS changes the subclass Cryptodonta to Protobranchia. Rather than gutting the old article can we change its name and all taxobox links using a BOT? Then I can update the article and add the additional superfamilies, families, etc., to match the format on the other three subclass articles. Once the basics are done at the subclass level, I intend to work on down to infraclass and order.Shellnut (talk) 04:32, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I can see only 10 links to the Cryptodonta article. Am I missing something? — Ganeshk (talk) 00:41, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Ganeshk! Last night I made a Protobranchia article. I will move over the fossil genera and check with WoRMS on the extant genera before gutting the Cryptodonta article to fit the name change and new taxonomy. Thank you for running the links, I will need those to do the update. I had assumed that there were a lot of lower (species) articles which incorporated the old sublasss name in their taxoboxes or text.Shellnut (talk) 02:07, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Extant vs. Fossil Species Taxonomy

Kevmin, the Cryptodonta article has taxa of fossil bivalves, which I assume now belong in the Protobranchia with the other "nut clams". Is this correct?Shellnut (talk) 02:18, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

if we go for the seperate taxonomy option This (A Synoptical Classification of the Bivalvia (Mollusca)) may be of use, though I dont know how similar it is to the current taxonomy you are looking at.--Kevmin § 03:10, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Kevmin, I downloaded the article and will compare the higher level taxonomy now. On first blush it appears to be based upon Bieler et al. in Bouchet et al. (2010), which is what WoRMS uses and what I used to prepare the taxonomy in the Bivalvia article. If the fossil taxa are all listed here then it will be an easy task. Great find!!!Shellnut (talk) 04:13, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, Kevmin, the article has a lot of dense taxonomy with names I DO NOT recognize and have to assume are fossil taxa. They should fit, however, into the taxonomic scheme published by Bieler, Carter & Coan in 2010, which is published in the larger Bouchet et al article. That's what this article implies on page one. I saw how artfully you blended the fossil taxa into the Pterioida article. Nicely done! We probably should establish a convention to use the "cross" symbol (denoted †) for extinct taxa, as this is used in many other article on Wikipedia.Shellnut (talk) 04:46, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Great to know! I will start picking away at the extinct taxa, updating them to fit the 2010 and 2011 taxonomies. Yes daggers should have been used, and it was my error not including them when I included in Bakevelliidae and Cassianellidae. I usually either linking the first instance of a dagger to the extinction page or include a note at the top of a taxonomy section to explain the dagger use in a list. Also general usage in taxonomy papers etc it to place the dagger in front of the extinct taxon. --Kevmin § 09:49, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Kevmin, the only thing I noticed with the 2011 article was that they used slightly different spellings for the WoRMS accepted subclasses, orders, etc., and sometimes were a bit off on what higher taxonomic level those were at. They also used strange names for mid-range taxonomic levels which I have not seen before; this may be unique to paleontology though - explaining why I have not seen it used before. I think that we should try to find the analogous part of the taxonomic hierarchy. Clearly from superfamily on down everything should be the same.Shellnut (talk) 15:57, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

OK guys, do we have any consensus on how we want to handle the taxomony issues arising from the palentology publications versus extant species in the Bieler et al. (2010) publication? Shellnut (talk) 01:44, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Isognomonidae is now in the Pteriidae

Per WoRMS the Isognomonidae (See WoRMS No. 23060) is unaccepted as a family and these species are now in the Pteriidae.Shellnut (talk) 04:44, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

 Done I moved the genera into the Pteriidae, put in WoRMS citations, and gutted the Isognomonidae article and made it into a redirect to the Pteriidae.Shellnut (talk) 04:13, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Changing article names or spellings

Ganeshk or Invertzoo, how do we go about changing the name of an article (or spelling) to reflect correct taxonomy or systematics? A prime example is Paleoheterodonta which according to WoRMS and current literature should now be spelled Palaeoheterodonta, with an extra letter "a". I am sure that I am going to run into this problem quite a few times and do not want to be a bother. Do I merely need to be taught how, or do I need editorial authority?Shellnut (talk) 04:17, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Moved. in most cases you don't need any extra rights to move a page, just click the move button on the upper right of the page. Sometimes you may need an admin if the name you are looking to move a page to has an edit history or is occupied already.--Kevmin § 06:58, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Kevmin!!!Shellnut (talk) 07:00, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Vandalism

We had a vandalism attack on the Bivalvia article yesterday by an unsigned user. Something rude about "tacos", "cheese" and a "grandma". This was thankfully found and removed by a BOT, however if it had not been caught we might not have seen it for a while as it was buried in the reference section. Is there a way to prevent people who are NOT registered Users from editing?Shellnut (talk) 16:05, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Nope, its one of the core principles of wiki that anyone can edit. If is a serious issue with a specific article then a request for edit protection can be made.--Kevmin § 17:55, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Articles to be assessed

I just created one new family article (Fordillidae) and expanded the two articles (Fordilla, Pojetaia) for the genera in the family. Anyone want to look them over?--Kevmin § 18:19, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Kevmin! The family article looks good. I reviewed the Project Template page and revised the importance to "MID" as it is a family level article and not a class, subclass or order. My big question though is the "grade" Euprotobranchia which you put on the Bivalvia page above the other subclasses. Where does this fit in the new taxonomic system of Bieler, Carter & Cohn (2010)? We have four subclasses to try to fit this into. What kind of bivalves are these? It may be possible to use the older taxonomy and overlay it with the new taxonomy and get a better idea where it fits in. I have some fossil taxa in the Bieler et al. article which can be placed in for starters, maybe the Fordilla and Pojetaia will fix in there cleanly. From the image you posted they look similar to Heterodonta families, possibly the Veneridae, Lucinidae or Semelidae.Shellnut (talk) 18:48, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I placed them as they are placed in the Carter et all 2011 paper. Euprotobranchia includes the five oldest accepted bivalves so far described, (Early to Mid Cambrian in age) and that are genrally considered basal in bivalve phylogeny and as such do not belong to any of the modern crown groups.--Kevmin § 18:56, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, I see it there in the article which I just downloaded: J. G. Carter, C. R. Altaba L. C. Anderson, R. Araujo, A. S. Biakov, A. E. Bogan, D. C. Campbell, M. Campbell, J. H. Chen, J. C. W. Cope, G. Delvene, H. H. Dijkstra, Z. J. Fang, R. N. Gardner, V. A. Gavrilova, I. A. Goncharova, P. J. Harries, J. H. Hartman, M. Hautmann, et al. 2011. A Synoptical Classification of the Bivalvia (Mollusca). University of Kansas Paleontological Institute Paleontological Contributions 4:1-47. But what taxonomic level is a "grade"? They use some strange naming conventions in there.Shellnut (talk) 18:59, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Kevmin, the articles are really good! Keep this up and we will have better fossil coverage than that of extant genera. Since this project is in its infancy we should probably start out filling in the higher level taxa for fossils so that there is a solid framework for future family and genus articles.Shellnut (talk) 19:05, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Im working on Camyidae and Fordilloidea now and hope to have them up in a day or so. I like ot work through relate groups when possible, it allows me to see connections in the taxa on occasion.--Kevmin § 19:20, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

If it looks like it might be helpful, we can now or at some point in the future create an overview article called Fossil bivalve taxonomy or something similar to explain all this. Invertzoo (talk) 21:28, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Fordilloidea and Camya Created rounding out the taxa in order Fordillida (redirected to Fordilloidea). --Kevmin § 21:18, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I just finished writing up Tuarangia leaving only Euprotobranchia needing an article.--Kevmin § 21:43, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I just expanded Praenuculidae from a stub and bumped it to "start", but wouldnt mind a second opinion.--Kevmin § 07:42, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

A couple of questions

When writing an article on a species of bivalve, it is satisfying to be able to make it as complete as possible. It is usually easy to find out the characteristics of the shell and the distribution, but more difficult to find out about its life cycle, feeding habits and ecology. In my recent article, Annachlamys flabellata, I have filled in some of the gaps by using information from books (sources 5 & 6 in the article), information that is about the family Pectinidae in general and not about this particular genus and species. Is this permissible?

Well that's a bit tricky. If it is stated by reliable sources that ALL pectinids and EVERY pectin have certain features, then I suppose you can include those facts, but you might want to say, "As this is the case in other pectinids, this species is also assumed to..." but really I suppose you can't even say that unless a reliable source has already made that point. There are after all, some pectinids that have very anomalous features, ones that are cemented as adults for example, and are not free-swimming.

Again, in my article, Adamussium, I have included information in the description section about a fringe of tentacles round the edge of the mantle. This information came from images of the scallop like this one (unfortunately I could not find a free image to use in the article). Am I permitted to use an image as a source in this way? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:49, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

This is something that I have done once or twice in the past, and back then I kind of assumed it was probably OK to do this, but I don't really know what our policy is on that kind of thing. I can't tell if that is too trivial to count as Original Research or not.

I wanted to say that with the majority of marine invertebrate species (those that have no economic importance or other human relevance) in most cases very little or nothing is really known with certainty about their life cycle, feeding habits, and ecology. This is because those things have just not been researched and studied. With shelled mollusks, the shell characteristics and some idea of the distribution are fairly easy to determine by just looking at the shells and labels in museum research collections, and in many cases that information is really all that is known for sure, so when that is the case we have to accept that and be content with an article that has very little in-depth information in it. Thanks for all your excellent work Cwmhiraeth. Invertzoo (talk) 13:50, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. It sounds as if I had better stick to the written word from reliable sources and just regret that the articles are unable to be as complete as I would have liked because of lack of available information. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:54, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

We all feel you pain Cwmhiraeth! I suffer from the same problem of being unable to get references for things I intuitively know from experience or from having "seen it somewhere". Since this IS an encyclopedia and people will cite it and rely on it we have to be diligent about ensuring that we have solid sources and references. Your work is fantastic!!! I really like how you write, it is detailed yet understandable to the average reader. Keep it up.Shellnut (talk) 20:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

In many cases there is very little published about a species in the literature, so sometimes there is not a lot you can say about the actual live animal, even if you do have access to all possible scientific sources. This makes it great for someone who wants to do research and publish papers, but not so great for someone who is writing an encyclopedia. I always say: "So many mollusks, so few malacologists!" Actually the malacologist Dr. José Leal, when I saw him in December, said he used to have a bumper sticker that said, "So many species, so little time!" The world really does need more malacologists. Best wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 02:23, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

To add to that, even if you have observed the mollusk doing a particular act (eating another mollusk, eating saccate algae, or performing a certain behaviour) the phrase "personal observation" is fine for a journal article in peer reviewed literature, but not in an encyclopedia. We can cite to a journal article where the author says "personal observation" or even "personal communication" with another scientist, but nevertheless in an encyclopedia we have to cite to a reliable published source. Frustrating at times, but that is what writing and publishing papers is for!Shellnut (talk) 04:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Help with some bivalve IDs?

I thought maybe it would be a good idea to re-post this message here (it was previously on the gastropod project talk page) in case someone can perhaps shed more light on the IDs for these bivalves. They are from a fish market in Hainan, south China. These are User:Shellnut's tentative identifications tweaked by User:Invertzoo. Does anyone have any more ideas or confirmations? Invertzoo (talk) 21:30, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I have ordered the Compendium of Bivalvas Huber (2010), and may have a solid answer soon. Shellnut (talk) 02:46, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Original question: "I took these at the market. Are they well-known? Pls give me the species name so that I can add it to the image description. Many thanks. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 02:31, 29 December 2011 (UTC)"

• 
  Bivalvia, family Veneridae, possibly ?Lioconcha lorenziana?
• 
  Bivalvia, family Veneridae, possibly ?Periglypta clathrata?
• 
  Bivalvia, family Veneridae, Meretrix lyrata definitely! Cool! We got one!
• 
  Bivalvia, family Psammobiidae, possibly ?Solecurtus consimilis? Invertzoo says: this is definitely a Solecurtus, perhaps it is actually Solecurtus divaricatus see here
• 
  Bivalvia, family Veneridae, possibly ?Gafarium divaricatum?

Hi Anna & Invertzoo! I have FINALLY identified clam No. 3 above as Meretrix lyrata, and it is a definite ID. Shellnut (talk) 04:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello David ! Thank you so much. I feel like I've put you through all sorts of work. I really didn't mean to. I have learned that it's really a lot of trouble to ID species, especially small ones. Elephants...that's a sinch. I took all of these stupid vegetable photos too, thinking plant people would know what they were. Same problem. Oh well. Lesson learned. I thank you ever so much for your efforts. (Actually, something tells me that I shouldn't feel too bad because you are so passionate about shells.) I'm very grateful. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 11:42, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Huber 2010 book, Compendium of Bivalves

Hello team! I finally received my newest library edition, Compendium of Bivalves (2010) by Prof. Huber. With over 3,300 bivalve species illustrated one would think it is the "cat's meow" but it clearly leaves a lot out. For example, the image No. 3 above is still not identifiable. I found a website, "Shells from China" http://www.shellsfromchina.com/index.asp which is a dealer site. Lots of Veneridae images (49 pages worth) but nohting close except Protothaca pectorina (Lamarck, 1818), which is not from the correct geographical area. I heard that there is a book on "Shells of China" published in 2004. Anyone else hear about a geographic book?

I will compare Huber's taxonomy with that of Bieler, et al., but it looks quite similar at first glance. Shellnut (talk) 01:22, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting website for troll for potential new members

Hi Invertzoo! While researching for species in a particular genus on line I came across a website devoted to Bivalves, here is the link: http://ebivalvia.lifedesks.org/ They have members who contribute to their site, and MAY be interested in similarly contributing to Wikipedia via WikiProject Bivalves. This could be a place to troll for new members. Shellnut (talk) 04:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Three more for assesment

I created articles for the Praenuculidae subfamily Concavodontinae and two of its genera, Concavodonta and Hemiconcavodonta. class and importance assessments for the three are needed. Thanks!--Kevmin § 09:38, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

 Done Hi Kevmin! I did the ratings for you. What I have seen as a general overview is that above family articles are rated "high", family articles rate "mid", and below that they are generally rated "low". Exceptions are if an article is on a topic of greater taxonomic importance or social interest, then they rate higher on the "importance" scale. Invertzoo has a lot more experience with this issue. Shellnut (talk) 00:23, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

The way we do it on Project Gastropods is that the higher taxonomic ranks (above superfamily) are given "top" importance, families are rated "high" importance, genera are "mid" importance, and species are "low" importance. Articles about taxa that have great human relevance for economic reasons, medical reasons, etc, can be adjusted to show a higher rating. Invertzoo (talk) 17:50, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Questions from an editor

Hello folks. I noticed a new article on a fossil bivalve species and invited the author, User:Dwergenpaartje, who has only been working on Wikipedia for a few months, to join our project. He had some comments that I thought everyone should see, so I am copying most of his message onto this page: (Invertzoo (talk) 21:47, 7 February 2012 (UTC)) ............................................

I have a question on your invitation to join the bivalve project: what will it establish other than my name on a list? Why would I want to join?

I also have two issues with edits made on the Dacryomya lacryma article.

The first is the redirect from species to genus. My impression is that the information is solely based on the initial species (there are no new references). No additional data have been included for the other species mentioned. There is no guarantee the general description fully applies to these other species (I'm thinking particularly the size), in other words, we run the risk that the information is now incorrect. To give an example of extant species: if you redirect the article on the Grevy Zebra to the genus Equus, without considering the common traits of the genus, you end up stating that horses have black and white striping! Also, the information on distribution and occurrence is solely based on the one species and very likely not applicable to one or more of the other three species listed. I do not have specimens of the other species, nor do I have any literature containing a description, not even of D. lacryma (which is not to my liking and almost made me decide not to create the article in the first place). I have a degree in biology, so I'm not a total dummy on these topics.

The second is that I think there was merit in having the gallery. It certainly helps to get a 3-D impression. It was removed very early on, but this was perhaps not a splendid idea.

I'm certainly not entering into an editing fight, so I'd rather have the project participants have a discussion on these two issues, and than decide how I can make further contributions. Dwergenpaartje(talk) 19:57, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Hello again Dwergenpaartje. I answered your first question a little bit on your talk page. As for the gallery, I could not determine from the edit history summaries why exactly it was removed. I agree it is useful in terms of understanding the 3D shape of the shell of this species, so I trimmed it and added it back in again. As for changing the species article to a genus article, that apparently is the way things are done in the Paleontology Project. We don't do that in Project Gastropods, and I do understand why you feel your article would have been better left as a species article. Your reasoning makes sense to me. But I think Kevmin tried to answer this general question on your talk page today. I suppose the people in Project Paleontology must have had extensive discussions before they decided to do it this way. You can embed the info about one species within a genus article I would think, as a sort of subsection maybe? Good wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 22:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Generally galleries are not to be used in articles unless there is something in them that can't be covered in the prose, see Wikipedia:Galleries#Image_galleries.

In regards to the species to genus moves, this is per the wikiproject paleontology guidelines that have been developed since that project formed. Yes the goal of WP:TOL is to have an article for every living species and thus we have Equus (genus) and Equus grevyi as separate articles. The amount of information out there on extinct species is most of the time, much much less then tat for extant species, so trying to compare the two situations is not viable. True WP:Gastopods does not follow the genus only guideline, but I will note I dont think any of the WP:G members have done much if any work on extinct gastropod genera or families, so the situation has not arisen yet. The reason for not creating species level articles for fossil taxa is that (outside certain Neogene taxa) the details on which species are erected are often small and do not take much prose to cover. This results in the species articles becoming close to identical copies of each other and the genus article that is the parent. By writing a genus article and including the species as subsections in it a single solid article is created and multiple redundant articles avoided. Take a look at how multiple species have been handled in these two articles Lambeosaurus and Palaeovespa.--Kevmin § 03:39, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Buttons from Freshwater Mussels

Does anyone have any old buttons made from freshwater mussels in the Unionoida? I think it would be really neat to have a photo of these buttons since they were the product of a huge industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that nearly drove these bivalves to extinction in North America. Shellnut (talk) 02:23, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I have lots and lots of old pearl buttons, but I think probably almost all of them are made from shells of the saltwater tropical gastropods Tectus niloticus or Turbo marmoratus. I don't know how to tell which ones are made from Unionoida shells. Presumably they might have to be really old, like early 19th or late 18th century? Do you know how I could tell which pearl buttons are made from what? Invertzoo (talk) 20:56, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

From what I have read and seen buttons made from Unionoida are more of a white pearlesent color than other shell buttons. Trochus and Turbo shell buttons often have a little red, pink or green spots. Shellnut (talk) 00:20, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

This page claims to show some of the right kinds of buttons. I will see if I can dig some out of my collection. Invertzoo (talk) 02:04, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Awesome Invertzoo! Thank you!! That would really flesh out the article a lot, and maybe with a proper section it could make it a DYK article - i.e. Did you know that Unionoida freshwater mussel shells were used to make buttons? Shellnut (talk) 04:04, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I am currently slowly getting over a nasty viral pneumonia so I am pretty sick still and can't do too much. If I forget, remind me about this in a week or so. By the way, DYKs can only be submitted for articles that are brand new or have just been expanded to 5 times their previous length. Best, Invertzoo (talk) 00:43, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I hope you feel better soon! By the way, the Unionoida article was a super short stub, and any substantial discussion of the button industry nearly driving those species to extinction together with images will undoubtedly increase its length 5 times or more. Orange juice and lots of rest are a must. Shellnut (talk) 03:30, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Did you know that in 1899 the harvest of Unionid freshwater mussels for the pearl button industry numbered in the tens of millions of pounds per year? Check out the Unionoida article. Shellnut (talk) 15:45, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:54, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Bivalvia article - red lines, need for consensus

In his 2010 treatise, Compendium of Bivalves, Marcus Huber uses superfamilies (ending in "oidea") whereas Rüdiger Bieler, Joseph G. Carter and Eugene V. Coan (2010) uses orders (often ending in "oida"). The Bivalvia article follows the latest taxonomy published by Rüdiger Bieler, Joseph G. Carter and Eugene V. Coan (2010) for the layout of the class, which is how WoRMS has it arranged. The problem is that we also cite to Huber's work under the taxonomy section, and he uses superfamilies which are almost all red-lined right now. Group Query Number One: Do we want to put in redirects (for now at least) for the superfamilies to go to the orders? Group Query Number Two: What do we want to do about families that are decidedly missing from the list in WoRMS and in Rüdiger Bieler, Joseph G. Carter and Eugene V. Coan (2010), such as the other lesser known families under the Unionoida? I know that this has come up before with fossil genera, so having a consensus how to proceed would be a good idea. Thoughts? Shellnut (talk) 22:07, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

In regards to question one, Carter et al (2011) also uses the general structuring of Bieler et al and WoRMS though with some additional ranks such as infraorders and cohorts. I would go with the more commonly used structuring. In regards to the redirects, it depends on if the Superfamilies are monotypic or not. If they are, we should be redirecting the orders to the Superfamilies, in line with the ToL guidelines on redirects of monotypic groups. If they are not monotypic, then articles should eventually be created for them.--Kevmin § 22:36, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

In regards to the missing families, are they modern or fossil families? The missing fossil families I have mentioned before are normal practice for many taxa lists compiled by authors who only work with modern taxa groups. If they are modern, that would indicate to me that they may not be accepted, and should be handled on a case by case basis as to whether they are well enough known to warrant a short stand alone article or if they should just be a redirect to the accepted family to which the genera in them belong.--Kevmin § 22:36, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Part of the problem I have identified with WoRMS is that it is aimed strictly at "marine" fauna, hence the "M" in the name. The Unionoida are freshwater bivalves. We have freshwater mollusks in both this Project and in WikiProject Gastropods, hence my dilemna. I may be discussing a solution in a circular way, but I think that maybe we need another #1 source when dealing with freshwater or land mollusks. Shellnut (talk) 20:48, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Is there reason not to use the structuring that is found in both Carter et al (2011) and Bieler et al as they are the structuring that is used in WoRMS. True WoRMS does not cover freshwater taxa, but is that reason enough not to follow the Carter and Bieler papers?--Kevmin § 21:07, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I think we are saying the same thing, and the structure does not change we just add links into it. I am saying that I think that we should continue use the structuring that is found in Carter et al and Bieler et al, but there are a few extra families of freshwater mussels (4 of them) which we already have stub articles for and which are listed in Huber (2010), albeit briefly, showing that they are in the Unionoida and citing authorities. Shellnut (talk) 21:40, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Are the families not covered in Bieler or Carter? If so what ones are they? I have found all the families linked on the Unionoida page in Bieler.--Kevmin § 21:58, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Glad to hear that! I had not looked at Bieler in a while. Nice to see the fossil families added too. I am assuming that the fossil superfamily and family with a "T" is distinctly different from Trigoniidae, right? Shellnut (talk) 01:10, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Yep, it was erected by Cox in 1952 for the genus Trigonioides.--Kevmin §

Hi Kevmin! I fixed Iridinidae throughout the taxonomy from Bivalvia on down to the family. Do you want to add the fossil taxa higher up the chain? Shellnut (talk) 07:07, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Notes From Kevmin

I was asked by Invertzoo to post some clarifications on the WP:Paleontology guidelines that I use when making decisions in regards to Bivalve article creation and maintaining:

Species articles The thought process behind the consolidation of species descriptions into genus articles is that for fossil species not much information is known about them, and when looking at the literature the definitions tend to change/be rather fluid. The general guidelines at WP:paleontology when deciding whether to create a species level article is to look at how much of the article would be duplication of prose found in a sister species article/parent genus article. If the only major changes in prose are going to be minor points of identification (eg overall size, hinge tooth structure, type locality) then creating a single comprehensive genus article is recommended, with the species being covered as subsections in the genus article. See Lambeosaurus and Palaeovespa for examples. On the occasion where the species sections may be overwhelming the rest of a genus article then they may be split out into a "Species of xxx" article (eg Psittacosaurus and Species of Psittacosaurus). These guidelines cover almost all fossil taxa excepting ones that are from about the last ice age to modern times many of which are more well known and defined then older taxa. Also it is not meant to cover extinct species which are placed into living genera, such as Equisetum thermale, where the other discussed species have stand alone articles.--Kevmin § 22:52, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Daggers The use of daggers is generally restricted to taxoboxes and taxa lists in articles. When an extinct taxon is mentioned in running prose of a living taxons article it is normally noted to be extinct, thus removing the need to mark it with a dagger. Similarly in an article on an extinct taxon, the status of the taxon as extinct should usually noted in the first or second line of the introductory prose. Daggers are used in the body of an article generally only in taxon lists. Thus a List of Acer species will have a notation at the top explaining the presence of the †, while the species themselves are formated thus:
†''[[Acer stonebergae]]'' <small>[[Jack A. Wolfe|Wolfe]] & [[Toshimasa Tanai|Tanai]]</small> ([[Early Eocene]], [[Washington (U.S. state)|Washington State]] & [[British Columbia]])<ref name="Wolfe1987"/>
which gives this
†Acer stonebergae Wolfe & Tanai (Early Eocene, Washington State & British Columbia) The dagger is placed in front of the taxon name, while the area after the authority information (fo me at least) is used for age and formation/location information). The dagger is used in a taxobox to mark the extinct levels of the taxonomy from the extant ones, with the first instance of a dagger linked to the extinction article (eg {{extinction}} or [[extinct|†]]) If you use the automatic taxoboxes, the taxonomy template has a built in parameter for marking a taxon extinct. --Kevmin § 22:52, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Automatic taxoboxes The use of automatic taxoboxes is by no means a universally accepted practice. WP: Paleontology is the only project that has adopted use of them for all new articles created. Yes the explanatory documentation needs to be reworked a bit to make it intuitive for users. I think use at both the WP:Gastropods and WP: Bivalves could be beneficial as the higher taxonomies of both are, for the most part, in flux at this point. Creation of the taxonomy templates is not very difficult, and conversion of a taxobox to an automatic taxobox is also not complex. A lot of the work involved actually comes from the initial creation of the first few taxon template groups, after those are done, other lower level templates link in fairly quickly. I will be the first to admit that I don't know nearly every in and out of the automatic taxoboxes or the speciesboxes, but the users who maintain/work on them will help with problems. I think a lot of what is needed to clarify the documentation is more new eyes there working with us to clarify and streamline. This page Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Automatic taxobox has a good overview of how to create and covert taxoboxes.--Kevmin § 22:52, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Scientific vs. common name

This section is transcluded from Talk:Panopea generosa/Scientific vs. common name. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments. This section is included at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gastropods, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bivalves, and Talk:Panopea generosa; and can be edited from any of those pages

Is there any reason this article shouldn't be moved from Panopea generosa to the common name of Pacific geoduck, per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)? --Tom Hulse (talk) 20:33, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Tom! Just like you are a self proclaimed "plant nut" I am a "shell nut", hence the moniker. This article comes under the global umbrella of WikiProject Bivalves, which is patterned after WikiProject Gastropods. We are trying to use proper taxonomy throughout both projects, up to date per the World Register of Marine Species. Knowing that a lot of people use the common names for organisms we try to use redirects to get the common name search moved to the formal name article. Part of the problem we run into with marine fauna is that "common names" have not always garnered full acceptance, and sometimes there are multiple common names. With birds I know that there are generally accepted common names; maybe this is true in botany too. If you are interested, go to the main class article Bivalvia and scroll down through the taxonomy. For starters we are trying to clean up the major taxa through families, working down to species articles as we have time and interest. Shellnut (talk) 19:43, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Can I ask if you've taken this idea higher up, to WP:TOL or WP:FAUNA? The reason I ask is that WP:FAUNA has clear and binding conventions for all animals, including bivalves. You may not locally override them at your bivalve project, per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS; you would need to get the wider community's permission to change their guidline for all animals. So just becuase "some" common names of marine fauna may not have garnered wide acceptance doesn't mean we can apply that to other related articles. I don't think Pacific geoduck is in any way ambiguous, do you? --Tom Hulse (talk) 20:57, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi again Tom! You raise interesting points. I will copy this thread onto the talk page of both projects and see what the senior editors thoughts are. Thank you for raising this interesting issue. Shellnut (talk) 04:14, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Hello Tom. I think you will find that "geoduck" is the common name most often used for this species, rather than "Pacific geoduck". However there is a related clam that is sometimes known as the "Atlantic geoduck". I think "geoduck" for the Pacific species is arguably a really genuine common name, like "quahog", a species which we currently have under the article name "Hard clam", a name I myself have actually never heard used! But the great majority of mollusks (gastropods and bivalves) really only have a scientific name. You can find so-called common names for all kinds of species in various field guides and other publications (and very often these so-called common names are different from one publication to the next), but just because names exist doesn't mean that anybody actually uses them. If we try to enforce the guideline you are talking about it will be quite chaotic trying to decide whether a name actually really counts as a common name or not. However if you want to move Panopea generosa to Geoduck, please go ahead, and if you want to move Hard clam to Quahog, please go ahead with that move too. Thanks for your interest in our projects, we appreciate it. I should perhaps explain that WikiProject Bivalves is brand new, having been started this January, so no doubt we will find all kinds of weird things that need fixing as we gradually go through the bivalve articles. The gastropod project never really bothered much with the bivalve articles as it had so many of its own to deal with. Best wishes to you, Invertzoo (talk) 22:15, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

After looking closer at the references, I agree 100% that just "geoduck" equates best to this species, rather than the genus. I grew up here in the PNW, where Panopea generosa is native. Even the kids here know what a geoduck is, but no one but a few scientist will even recognize Panopea generosa.

One note regarding common names, you might also interpret a scientific name to be a common name. So whatever the most easily recognized name is, in the areas which it occurs, for your species of clam, whether it's Hard clam, quahog, or Mercenaria mercenaria, then that might be the name you could use (not spelled out in the policy, but you might use it in cases where a "common" name is grossly obscure). Your complete guide to article naming for animals is at WP:FAUNA. --Tom Hulse (talk) 23:01, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

My first attempt at transcluding a talk section onto multiple pages; please tell me if I got any of if wrong. --Tom Hulse (talk) 11:49, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Tom, I "moved" the Geoduck article to Geoduck. From now on if you come across anything like this (and you have already checked and are certain you are right about the common name being much more recognizable than the scientific name) please Be Bold and just go ahead and change it yourself, no problem. You can always just leave a note on the talk page explaining why you changed the article name. Invertzoo (talk) 12:50, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Cuisine/seafood industry-related articles

Hello bivalve enthusiasts. Do people feel that we should include bivalve-based food dishes in our project? I see there is a new article oyster omelette. And then there is also a stub for Moules-frites, articles for Conpoy, Clam chowder, and so on. I would probably say yes to include them. Invertzoo (talk) 14:38, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

And what about articles such as Scallop aquaculture? I would tend to include those also. Invertzoo (talk) 14:48, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I would certainly include scallop aquaculture in the project but I'm not so sure about articles on foods, though they could be linked from the appropriate bivalve page. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:06, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Those are both very good ideas! I think we should what you have suggested on both counts. Thanks Cwmhiraeth! Invertzoo (talk) 12:35, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Stub Sorting

Currently, I have been sorting through Mollusk stubs and I have noticed quite a few articles within this category belonging to Bivalvia class. Since this Wikiproject has recently began and is really starting to "take-off," I thought I would suggest and comment on some things. Before I list any suggestions I would like to say this is not any sort of critique, I actually would like to applaud you all on your contributions thus far!

First, it would be very beneficial for members of this project to frequently check the stub category Mollusk stubs. Not only does this make stub sorting easier, but it ensures that all articles within the Bivalve stubs category are all in one place. This is especially beneficial to your project page, as members can refer to the category page to improve those articles.

Second, you should definitely take a look at the pages within Bivalve stubs and reassess them. I've noticed articles in the category that have pictures, a good amount of information, as well as many source citations - many of these articles would qualify as start class! Give yourselves a little more credit! :) cReep talk 06:51, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Hello cReep, and thanks for your very helpful note! Yes, this project is very new and as a result there is a lot of catching up/revising that we have not yet done, and your suggestions are excellent ones. As a result of your note, I already started to go through the mollusk stubs. Anyone who is willing to do some of the kinds of checking and refining that cReep suggested, please go ahead! Thanks again, Invertzoo (talk) 14:04, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I have created the following stub templates to help with the stub sorting:

Template:Scaphopod-stub

Template:Solenogaster-stub

These are in addition to the following existing templates:

Template:Bivalve-stub

Template:Cephalopod-stub

Template:Chiton-stub

Template:Gastropod-stub

— Ganeshk (talk) 02:43, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Wow, thanks Ganesh! That's a great help! Invertzoo (talk) 11:36, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Bivalvia

Would anybody object to my rearranging the sections of Bivalvia. I would put the sections on Anatomy and Behaviour before the taxonomic information. I would like to work towards raising the article to GA status in due course. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:11, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea and a noble goal. Have at it! Invertzoo (talk) 14:05, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Shellnut (talk) 03:05, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Request on quality and importance ratings

Can I request this: please, all our members, when you look at any bivalve article, would you also check the talk page and see what ratings the article has there? (Almost all the project templates were put in by a bot, and therefore the majority of articles were called "stub", whether they deserved it or not, because a bot can't assess quality.) If an article has at least one section expanded, please would you give it a "start" or higher rating, and also remove the "stub tag" on the article page. Thanks for your help with this; I have done a few dozen already, but we have a thousand articles that need checking. Thanks, your assistance with this will be much appreciated, Invertzoo (talk) 13:41, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Basically all the importance ratings are done on the basis of species = low, genus = mid, high levels = high. top levels = top. However if anyone finds an article about a species that is of great importance either as a food source, a pest, or because of its medical importance, they are welcome to upgrade the importance. Invertzoo (talk) 14:52, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Nuculanoida etc?

Hello folks, I was fixing up this article a bit, because I am routinely looking at some stubs. I am not really familiar with the current and previous taxonomies, so can someone explain to me why we have articles on the order Nuculanoida as well as the order Nuculoida? Is the first one an error, or does it represent an older taxonomic term or a taxonomic term that paleontologists use? We also have a stub article which purports to be on the superfamily "Nuculoidea" although WoRMS has this taxon listed as a genus! The articles on families Nuculidae and Nuculanidae are probably OK? This whole group of articles needs some careful revision by someone who understands these groups and who can make the lists of taxa within the articles clearer and more self-evident. Invertzoo (talk) 13:28, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Taphonomy-related article

A question for our paleontologists. We have a stub article that was entitled Pisidiidae and which I recently moved to Pisidiinae. It had no taxobox however. I fixed it up a little bit before trying to decide what to do with it. We already have an article entitled Sphaeriidae, which is the current accepted name for this family of tiny freshwater clams, the fingernail clams and pea clams. Sometimes the family is still referred to as Pisidiidae, and occasionally the pea clams by themselves are grouped into a subfamily Pisidiinae, within the Spaeriidae.

In any case, the article Pisidiidae is currently only about one example of how the shells of these tiny freshwater bivalves have affected the taphonomy of dinosaur shell fragments in one locality. I thought about trying to expand the article to be about Pisidiinae but I did not do that. Then I copied the info and integrated it within our article about Pisidium, thinking I could make the old title into a redirect, but now I realize that the Mesozoic species are probably not in the same genus.

Anyone else have a good idea for what we should do with this? Thanks, Invertzoo (talk) 12:22, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, this issue has been resolved now. It seems that it was OK for me to have placed this info in the Pisidium article as that genus is recognized from the Mesozoic. Pisidiidae and Pisidiinae are now both redirects. Invertzoo (talk) 13:25, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Lists of non-marine mollusks etc

Today I added all of the pre-existing lists of non-marine and marine mollusks by geographical area to our project. Many of these lists currently have very little data, and a lot of the non-marine lists have no freshwater bivalves at all on them at all yet... but I added them to our project anyway. I don't think we currently have in our project anyone who specializes in the non-marine bivalves, but hopefully we will in the future! Invertzoo (talk) 14:46, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Importance ratings

Now all the bivalve articles in our project are rated for importance. Invertzoo (talk) 14:49, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Three bivalves without articles

The San Matías Gulf article says,

The local fishing industry may be unsustainably harvesting purple clam (Amiantis purpurata), Tehuelche scallop (Aequipecten tehuelchus), mussel (Mytilus edulis platensis), and ribbed mussel (Aulacomya atra), as well as the Patagonian octopus (Octopus tehuelchus).

Here are three bivalves and an octopus, either without articles, or with incorrect links. Can some bivalve person please look into creating articles or correcting the links? --DThomsen8 (talk) 22:12, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Hello DThomsen, I should explain that this project only started up a few months ago and there are at least a couple thousand (living) bivalve species that do not have articles yet. But still, thanks for the heads up on this. I am about to go on a trip and am pretty busy, so can't take much on right now, however I changed the Mytilus edulis platensis link to Mytilus edulis since this subspecies is most likely not widely accepted. As for the Amiantis purpurata, a Venus clam, I am not really sure whether or not that species is indeed still placed in that genus, but the database we most commonly reply on, WoRMS, does not have an entry for it. The mussel, Aulacomya atra on the other hand has a rather good WoRMS page, so creating a stub article for it would not be hard. You could even have a go at it yourself if you like, and I could check it for you afterwards. As for the octopus species, you could ask at WikiProject Cephalopods to see if someone would like to check that. Invertzoo (talk) 23:06, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes I ask for something to be done, and I have little idea how to go about it, but I promptly get an answer by someone who knows a lot about the subject, knows what should be done, and even does some of it immediately. Less than an hour after I posted this request, you come along and bring a smile to my face, changing one bivalve Latin name, saying something about a second one, and even suggesting that I could create an article on a mussel myself. Maybe I could, it would be a challenge, but I do remember using clams and mussels as bait when salt water bay fishing with my father, many years ago. Let me sleep on that idea. I did post a request on the Cephalopods talk page. Thank you for your very prompt reply. Let me look around a bit. --DThomsen8 (talk) 00:51, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Hello Again DThomsen. Your very nice appreciative reply caused me to stop what I was doing and create a couple of very short little stubs, one for the genus Aulacomya and one for the species Aulacomya atra. It's not much, but it is a start anyway. Invertzoo (talk) 21:25, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Bivalvia

Since I posted in this thread a month ago, I have done quite a lot of work on our central article, Bivalvia, with a view to nominating it for Good Article status. This is not entirely altruistic as if it passes, it will earn me some good points in the WikiCup (;- . Does anyone have any comments or any ideas on any further improvements that need to be made before I submit it? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:48, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I went through the article today. It seems pretty good to me. I tweaked the prose here and there a bit for more clarity. If there is anything I can do to help during the GA review process let me know. I am on vacation currently but I can still do a little bit of work here and there. Good luck with the GA review and thanks for doing this! Invertzoo (talk) 11:10, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Excellent work, our second GA!

Everyone should take the time to take a fresh look at the Bivalve article, which, thanks to a great deal of work by Cwmhiraeth, has now been elevated to GA status! Invertzoo (talk) 21:30, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

I wanted to add that Cwmhiraeth plans to try to take Bivalvia article up to FA status if possible, so any edits or additions or suggestions that might help with that process would be very welcome. Invertzoo (talk) 18:00, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Bivalvia is now in FA review, anyone who can help out with this, please do. Invertzoo (talk) 15:14, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

A good new source

See this source for info about things like endangered river mussels (for example, the golden orb.) Sorry I am not a native speaker, if I was I would've tried to expand the article myself. I figured the source may be helpful. Arcandam (talk) 05:04, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Our first FA!

Thanks to a lot of very painstaking work by User:Cwmhiraeth, the most important article in our project, Bivalvia, is now our first Featured Article! An inspiration to all of us! Invertzoo (talk) 23:58, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Lists of marine mollusks?

I have also posted this message on the talk page of Project Gastropods. I would very much like to get input from project members on the question of how best to organize marine mollusk faunal lists. Two or three years ago this question came up, and back then on Project Gastropods we seemed to have a consensus that it would be better to have lists of marine mollusks by faunal zone, for example the northeast Atlantic, the Mediterranean Sea, the Caribbean faunal zone and so on, rather than having a different article for every single country or every island, articles that would attempt to list all the marine species for that rather small area. I should point out that there are very few marine species that are endemic to one small area, which is not the case for the non-marine fauna, which is a whole different story.

To be fair, I should also point out that people have already started "List of marine mollusks of" articles for New Zealand, Venezuela, South Africa, Chile, Mozambique, Brazil, Australia and Angola. However, all of those lists are currently extremely incomplete, since all of those areas would in reality have a marine fauna of more than a thousand species.

Please think about this issue, and put your comments here or on the talk page for the Gastropod Project. Thanks, Invertzoo (talk) 00:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

A template for Bivalve anatomy?

A few days ago I made a navigational template for gastropod anatomy:

It would be nice to have a similar template for Bivalve anatomy articles, but I am not sure we have enough articles on that subject yet to make up a decent sized navigational template. Let me see, we have:

The shell: Bivalve shell, Lira (mollusc), Mollusc shell, Nacre, Periostracum, Sculpture (mollusc), Seashell, Valve (mollusc)

Other hard parts: Byssus, Sea silk, Pearl

Soft parts: Ctenidium (mollusc), Mantle (mollusc), Nephridium, Siphon,

Other: Pseudofeces, Glochidium

Of course it would also be great to have some new articles created on bivalve anatomy including Prodissoconch, Hinge (bivalve), etc, etc. Invertzoo (talk) 14:55, 17 September 2012 (UTC). Added to today, Invertzoo (talk) 23:20, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I think we need to define umbones and have a page on it for bivalves. Shellnut (talk) 07:11, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh yes, we definitely need an article for Umbo (bivalve)! Feel free to start one if you like. Invertzoo (talk) 13:25, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, maybe after work today. Shellnut (talk) 20:24, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Whenever you get around to it would be fine. Let me know and I will try to work on it too. There are a couple of images on the Bivalve shell page that might be useful. I did a quick Google search and there do seem to be a few reliable sources one could use, such as a glossary at manandmollusk.net etc. Invertzoo (talk) 23:49, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

A basic Umbo article has now been created with diagrams, shell image, and three references. Shellnut (talk) 05:02, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Great! Thanks so much Shellnut! Invertzoo (talk) 15:21, 26 October 2012 (UTC) I added the link on the Bivalve anatomy template. Invertzoo (talk) 15:24, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the polish work Invertzoo! I was tired when I put the basic article together and knew it needed a little work. Looks good. What do you think of my profile view of the umbos on the image? Shellnut (talk) 17:25, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I added a few more short articles tonight, pallial line, pallial sinus, and adductor muscles (bivalve)]], and cleaned up links and redirects which I found needed to be done. Other broken links (such as I found in bivalvia) undoubtedly exist. Invertzoo, could you add these definition links to the bivalve anatomy template? Shellnut (talk) 04:19, 13 November 2012 (UTC) I added resilium as well, so there are no more major red lines or broken links for bivalve anatomy. Shellnut (talk) 04:41, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

 Done I have "fleshed out" the template for Bivalve anatomy with a number of new articles and added them to the template: Prodissoconch, Hinge (bivalve) (a redirect), Hinge teeth, Hinge line, Umbo (bivalve), Pallial line, Pallial sinus, Adductor muscles (bivalve), Resilium, and Resilifer. I also did a short article on Abductin, the protein which makes bivalve ligaments "springy". I hope this helps! Now, back to uploading images to articles. Shellnut (talk) 00:24, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

OK, I went ahead and made one

Even though we do not have a huge number of relevant articles, I made a bivalve anatomy navigational template. Maybe it will help inspire people to add the various missing articles to what we already have. Tomorrow I will start adding it to the relevant articles. Invertzoo (talk) 22:10, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

It's up on all the relevant articles now. Invertzoo (talk) 20:40, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Umbo (bivalve)

We are glad to have this new article! Anyone who can add to it, or who is inspired to start another new article on bivalve anatomy, please do so. Thanks. Invertzoo (talk) 21:38, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

New articles on bivalve morphology could include hinge teeth (which are barely covered and have no diagrams) and hinge lines. Shellnut (talk) 05:24, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes and we very much need Prodissoconch, probably also Ligament (bivalve)... and so on. Invertzoo (talk) 19:53, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Invertzoo, I have finished hinge teeth, which led me to doing shorts on hinge line, and resilifer as well. I took macro photos of all bivalve hinge types represented in my modest bivalve collection. There are still one or two more hinge types to go, which are less common and I MAY not have shells to show how those hinges look. I also want to photograph close up a few umbones to show in that article. Shellnut (talk) 16:39, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi Shellnut. I did already notice the new article on hinge teeth thanks to the new article listings that I check virtually every day unless I am away on a trip. Wow, what can I say: great! I was so impressed that you made all of those images Shellnut, that is just exactly what the article needed. Many thanks, Invertzoo (talk) 00:26, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I just now added the new ones to the bivalve anatomy navigational template. Great to see it expanding. Invertzoo (talk) 00:28, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi Invertzoo! I am working on Prodissoconch and Ligament (bivalve) as well. Thank you, and nice rework on the hinge teeth article. Shellnut (talk) 00:51, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi again Invertzoo! As I can see you have found my two newest articles, Prodissoconch and Ligament (bivalve). I put a bit of work into research so we could have good references. Thank you again, and nice work on the clean up / revisions. I went in today to switch out the images on the ligament article and saw that you had already done EXACTLY what I had in mind, putting in the mussel image showing the ligament. Thanks a bunch!! Shellnut (talk) 00:20, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Cwmhiraeth wins the cup!

WikiProject Bivalves is honored to be able to say that among its active members is Cwmhiraeth, the winner of the the 2012 Wikipedia cup!!! Fantastic work! Cheers all round! Invertzoo (talk) 00:12, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Congratulations to Cwmhiraeth! Shellnut (talk) 00:48, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Happy New Year 2014

Dear members of the Bivalves project,

Our vision for Wikipedia is one of beauty, natural symmetry and light.

I wish you all a Happy New Year, everything good for your families, your loved ones and yourselves, peace and joy for all the people of the world. I also wish a joyful and peaceful expansion for Wikipedia; may our encyclopedia make information and education available, without charge, to everyone in the world.
All the very best from Invertzoo (talk) 18:57, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

2016 Community Wishlist Survey Proposal to Revive Popular Pages

Greetings WikiProject Bivalves/Archive 1 Members!

This is a one-time-only message to inform you about a technical proposal to revive your Popular Pages list in the 2016 Community Wishlist Survey that I think you may be interested in reviewing and perhaps even voting for:

• Fix and improve Mr.Z-bot's popular pages report

If the above proposal gets in the Top 10 based on the votes, there is a high likelihood of this bot being restored so your project will again see monthly updates of popular pages.

Further, there are over 260 proposals in all to review and vote for, across many aspects of wikis.

Thank you for your consideration. Please note that voting for proposals continues through December 12, 2016.

Best regards, Stevietheman — Delivered: 17:56, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Popular pages report

We – Community Tech – are happy to announce that the Popular pages bot is back up-and-running (after a one year hiatus)! You're receiving this message because your WikiProject or task force is signed up to receive the popular pages report. Every month, Community Tech bot will post at Wikipedia:WikiProject Bivalves/Archive 1/Popular pages with a list of the most-viewed pages over the previous month that are within the scope of WikiProject Bivalves.

We've made some enhancements to the original report. Here's what's new:

• The pageview data includes both desktop and mobile data.
• The report will include a link to the pageviews tool for each article, to dig deeper into any surprises or anomalies.
• The report will include the total pageviews for the entire project (including redirects).

We're grateful to Mr.Z-man for his original Mr.Z-bot, and we wish his bot a happy robot retirement. Just as before, we hope the popular pages reports will aid you in understanding the reach of WikiProject Bivalves, and what articles may be deserving of more attention. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at m:User talk:Community Tech bot.

Warm regards, the Community Tech Team 17:16, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Sandbox organiser

Sandbox Organiser A place to help you organise your work

Hi all

I've been working on a tool for the past few months that you may find useful, especially if you create new articles. Wikipedia:Sandbox organiser is a set of tools to help you better organise your draft articles and other pages in your userspace. It also includes areas to keep your to do lists, bookmarks, list of tools. You can customise your sandbox organiser to add new features and sections. Once created you can access it simply by clicking the sandbox link at the top of the page. You can create and then customise your own sandbox organiser just by clicking the button on the page. All ideas for improvements and other versions would be really appreciated.

Huge thanks to PrimeHunter and NavinoEvans for their work on the technical parts, without them it wouldn't have happened.

Hope its helpful

John Cummings (talk) 11:16, 6 February 2021 (UTC)