Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cephalopods/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Request

Could someone create an article on the Atlantic squid (Loligo pealei)? This species was an important model organism in neuroscience and was used by Andrew Huxley and Alan Hodgkin in their landmark studies on how axons work. Sayeth 16:25, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

Good idea, Sayeth. I'll add it to the page of requested articles for now. I'm assuming you mean the Longfin Inshore Squid (Loligo (Undetermined) pealeii) listed on the Loliginidae page. The Huxley and Hodgkin articles will need to be editted, as will action potential, if I'm correct. - UtherSRG 17:20, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Dubious statements in Octopus article

I've marked several statements in the main article on Octopus that appear to be false. I have included a discussion of these at Talk:Octopus#Disputed. I hope some people with more octopus expertise than I have will review these and correct them if necessary. Thanks, Dominus 17:48, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Architeuthis Taxonomy

I've just changed the Giant squid article to reflect what I believe to be the current consensus -- that there is likely only one species, or, at least, that there is insufficient evidence to support a taxonomy of eight different species, each of which is represented by a single specimen. What say ye? Ben-w 30 June 2005 23:50 (UTC).

Southern bobtail squid

heya. Can someone who knows more about biology check over what i've done at Southern bobtail squid (specifically the taxo box which i don't entirely understand). Also the book i was using as a reference says that the southern bobtail squid has yet to be given a scientific name, however CephBase says that it is Euprymna tasmanica which my book says is a southern dumpling squid. Btw, my reference book is called "A guide to squid cuttlefish and octopuses of australasia. The bellman 02:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Copyright?

Hello there! I'm Tony Morelli of TONMO.com. I notice that your Colossal Squid page leverages several photos/images of Mesonychoteuthis found on our Giant Squid and Colossal Squid Fact Sheet. When clicking on those photos, I notice the following claim: "This image is copyrighted. The copyright holder has irrevocably released all rights to it, allowing it to be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited in any way by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, with or without attribution of the author." My question: Have you received permission from Dr. Steve O'Shea and Kat Bolstad to use these images? I've pinged them to ask them directly, but thought I'd float the question here. Once getting that out of the way, I hope to check in here often, and perhaps we can contribute more going forward. Best regards -- tonmo Tonmo 20:38, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

G'day Tony. I have asked the person who uploaded the photos to provide evidence that all rights have been released. If the photos have been put up mistakenly then they will be quickly taken down. Thankyou for noticing and looking into the matter. As to your second point, i hope you do check back in, the cephalopod wikiproject is still very much in its infancy and needs as much help as it can get. Also, if you are a registered user of wikipedia (you can register in the top right hand corner) you can finish messages with four tildas (~~~~) which will magically create a signature with a link to your userpage followed by the time you made the edit, just like so -> The bellman 12:38, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, got it! I heard back from Dr. O'Shea; pretty sure the permission is NOT there. Appreciate your follow-up. Tonmo 20:39, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I commented out the pictures for the moment until XQ Fan (the uploader) responds. The bellman 23:53, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Octopodidae

The Octopodidae article has been listed as full length and needing its stub removed. In looking at the article, the scientific nature of it requires someone from this project to remove the stub (or not). Thanks! Stormbay 22:38, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

It is most certainly still a stub. - UtherSRG (talk) 02:35, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Wonderpus

Does anyone know if the Wonderpus is a different species to the mimic octopus? If you know anything about it please sort out the Mimic Octopus article. Kernow 17:54, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

to the best of my knowledge, the Wonderpus is A mimic octopus, of which there are several species. Octopus, though, is a genus in rather a messy state -- I believe they're on sp.20 at this stage, so lots of descriptive work needed. I'll get back to my references and see what I can find that's verifiable Seascapeza (talk) 06:16, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 23:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Wildlife Barnstar

There is currently a barnstar proposal at Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals/New Proposals#Wildlife Barnstar for a barnstar which would be available for use for this project. Please feel free to visit the page and make any comments you see fit. Badbilltucker 15:34, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Veterinary medicine project

There is now a proposed project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Veterinary Medicine to deal with matters of veterinary medicine, a subject which currently has disproportionately low content in wikipedia. Any wikipedia editors who have an interest in working on content related to the subject are encouraged to indicate as much there. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 22:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Names and titles: the bird rules are not applicaple

Please please please can we make sensible choices for titling articles. Some of the "official" common names are almost meaningless, and simply create confusion. For example, I discovered the article on Spirula spirula is called Ram's horn squid. I've written a book on cephalopods and at least two scientific papers on Spirula, and not once in ten years have I ever encountered anyone, professional or amateur, who uses this name. A quick Google test proves my point: Spirula = 123,000 hits, "Ram's Horn Squid" = 333. Of those 333, only 205 are not mirrors or copies of the Wikipedia article! The title for this article should be Spirula, as that's what scientists, shell collectors, amateur palaeontologists, etc. call it.

The problem with using the bird names is this: Birds are observed by vast numbers of amateurs, and between them common names have been agreed. By contrast, most cephalopods are only observed by those looking for them professionally. These people will be using their Latin names. In a very few cases there may be common names that have some currency, e.g., pearly nautilus or blue-ringed octopus. But otherwise fishermen, aquarists, biologists, palaeontologists, etc., will all be using their Latin names. The ICZN rules do not cover common names, hence the idea the Cephbase names are "official" is daft; all the common names used in Cephbase mean is that the authors of the database elected to use one particular name in their database field. Nothing more, nothing less.

Some particularly egregious examples used in Wikipedia include Böttger's Argonaut (only 5 hits on Google, 4 Wikipedia derivatives) and Veined squid (961 hits, versus 25,500 for its Latin name, L. forbesii). Fundamentally, by enforcing a stupid rule that is irrelevant to this group of animals, you actually make it *more* difficult for people to learn more about these animals that easier. The names given don't get used in the scientific literature or in popular science books, and they aren't used much on the Internet either.

Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 10:30, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 17:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

References

Hi folks, I admire your good work! I happen to occasionally come across some papers regarding cephalopod taxonomy/systematics. Not being a expert on the matter, usually I drop them into articles as annotations - either at the start of ther eferences section in articles that exist, or next to redlinks in parent pages if there is no article yet. You might want to check the history and/or source of articles for these annotations if you feel bored... the papers I get are usually about the more "weird and wonderful" taxa, and equipped with e.g. original descriptions, editors could also ask the authors whether they'd be willing to donate some photos. I like reading the occasional ceph stuff every now and then, but I feel not well-informed enough to actually do a write-up on what I read... except when there are obvious errors such as the double listing of 2 spp formerly in Grimpoteuthis (most of what I got in the last week seems to have been about Umbrella octopus taxa for whatever reason). Enjoy! Dysmorodrepanis 16:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:TOL template

I'm working on a proposal to subsume all the WP:TOL project banners into a single one. Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Template union proposal and its talk page. Circeus 19:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Category:Ammonite stubs/{{ammonite-stub}} - requested split for Category:Cephalopod stubs

Although this issue mostly belongs to WikiProject Stub sorting, it also has to do with WikiProject Cephalopods, so I'm mentioning this here. I've requested a category split for Category:Ammonites, which seem to be a significant part of both Paleontology stubs and Category:Cephalopod stubs. Please express your opinions about it at the main discussion. Od Mishehu 13:54, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Animals project proposal

I think it's both a pity and somewhat illogical that we have no animal WikiProject despite the fact that there are over 20 projects that are basically its daughters. There are also other projects that could emerge from it in the future, such as one on animal behavior. The project would provide a central place for people from all animal projects to talk, a central set of guidelines for articles on animals and zoology, and an assessment system for articles related to animals. If you are interested in creating such a project please visit Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of life#Animals project to discuss. Richard001 08:51, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

The following projects would come under the parentage of this project:

Project Created

The Animals WikiProject has been created. I've got much of the framework for the project page layout done, thanks to the folks at WP:PLANTS, but there is still much to do. If you would like to participate it would be much appreciated. J. Hall • ^(Talk) 07:28, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

How do molluscs breathe on land?

Although it describes how marine molluscs have gills, it would be useful if the mollusca article could contain a description of how land-based molluscs, or beached acquatic molluscs, breathe: [1] and [2] provide some explanations, but it would be useful to have an expert provide fuller detail for this article. -- The Anome 09:20, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed change to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)

There is a current proposal to change an animal-related naming convention, which directly effects the the Manual of Style guideline, and the naming conventions policy. If you are interested, your input would be appreciated. Justin ^chat 06:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Taxobox

Hello, a user in knoledge of cephalopod claasification is needed for entrys of user J.H.McDonnell. The article are very well writen scientific article, but maybe not for wikipedia. Anyway they need taxoboxes and maybe expanding. It is good work though. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 03:44, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Userbox

Why don't we have a userbox? Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 20:01, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Molluscs?

Posted to the animal, gastropod and cephalopod projects; please discuss at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Animals

I'm guessing some of you have noticed that there is no mollusc WikiProject, despite there being both a gastropod and cephalopod project (two classes of the phylum Mollusca). Should anything be done about this? They could perhaps be merged, made into work groups of a parent molluscs project, or a parent project created and the two left as subprojects? Molluscs are the second most abundant animal phyla in terms of known species and an active project on them would certainly be an asset to Wikipedia. Richard001 (talk) 11:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Who are Adam and Rees?

Hello! I am currently doing a disambiguation project: making sure that links to the disambiguation page Adam point to the appropriate page. I noticed that a few pages marked as being part of Wikiproject Cephalopods (Sepia cottoni, Sepia dubia and Sepia dollfusi) have an Adam link under their binomial name. Who or what is Adam? Is there an article about them on Wikipedia? If so, the link should point directly to that person; otherwise the link should probably be removed.

Similarly, one of this articles has a link to Rees which is also a disambiguation page. -- KathrynLybarger (talk) 01:01, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Kathryn. The "binomial authority" is the person who first published information on the named species. Unfortunately, the first name is not always available to the person creating the article. My recommendation would be to try searching for the following:

A Wikipedia article about someone with that name with a profession in invertebrate biology, marine biology, or cephalopod biology, or some related field.
Search online for a species paper about the named species using the scientific name (it should likely include the name of the authority, especially if you find the original).

Good luck! (By the way, this is a common problem with zoology articles, so feel free to fix as many of these links as you like!) Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 21:43, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

That would be William Adam (malacologist) and William James Rees. I've created short stubs for both of them and disambiguated all the links I could find. As Bob points out, this if often a problem in zoology as there are no standardised author abbreviations like there are in botany. Mgiganteus1 (talk) 22:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! With your help, Adam and Rees have now been completely disambiguated in the article name space! -- KathrynLybarger (talk) 02:12, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, know that these disambiguations is greatly appreciated, especially the fact that they are names! Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 02:24, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Redirects on "G. species" disambiguation pages

Please see this discussion so that we can come to a conclusion about redirects used on "G. species" disambiguation pages.

Thank you, Neelix (talk) 00:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Octosquid or Squidopus?

Which is truly preferable? If it should be squidopus, we must act NOW before octosquid becomes firmly established. -Very Input 03:01, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I vote for "Squidopus" - octosquid is pretty lame Hmoul 06:41, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I beg to differ. I find "squidopus" lame. "Octosquid" sounds better. Bob the Wikipedian, the Tree of Life WikiDragon (talk) 19:38, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Me too. squidopus sounds weird MEMalloy Thinktank (talk) 14:01, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Siphon (mollusc)

Hi cephalopod people. The siphon article started out as a cephalopod piece (hyponome). It has been expanded considerably recently (and was a DYK). If anyone wants to add to the cephalopod section of it please feel free, because that section is currently a bit minimal. Thanks. Invertzoo (talk) 22:22, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

delete Category Mollusc of country

Feel free to share your opinion of this problem at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 December 11#Molluscofcountry. --Snek01 (talk) 07:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Stubs

Link to paleo-mollusc-stub discussion: User talk:Abyssal#Stubs 2. --Snek01 (talk) 11:49, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Mollusk barnstar now available

Here is a new barnstar that you might wish to hand out as appropriate. Tim Ross (talk) 15:40, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

		The Malacology Barnstar
		Awarded to recognize great devotion in the creation and maintenance of high quality articles related to members of the phylum Mollusca. Thank you!

BOT notice

Hello,

I have created a bot that will be using a database of prehistoric genus information to fill in the tables on pages like List of prehistoric starfish#The list. Please see its bot request and comment there. Suggestions for improvements and/or people willing to spot check its work are welcome and appreciated.

Thank you, ThaddeusB (talk) 02:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Expert opinion needed

Background:' The following articles contain empty tables of prehistoric genus of varying types of creatures. A bot has been written by me that can fill them in using data from paleodb.org and Sepkoski. The task is currently stalled due to some concern about my own lack of expert knowledge on the subject.

Needed: I need someone eith "expert" knowledge (defined as a passion for the subject matter & the ability to easily spot blatant errors) to review the potential bot output of any one of the following articles of his or her choosing:

The articles:

Sample page: A sample page is available for viewing here. This is provided to give you an idea about what the output will look like, but shouldn't be viewed as a final product as it (currently) includes at least one error that will be corrected shortly.

What I want: Basically, I want someone to look over an entire table (of their choice) and say either "I don't see any obvious errors" or "there are a few errors such as X,Y,Z." I will then figure out the cause of the errors (if any), fix the code, and re-run to make sure the errors are gone.

Reward: Wikipedia gets a lot of valuable science content. I get this stalled project off my to-do list. You get a "warm fuzzy" for helping improve Wikipedia in a significant way, my gratitude, and a token of my appreciation.

Let me know if interest, ThaddeusB (talk) 03:31, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Malacologist

Hello, I have started list at Malacologist. Fell free to continuously expand. --Snek01 (talk) 21:46, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Reference broken

Reference 4 for the Robust Clubhook Squid leads nowhere. I tried to find the article on the site it does lead to with no success.
Untamed (talk) 17:45, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for the note. I've fixed the PDF link on both that page and the giant squid article. Cheers, mgiganteus1 (talk) 17:57, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Paul the Octopus

Hi fellow malacologists. Today this quite new, and rather silly, article had 9,000 views. I hope any cephalopod person who reads this will want to go and try to do what they can to keep this particular article scientifically reasonable. Currently the idea that an octopus would 1. be clairvoyant and 2. care about human soccer matches, is being put forward in the article. I have been trying to keep the word "predicted" in scare quotes wherever it occurs in this article. I was also the person who put in the Clever Hans mention in "Also see". Many thanks to anyone who wants to help defend the reputation of octopuses by keeping an eye on this piece and its more ludicrous claims. Best wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 01:01, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Automatic taxonomy generation

I note that your top outstanding goal is to harmonize the classification in cephalopod articles. This is made easier by a new template, still in its infancy, "Template:Automatic taxobox". In a discussion the idea of trialling the template on a smallish taxon to identify potential problems was mooted, and cephalopods seem an appropriate choice. I wonder whether members of this project might be willing to help detect problems with the template implementation? These would be welcomed at Template talk:Automatic taxobox. Many thanks, Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 23:53, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

New image for template & stub

File:Squid_transparent.png is the image I uploaded to replace the old cephalopod image we used on the wikiproject template and stub template. I think it looks much better transparent than the old one did. If anyone wants to revoke my edit, please post reasons here.--Architeuthidae (Talk | Contributions) 02:42, 11 November 2010 (UTC)