Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lepidoptera/Archive3

Mimicry in lepidopterans

I notice the project has placed a banner on the mimicry article, though mimicry applies to diverse taxa, not even limited to the vast animal kingdom. Perhaps an article on mimicry in lepidopterans would be a good idea. There have been whole books written on mimicry in butterflies alone, and the number of cases is enormous. There is no way any existing articles can hope to adequately treat this, so I think a mimicry by taxa approach is the best one. Richard001 (talk) 04:58, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Images

It might be an idea to include the 'req photo' field in the banner template and create a subcategory of requested insect photos, so the project can manage Lepidoptera specific image requests. Richard001 (talk) 08:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Please note if you use the reqphoto template please use the syntax {{reqphoto|insecta}} so that it is placed in Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of insecta, or as suggested create a sub-category under insecta.

Heath Fritillary life cycle images—request for help

The Hungarian Wikipedia page for this species [1] has images of caterpillar and pupa. Can someone who knows how to transfer images and copyright data please help me get these into English WikiCommons? Thanks—GRM (talk) 21:04, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

 Done some time ago — GRM (talk) 16:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

New 'species' page

I'm not sure if I've gone about this correctly but I was surprised that some of the Australian species appeared to have no pages dedicated to them. In other WP projects (such as bird) it seems OK to create a species-page and add media and text cumulatively. As I have quite a few reasonable butterfly images it seemed a shame not to be able to display them so I've created one (for Graphium eurypylus [2]) As I'm more-graphically inclined I would rather add images than text, so is this acceptable to the 'wider' community? Aviceda talk 03:44, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely - according to WP policy all species can have a page - by the principle of implicit notability. btw links within wikipedia can be created using [[ ]] tags rather than the single bracket used for ext links. Shyamal (talk) 03:54, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Oops - that was a misspelling for Graphium euryplus so I redirected the eurypylus page. Please re-add the pictures there. Shyamal (talk) 03:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out - it appears that the euryplus was actually the error page. I will move the page back in the other direction. Shyamal (talk) 04:07, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your assistance Shyamal, will leave editing until I get some free-time, hope the images are useful. Aviceda talk 19:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Top importance

I notice there is no 'top' importance category here. Is this intentional? I also notice the 'high' importance one is very full, e.g. Monarch Butterfly (a single species, albeit well known) is considered of the same importance as Lepidoptera itself. Surely this should be corrected by addition of a 'top' category for articles like Lepidoptera, butterfly, moth etc? Richard001 (talk) 03:13, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing it out. I dont know how we missed this! AshLin (talk) 04:55, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Moth genera lists

There seems to be a lot of moth genera lists within Category:Taxonomic lists (genera, alphabetic), there are 27 pages for each family (one for each letter of the alphabet and a start page). Surely each genus would be better organised into one family category with a sensible introduction and TOC? Why the need for all those pages and extra maintenance created when a category serves this purpose very well, and can be searched by letter.

Example:
For the family Arctiidae there is:
List of arctiid genera
List of arctiid genera: A
List of arctiid genera: B
List of arctiid genera: C etc
as well as the category Category:Arctiidae

Or has this already come up and discussed? Jack (talk) 17:46, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi. You have me to blame for these lists! I did think long and hard before I started to create them: I felt the category alone would not be sufficient because any genus article created would almost certainly be an orphan (ie not linked from any other actual page), which is slightly frowned upon in WP - also the category would only include existing pages - my personal opinion is that the sea of redlinks in these lists should act as a spur to page creation! I had planned to create a lot of lep genus pages but time constraints and my usual problem of getting seriously sidetracked has meant I have not created as many as I had hoped, although hopefully I will be doing this in the future.

If there is a consensus that these lists are superfluous then delete them by all means. I have not created any for a while (doing the whole of Noctuidae drained me somewhat!) and I will not create any more while this discussion is ongoing Richard Barlow (talk) 11:48, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi Richard, the way I see it: each family page should have a classification section (if the family contains subfamilies such as Arctiidae then create classification on the subfamily page) that way the genera will be linked to (incl. red links). This can be seen in the systematics section of Arctiinae (a subfamily of Arctiidae).

I do realise that there are a lot of genera within many moth families but I believe that the lists are excessive and are unlikely to spur page creation as it is a long way to go to find them. Redlinks on a family/subfamily page would more likely do the job. Does anyone else want to state their views/suggestions on this topic? Cheers, Jack (talk) 13:31, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Swedish Expedition to Burma and India

Hello everyone.I came across this very nice photo of a sphingid type [3]. No time to search the site but no doubt there will be much else from this intersting expedition.Robert aka Notafly (talk) 10:45, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Photographs

Hello folks!
I have a little stash of butterfly and moth pictures that I took while I was on vacation in Seattle last weekend. I don't know the slightest thing about what sorts of butterflies they are, but if you want to take a look at them and tell me which ones, if any, you can use, I will upload high-res versions of them to commons for ya. They can be found here, and are numbered so you can just tell me which numbers you want. Number 10 I cannot give you a high res version of because I'd like to put it in my next gallery show and having a high res version of it free on the internet would sort of defeat the purpose, methinks. But you can still have the 800x600 px version. I have a few more that I haven't processed yet and will upload later, so keep checking. Let me know-
L'Aquatique[talk] 21:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Identification Request

I took this photo of a butterfly this morning, and I need some help identifying it. I think it's either an Appalachian Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio appalachiensis), or an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus), but I can't tell which one. It seemed to me like an unusually large butterfly, and I was definitely in the Appalachian mountains at the time (village of Valle Crucis in Watauga County, NC, USA) so it could be an Appalachian, but I know the Easterns are much more common so I wanted to get some expert help on the ID before uploading the image. Thank you. - Ken Thomas (talk) 19:15, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, this line of inquiry didn't seem to be bearing a tremendous amount of fruit, so I went ahead and uploaded the image to Commons as an Appalachian Tiger Swallowtail, and added a note to the description explaining that I may have misidentified the species. - Ken Thomas (talk) 11:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[4] suggests you are correct, but I know little about North American butterflies. Shyamal (talk) 11:46, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Links to Rothschild

Hi there, maybe somebody is able to clear the links to Rothschild to the correct wikilink ? Among others on these butterfly articles :

• Caprimimodes
• Atrophaneura aristolochiae
• Atrophaneura dasarada
• Ornithoptera allotei

If there is no lemma for this person maybe to: Rothschild family.

Thx Sebastian scha. (talk) 17:35, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Most likely that all should go to Walter_Rothschild,_2nd_Baron_Rothschild. Shyamal (talk) 01:11, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I've changed the links to him. Thank you. Sebastian scha. (talk) 16:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Butterfly evolution needs help

Butterfly evolution needs help.--Wloveral (talk) 01:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Is it not rather badly titled? Perhaps good to merge the content to Lepidoptera or Butterfly. Shyamal (talk) 02:42, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Could you do the merge?--Wloveral (talk) 03:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Have redirected it to Butterfly and added whatever was new. The cladogram did not seem any different from what is already in Butterfly (except that it did not indicate the structure within the Hesperiidae) so dropped that. Shyamal (talk) 04:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Chrysiridia rhipheus

This is perhaps the first lepidopteran to be submitted at WP:FA. Could do with help from all of us here. Shyamal (talk) 10:19, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Problem with the template

There seems to be a problem with the Template:LepidopteraTalk, as it cannot be nested properly by the Template:WikiProjectBannerShell, for example I had to remove it from Talk:Vladimir Nabokov. Could you please get the help from an IT guy to fix it ? SyG (talk) 10:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Teamwork and promoting articles

Great to see the Project (I nearly said we, but thought better of it!) is looking towards its first FA. I wonder whether we couldn't take a leaf out of the WP:BIRD's book and look towards collaborative efforts to upgrade the status of some of our articles? There are 4 at "A" class, and 115 at "B" class, yet only the one GA... I rather suspect that some currently in "Start" or even "Stub" class are already worthy of a higher level. With a little effort, we could push the boundaries further still—GRM (talk) 16:56, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

ID Requests

Hey guys! If you could be so kind as to ID these butterflies, that would be super! Thanks! Qb | ^{your 2 cents} 00:50, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

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  1
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  2
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  3
• 
  4
• 
  5
• 
  6
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  7
• 
  8
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  9
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  10

Were they photographed in the wild? If so where? Aviceda talk 02:04, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Not so much... I took them at a butterfly house in Hershey, PA. Qb | ^{your 2 cents} 09:21, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I added some numbers so that I could help ID them and so that others can do the same.

1. Giant Swallowtail, (Papilio cresphontes)
2. Queen, (Danaus gilippus)
3. Julia Heliconian, (Dryas julia)
4. American Painted Lady, (Vanessa virginiensis)
6. Zebra Heliconian, (Heliconius charithonia)
8. Common Buckeye, (Junonia coenia)
10. Zebra Swallowtail, (Eurytides marcellus) --IvanTortuga (talk) 03:44, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Is No. 7 Atala?—GRM (talk) 19:39, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

GRM I think your right about it being a Eumaeus atala -- IvanTortuga (talk) 01:30, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

So would anyone mind it much if I just started adding some pics to some articles? I dont feel right mussing about in areas I dont know much about... but if you feel that one of the above is a more detailed example than the main infobox pic, go right ahead and switch it out. I'll just be adding to galleries. Qb | ^{your 2 cents} 11:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that if your picture is better go for it and like you said you can always add to galleries.--IvanTortuga (talk) 04:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

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Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 20:53, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Anaphe moloneyi

What is the correct scientific name for Anaphe moloneyi? How do I find this information about Lepidoptera on-line? --Blechnic (talk) 00:18, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

It is not listed under that name in LEPINDEX, although there are moloneyi's in Automeris (Saturniidae), Epanaphe (Notodontidae) and Amsacta and Epidesma (both Arctiidae)—GRM (talk) 11:17, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

• I'd guess the one I enboldened!—GRM (talk) 11:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The guess is definitely correct! See http://psyche.entclub.org/pdf/6/6-385.pdf In 1888 Mr. H. Druce described in the Proceedings of the Zoological society of London a new species of Anaphe from Gambia, which he names after its discoverer, A. Moloneyi. The new name is indicated in the Catalogue of Life database with the author here http://www.catalogueoflife.org/annual-checklist/show_species_details.php?record_id=1146292 Shyamal (talk) 13:57, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I cannot find the indicator that shows that A. moloneyi is now E. moloneyi. Can you baby me through this? The moth is an important silk moth of parts of western Africa. I would like to be certain of the name. --Blechnic (talk) 03:05, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Essentially a species is declared as new with a new name based on a published description : and we can see that this published description was by H. Druce in 1888. When someone reclassifies the species into a new genus, the author name is bracketed using "()" and so that is what has happened here. In this case there seems to be little doubt on the name change. I can also see here in a recent publication on silk moths http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/NAP/05-145.pdf that it is indeed treated under the genus Epanaphe. Shyamal (talk) 08:16, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Can you quote a page number, I just don't see this anywhere something showing that it was once one species and is now another. Maybe if you tell me only the specific publication where it shows the name changed and the page number in that publication? I'm used to this with plants in Taxon, so it's not totally unfamiliar. I know animals are handled differently, but I can't find the name change in anything you've shown me. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. Thanks. --Blechnic (talk) 02:07, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, just saw this post and found it unclosed. See LepIndex which is about the best index of synonymies. There is a card index (scanned!) over here Card and you can see Anaphe scrawled on it. You will see also that the description referred to is the same one as described on page 387 of Psyche (February 1893) http://psyche.entclub.org/pdf/6/6-385.pdf (here we see that Druce obtained specimens of the silk moth that he calls Anaphe Moloneyi after Captain Moloney and described in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London in 1888. (The card says 1887 but there are differences in Journal dates and their actual publishing dates) The specimen came from Gambia. Catalogue of Life 2008 suggests that Epanaphe is the accepted name. So unless someone did a molecular phylogeny of the group and found otherwise, this should be valid. Shyamal (talk) 13:58, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Category:Lepidoptera_food_plant_lists

I do not see the logic of separating the lists into "monophages" and "oligophages". These issues are far more important at the insect species level. When confronted with the plant, the lepidopterist simply wants to know "what can I expect to find here?" (at least that's what I want to know!). Monophages could be indicated (by a symbol or bold text) within the taxonomic list. Any thoughts?—GRM (talk) 14:59, 10 July 2008 (UTC) [[[User:Grmanners|GRM]] (talk) 15:00, 10 July 2008 (UTC)]

Taxonomic confusion

I just want to clarify that Wikipedia has actually got this right, simply because it doesn't seem right to me. According to LepIndix—and consequently, Wikipedia—the "fritillaries" occur in two rather divergent groups, namely:

• Tribe Melitaeini, Subfamily Nymphalinae
• Tribe Heliconiini, Subfamily Heliconiinae

Is the implication, therefore, that the fritillaries are "polyphyletic"? —GRM (talk) 19:49, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Fritillary is a common name and is therefore a part of folksonomy - the term polyphyletic and paraphyletic are afaik applicable only for formal taxonomic groups. Shyamal (talk) 07:37, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification—GRM (talk) 13:07, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Riodinidae

Greetings! There's a proposal for creation of a {{Riodinidae-stub}} template over at Stub sorting proposals. Would anyone with knowledge of this type of creature please weigh in? Thanks - Her Pegship (tis herself) 02:58, 14 July 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)

Noctuoidea mega-merge?

Should we do the merge as already announced on the Noctuoidea page? Source: Lafontaine, J.D. & Fibiger, M. (2006) Revised higher classification of the Noctuoidea (Lepidoptera). Canadian Entomologist, 138, 610–635. Because there is a nice source for Arctiidae (Arctiinae in the source) but this (sub)family is so complex that I sure won't work in the source as long as Wikipedia uses a different taxonomy. Maybe some hardcore moth fan will, but it's all too confusing to me (more complex than most beetles).

And of course, countless taxoboxes would need updating, which due to the sheer scope of things probably can't be managed except by bot. Which is not too hard though - simply replacing each and every "| familia = Arctiidae" with "| familia = Noctuidae | subfamilia = Arctiinae" should do the trick. Articles that already have a "| subfamilia = Arctiinae" however need to be flagged to a temporary category or so to be corrected by hand as they'll liable to have tribe data too. But these are not many.) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 00:20, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

My suggestion is to wait a bit since the merge will be easy compared with an eventual splitting of Arctiidae from the Noctuidae. I am still recovering from having the Ctenuchidae fall into the Arctiidae.--Wloveral (talk) 18:55, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, so when I get about to work this or some other ref into WP, I'll add a disclamatory note to the articles I edit to that effect (proposed merger and effect on taxonomy), add dabs etc if not already there. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 00:31, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Indian meal moth

Fellow Lepidopterists,

Three wikipedians have been discussing the appropriate name to use as the index title and main usage in the article of this particular beast. The two contenders are Indian Meal Moth and Indianmeal Moth. The non-arbiter has suggested we go with the name favoured by the literature, but isn't "expert" enough in the field to know which literature to search (and neither am I!). Can anyone provide any advice? Meanwhile, I shall run the scientific name through Google Scholar. Thanks—GRM (talk) 18:03, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Google Scholar searches:

• "Plodia interpunctella" – ca. 4,900
• "Plodia interpunctella" AND "Indianmeal moth" – ca. 612
• "Plodia interpunctella" AND "Indian meal moth" – ca. 1,650

Suggesting that spelling out the three words is preferred... I don't want to curtail the discussion here, however. So, please contribute—GRM (talk) 18:12, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Since there's a disagreement over the common name, I would just put the article under the scientific name. I've tried to do that before with other pages (stag beetle) and received so much whining and bickering that I've decided to stay out of fixing such problems, good luck. --Kugamazog (talk) 22:28, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Identification

Can someone confirm the identities of these Erebia from Oslo? Shyamal (talk) 08:23, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

• 
  No underside available (Sognsvann) Erebia ligea?
• 
  Upperside (Frognerseteren) Erebia embla?
• 
  Underside (Frognerseteren) Erebia embla?

Hallo, the Erebia ligea identification seems to be correct, but on the second and third photos seems to be Lasiommata maera (Large Wall), rather than Erebia embla! Kaarel (talk) 09:50, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, seems so after looking at the images listed under Pararge here http://www.nagypal.net/norge/maera.htm Shyamal (talk) 11:25, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Sphingidae stub image

Amphimoea walkeri

Hey guys, I noticed there's a new (newish?) Sphingidae stub but there doesn't seem to be an image associated with it. So, I took the liberty of making one. I used Amphimoea walkeri simply because it had that characteristic "Sphingid-shape". I don't know how to add the image into the stub, so I'll let you guys handle that part. If you want to use a different moth, I have plenty to choose from in my gallery (here) --Kugamazog (talk) 22:34, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

It is a nice image. I have added it to the template. It is simple, you need to edit Template:Sphingidae-stub. In the process I noticed we do not have a clean image for any of the templates other than for the Papilionidae and generic moth and butterfly ones. Perhaps we suggest good representatives for the other families such as Template:Nymphalidae-stub and clean up the backgrounds Shyamal (talk) 18:01, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Translating articles from other wiki's

Hello all, I'm no Lep expert, but I just like the little buggers and started translating missing articles on the English wiki from the Dutch wiki, which contains quite a lot of articles on Lep's. I noticed that both the German, French and Norwegian (and maybe others) also contain a lot of pages that are not present on the English wiki as of yet. Since I am not a native speaker of these languages I was wondering if I could motivate someone who is to join forces with me on translating missing articles. Cheers! Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Great idea. Sorry, I personally cannot help you but do hope that you carry on implementing this cross-wiki fertilisation. All the very best. AshLin (talk) 05:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Plagiarism

Someone seriously has to have a go at rewriting the life cycle section of Liphyra brassolis - putting it into quotes doesn't stop it being plagiarism! --Fir0002 10:06, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually the entire text is public domain from 1907 text and the source is cited. It does not qualify as plagiarism, but yes, it could be rewritten. Shyamal (talk) 11:37, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

New WikiProject proposal: Biota of the UK and Ireland

I've proposed a new WikiProject named WikiProject Biota of the UK and Ireland which would encompass all species and conservation efforts within Britain, an extremely interesting area. The project would include vegetation classification, Category:Lists of British animals, Category:Conservation in the United Kingdom, Category:Ecology of the British Isles, Category:Forests and woodlands of the United Kingdom, Category:Fauna of the British Isles and anything else to do with the flora and fauna of Britain. If anyone is interested just leave your name on the proposal page. Cheers, Jack (talk) 17:11, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Arctic butterflies

Anyone here able to have a look at Arctic Ringlet and Arctic White? Any other Arctic butterflies? If so, please add to Category:Wildlife of the Arctic. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 02:47, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I made one new one, see: Boloria chariclea.

Lots of new butterfly pics in need of identification

I stopped by the Audubon Insectarium yesterday. I spent about 20-30 minutes in the butterfly exhibit snapping pictures and videos. I got some really good ones, but all of them need to be identified. I should have a link for you guys tomorrow. Raul654 (talk) 05:36, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I've finished working them over. The ones I was able to identify are here. They need to be inserted into articles.

The ones I was unable to identify are here. Any help you guys can provide would be appreciated. Raul654 (talk) 22:57, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Anyone?... Raul654 (talk) 01:48, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

It can be difficult to ascertain the species when the area of origin is not known (as in insectaria). One useful approach is to upload to commons and put them under the family classifications or rough groupings as done in your birdwing case. They generally get correctly identified over time. Shyamal (talk) 05:32, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Michigan

Hey guys I just spent the night making this template. It helps categorize the butterflies of Michigan, US. If anyone makes a page that is on this "list" can you please add this template. It would be highly appreciated, Thank you. --IvanTortuga (talk) 07:40, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Resource for British and North American Caterpillars

Found these, thought someone might find them helpful: http://www.whatsthiscaterpillar.co.uk/ and http://www.whatsthiscaterpillar.co.uk/america/index.htm Ruigeroeland (talk) 10:30, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

New Moth Family

While working on translating moth articles from nl to en wikipedia, I stumbled upon a possible new family of moths that is not featured on the English wikipedia, but is on the dutch, french, lithuanian and hungarian wikipedia's. The family is "Chimabachidae" (see: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimabachidae). I don't know anything about taxonomy, so would someone be so kind as to check this out and maybe make the page and edit the template? The translation of the Dutch page would be something like: "The Chimabachidae are a family of moths. The species in this family were formerly part of the family Oecophoridae. The following species are found in Europe: - Dasystoma salicella (Hübner 1796) - Diurnea fagella (Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775) - Diurnea lipsiella (Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775) All these species can be found in The Netherlands and Belgium."Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:20, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

In general it is quite hard to find good taxonomic references on what used to be called the Microlepidoptera. A quick search suggests that the name exists but was unable to find any good paper on the highler level phylogenetic relations of the group. This one from 2002 in German may be useful - http://www.matramuzeum.hu/e107_plugins/docrep_menu/docrep.php?0.getdoc.170.8. Shyamal (talk) 14:53, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Caterpillar Identification

I found a Caterpillar crawling up the side of my house. (I live in the UK if that helps) [5] [6] , I know nothing about these, does anyone know what it is? Thanks. Steveoc 86 (talk) 13:21, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Scrap that, someone has identified it as Pieris brassicae. Steveoc 86 (talk) 12:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Leps of Michigan listing going a little too far??

The recent edits by IvanTortuga have been of such a nature that every lep species that has ever been encountered in Michigan, even rare tropical strays, is getting a template added to its article. This was never discussed, and while editors are encouraged to be bold, it is certainly VERY misleading to treat tropical species like the Black Witch and Eumorpha labruscae as if they were moths living in Michigan. Dyanega (talk) 00:07, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Whoops as I stated on Dyanega's talk page I just did a quick run through without checking. That is not expectable and I apologize to everyone for the inconvenience. I'm going to do a clean up and take those two off the list. If anyone else sees an issue please fix it or contact me. I'm trying to make a good template not a sloppy one. --IvanTortuga (talk) 00:22, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Colombian butterflies

Dear all, I visited Colombia earlier in the year and brought home a series of Lep images from a research farm near Cali. Is there anyone familiar with Colombian butterflies out there who'd be willing to glance over them and help with ID? Thanks—GRM (talk) 17:40, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Incisalia and Callophrys

I'm having some difficulty placing some species, notably the San Bruno elfin butterfly. They've been traditionally listed under family Callophrys, but Funet.fi([7]) puts them in Incisalia, and I've generally found funet.fi to be generally quite current with placement of butterfly species. Before I change the articles for two butterflies, I'd like to locate some authority besides funet.fi to qualify the change. Any help is appreciated :) Bastique ^demandez 01:35, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Lepidoptera

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We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:19, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• OK, folks. So, do we want some sort of forum to discuss specific "upgrades" for the chosen articles? I'm thinking it might be good to have a Lepidoptera-general repository here for ideas, as well as noting stuff on the relevant article Talk pages—GRM (talk) 15:57, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

• Potentially of greater interest is that four articles are within 40 points of achieving Wikipedia 0.7 status. I have no idea whether upgrading them now would be too late, or whether we could try to get them promoted... Anyone know?—GRM (talk) 16:09, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Qld Butterfly ID

Hi. I have a photo of a butterfly from Queensland, Australia, that I am trying to identify (specifically from Daintree NP). I've looked on Commons and via external searches for this particular species, but it is kinda drab-colored, and I cannot find anything close to what it resembles (it is definitely not a moth). Aside from uploading it to Commons, is there a gallery or an online dichotomous key resource that I can use? StevePrutz (talk) 03:10, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Steve, I'm no expert but would love a look, have you uploaded it to commons (...if so can you provide a link?) Aviceda talk 08:20, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Check out Image:Butterfly Daintree Queensland.JPG. Please give it a good category (or even rename it) on Commons if you can successfully ID it. StevePrutz (talk) 15:43, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a Common Crow Euploea core to me, very common in our garden near Brisbane at the moment. The pic on the WP article looks quite different but I'm fairly sure that's what it is. Aviceda talk 20:30, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I know little about Australian butterflies, but the upside down perching and structure suggests Hypolimnas bolina (see Image:Common_Eggfly02_-_melbourne_zoo.jpg) of the race found there. And yes it does mimic the Common Crow (and the pictures in that article are of the Indian race, would be nice to see how different the Aussie one looks) Shyamal (talk) 11:50, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

That looks more like it to me. StevePrutz (talk) 13:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

On checking [Butterflies of Australia] have to agree, will edit categories. Aviceda talk 18:07, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Getting Lep articles assessed

How do we go about seeking independent review of articles in this Wikiproject? It seems to me that the quality grading of British species is highly inconsistent. Thanks—GRM (talk) 20:47, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi GRM, the assessment drive was done earlier by volunteers who had dealt with articles alphabetwise. So, choose your subset, do a review of them collectively and reassign the gradings yourself. This process is within the normal working areas of the Wikiproject. However, once weak articles have been identified and developed, peer review for first class, GA, FA...may be initiated. So why not try this out before we approach someone else? AshLin (talk) 03:50, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, AshLin. Will see what I can do—GRM (talk) 17:46, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

On inspection, it seems that the archived policy refers to importance only and not quality. Perhaps a general plea on this page would result in some "independent" project member reviewing for quality...? GRM (talk) 17:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

yucca moth photos

I own several electron microscope photos of the yucca moth's eye, feet, wing and scales. Would be happy to contribute them, but need help to do so. Yucca moth (talk) 13:55, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Do add them to wikimedia commons http://commons.wikimedia.org - and post any problems. Shyamal (talk) 15:22, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Butterfly ID

No idea about butterflies and hope you can help me to ID. Image:Unknown butterfly 2.jpg Photographs were taken in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia. Bidgee (talk) 12:26, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

A search for Pieridae and New South Wales led me to Belenois java http://www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~don/larvae/pier/java.html - but could do with confirmation from those who know the region/species. Shyamal (talk) 15:02, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Subfamily, tribe stub types?

A couple of the family-level stub types are getting extremely large. If anyone here is knowledgeable about the taxonomy of the Arctiidae and the Lycaenidae, for starters, this would be a good time to start adding such information to the infoboxes. Or if the information exists in list form someplace, I could try to use that for re-splitting purposes. Alai (talk) 04:24, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Relatedly, does anyone fancying bashing out an article on the Syntominae subfamily? If push comes to shove I could do a ham-fisted translation of fr:Syntominae. But someone with more knowledge of the subject (and/or, better French) might be a better choice of author. Alai (talk) 16:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Seems like it is treated here as a tribe within the Ctenuchinae. Shyamal (talk) 15:12, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

Hello. I just wanted to say thank you to editors who work on adding details of moth and butterfly larvae that use particular plants as food plants. I was looking up Alnus, Platanus and Carpinus today and it's good to see this information. Reminds me of how many moths and butterflies there are and the interconnectedness of plants and animals. Thank you 78.146.121.9 (talk) 14:38, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Butterflies of Michigan

Template:Butterflies of Michigan has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Colchicum (talk) 01:50, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Free to use Pictures

Hello all, just a tip. User Dhobern (on flickr) has a lot of pictures of moths and butterflies which are free to use (and upload to Commons). He has tons of pics of species which are not featured on wikipedia yet, so if someone is bored.... The pics can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dhobern/ Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:15, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay I finished his New Zealand file and his current Australia file. Working on his European file might take awhile 1405 photos. You can see the photos uploaded at commons:Category:Moths of New Zealand and commons:Category:Moths of Australia. Hopefully we'll see these all make it to page (nice pages) that would be pretty amazing. -- IvanTortuga (talk) 22:14, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Amazing work man! I will make some from time to time. Your work helps enormously, seeing I don't need to bother with the actual uploading... Cheers! Ruigeroeland (talk) 00:44, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

FYI: New articles

A bot has been set up, which looks through the new Wikipedia articles and picks up those that are likely related to Lepidoptera. The search results are available at User:AlexNewArtBot/LepidopteraSearchResult and are normally updated on a daily basis. Colchicum (talk) 01:17, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Categories on Commons

This has probably been discussed before but a user (User:Leonardorejorge) is deleting the Category:Lepidoptera from many of my images (see File:Caperwhite.jpg‎ uploaded on the Commons) but I'm not sure if this is a good thing or bad, should I revert these edits? What is the best policy for Categories? Aviceda talk 20:05, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Butterfly is Lepidoptera?

The article Butterfly says that it is an insect in the order Lepidoptera. If this is true, then the articles should be combined. If it is not true, the statement should be changed. --Ettrig (talk) 08:11, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, I beg to differ. Butterflies are a part of Lepidoptera. While it has been established that butterflies are not a clearcut taxonomic subpart of Lepidoptera, traditionally a few families are referred to as butterflies. Butterflies are the most familiar insects of Lepidoptera which include many times more moths. Hence they deserve their own article and dont need to be merged. AshLin (talk) 08:54, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Seconded. The United Kingdom is a nation within the European Union. This fact does not provide sufficient basis to merge UK into EU. As AshLin notes, butterflies are a more problematic subset of the lepidoptera. But like the UK within the EU, butterflies are a "familiar" subset—the day-flying, pretty lepidoptera. That's not the scientific description. ;) Alastair Haines (talk) 01:52, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Obtaining IDs from images...

Last year, I took photos of butterflies in a UK butterfly house, and in the wild in Colombia. Most of these images remain unidentified. Any suggestions on the best route to ID them? I've had minimal luck with Colombian spp. on the Internet or through assorted places of expertise contacted by e-mail.

Also last year, someone simply posted up a load of images on this page and several of us chipped in with ID suggestions – any problem if I do the same? Cheers—GRM (talk) 17:39, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

• I see some folks on Wikiproject Birds upload files to their own websites and provide external links from the Project talk page for ID help. Any objections if I try that route?—GRM (talk) 17:46, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Might be able to help with any Australian species, I've got a few here [8] Aviceda talk 06:13, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Melitaea diamina photo

The butterfly in Melitaea diamina page seems to be M. athalia. Anyway, it's not diamina.

128.214.20.122 (talk) 16:51, 20 January 2009 (UTC) Kalle

What species is this?

image:sbx_moth.jpg - UtherSRG (talk) 22:17, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, if not the exact species, which genus is it iin? There are 1200 species and 200 genera in the family Sphingidae. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

• OK "on a ship", but where in the world?—GRM (talk) 19:21, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Try matching against http://flickr.com/groups/sphingidae/pool/page24/. Or contact Ian Kitching at the NHM. You can find contact info here http://www.cate-sphingidae.org/ Shyamal (talk) 01:29, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Seems to match well with http://tpittaway.tripod.com/china/t_nes.htm http://flickr.com/photos/alka_vaidya/2334525515/in/pool-sphingidae Theretra nessus. Shyamal (talk) 01:34, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Generally more useful if the images include location and date and if determined, information on the determiner or guides used. Shyamal (talk) 01:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Naming convention

It has been suggested that Wikipedia change its naming convention for all articles on biological organisms to use scientific names. This is being discussed here at WP:NC. It may be in your interest to take part. --Jwinius (talk) 15:09, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 05:50, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Taxonomy

Dear all, It has been my understanding for some time that we are following LEPINDEX for the taxonomy of the moth and butterfly pages. However, while working on the List of moths of Great Britain subproject, I am increasingly finding that LEPINDEX is not aligned with the generally accepted taxonomy in the UK (as exemplified by Waring, Paul, Martin Townsend and Richard Lewington (2003) Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland. British Wildlife Publishing, Hook, UK. ISBN 0-9531399-1-3). Since the latter reference is my primary source for the GB list project, I am wondering (a) which reference to use for taxonomy; and (b) if it is to be LEPINDEX, at what point do I need to edit the lists developed by subfamily? Grateful for any advice. Thanks, GRM (talk) 16:37, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Very late time to reply this post indeed. LepIndex has major flaws in it. The NMNH is aware of the problem, as per a friend, but the problem is huge and its not going to get solved in a hurry! It is still an interesting source for use, but you would be well advised to follow the 2003 book. Another useful thing, if its not too much of a bother, you could make a User page and log in those places where classification clearly conflicts. Im sure that would be of use someday to the LEPINDEX people. AshLin (talk) 09:56, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

adding/removing categories

Could anyone tell me what the policy is on adding categories such as 'Nymphalidae', 'Papilionidae ' etc? I was under the impression it was to make images easier to find, however recently Leonardo (talk) has been removing them (from Commons) and added this to my talk page...is this agreed policy or just one man's POV?

I've noticed you reverted some of my editions on butterfly images you uploaded. In general, the recommendation for categorization of animals in general is to keep them only in the most specific taxonomical group possible. In the case of you images, as most of them, fortunately, are identified to species level, they shouldn't be also put in other taxonomical levels. This hierarchical system aims exactly to avoid categories with lots of files. This doesn't apply, for example, if you want to classify these files by other means, as for example in categories like butterflies by country and others like that. Because of that, I would be glad if you could take the "Nymphalidae" category out of all these images you reverted. Aviceda talk 02:22, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

What Leonardo says makes sense. The categorisation of wikis in this project is meant to be done that way. If we categorise a species wiki, it should be placed in the genus category (provided the genus has five or more species). Images are best located in the genus category alongside their species wikis as far as categories go. Any special reason for dumping them under a large family grouping in addition to the genus category? We'd have hundreds of images in Papilionidae and we wont know whether they are duplicated. If you try to maintain images, it would be better to subdivide them into the lower categories. Only general images or unidentified images should remain in the lowest category that they can be pushed too. While there is no specific policy on images, an article categorisation scheme has been worked and placed on the WikiProject Main page. Its clunky as no consensus can be found on the issue of scientific name vs common name and so it caters for both the two. Hope this helps. AshLin (talk) 10:33, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Stub templates

Under the wikiproject page it says that there are only 6 stubs underneath Lepidoptera, but I know at the least that there's a Sphingidae stub. There might be some others I am unaware of. I would add it to the page, but I don't know really know the syntax. ----Kugamazog (talk) 20:13, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

North American moth/butterfly images

I found this site: http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/order.cfm?id=131. Most images are free to use. I began uploading some to commons and making articles. But there are quite some, so if anyone feels like helping out.. By the way, the site contains a lot of other images (i.e. not Leps) which are free to use too. Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:53, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:20, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Award?

I found this image on Commons while looking for something else. It appears to have been created at the Farsi Wikipedia. I thought it might make an interesting image for this project's barnstar, if something like that were wanted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:05, 5 March 2009 (UTC) who is not watching this page

Seems like its ready to use. The jigsaw puzzle resembles a five-pointed star! AshLin (talk) 07:49, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

ID help

Two unknown butterfies here, thanks jimfbleak (talk) 07:19, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Two names, one species

Is it Graellsia isabellae or Actias isabellae? Will somebody please fix it? --Polinizador (talk) 13:50, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Seems to be a synonym per http://ctd.mdibl.org/detail.go?type=taxon&acc=63975 . According to http://www.leps.it/SpeciesPages/GraelIsabe.htm Actias is the current placement but the other link suggests the opposite. Lepindex suggests Graellsia is valid. So not sure but making Actias isabellae a redirect for now. Shyamal (talk) 15:59, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

So does Funet.fi of Marrku Savela suggest here that Graellsia is correct. Its a monotypic (is that the correct word) I mean the genus has only one species. AshLin (talk) 16:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

From what I recall, there was a recent dispute about putting the Graellsia isabellae in with the Actias genus, but it didn't hold. ----Kugamazog (talk) 01:43, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

See also Talk:Moduza procris#Move? for a similar discussion. This seems to be a repeating discussion. Does the Wikiproject have a guideline? If so, where? And if not maybe one would be helpful. Andrewa (talk) 15:45, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Photo requests

Maybe this project should have its own photo requests page? Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of insecta is starting to bulk up and this is a pretty big and often photographed order that would make a good subcategory. How about something like Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of Lepidoptera (or '...of lepidopterans' if you like)? Richard001 (talk) 00:40, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Capitalization

I just started the giant skippers article. I noticed that while the references I've seen use lowercase for "giant skippers", uppercase is used throughout by Wikipedia. Which way is considered proper for this project? Rufous-crowned Sparrow (talk) 11:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The North American Butterfly Association (NABA) uses bird-style English names, http://books.google.com/books?id=kxH-6rPPGpEC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15 see also [9], [10] etc. Some European lists like http://www.eurobutterflies.com/species_index_en.htm also use bird-style naming. The lower case convention is followed by thean Australian "standard" list - http://www.ento.csiro.au/aicn/ http://www.ento.csiro.au/aicn/conven.htm (but see also http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/publications/action/butterfly/pubs/butterflies.pdf ). WP:LEPID has yet to find common ground on this, esp. given that some species articles are best located at the binomial name. Given that projects like this http://www.ucl.ac.uk/taxome/gbn/ are yet to produce a consistent understanding on the world's species, it is unlikely that English name standardization can be expected for a while to come. Shyamal (talk) 13:44, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Would suggest that giant skippers would be lower case even if the bird scheme is used. I notice that skipper (butterfly) was using lower case with the exception of one mention which I just changed. Shyamal (talk) 01:01, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I would concur with Shyamal, and this would be correct usage under the "bird system", which (for example) would refer to "kites", but "Black Kite", "Red Kite", etc.—GRM (talk) 18:09, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Potential good news

I have been in contact with one of the creators of the website "The Moths of Canada" (http://www.cbif.gc.ca/spp_pages/misc_moths/phps/mothindex_e.php), who is possitive about using all of their images (ca. 3500) on wikipedia. Because it is a government work though, I must obtain a copyright clearance first, which I filled just minutes ago. I hope it will be awarded, because then we can illustrate a ton of North American moth articles. If it is awarded though, I could use a lot of help uploading these pics to commons and inserting them into existing acticles as well as creating new ones. If I have any news I will post it here. Ruigeroeland (talk) 10:13, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of lepidopterans

There's now a Lepidoptera specific category for photo requests. Instead of using {{reqphoto|insect}} you can just add |needs-photo=yes to {{WikiProject Lepidoptera}}. The latter template needs to be modified slightly still but this will happen shortly. Richard001 (talk) 05:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Bertholdia trigona

I just read an article on the Beeb about this moth, and went to WP for more info about it. But there's no article yet. I have never contributed to an insect article here and feel I lack expertise to do so. So... maybe this is an article request? --Jomegat (talk) 13:30, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the behaviour is well known and is not specific to the moth species mentioned. More interestingly studies suggest that this is not a case of jamming as mentioned there, but an acoustic version of "warning colouration" that toxic moths use (but hijacked by others). See Batesian_mimicry#Acoustic_mimicry. Shyamal (talk) 14:10, 17 July 2009 (UTC)