Talk:Lepidoptera fossil record

A fact from Lepidoptera fossil record appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 31 July 2011 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the extinct Eocene butterfly Prodryas persephone (pictured) from the Florissant Fossil Beds is the best preserved fossil lepidopteran discovered to date?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2011/July.

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Text and/or other creative content from this version of Lepidoptera was copied or moved into Prehistoric Lepidoptera with this edit. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

Extinction dagger[edit]

Would it be better to use {{extinct}} (†) to specify which taxa are not extant instead?-- Obsidi♠n Soul 12:25, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Obsidian Soul, I see you have already done some work, great! I am not very experienced in creating fossil taxa, so if the people from the Paleo project prefer using daggers for extinct species, instead of indicating which ones are extant, please go ahead and change it. I stumbled onto a list of extinct Lepidoptera species which was only accessible through Google cache, which prompted me to salvage the information and add it to wikipedia. I'm glad to see you are interested in the subject. I have seen tons of fossil species on wikipedia, but sadly not that many insects. Hope my little contribution helps in getting some more articles on the subject on wikipedia. The first one you created is very informative! Ruigeroeland (talk) 12:36, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dunno about convention, heh, but the dagger is easier to format as it allows you to free space after the taxon, rather than have it be taken up by {extant) like currently. I'm assuming everything not marked (extant) are extinct?

And really great work. :) It'll be fun to chew slowly through this, creating articles for the redlinks.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 12:56, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the dagger would probably be better.. I think all not marked are indeed extinct, although I might have missed one or two along the way. Great that you want to explore the subject! I will try to get some pages started in the near future too.. Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:07, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Articles Created[edit]

I just finished writing up Tortrix? destructus Cockerell, 1917 and Tortrix? florissantana Cockerell, 1907, both of the Florissant Formation. --Kev min § 03:05, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Great! Really nice to see all the response to the Fossil Lep article. I never did anything with DYK, so I really wouldn't know how the nomination process works.. plus I'm going on vacation in a few days, so I dont know if I have the time to figure it out just now. Maybe someone with experience would like to nominate them? Anyway: great articles! Ruigeroeland (talk) 07:32, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you need help with DYK for these articles, let me know. I have recently had a bunch of DYKs come up and am reasioonably familiar with the process. AshLin (talk) 08:25, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you would be willing to put them up for nomination, that would be great!

Ruigeroeland (talk) 12:05, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just posted another article for a species on the list: Neurosymploca? oligocenica.--Kev min § 16:59, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some pre-requirements of DYK[edit]

Each paragraph needs at least one citation.
The "hook" fact must have inline citation, preferably verifiable.
Ideally, there should be no red links. The red links in main text should be converted to stubs. The ones in the list can remain. We could request dispensation for those.

AshLin (talk) 14:46, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is the redlink requirement new since June? While I was participating I only once was asked to fix excessive amounts of red links.--Kev min § 14:53, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, I think I misinterpreted. See Additional requirement C2. It refers to red-links in the hook, not the article per se, though I remember coming across a case where a nominating editor was asked that the red links in the article be sorted out. Allthat not withstanding, reviewers in DYK have greater latitude most probably for the reason that they need to assure that the DYK experience for the reader should be satisfactory in all respects. AshLin (talk) 15:08, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We now have a 48 hour window of "newness" for this article to place our DYK in. AshLin (talk) 15:08, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Possible hooks[edit]

...that the extinct Eocene butterfly Prodryas persephone (pictured) from the Florissant Fossil Beds is considered to be the best preserved fossil lepidopteran discovered to date? AshLin (talk) 15:57, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
...that the earliest known fossil lepidopteran, Archaeolepis mane from the Jurassic about 190 million years ago, is only known from three wings discovered in Dorset, UK? AshLin (talk) 15:57, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
...that fossil lepidopterans (pictured) indicate that the ancestors of butterflies and moths ~~were~~ are related to caddisflies?

I like #1 best. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 01:19, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Amended #3 to make it more accurate. Have uploaded #1 as main & amended #3 as alt for a DYK. AshLin (talk) 04:00, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is this a drawing?[edit]

It dosent look like a fossil..of course i havent seen many butterfly fossils..But its the "Engraving" part that confuses me. If it is just a human-made engraving, are there any real pictures of it? 96.28.157.126 (talk) 09:35, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, we do not have a free image of it. User:Stemonitis found this in a public domain text and uploaded it to Wikimedia Commons a year ago. AshLin (talk) 12:22, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And another Florissant Genus[edit]

Just finished up the article for Dominickus another Florissant Formation moth! Also nom'd for Dyk... --Kev min § 00:10, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As a note[edit]

It looks like none of the Kusnetzov or Rebel type descriptions are online, and the Kusnetzov at least are going to be in print only in Russian, so I am not too hopeful of finding much information for forming articles.--Kev min § 05:25, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nex genus created[edit]

I just finished an article for the monotypic Baltic amber genus Epiborkhausenites and dyk nom'ed it. I am slowly working my way up the list. --Kev min § 21:27, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

New info on fossil lepidoptera[edit]

First, a question: why are extinct non-lepidopterans included? I can see why Amphiesmenoptera are relevant, but the cicadomorphs (hemiptera!) and fossil mecoptera are much less relevant to butterfly evolution and the subject: Prehistoric Lepidoptera.
Second, a recent paper reviews the Mesozoic fossil record, which should be incorporated into this article. --Animalparty-- (talk) 02:18, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Zhang, Weiting (2013). "New Fossil Lepidoptera (Insecta: Amphiesmenoptera) from the Middle Jurassic Jiulongshan Formation of Northeastern China". PLoS ONE. 8 (11): e79500. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0079500. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)

These are included because they were at one time considered Lepidoptera (at least, I think this is the case). Please go ahead and add new info to the article. This article should also be incorporated: An annotated catalog of fossil and subfossil Lepidoptera (Insecta: Holometabola) of the world, but I have not had the time yet.. Ruigeroeland (talk) 07:59, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I see now. That they were formerly considered lepidoptera was not clear in the article. I've clarified that and moved the non-leps to the end of the list, to give emphasis to Lepidoptera proper. --Animalparty-- (talk) 03:06, 11 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]