Talk:Marsh rice rat

Untitled

What an interesting DYK hook to appear on MainPage on Hōnen Matsuri! Cheers! --PFHLai (talk) 03:54, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Pure chance—but a great coincidence nonetheless. Ucucha 03:58, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Runways?

What is a runway in the context of this rat's nest building materials? Derrick Chapman 10:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Derrickchapman (talk • contribs)

A runway is a path it builds through the vegetation to more easily move at longer distances. It doesn't have much to do with the nest, and I rephrased the sentence in the lead to make that clear. Ucucha 10:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Sigmodontinae

Why would we need to include information about the distribution of Sigmodontinae? The distribution of Oryzomys is relevant, because it is the taxon immediately above O. palustris and therefore provides necessary context, but why would we want the distribution of Sigmodontinae, and not, for example, of Oryzomyini, Oryzomyalia, Cricetidae, Eumuroida, Muroidea, or any other taxon? Ucucha 17:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The preceding sentence ("...the marsh rice rat is the only member of Sigmodontinae in the United States...") had already introduced the subject of the distribution of Sigmodontinae, without actually characterizing it very well. I see you have now addressed the issue. WolfmanSF (talk) 17:41, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I reworded the piece and think it actually works well now. Ucucha 17:43, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The phrase, "Except for Oryzomys couesi in a small area of southern Texas and several species of cotton rats (Sigmodon) in the southern half of the country, the marsh rice rat is the only member of Sigmodontinae in the United States." sounds...quite awkward to me. Almost like the article saying "this rat is the only member of its family in the US - except for the others". Perhaps "The marsh rice rat is the only widespread member of Sigmodontinae in the United States" would work better? - The Bushranger (talk) 18:04, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I tried another rephrasing. WolfmanSF (talk) 19:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Explanation of changes

I think I'll have to explain this edit:

• The convert templates are unnecessary and make it harder to edit the article; the wikitext is more intuitive without them.
• "infected" is correct according to the OED; "infested" is antiquated.
• As I said in an edit summary, the Steppan cite is unnecessary.
• The penis paragraph first has a general introduction about the form and size of the penis and then introduces morphology, including its complexity and then other features.
• Usage of "hectare" is inconsistent with the use of "mm" etc. throughout the article; we can assume that a reader knows such common units of measurements.
• "Further reading" is wrong. The section does not list books for "Further reading", but the works cited in the "References" section.
• There is no reason why the refbegin templates should be used; they complicate formatting and may make the text harder to read.

Ucucha 23:48, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't care about the other changes, but what you say about {{convert}} and {{refbegin}} is nonsense. While it is questionable whether {{convert|40|to|80|g|oz|1|abbr=on}} is harder to edit than 40 to 80 g (1.4 to 2.8 oz) (I highly doubt that), it is irrelevant since most of these numbers don't change every day. Further, {{Refbegin}} makes things just as "hard to read" as {{reflist}}. You should complain about those standards at Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability, and not set your own standards. --bender235 (talk) 08:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

You operate on the assumption that there is a "standard". What is that assumption based on? Ucucha 10:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, using {{Reflist}} is de facto standard in Wikipedia, haven't you noticed? I haven't seen anybody complaining about the text format or whatever.

Again, could you explain to me why you believe those numbers, like average size and weight of these rats, will change so often that we have to keep things simple for posible first-time editors? --bender235 (talk) 14:30, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

No, I haven't noticed that. In fact, I noticed that it is not uncommon not to use those templates—see The Avery Coonley School, the TFA of a few days ago, and the FA Lion for other examples.

I would prefer you to explain why you feel it is necessary to obfuscate the text with a template instead of just having the text that appears on the page appear in the wikitext. Ucucha 14:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I've just undone an edit by bender235—this needs to be discussed here, and ref styles usually should not be changed per WP:CITEHOW. I think Ucucha's arguments are correct, even though I usually use a very different reference style, and use convert templates. —innotata 17:01, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Parity

I notice the presence of a section titled "Male Reproductive Anatomy". Is there something unusually notable about the male genitals of the species that warrants special mention, or is the absence of a corresponding "Female Reproductive Anatomy" section simply an oversight? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.167.92.26 (talk) 21:19, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

In cricetid rodents, the male penis is rather complicated and important for classification, so the sources describe it in some detail. Female reproductive anatomy isn't as distinctive, so the sources don't cover it as much. (Or perhaps it's just because the female reproductive anatomy is harder to get to, so people study it less. In either case, we go with what the sources give us.) Ucucha (talk) 03:25, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Habitat.

On curaçao I've seen rodents that look very much alike these but I dont know if these creatures are the same. Does anyone know if they also inhabit the Caribbean? 190.4.164.113 (talk) 03:07, 10 January 2023 (UTC)