Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Oryzomys dimidiatus/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 23:28, 27 March 2010 [1].

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Oryzomys dimidiatus

Oryzomys dimidiatus (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Nominator(s): Ucucha 02:14, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

• Featured article candidates/Oryzomys dimidiatus/archive1

Another rare rice rat, from Nicaragua this time. It's only been caught three times, so there is not much to tell, but I believe this article has all information that has been published about it. I am looking forward to your reviews. Ucucha 02:14, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

• Stupid question to which I'll guess the answer is "no", but are there any pictures available? It seems a bit jarring to illustrate an article on one species with a picture of another. – iridescent 23:16, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
  • No. Pictures of this animal have only been published once as far as I know, in Hershkovitz's 1970 paper, and then only of the skull and teeth. Ucucha 23:22, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

References

Multiple references are given the same name:

• T587

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:18, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

• Fixed. (No real issue, as both refs had the same content.) Out of curiosity, what tool do you use to find this? Ucucha 00:20, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:RefToolbar and W3C Markup Validation Service. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:29, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Ucucha 01:04, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support Comments beginning a read-through. I'll jot notes below: Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:59, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

With a head and body length of 110 to 128 mm (4.3 to 5.0 in), Oryzomys dimidiatus is a medium-sized species. - 'medium sized rat ' would flow better I think (or should it be 'rodent'?)

Thanks for the comments. I used "rice rat" here.

All three specimens were caught near water and the species may be semiaquatic, spending some time in the water. Its conservation status is currently assessed as "least concern". - second statement is contrasts so much with the fact that only 3 specimens have been collected that I'd use some sort of conjunction like "However" etc.

I see your point, but I think putting in "however" here would make it seem the contradiction is between being semiaquatic and being assessed as LC. Ucucha 12:26, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Good point. Okay, strike that. Now to read on...Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:07, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

::Do we know who or what W.G. Palmer was?

• No, Thomas says nothing about him.

Fair enough. We've done what we can. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:46, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Would be good to mention who Philip Hershkovitz was at first instance (American zoologist etc.)

• I think that is unnecessary detail. We discussed this at a few previous FACs, by the way (or perhaps Sasata suggested it then).

• I started a stub for this well-known American primatologist. Sasata (talk) 17:20, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay - bluelink is good. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:46, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks—I'll probably expand it in a few days; I think we're doing injustice to him by only calling him a prominent primatologist. He also did important work on rodents, marsupials, and lots of other mammals. Ucucha 12:57, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

In the literature cited section, Pp. 894–1531 should be pp. (?)

• I capitalize it because it follows a period, as I do elsewhere when citing a book chapter.

I guess it looks a little odd and my preference is small 'p' as the 'p's are not occurring in a sentence, but I do not see this as any sort of dealbreaker by any means. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:46, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Should volumes be bolded in the literature cited section?

• Not necessarily, I think.

Again, a style issue that I do not see this as any sort of dealbreaker by any means. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:46, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

The final thing I have trouble understanding is how a species known from only three specimens is classified as "least concern". I think it would be good to have a bit more of an explanation in the Conservation status. Coming from reviewing bird articles it looks odd, though I can guess it is because rodents are largely hidden. Still, plenty of Australian species are threatened....

• That bugged me too. I have reported what the IUCN has to say about it and really I can't do more. What I think is going on is that it occurs in an area that has not been surveyed by biologists a lot, but that is well-preserved; therefore, its population is probably large and its habitat is not threatened.

It would be great to get some sort of source stating exactly that, but if we can't then we can't. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:46, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Overall looking good though...Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:26, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments and for the copyedit! Ucucha 14:18, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support Comments, image review and tech check few problems, but a couple of nitpicks

• was listed as a Nectomys in taxonomic overviews in the next decades, including in a 1944 review of Nectomys by Philip Hershkovitz - is the second Nectomys needed?

• No, changed to "the genus".

• tufts of hair and Fringes of hair - I don't get these redlinks of common words. If they have a special meaning in this context, please gloss, otherwise they are pointless

• They are piped to ungual tuft and natatory fringe, which are specific structures in rice rats that I'll write articles on someday.

• no dabs, deadlinks
• photo and map OK

• Jimfbleak - talk to me? 08:19, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for reviewing. Ucucha 11:55, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

• Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. (and I didn't even whine about the lack of italics in the references!) Ealdgyth - Talk 16:09, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Comments by Sasata (talk) 18:21, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

• lead: wink buffy (vampire slayer?)
  • Not sure what you're referring to there; Oryzomys couesi is a simple rice rat and not a winking vampire-fighting superhero. I think "buff" is a common enough term to leave out the link (as I said at the O. nelsoni review).
• "…currently assessed as "least concern"." Am wondering if this IUCN definition should be capitalized and linked (this recently came up in Guettarda's Aiphanes FAC)
  • Did it? I can't find it there. I've probably been inconsistent with this, but can't see a good reason not to cap and link, so I did that.
• "After examining the only known specimen in London" Unclear: was it the only specimen in London (i.e., there were other specimens elsewhere), or the only specimen at all, and in London? "… Hershkovitz instead placed the species" Instead of what - tenuous connection to previous paragraph
  • I don't think it was that ambiguous, but reworded it anyway. The previous sentence said that Hershkovitz placed it in Nectomys; now he classifies it as an Oryzomys. Incidentally, it seems Hershkovitz had some other things to do than serving the OSS while he was in Europe.
• "He accepted O. borreroi as an Oryzomys, did not think it closely related to O. dimidiatus." missing a word somewhere?
  • Yes, but. Added.
• Gardner and Patton, J. Hernández-Camacho, Robert Voss, Hugh Genoways and Knox Jones, Fiona Reid, Marcelo Weksler… who are these people? Are they worth redlinks? Please be consistent in using full first name or initials
  • I linked some that are definitely notable. The full first name of Hernández-Camacho is not in the sources; I don't think there are other inconsistencies. Thanks for the review. Ucucha 19:40, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Support Short, but meets all the criteria. Sasata (talk) 00:50, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support with the proviso that I'm taking all the information on faith as I know nothing about the subject. While none of these are deal-breakers with their absence, a few things I'd expect to see in a biology article, and think ought to be mentioned should the information exist:

• I appreciate with only three specimens the answer is probably "we don't know" to a lot of questions, but do we have any idea what they eat? Assume the reader is going to come from this via TFA rather than the parent pages, and their prior rat-knowledge will only be "like a mouse but bigger"; does "rice rat" mean it eats rice?

• "Rice rat" first referred to the marsh rice rat, the U.S. species, which was first found in a rice field and apparently likes it there. The term is now also applied to a hundred or so other species from Central and South America, none of which have any association with rice whatsoever as far as I know. As for O. dimidiatus, we certainly don't know; people could have looked in the stomachs of the three that have been caught, but no published information suggests they did.

• I know from three specimens there's probably insufficient data, but is there any information on breeding habits and lifespan? This links to the point above; the three most important things in life are sex, death and food (order according to personal preference), and IMO as a consequence mating habits & litter sizes, lifespan and diet are three things lay readers expect to see mentioned in a biology article (even if it's just "we don't know");

• As you anticipated, the answer is "we don't know"; I have reported all the biological knowledge we have of it. I suppose I could say that "we don't know this and we don't know that", but any such list would necessarily exclude other things we don't know.

• Does Reid say why he thinks that the species is semiaquatic; does it have any adaptations (webbed toes or the like) or is it based just on related species behaviour? Either way, that sentence is probably worth expanding on, as "swimming rat" is probably going to seem an unusual concept to people unfamiliar with the genus.

• She (not he, small matter) doesn't, and there's nothing else I can say without veering into OR. There are three good reasons to think it is semiaquatic: all three were found near water; all other Oryzomys are semiaquatic—more precisely, all well-known species are and all others are presumed to be; and the features of the hindfeet listed in "Description" are all adaptations to life in the water. Ucucha 22:20, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

• This is going to sound really stupid, but it probably ought to include a literal translation of Oryzomys dimidiatus somewhere near the start ("half-sized rice rat", I think, but my Latin is 25 years out of date and I never was too hot with it then). – iridescent 21:37, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

• That's the correct translation, as far as I know. The problem here is that no source explicitly gives an etymology for the specific name; Thomas probably meant that it was less than half as large as any previously known species of Nectomys, but including that would be OR, and I think reporting what a dictionary says dimidiatus means would also at least border on original synthesis.

Thanks for the support and suggestions; I appreciate it. Ucucha 22:20, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.