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Would you like to use this award?

The Wikiproject Lepidoptera Barnstar
For editors who have contributed greatly to Wikiproject Lepidoptera

Would you like it as a Wikiproject award?Abce2|Free LemonadeOnly 25 cents! 02:50, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Looks stunning!Ruigeroeland (talk) 07:39, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! Do you want it for the Wikiproject award?Abce2|Aww nuts!Wribbit!(Sign here) 04:12, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes please! AshLin (talk) 19:18, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Introduced in page for WikiProject barnstars here. AshLin (talk) 19:35, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Lepidoptera morphology

A new article on Lepidoptera morphology, a long felt need has been started. Please help it develop into at least a B clas article. AshLin (talk) 19:16, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Has this really not existed before now? I'm really surprised! Well, good that it exists now, I'll be happy to help with little bits here and there. I'm too busy right now to add to the article, you'll have to forgive me for that. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 19:50, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Good, I hope the glossary can be removed or made into a category once this is well-developed. Shyamal (talk) 02:35, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't think that should happen. Let the glossary continue; glossaries are encyclopaedic too, but it would need revision. AshLin (talk) 20:38, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

List of users with sources?

Could the project have a section for user libraries/sources. WikiProject Military History currently runs a similar set-up and I think it could work well here; one of the main issues holding back Lepidoptera articles is the reliability and sources. Personally, my family have a large number of books that I could make available for use if the want is there. Is anyone interested? MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 19:24, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Great suggestion. Please begin a library page a la WPr MilHist. We'll add our books to the shelves. AshLin (talk) 07:43, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Well MilHist has links to personal libraries, but your comment on adding to the shelves makes me think that a large, single library page might be better. I'll proceed with that if I may. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 08:35, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I've created the first draft of the library, it can be found here Wikipedia:WikiProject Lepidoptera/Library. I hope this can be part of a 'rekindling' of the project fires; I would love to see a review team started (I'll put myself forward for starting things moving). MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 09:24, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Added some of my books. More later. AshLin (talk) 09:34, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Some rewording and added the library under resources. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 08:51, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Hemaris_diffinis

This sentence in Hemaris diffinis makes no sense: "The moth’s migration in Canada is different than in the U.S. In Canada, it flies from the Northwest Territories, south to British Columbia, and then east to Nova Scotia. In the U.S., it flies from Maine to Florida, westward to southern California and Baja California and then into Mexico." It must be the range rather than the migration. --Polinizador (talk) 14:25, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

: Changed it from sources listed as external links. Thanks for pointing it out! Ruigeroeland (talk) 18:21, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

New stub

I created a new moth stub at Yellowtail moth. Perhaps someone could review it for me? ---kilbad (talk) 04:01, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd be willing to review the article for you. However, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to wait until there is a bit of concensus on a review page (if it's passed then the review can take place there). MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 10:21, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
Actually I think Kilbad was merely asking for someone to look over the stub and not planning on producing a GA class article. (Guessing based on the the editor's primary interest in dermatology and the fact that this particular moth just came into that area) I added a taxobox to the stub that s/he created. Shyamal (talk) 04:12, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
Who said I was thinking of anything different? Honestly, if someone says "Perhaps someone could review it for me?", is there something profoundly wrong with the response "I'd be willing to review the article for you"? I didn't say anything about them planning a GA class article. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 20:02, 31 August 2009 (UTC)
Nothing wrong with the response but the "review" that the editor required was just some cleanup and addition on the article itself and possibly not worthy of reviewing on another page (a review subpage as done in GA reviews). Cheers. Shyamal (talk) 02:39, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
This review has very little to do with my suggestion of a review department for this WikiProject. Since A-class statuses had already been given out, I considered it odd that there wasn't a review department doing it. This has been a thought of mine for a long time. When this "review" request came up, I thought that it could be at least stored and requested for on another subpage. I wasn't going to give it an in-depth sub page GA review. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 08:21, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposal(s)

Navigation

I have created a navigation template which is ready to be placed at the top of all project subpages. This should smoothen travelling around the WikiProject and facilitate more subpages should we desire them (see below). Please give your opinion.

Review department

I'm willing to start and maintain a review department, in order to review articles such as that listed above and to provide A-class quality articles. Please give your opinion on this and also whether you would be willing to lend a hand. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 10:20, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Open a review request page by all means but I dont see any purpose for the header in its present form. BTW Stubs don't need review in the Wikipedia sense of A-class review. They just need to be developed further. Where did you get the idea for the header from? Is theirs as simple as this one? AshLin (talk) 10:58, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
Well thanks for the input. The idea from the header just came from navigating the information crammed onto the main page. By "theirs" I presume you mean WPMH, and yes, theirs is as simple as this one. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 17:14, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
Go ahead, if you feel its a good idea. You may like to choose more pages and add them as tabs though; incl WPr main & talk pages, requested articles, images & to-do list etc. AshLin (talk) 18:06, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Category - Hesperiidae stubs has been tagged 'too large'

'Category:Hesperiidae stubs' has just been tagged -

"This stub category is very large. Subcategories may be helpful for browsing."

A new and fairly large task of stub-sorting for Hesperiidae enthusiasts.

AshLin (talk) 10:28, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Category:Noctuidae stubs is way bigger. Rocket000 (talk) 12:02, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Taxonomy help

Hello all, can someone help me out? I'm trying to find a home for pictures I uploaded from the Hampson plates (see: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Catalogue_Of_The_Noctuidae_In_The_Collection_Of_The_British_Museum). Most of the listed species are old synonyms but the correct species can be found with some extensive google searches. I'm having trouble with some though.. I can't seem to find the current names for "Timora bimaculata", "Timora decorata", "Timora leucosticta" and most of the other species named Timora. Some of them are now in the "Mythimna" genus. But not those which I listed above. When searching on goole I get a lot of hits with a "Masalia" genus, but I can't figure out if this genus is still valid.. Or is Timora still valid? Does someone know? Cheers and thanks Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:11, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Did you try http://www.sel.barc.usda.gov:591/spod/catalogue/search.html ? Shyamal (talk) 13:38, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, didn't know that site.. Seems "Masalia" is older and Timora is still valid according to that site.. Thanks for the link! Ruigeroeland (talk) 14:01, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Good source for pictures?

I stumbled on this site, http://bcrc.bio.umass.edu/kunkel/Moths/hampson/. Boasting pictures of all the moths in the collection in the British museum around 1910. There are tons of plates to upload, I made a category at commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Catalogue_Of_The_Noctuidae_In_The_Collection_Of_The_British_Museum. If someone wants to chip in.. please do! Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:39, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Great find! Right now dealing with images from the two volumes (of 12) Lepidoptera Indica scanned by the Biodiversity Heritage Library project and available via www.archive.org now going into http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Lepidoptera_Indica Shyamal (talk) 13:58, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
The images seem to be of higher resolution in the copy on www.archive.org http://www.archive.org/stream/cataloguelepido00hampgoog#page/n641/mode/1up Shyamal (talk) 14:00, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Excellent find, whatever resolution we use! MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 14:52, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
If I download the pdf from the archive.org site I get black-and-white pictures.. Am I doing something wrong here? Anyway.. I cant open the stream link you posted here, because it seems to be too heavy for my internet connection.. :) Ruigeroeland (talk) 15:17, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
You are right. With the exception of a single colour plate, most of them have smudgy b&w scans. But someone should scan through the other books there - a search for Noctuidae yielded several other public domain works. Shyamal (talk) 15:27, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, and here is another great source to keep people occupied: http://www.biolib.de/ Tons of old books about all kinds of animals and plants. Most public domain by now. Ruigeroeland (talk) 15:33, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
I've made a start, uploaded a bunch of the plates and extracted species images for one of them. This is going to be a lot of work though. Cheers Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:14, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I have a whole bunch of sites bookmarked for these old type of illustrations. Here's some for Lepidoptera:

[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]

I tried to get the digital book ones open to a page with an example of the illustrations, but you may have to flip through them a bit. If you find a good book on BHL, go to 'Download/About this book' > 'Download Images'. You'll get a .jp2 (JPEG2000) image of every page. Then using a (very simple) command with ImageMagick you can convert them all to jpg or png (while doing other kinds of manipulations). Next, if don't already use a batch uploading tool, go to commons:Commons:Tools/Commonist and download that or start it directly (need Java's Web Start). After that, then the real work starts. ;) Cropping, cleaning, labeling, and adding to articles. BTW, another awesome tool is Cropbot on Commons. It lets you crop images right in your browser! The bot uploads the new version for you (under the same or different name). Rocket000 (talk) 12:43, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

All the plates are uploaded. Now the species need to be extracted. Done some and made wikipedia articles for most I extracted (can't find the proper modern name for some though). The site only features plates from volume IV onwards though. The following are missing: Vol. I (1898) Plates I-XVII. Syntomidae. Vol. II (1900) Plates XVIII-XXXV. Arctiadae (Nolinae, Lithosianae) and Vol. III (1901) Plates XXXVI-LIV. Arctiadae & Agaristidae. If someone knows a source to find these I'd be happy to upload these as well. Cheers.. Ruigeroeland (talk) 11:36, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Charaxes khasianus

Can someone check this article? It claims this is a new species discovered by Devolent Mtui but according to [11] it's a synonym for Charaxes bernardus hierax and was described by Butler in 1872. They got the citation is a little wrong, it's actually: Lep. Exot. 12: 98, pl.37, fig.6.[12], but besides that I can't find anything else on this. The type locality is Khasia Hills, N.E.Bengal not Kihansi Gorge, Tanzania. Could this be a (possibly unpublished) junior homonym? Probably not something we should have an article on.. Rocket000 (talk) 22:18, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Now that I look at the history, I see it wasn't the original author that added the scientific name (which it was then moved to). Rocket000 (talk) 22:30, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
I have speedy deleted the article for now. There seems to be no sign of the species description and khasianus is definitely incorrect. Shyamal (talk) 01:45, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. It may have been legitimate new species but without a scientific name or citation there's not much we can go on. By the way, I discovered this because I'm trying to categorize all your (very much needed) uploads of the Lepidoptera Indica illustrations. (Charaxes is especially difficult.) Usually I just go with funet, but there's not too many references there for this area since many of the names haven't been used for a long long time. It seems Moore liked to raise many subspecific or even infrasubspecific groups to the species level.. I'm almost done, though (unless your gonna upload more ;) Rocket000 (talk) 03:06, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
I did notice your work in finding the current names for those images. Many thanks. Still waiting for the rest of the volumes, especially volume 1 in which the original chromolithographs really look like real butterflies, almost with their iridiscence. Shyamal (talk) 04:41, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Nymphalini articles are a mess

It looks like Dger has gone through and demoted Polygonia, Kaniska, and perhaps other genera to subgenera of Nymphalis. Problem is, he just changed the text of all the articles without getting any of them moved from their previous binomial titles. So for all of those articles, the titles don't match the article text. See Polygonia interrogationis for example.

Personally, I'm not aware of Polygonia being demoted, so I'm a bit skeptical of the whole effort. Regardless, this is not the proper procedure for updating taxonomies on Wikipedia. The articles must be moved first, then updated. Otherwise, it's just a confusing mess. Kaldari (talk) 16:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I have asked User:Dger the reason why and asked him to give it on this talk page. AshLin (talk) 16:21, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
I think he got it here: http://www.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/insecta/lepidoptera/ditrysia/papilionoidea/nymphalidae/nymphalinae/nymphalis/ It's a great site for basic taxonomic reference, but it is sometimes somewhat outdated and/or incomplete. I wouldn't know if these are subgenera or not.. Maybe we should keep both options open and insert something like "Some authors consider genus X to be a subgenus of Nymphalis" Ruigeroeland (talk) 16:33, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I think it makes sense to note that in the article text. As far as I can tell, however, the previous taxonomic arrangement we had for those species is the most up to date. And seeing as how the article titles are all based on the previous arrangement, I would support changing the text back until there is consensus to do otherwise. Kaldari (talk) 16:39, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Dger's response

Moved from User talk:AshLin:

Thanks for your message. I am rather new to this game so advice is welcome. I looked into the Kaniska canace situation and reversed my change in the name. There seems to be many synonyms for this species but I believe Kaniska is the best one for now. These things seem to change rapidly. I also changed the name in the genus Nymphalis to match and added the subgenus category. I hope this remedies the situation. What do you think? I also added a few references to the end of the article. There probably should be more.

Cheers. Dger (talk) 20:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Photo requests

If anyone is working on an article and needs a photo(s) please let me know on my talk page; I might be able to help. Richard001 (talk) 11:18, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Pseudohemihyalea potosi and Pseudohemihyalea sonorosa

I just stumbled upon these articles and noticed that they both had the same photo but both photos were under different names (File:Pseudohemihyalea potosi (male).JPG and File:Pseudohemihyalea sonorosa (female).JPG). I don't know if the moth is P. potosi or P. sonorosa. -Megan McCarty talk|Sign here! 21:24, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

The images are from the research article that is in the external links section: http://pensoftonline.net/zookeys/index.php/journal/article/view/149/99 But the person who extracted the images made a mistake I guess. I corrected it.. Thanks for the warning! Ruigeroeland (talk) 06:39, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Lepidoptera migration

I translated an article on Lep migration from the Dutch wiki, see Lepidoptera migration. I have some doubts about the section "In general", because I do not know if the English language has the same problem as the Dutch language, i.e. I don't know if "migratory species" could be confused with "strays" in English as is the case in Dutch. Furthermore, there might be some referencing problems at the end of the article, but I'm really not that great with refs, so if someone could have a look? I kept out some paragrafs which are really specific for the Dutch and Belgian situation. Maybe we need to add some more global examples, but I don't have the knowledge to do that. I hope it will be expanded in time. Ruigeroeland (talk) 11:00, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Category:Lepidoptera food plant lists

I've listed this category for renaming here at CFD. My suggested rename is Category:Lists of Lepidoptera by food plant, which I think makes the contents more clear, but I wonder if there is still a better name. Any input is appreciated. Cheers, Postdlf (talk) 17:24, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Adopt a leper

Hi. Some identification and photographic critique would be appreciated on the lepidoptera, bee and beetle photos I uploaded. In particular could you please comment on the quality or necessity of the photos? Our articles on these particular animals seem to have enough photos as is so I do not unnecessarily want to upload full-res versions. Discussion is here: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science#UFO identification. Thanks! Zunaid 21:22, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Task

I was looking through the task and I saw "wikicards", maybe I'm just out of the loop but what are those? --IvanTortuga (talk) 18:24, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Childish enthusiasm of mine in the early days of the WikiProject! I'm deleting it! I meant to make free-content cards for each butterfly species, actually made a couple! AshLin (talk) 15:35, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Ah, I see. That's a really cool idea though. Are the cards on the commons or did you not "release" them? --IvanTortuga (talk) 17:05, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Noctuidae of Canada

Hello all, I like to request some help creating articles on Canadian Noctuidae. I made the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_moths_of_Canada_(Noctuidae) using "The moths of Canada" as a source. There are still a lot of red links though. Maybe someone is interested in helping out making articles? Or maybe there are some North Americans who can upload some images? Most of the species are reasonably well described since they are North American.. Cheers and thanks for any help! Ruigeroeland (talk) 15:22, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Lepidoptera morphology Merge

It has been proposed that Lepidoptera morphology should be merged with Holometabolism and Lepidoptera. Please discuss this here.--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 20:12, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Distribution map How-to page

FYI, I've created a little tutorial for how to make those nifty species distribution maps that people sometimes add to taxoboxes: Wikipedia:Distribution maps. Enjoy. Kaldari (talk) 23:25, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that! Ruigeroeland (talk) 09:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Lepidoptera

As a part of Wikiproject Insect, it is my (and other members) goal to improve all the orders of Insect, and Lepidoptera is being worked on... and as it seems to be in your scope too so I was hoping that the members of Wikiproject LEPIDOPTERA can help. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 23:25, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Megalopyge crispata

Hey there! Can anyone create an article on Megalopyge crispata (aka Lagoa crispata)? This species is of interest to WikiProject Dermatology as a cause of lepidopterism. We already have a nice stub on M. opercularis, so perhaps one on M. crispata can be arranged?

Happy Holidays from WP:MED! Best wishes, Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:51, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, missed this. The article is done. Can you add the info on lepidopterism?

Images without articles

Here's a list of 4,500 Lepidoptera species of which we have images of on Commons. There's plenty of red links mixed in there for anyone looking to create some new articles. Some of them are likely to already have an article but under a different name (synonym, common name, or alternate spelling). I'm trying to get Commons classification in sync with ours, so it would be very helpful if anyone working on it to make a note whenever you encounter a discrepancy and Commons is the one using the outdated name or misspelling (I'll then update it over there). Thanks. Rocket000 (talk) 18:26, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Mindboggling feat. I'm in awe! AshLin (talk) 18:47, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, I already thanked you on your talk page, but an extra thank you is certainly in order! Cheers man! Ruigeroeland (talk) 09:41, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I've just updated the list (a couple 100 more species accounted for, mostly freshly uploaded ones). I removed the existed articles so it should be easier to use now. I also listed all the redirects too to help with syncing and finding errors. Rocket000 (talk) 17:58, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Great! If I check this list with redirects, should I make a new header and list the ones with the correct taxonomy which have an article under the common name? Ruigeroeland (talk) 20:41, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
That would be awesome. =) Rocket000 (talk) 22:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Can a bot rip this site?

I have no experience with bots, but I'm wondering if someone would know if it is possible for a bot to copy all info from this site: http://www.tortricidae.com/ to wikipedia. It's a catalogue of all genera and species of the tortricidae family.. Would be great to have on wikipedia, but a lot of work to do manually. Ruigeroeland (talk) 10:46, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure it would be, but would be suggested to reword the information... which defeats the purpose. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 00:05, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Hmm, probably true, although it would only need to rip the names and authorities of the species to the respective genus pages. But I'll see what I can do by hand. I made genera pages for one of the subfamilies allready. Cheers. Ruigeroeland (talk) 09:42, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Extractors needed

I know there's plenty of images to extract over on Commons already, but I just wanted to mention I'm currently uploading all the colored plates from The Macrolepidoptera of the World. A few were already uploaded, but now everything from volumes 1 and 5 are there (the other volumes aren't online yet). Rocket000 (talk) 02:40, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Wow, great find! I'll try to chip in from time to time, but I still need to do a lot of the Noctoid plates I uploaded myself. Ruigeroeland (talk) 09:07, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

WP 1.0 bot announcement

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Common vs Scientific names

I was wondering whether there'd been a discussion on this previously - I note that (I think) all Australian butterflies are at scientific names (as are many insects) yet alot of British species are at common names. Does anyone have a strong opinion? I'd say if only the minority have names then scientific names are the way to go but am not an expert in the areas...Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

AshLin (talk) 14:04, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
I personally create all species articles in scientific nomenclature rather than common name. That apart, I don't have the energy to fight the asinine policy about using common names. AshLin (talk) 14:07, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
The British ones seem to have the longest "wikipedia" history. It seems the common practice has shifted from using common names to using scientific names since then. I prefer scientific myself. I came across a lot of species with two or three common names, let alone the various ways of spelling. Just make redirects to the common name. Ruigeroeland (talk) 14:34, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with using common names as they change over time and may very widely to regions, accents, and many species do not have a common name. The whole point of creating scientific nomenclature was to create a nonchanging standard. I hope that one day we can reach a consensus to change all species, insect or otherwise, to their specified scientific name. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 21:11, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Note: I was just looking at some of the past discussions and noticed that there have been many discusions on this and no consensus, is it possible to take all the discussions to WP:Tree of Life and try to convince a change and make a consensus. Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 21:31, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
The argument has been held over and over, as has the one for capitalisation of mammal names. Starting small and working up seems prudent. I have moved many insect common names to scientific ones. Are we all in agreement to move to scientific? If so, maybe make a note on the front of the lepidoptera wikiproject page (sorry about delayed reply) Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:57, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
If the proposal is reborn at our WikiProject Level, for keeping it within Lepidoptera/Insects, I pledge my support. AshLin (talk) 05:11, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Important WikiProject Notice

 Done. AshLin (talk) 07:16, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Tortricidae

If someone is interested, I finished adding all genera of the tortricidae family from this site: http://www.tortricidae.com/catalogue.asp to wikipedia and adding species to the genera we allready had. I still need to do the higher taxonomy (which genus belongs in which subfamily and tribe), but I'll try to do that sometime soon. If someone wants to help turning some red links blue, please do..! The family consists of about 9,000 species. Ruigeroeland (talk) 16:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

FYI: The taxonomy is updated. Ruigeroeland (talk) 14:49, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Photo - wrong ID?

I'm told the species in File:Papilio phorcas (Wroclaw zoo)-2.JPG isn't Papilio phorcas but an Indian Swallowtail. Does this sound right, and does anyone know what species it is? Richard001 (talk) 07:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

These unknown provenance specimens from zoos can however be problematic. But it looks quite good for Papilio palinurus (see File:Butterfly-green black.jpg ). Shyamal (talk) 08:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Congruence with WikiSpecies

I am a contributor and an Admin on Wikispecies, as I have some specialist knowledge on SE Asian butterflies and have access to all old scientific papers through library resources. It seems odd to me that there is not enough in the way of linking between Lepidoptera pages on this site and on WS. For example, the Oriental Polyommatini are listed on WS in accordance with the authoritative work of Hirowatari, 1992[15]. This includes the taxon roxus Godart as being within genus Caleta Fruhstorfer and considers Pycnophallium Toxopeus to be a synonym of Caleta. This is how the taxonomy is represented on WS. On Wikipedia, however, Caleta roxus is redirected to Pycnophallium roxus without any authoritative reference given that would support going against the analysis of Hirowatari. Can I make a plea for those creating pages here to look first at the authoritative references quoted on WikiSpecies and then to use congruent taxonomy here, or at least explain why they take a different view. ACCassidy (talk) 13:05, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, that would be best, but at the moment the page on wikipedia was created (2006), the page on wikispecies was not present yet (13 February 2009), so it would have been nice of the creator of the wikispecies listing to change the wikipedia article.. I am working on moths (not butterflies) mostly and I use wikispecies from time to time, but a lot (I would dare say most) of species are missing, so I can't use it on a regular basis.. People on wikipedia are no taxonomy experts and most (at least I) don't have access to scientific papers, making it hard to figure out what genus a species is in, what species are now synonyms, etc. I am still wondering if there is no better way to sync. the two projects. We are making sort of a taxonomic tree on wikipedia by making the taxoboxes in articles, why are we not using the info on wikispecies? Wouldn't there be a way to incorporate the tree of wikispecies on wikipedia? This would: a. ensure the taxonomy is consistent and b. that both wikipedia and wikispecies would benefit from new articles. Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:34, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes, the Caleta example is just that, an example, and of course the timescales are as you say. My point is more general than specific, and it would save time in future if such cross-reference was made automatically, or at least during the research stage by contributors. I did not want to launch into a revision of someone else's work here without airing the issue first on these discussion pages. Some time later, I may change the structure here, but for now I think it better to talk the subject over. Best Wishes. ACCassidy (talk) 14:06, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes, I agree it should be part of the research. Also, it would be best if a contributor would add the species to wikispecies if they are not allready there and a wikispecies contributor should check if a species entered there is present on wikipedia and change the taxonomy if needed or add synonyms if not present allready. I know we have a lot of genus pages on wikipedia, especially on Noctuidae species, which are not on wikispecies yet. Would there be an way to get these added? (i.e. without having to manually copy everything). Would it be an idea to extend the scope of the Lep. project on wikipedia to wikispecies and make it sort of a joint project? I know Rocket000 is working on Leps a lot on Commons, so it could be a three-way project of sorts. Off course, I don't know if there even are wikiprojects on Wikispecies? Ruigeroeland (talk) 14:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia matures as it progresses. At that point of time the NMNH site (LepIndex) and Savella's list were what I used to create that page. My suggestion is that since WikiSpecies is primarily concerned with taxonomy, why dont they correct our articles, of course with a justification note on the article talk page and move it as necessary. A summary of updates or very short announcement of talk of this WikiProject would be very useful in addition. AshLin (talk) 14:34, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Image request - claspers & pupa

External morphology of Lepidoptera (earlier Lepidoptera morphology is developing well. We need images of claspers - in fact of the male and female's sexual organs. Since we already have male & female sexual anatomy drawings we are looking for images of rear end of the butterflies. The claspers should be clearly visible, for encyclopaediac value and the female's parts too. Something like seen here : http://www.butterflyfunfacts.com/handpairbutterflymonarch.php.

We also need a hawkmoth pupa so that we can label the parts clearly. Something like this.

Can anyone get such images for the article please? AshLin (talk) 17:42, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I have some images of claspers and hawkmoth pupae. I will upload them later today or possibly tomorrow. Megan|talkcontribs 15:28, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I thought I had photos of the pupae, but it turns out I don't. However, I uploaded two photos of claspers. I hope this will help. Megan|talkcontribs 19:01, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Terrific, thank you! Eagerly waiting for a pupa image from you. AshLin (talk) 09:57, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Your welcome. I'm glad I come help you. Cheers, Megan|talkcontribs 18:16, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Reviewing for GA (and FA?)...?

Greetings, all!

I wonder whether we are doing ourselves a disservice in not systematically reviewing Project articles for GA. Given that there are several of us with our own "pet" (sub)projects on the go, shouldn't we have somewhere to ask our colleagues to review and potentially regrade "our" articles?

If such a place exists, please forgive my ignorance and point me in the right direction. Thanks. GRM (talk) 21:25, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I'll take a shot at the first of your pet project and one more of someone else's too! AshLin (talk) 11:05, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Aglossa cuprina

Shines on the outside, thoroughly rotten at the core. See my entry on the Talk page. The synonymy seems to be utter nonsense; even if the senior synonym pinguinalis were preoccupied (which does not seem to be the case) the valid name would probably be A. marmorella!

Either something really weird has happened here, or else this should never have passed peer review, where everything pertinent to this question was discussed but apparently nobody bothered to check the fricking facts. Seriously - how could this happen? Peer review bitching about all kinds of arbitrary punctuation stuff, yet nobody ever read the cited sources when noticing that a junior synonym was supposedly replacing a senior synonym? If true, the term EPIC FAIL comes to mind.

The taxonomic problem permeates much of the article, and the code is so messed up with full-blown inlined references that it'll be not quick to fix if you don't use editing help addons (which I don't do). So please someone else fix it, and perhaps convert to WP:CITESHORT while at it.

(As a side note - this mess has been festering for one year now. I find it hard to believe that no entomologist or other person with taxonomic knowledge has ever noticed. But with the source code so obfuscated as it is, this is simply not an article "anyone" can edit "now".) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 12:31, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, it was a school project, so wasn't written by an expert. It seems you are completely right, cuprina and pinguinalis are not synonyms as far as I can see and they probably never were.. Maybe someone at wikispecies can help? Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:52, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
By the way: thanks for your recent work on moths! We can really use the help! Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:53, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Either excise out all the stuff or revert to earlier state before the duff material came in. AshLin (talk) 14:14, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Well by a school project's standards, much of it is actually good and usable. It's just that the taxonomy bit is totally messed up. What needs to be excised is any mention of cuprana, as well as the taxonomy-specific part in the intro. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 18:55, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License content

Maybe this is old news, but the site Zoologische Mededelingen has a CC-BY-3.0 licence for all their articles. See: http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=zoomed;cc=zoomed;sid=233cf96e72e622027b93189b0d1d85b3;rgn=main;tpl=home.tpl I found a some articles on Lepidoptera in their recent issues. Older ones can be found here Ruigeroeland (talk) 11:49, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Cool! Haven't noted this, thanks for the info. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 19:21, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

The NHM Lepidoptera Genus Database Is Decadent and Depraved ;-)

Actually, it is really good for "deep" taxonomic problems. Authors, dates, references, homonymies... it's all in there.

The problem is: it's a database of available names, not of presently valid names (which would be quite subjective anyway). But its comprehensiveness has enticed editors to use it for mass-creating of genus stubs. Crambidae is perhaps most seriously affected, see List of crambid genera. It's confusing to the non-expert reader, it discredits Wikipedia in the eye of the expert/professional reader, and from the editor's side, it is really messy as well as creating a lot of problems especially with homonymy/disambiguation cases.

In the crambid example, about 40% of the genus articles (based on the database data and Footit & Adler Insect Biodiversity: Science and Society‎) that were created by a single bot run in a few days' time are synonymized today. Meaning that a few days of automated stub generation have forced us to manually review some 700 articles, determine their synonymies, and fix them... it gets worse, because there is no one-shot solution to the problem: Markku Savela's database (perhaps the one comprehensive review available to all) is of varying quality, parts being top-notch and parts being obsolete. Fauna Europaea, Australian Faunal Directory and so on are usually pretty good, thorough and reliable, but of course they are necessarily incomplete.

As the NHM database is so huge, it is generally parsed by bot, which results in a maintenance nightmare. Sooo... should we ban bot parsing of the database and keep our eyes open to stop any bot runs that have been started in good faith? It would still be possible to grab a genus list from the database, review it to throw out junior synonyms, and then parse it by bot. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 19:21, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, we have this problem for most moth families a bot has touched. I would say we should discourage people to generate these stubs. They are not usefull anyway, because they only state "XX is a genus in X family", without stating the author or any of the species. There is absolutely no point in having these stubs at all. In terms of workload, it is just as easy to make a new page as to expand these stubs, so that is not an argument in favour of making these either. I noticed Ganeshbot (I think), is creating genus and species articles for Gastropods that ARE usefull (i.e. containing the authorities, species and links to specific pages with info), if someone would make that kind of stubs, that would be great, but not the ones we are now stuck with.. Anyway: you are doing a great job cleaning up Dysmorodrepanis! I will help out when I come across some from time to time. I allready started cleaning up the Noctuidae genus stubs some time ago, but I got sick of it halfway through.. :) Ruigeroeland (talk) 08:20, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Same problem at List of Lecithocerid genera - delete that wretched thing outright? It hasn't even been tagged with the Project box on the Talk page. We could simply grab the "genus list" and dump it in the family article, as an <!-- invisible comment --> and with a note of warning. That way, we salvage the information - it is after all already wikified and formatted, and that is a good bit of work should be honored and definitely not be thrown away, because no matter how much of it is wrong, some of it is certainly useful.
As regards cleanup, the way I work is generally from reference to article (meaning I find an interesting paper and then incorporate the info here). The cleaning-up is just a side effect, meaning I won't do a complete cleanup of any one group but merely of the subtaxa which the reference discusses. This avoids the problem you describe (I have also a major Cassidinae paper at hand, but I ran into the same problem - too much info makes you go "bleechhh" after some time. So User:Dysmorodrepanis/Sandbox7 is gonna be stuck half-way done for some more months I guess...). Sure, it would be better to bring up all the subtaxa to the same standard, but it's very tedious, and if you break it off in mid-way it is usually hard to get into it again. And as long as there is some improvement overall, that's probably just as good. 15:47, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, the <nowiki> option would be best I guess. I would be willing to sort it out later on. Generally, I also work from ref to article, but I do tend to search for new related refs. At present, I'm trying to make as many Nepticulidae species pages as I can get info on. I'm also trying to sort out the genera as I'm moving along. This family only has a few, but there were also a lot of synonyms listed on the family page. Ruigeroeland (talk) 17:47, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Ident

I'm needing an identification for this moth (different angle). I estimated the length to be about 6 to 7 cm (2.4 - 2.8 inches) long. Bidgee (talk) 12:20, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I noticed you took this in Australia? Try user Dhobern at Flickr, http://www.flickr.com/photos/dhobern/ He seems an expert on Australian leps. Cheers! Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:40, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Is it in the family Hepialidae ? Initially thought it could be in the Cossidae but seems like Australia has many interesting families. Some of the Abantiades on this page appear to have similar patterns. Do post the id when you get it. Shyamal (talk) 16:08, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Image

There's some dispute at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Image:Australian painted lady feeding closeup.jpg over the value the image adds to certain articles and what the image is actually depicting, I was wondering if anyone here would be able to clear up the situation. Guest9999 (talk)


Here is a video of Common BAnded Peacock Butterfly (Papilio Crino) that was taken in April 2010, in Irpu falls, Coorg District, Karnataka, India.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTvpWpBvPFM

Shankar HN email: hn.shankar@gmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shankarhn (talk • contribs) 06:58, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Identification

Unidentified Brown Butterfly

The other-day I saw a Butterfly (see picture), and was curious to know what it was.

I recreated it casually. But I thought I might as well get it identified if I can. So can anyone tell me what it's called?

Helpful Details:

  • Range: Golburn valley - Murray rivver, Australia. (as far as I know).
  • A few centimeters long
  • Wings rest horizontally, as if it were a moth.

Seen anything like this? If I get a Photo, I could always put it on too.

Try this site Shyamal (talk) 07:30, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
Ahh, thanks. I found it! It's a Meadow Argus. Thats a very useful site. --JamesDouch (talk) 11:17, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

List of butterflies of Victoria

Yes it took me a while, but I pulled together a list of butterflies from Victoria (Australia). The actual listing side of it is mainly complete. But it still needs discussion tags, images for the listed species, and proof-reading. It would be good to be consistent with all other classification lists.

Anybody want to help out? --JamesDouch (talk) 13:03, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Great work. I'll help out making species. I'm doing that allready for the bigger Butterflies of Australia list. I'm also looking for someone to help out making a list of moths of Australia. All the info is there (see: http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/abrs/online-resources/fauna/afd/home), but it's just a lot of work. If you're interested.. I would be happy to make species articles.. I don't really like taking on another list just now.. Have been making some in the past, but I prefer making species pages.. Ruigeroeland (talk) 18:27, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
You make species articles? thats good! I might fill in some of the red-links too, sometime. Wow there isn't a list of Australian moths? I can't believe there isn't. Something like that is high-importance. I'll check out the link and depending on how much work it is, will help me decide if I create the list or not. But most likely I will, even if it is a lot of work. --JamesDouch (talk) 06:26, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
Trust me, it is a lot of work. There are 1000s :) Take a look at List_of_moths_of_Great_Britain for an idea of how to best create such a list. I made a similar one for Canada (see List_of_moths_of_Canada) from a great source I found. If you would be willing to help out, that would be great! Ruigeroeland (talk) 08:34, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
I see the way you made that list, and the british list, is organized differently to my list, and most other lists I've seen before. In the link: (http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/abrs/online-resources/fauna/afd/home) what exactly am I supposed to type in the search bar to get a list of Australian moths there? It looks like a useful website though.
There really is a lot more moths on this planet than butterflies. It's probably the main reason an Australian moth list hasn't been created yet. Well even though there is over 1000, we may be able to break it down it to chunks and tackle it not all at once. But still, where is this list of moths? I can't find it. --JamesDouch (talk) 10:30, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
Go to this link: http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/abrs/online-resources/fauna/afd/taxa/LEPIDOPTERA/checklist#selected They use a tree, so all species are listed at the last rank (just click on the + in front of the name of the suborder, then superfamily, then family, then genus, etc.). Note though: the link I send is for the whole order, so this includes the butterflies. We already have a page for them, so no need to add these. The other country list are arranged by family, so that might be the best way to start, so List of moths of Australia (Noctuidae), List of moths of Australia (Geometridae), etc. For Great Britain, I lumped all micromoth families in one page, but this might become too large for a big country like Australia, but we can always split it up later.. Ruigeroeland (talk) 10:47, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
sorry, missed the first sentence of your reply.. Yeah: it has a different built-up. I didn't think of that, but the user who originally made the List of moths of Great Britain did. It makes sense though, because there are too many species to list on one page. Ruigeroeland (talk) 10:50, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I suppose I have no problems with organizing the list structure as you do. Ahh, there now I got it, for a while after reading your reply I still didn't understand what you were saying because all of the classifications at the beginning of the tree have hardly any species in it. But now it makes more sense after seeing "Ditrysia" which has almost all of the other species inside it. okay I understand everything now - and this should be smoother than the last list I made, because the website I used, didn't organize species by genus (etc.), it just gave me a big list, leaving me to sort out each butterfly one-by-one into their genera.
I probably wont get started right away. Maybe I'll start it up tomorrow, or on the weekend, or whenever I get time. I was thinking what we should do is create a workpage/subpage to store all the information I rip from the website, so that way we don't have to put the article onto Wikipedia significantly unfinished. I'll contact you when this gets started, Until then. --JamesDouch (talk) 11:19, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
Sounds great! I allready made two though, see List of moths of Australia (Zygaenidae) and List of moths of Australia (Anthelidae). Cheers! And I'm looking forward to having these articles on wikipedia. I hope it will encourage more people to contribute to the project..! Ruigeroeland (talk) 11:34, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
Okay, I made List of moths of Australia (Alucitidae), a very small family. You could check it for any problems, I tryied to make it consistent with your lists. I've also been cheking a list of moth familys to make sure I don't acidentally create a list of butterflies. I'll keep updating my user-page (in the "to do" section) with what familys are complete. Now I just have to complete the rest. --JamesDouch (talk) 10:45, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Nice work! The only thing I changed are the italics for species. Binomial names are normally in italics.. Cheers and keep it up! I've been making missing Aussie butterfly articles, but will help with the moth lists later on. Ruigeroeland (talk) 12:43, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
List of moths of Australia (Geometridae) is also done. Have a look at the species without a genus (example at bottom of Boarmini), might be you encounter something similar. Didn't know how to handle these.. You think this would be ok? Ruigeroeland (talk) 16:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
The List of moths of Australia is done! If you want to help out to spice up the appearance (adding pictures and such), that would be great. I will start making species articles and see how far I get. A lot of species have little to no info available it seems. Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:39, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
Are you serious? I've been almost no help in this project at all. I did nearly nothing. I sort of lost track of everything and now it's done! Too much has been happening in my life. I should have been here. I'll at least dress up the page a bit, It's the least I could have done. Thank-you for doing it anyway, good work! — JamesDouch • Talk • 07:21, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
I was on a roll so to speak.. :) Anyway, no worries, there's always work to be done. If you want to help out making some species, that would be amazing. Ruigeroeland (talk) 10:18, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Tip for sources

Maybe this is generally known, but the people at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request are able to provide links to full articles from various scientific journals. Including the excellent articles from ZooTaxa, which are great for making species articles. Cheers Ruigeroeland (talk) 13:28, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Request for project member help

I recently removed a pre-mature prod on Societas Europaea Lepidopterologica. A quick preliminary source search indicates this is a notable organization. Unfortunately it was created by a new editor unfamilar with the ways of WP. Could some project members look at it and give this new editor some advice on improving it. Thanks--Mike Cline (talk) 15:06, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

This new Editor is me - finally found your WikiProject. Yes, I would appreciate feedback or advice! Tlmfnw (talk) 10:08, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm not an expert on the type of article you created here, but it looks good as it is now! It's informative and includes references, links and categories, so no worries, this article should be fine. Ruigeroeland (talk) 10:27, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Request for sorting help

Category:Noctuidae really needs to be sorted. There are categories now for most (if not all) of the subfamilies. Any missing subfamily categories should be created. There are currently over 4000 articles in the main category, most of which could be moved to a subfamily, with a little effort. I've started updating the genera articles, ensuring that the genera that I move also list the specific subfamily that they belong to. But this is a lot of work for one guy. Dawynn (talk) 11:04, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

That is an immense job.. I'm affraid I have to pass on this one, I have some other time consuming projects I'm working on at the moment. Might I suggest you read the paragraph "recent developments" on the Noctuoidea page? The taxonomy for the families in the Noctuoidea superfamily are very instable at the moment, since there is a lot of research done with regards to the relationships between families, subfamilies, etc. Note that this research seems to be ongoing and there might be some drastic changes soon! I think it would be safest to put species in categories by genus, making it easier to move them to another subfamily or even family. Ruigeroeland (talk) 12:54, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
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