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Talk:Adaptive Coloration in Animals

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Good articleAdaptive Coloration in Animals has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
April 16, 2013Good article nomineeListed
Did You Know
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on November 23, 2012.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Adaptive Coloration in Animals was said to be the only zoology book ever to be packed in a soldier's kitbag?

Title

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Was the first edition published in the UK really spelled 'coloration' and not 'colouration'? And if so, why? Why would a British author publishing in the UK use American spelling, especially back in 1940 when US spelling was not used at all in the UK, (unlike today)? 86.134.91.122 (talk) 07:41, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In Poulton's time in 1890, we Brits wrote "colouration", but by 1940 that looked strange to us and we generally wrote "coloration", which we still do today. In the book itself, both Huxley (in the Preface) and Cott (in the text) write "colour" but "coloration". Sorry but that's how it is... Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:55, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If it's any consolation, the American authors Abbott Handerson Thayer and Gerald H. Thayer published Concealing Colouration in the Animal Kingdom (New York, 1909), so perhaps the Brit/Am spelling split isn't quite as clear as you imagined. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:16, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Adaptive Coloration in Animals/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs) 09:41, 12 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

First reading

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  • I will look properly at the lead section after I have studied the rest of the text.
  • There is a need for consistency as to whether American or British English is used in the article. It is a pity that a British Author publishing his book in the UK chose to call it Adaptive Coloration in Animals.
I believe I've used Brit throughout; coloration was and remains an acceptable Brit spelling, and since it's in the British title we have no choice in the matter. He always uses "coloration" but "colour". We also say "humour" but "humorous", etc etc.
  • The first sentence in "Approach" is too long and should be broken up.
done
  • "The book addresses its subject under three main headings: concealment, advertising, and disguise." - "advertisement" would be better here.
done (x2)
  • "Caterpillars and pupae (as in Poulton) are coloured to match their environment." - What does "as in Poulton" mean?
changed to ... Poulton's experiment, with link
  • I think you might explain "obliterative shading" a little.
have added "i.e." before the explanation, it's a name for Countershading, and explained a little.
  • Do you think it is a good thing having all these bold examples in upper case? Having had "The methods by which concealment is attained in nature", you follow it with "General Colour Resemblance". It seems illogical to me and seems to conflict with {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Quotations MOS typographical conformity).
Mmm, yes, I've put all the chapter headings in "Sentence case", and mark them all "Chapter" to make it clear they're Cott's headings.
  • "... teh form of the animals wearing them." - Was this misprint in the original or is the typo introduced by you?
just a typo, thanks.
  • "Cott considers how adaptive camouflage is, such as in incubation and rest (sleep) in birds." This sentence structure seems a little awkward.
changed to "how effective camouflage is as an adaptation..."
  • "Cott describes how predators approach prey, taking care to reduce visible movement, and of scent." - Ditto
changed to "the care that predators take..."
  • "In this chapter Cott takes various objections to the adaptive (evolutionary) nature of camouflage," - "discusses" or some similar word might be better.
done
  • "... and diurnal to make themselves visible." - I don't know what Cott says, but I would have thought the animals in question can emerge and feed in the daytime because of their colouration not in order to make themselves visible.
Changed to "diurnal, since warning displays only work if they can be seen." p. 203
  • "Some birds nest near wasps." - You might expand this - you presumably mean wasp nests.
done
  • It would be better to mention and link "aposematism" in the text rather than the heading.
done
  • "Experimental evidence is presented that conspicuous insects are rejected by predators." - Are all conspicuous insects rejected or just ones with warning colours?
the latter of course, thanks.
  • "Huxley quoted the now long-forgotten Aaron Franklin Shull's 1936 Evolution[13] who opined "These special forms ..." - I think you could omit the "who opined" or replace it with "which stated" or somesuch.
done
  • I tried to find instructions in the MOS guidelines about what punctuation mark if any is correct before a quotation. Sometimes you use a colon but mostly you don't use anything.
Heaven forfend anyone writes any more MOS guidelines. I've removed the colons except where a structure like "... as follows:" or a natural break in the sentence seems to demand one. Guess I've always used that rule unconsciously.
Ok, done those... Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:35, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

GA Criteria

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  • 1a The article is well written and the prose is of a high quality.
  • 1b The article conforms with the MOS guidelines. Some suggestions to help compliance as mentioned above have been actioned.
  • 2a&b The article is well referenced and has inline citations for all contentious statements.
  • 2c There is no original research as far as I can see.
  • 3a&b The coverage is broad enough and the article does not include irrelevant material.
  • 4 The article is neutral.
  • 5 The article was created by the nominator in November 2012 and has hardly been edited by anybody else.
  • 6 The images are mostly subject to copyright but are used at low resolution in the article for the purpose of illustrating the points made in the book and their non-free use rationales are satisfactorily given.
  • 7 The images are relevant to the topic and have suitable captions.
  • Overall assessment - Pass.
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