Talk:Oriental fire-bellied toad

Student Review

When discussing behavior, the entry provides a sufficient introduction on the frog’s communication, specifically calling signals, and predator-prey interactions. In addition to the description of the frog’s toxicity, both communication and predator-prey interactions are well organized and provide a potential insight into the frog’s breeding and defense mechanism for survival. Particular behaviors of interest include males spacing out their vocalizations to attract females and frogs displaying bright coloration, most likely a form of aposematism, to warn predators of toxicity. In the context of behavior, the frog entry is missing a thorough discussion on resource competition, grouping, and parental care and each should be included into the entry. Incorporating resource competition would give readers insight into how the frog adopts aggressive and competitive behaviors during limitations on mates or food while incorporating grouping would provide insight into the tradeoffs between the frog living either independently or dependently in an environment. Incorporating parental care would help provide insight into potential conflicts between parents and siblings after mating and reproduction. After reviewing the talk section, the entry does appear to represent a ‘good article’ status given its effective organization and evident broad coverage of the frog’s behavior, habitat, and skin coloration. The entry also appears to show an adequate number of citations and independent references throughout. With respect to the entry’s importance, a ‘low class’ importance seems reasonable since the entry describes a very specific type of frog that may be unfamiliar among amphibians.--Hoonji2022 (talk) 04:35, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

include map of distribution

Hi, I think it would be helpful to include a map of where the habitats and distributions mainly are. It would also be helpful to know the lifespan in nature and reproductive cycle of the species because the entry only mentioned lifespan in captivity. - Emily486103 (talk) 17:32, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Toad

Even though it is called a "toad", this species is in order Anura and not in family Bufonidae - so it is properly a frog. Strictly speaking, there isn't a scientific meaning to the word 'toad'. I made an addition to clarify this, because the article formerly just said that B. orientalis was a kind of toad. --Leperflesh 23:24, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Captive keeping advice

Captive keeping advice has crept into almost every other section, and there are a couple of questionable assertions made. I'm going to do a cleanup, mostly moving captive-keeping stuff to the appropriate section.

I'm removing the following thing about their poop, because I've been keeping them for years and I've never seen this. If it is true and a citation can be made, feel free to add it back in... in the captive keeping section, not the intro.

"Its fecal matter is also a bark brown color that is enveloped in something that resembled a skin and it is possible for the "capsule of sorts" to be gently removes if pierced the waste matter will quickly disperse in the water, this shouldn't be a problem if you have a filtration system."

--Leperflesh (talk) 22:04, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Missing infos

An anonymous username, not my real name I think this article probably needs Habitat and Conservation status sections, especially in GAN. 2001:4455:1A9:E100:58ED:9A2:3A1A:9A5C (talk) 04:13, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I'll do a Habitat section if I get a chance, but I think a Conservation status section for a Least Concern species that is extremely common in captivity is probably unnecessary. Thank you for your advice. An anonymous username, not my real name (talk) 04:17, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

An anonymous username, not my real name It also doesn't have Taxonomy section. They'll probably gonna recommend you on GAN to expand it including the lead, just like mine. Goodluck and Happy New Year! 2001:4455:1A9:E100:58ED:9A2:3A1A:9A5C (talk) 04:22, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Okay, I'll work on that. Happy New Year to you as well! An anonymous username, not my real name (talk) 04:28, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

An anonymous username, not my real name I did some of the photos at the article. Congrats to your first GA article. I believe you can do more if only you can go further. :) 2001:4455:1A9:E100:1039:C4D2:8092:F4BC (talk) 23:11, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Oriental fire-bellied toad/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jens Lallensack (talk · contribs) 20:44, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Reviewing now.

OK, this article needs some significant work:

general points

• A lot of standard information is missing that most GA have. Furthermore, this is an important species that received a lot of research; the article does not provide adequate coverage. Examples what is missing:
  • Who described the species, and when;
  • how was it previously classified
  • are there other common names
  • etymology of the scientific name
  • are there differences between sexes
  • body weight (and we need the length in cm)
  • How does it differ from related species?
  • Elevation?
  • There seems to be a lot of interesting research on calling behaviour
  • Different kinds of calls should be covered.
  • Bombesin not mentioned
• Did you notice the nice Polski WP article? That one is quite long, indicating that there could be much more to write about this topic. If you cover all important points concisely, though, this is fine, of course.
• Article needs a red thread. Try to provide the information in an order that allows a reader to comprehend everything when they read top-to-bottom. For example, before you say Oriental fire-bellied toads are incapable of extending their tongues to catch prey, but you should first state what they eat.
  • Introduce things first before going into details. General information first, then the specifics.

minor points

• The toad was once classified into two subspecies, B. o. practicola and B. o. silvatica, although newer research has found them to display few genetic differences, despite some physical ones. These findings support their classification as a monotypic species, albeit one with multiple morphs. – Interestingly, the study says that the split between the two morphs was a recent one (which means they could form separate subspecies if given more time). Maybe add this aspect (recent split)?
• The population in Beijing, despite having only existed since 1927, – needs background information for context; why since 1927, how did it get there?
• No references in the lead because everything should be repeated and cited in the main text in any case.

ON HOLD: Significant work required, unfortunately. I recommend to look at the Polski article to get some ideas. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:16, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I will address most of these, but all of the research I can find about bombesin doesn't mention this species, only the European fire-bellied toad. An anonymous username, not my real name (talk) 02:39, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Concerning bombesin: This is the first I found [1] but there are many more. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 12:44, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the help regarding that. Most of your other points are about taxonomy and etymology, though, and any information about either of those is highly elusive. This is the best info I can find [[2]] and it doesn't talk about the history of their classification and naming. I could add that their scientific and common names reference the Orient where they are found, but it feels original research-y, since nowhere is that explicitly stated. --An anonymous username, not my real name (talk) 00:18, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Start here [3]. Look up the first description (its here: [4]). You note that it was originally classified as "Bombinator orientalis", so your taxonbox should have the author in brackets to indicate this: (Boulenger, 1890). It was later moved to the genus Bombina by Stejneger 1907. This is here [5]. This should be the basic history. If you can't find a source regarding the etymology, that is ok. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:42, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you very much! --An anonymous username, not my real name (talk) 14:28, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Is there still anything that should be changed? --An anonymous username, not my real name (talk) 19:31, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

• Much better now! But I still feel we need broader coverage, as GA criterion 3 "Broad in its coverage" is, in my opinion, not yet fulfilled. We don't need all of the items listed below, but it would be good if we get most of them:
  • Most importantly, the "research" section (probably needs to be an own section) should be much longer, giving a better impression of the research that has been published. There really is a lot, see [6].
  • The "introduction" sections of these papers often contain some general information on this species, which could be interesting as well.
  • How does it differ from the other species? Maybe the first description has diagnoses?
  • active during day or night? I think this is an obvious question (search in Google Scholar for Bombina orientalis "diurnal species")
  • Tips of digits are orange, seems to be relevant
  • Any differences between male and female? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:41, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

• Also, SI units (m, cm) should be the primary units per MOS:CONVERSIONS; also, best use the conversion template
• Avoid single-sentence paragraphs ("In Captivity" section). --Jens Lallensack (talk) 20:43, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

How does it look now? --An anonymous username, not my real name (talk) 04:10, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Great, that should be enough now! Some minor things to fix:

• Oriental bell toad, Chinese bell toad, eastern fire-bellied toad, and Korean fire-bellied toad – best place this information into "taxonomy", not in bold, but importantly these need a source. If you have a source, we also need redirects for all of them.
• Lead is too short, should summarize all major aspects of the article.
• link to Aposematism when you discuss the function of the colouring?
• The third section of "Description" should, I think, appear under "behavior".
• I also did a copy edit, please check if that all is correct. If so, after you addressed the few points above, we should be done. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 13:55, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

I think I got everything now. --An anonymous username, not my real name (talk) 16:49, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Closing note: The article made huge steps forwards during the review. I did several copy edits myself. I now think it is up to standard. Congratulations. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:24, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Review

1. The strength of this entry is the organization of the information and the extensive coverage of the content. I like how the article made good use of the subcategories to give readers a better overview of the article and facilitated the process of searching specific topics within the entry. Also, the entry covers a lot of topics in a well-written manner. The most interesting thing I learned from the article is that the Oriental fire-bellied toad does not have an eardrum or resonator, and it makes its calls by inhaling.

2. Categories

a. Home range and territoriality – This entry already covers a lot of the categories mentioned in the outline, but it does cover this category much in the entry. I think information related to male defense of places likely to attract females, home range of the organism, and migration would be a good addition to the article.

b. Parental Care – In the “Breeding” subcategory, the entry covers the mating and breeding process, but there is not much information about parental care, such as oviposition, egg guarding, tadpole transport, and feeding young. I think adding this category/subcategory would be a good way to expand the article since the “Breeding” subcategory briefly mentions about the site selection for egg laying.

c. Enemies – The entry already has a “Predation” subcategory talking about the predators. However, adding the “Enemies” category and including information about predators, parasites, diseases, and immunity as a separate category would be a good addition. I think that if this toad has a specific disease that is more susceptible than others, it would definitely be an interesting topic to cover.

3. The talk page of this article is a good example of collaboration in giving proper feedback and making changes accordingly to improve the quality of an article, ultimately creating a good article. For instance, the “Missing infos” comment mentioned that the “Habitat,” “Conservation status,” and “Taxonomy” sections should be added, and currently the article has all of these sections. I think the talk page was very active in improving the article, and I think it really aligns with this current assignment. --Turturenhydra (talk) 23:53, 22 September 2022