Talk:Potamon fluviatile/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ucucha 01:15, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

~~The lead seems rather short, should probably be at least two paragraphs.~~

I've expanded the lead a little, but I have struggled to find much to say without repeating text from later verbatim. Please let me know if it needs more. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Length is good now. I noticed that the fact that the Roman population is the only one in the middle of a large city is not in the body of the article. Ucucha 13:14, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done --Stemonitis (talk) 17:59, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

~~Technical term that needs inline explanation: pleopod~~

Done --Stemonitis (talk) 07:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

~~You first say it only occurs south of the watershed in the Tusco-Emilian Apennines, and then that it occurs north to the Po. Aren't the Tusco-Emilian Apennines directly south of the Po?~~

They are, but so are other parts of the Apennines. I don't really know the distribution that well (and I'm not sure anyone has published a detailed map for Italy), but it could be explained by a presence on the north side of the Ligurian Apennines, but not on the north side of the Tusco-Emilian Apennines specifically. It certainly occurs north-east of the more southerly parts of the Apennines. I have tried to limit myself to reported what the references say, rather than trying to add my own interpretation, so it may just be that the sources conflict slightly. The species' range has evidently changed in northern Italy over the last 150 years, which might go some way to explaining that. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, fair enough.

~~The taxonomy section is a little thin. Perhaps add something about other recognized subspecies and its original description.~~

I've added in Pretzmann's "nationes", and the other former subspecies. I'm worried that this might be giving undue weight to taxa that have been utterly ignored, as far as I can see. I've also added in some information about the wider genus. I can't seem to find a copy of Herbst (1785) to expand on the original description. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is apparently a reprint of it, with good presumably PD images. I can't find the actual book either; I think the taxonomy section is good now.

The distribution map doesn't seem to agree with the text.

I noticed that when I was writing the article, but I didn't like to change it until I was sure. I have seen no evidence that the species occurs on Corsica or Sardinia, or that the Croatian populations are separated geographically from the Greek ones. Accordingly, I've made a new map, correcting those errors. I'm less certain about the Italian distribution, though (see above). --Stemonitis (talk) 07:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are still some small discrepancies: the body of the article doesn't mention that it occurs in Kosovo and Bosnia. Ucucha 13:14, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am struggling a little here. I can't find any source that explicitly states that P. fluviatile either does or does not occur in Bosnia or Kosovo. As such, I am unsure whether to add Bosnia to the text, or remove it from the map. The smallest-scale study I've been able to find for that area (Jesse et al., 2009) also doesn't mention Bosnia, but does refer to Dalmatia, when it could have said Croatia. I'm probably reading too much into this, but that could be an attempt to cover parts of Bosnia (albeit only a tiny part – nothing like the area I drew on the map). Parts of the former Yugoslavia have been underexplored by biologists over the last few decades, for obvious reasons, and it seems quite likely to me that nobody's really checked to see how widespread the different Potamon species are in places like Bosnia-Herzegovina. On the other hand, the IUCN Red List gives an explicit list of countries, with the clear implication that it doesn't occur in any countries that are not listed there. Bosnia is not included, but then again, a distribution encompassing Croatia, Albania and Montenegro but not Bosnia seems unlikely. Either approach seems like WP:OR. Even stating (either in words, or through some kind of symbol on the map) that the distribution in Bosnia is uncertain would be OR: no-one else seems to have said so. I'm happy to redraw the map or rephrase the text in any way; I'm just not sure what the best approach would be. Any suggestions? --Stemonitis (talk) 17:59, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see the problem. I think it would be best to reduce the range in the interior of the Balkans so as to remove the piece in Kosovo and make the piece in Bosnia smaller. I think you can reasonably interpret "Dalmatia" to include parts of Bosnia (as our article says).

Two more things: Jesse et al. (p. 2211) state that the Peloponnesos population is a separate, cryptic species, and the Red List says that a recent taxonomic review (Brandis et al. 2000) doesn't recognize P. f. lanfrancoi. Shouldn't that be in the article? Ucucha 18:17, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:26, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I am now passing this as a GA. Ucucha 12:39, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Otherwise, it looks good; sources appear reliable and images are free. Ucucha 01:15, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]