Talk:Saguaro boot

A fact from Saguaro boot appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 31 January 2011 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Saguaro boots are the co-creation of a bird and a cactus?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2011/January.

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Death of a saguaro

"When the saguaro dies, and soft flesh rots, the hollowed-out callus remains behind, its roughly boot-like shape giving it the name of "saguaro boot."" Does the cactus die or only the flesh around it? I get the impression of the latter from elsewhere in the article. This may need to be explained or rewritten. 162.39.187.228 (talk) 00:19, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I tried re-wording this passage to make it clearer. A live saguaro has a lot of woody structure inside it that you can't see. After the cactus dies, the skin and live tissues rot away, so stuff inside that was hidden before can now be seen. Sharktopus^talk 21:25, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

BBC source

The article currently relies on this BBC source. While the BBC should obviously be regarded as a reliable source in most cases, this source is part of the h2g2 section of the BBC website, which is written by contributors in much the same way as Wikipedia is. I therefore doubt whether it can be considered reliable. Cordless Larry (talk) 02:29, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See also the discussion here. Cordless Larry (talk) 02:33, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Larry, I did not realize that h2g2 was not reliable. I will try to find other sources for the four items based on it. Actually, the initial inspiration for the article was even more unreliable -- descriptions and demonstrations of several different Saguaro boots by two different docents at the Desert Botanical Garden. But when several non-RS sources corroborate each other and agree with RS, I think we can hope that the info from them was not wrong. Sharktopus^talk 15:02, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, all done. There were 4 cites to the h2g2 source; 3 have been completely replaced by different RS sources, and the last one is corroborated by another RS source. Sharktopus^talk 02:20, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks for seeing to that. If it's OK with you, I'll remove the last reference so as not to set a bad example for other editors who might see this page and assume that h2g2 is a reliable source. Cordless Larry (talk) 02:53, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]