Talk:Theridion grallator/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: RoySmith (talk · contribs) 16:46, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm starting this review. My plan is to do two major passes through the article, first for prose, the second to verify the references. In general, all my comments will be suggestions which you can accept or reject as you see fit. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:46, 26 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

RoySmith, Thank you for your suggestions. I just went through them. Let me know what you think. -- Cjing99 (talk) 10:21, 28 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cjing99, Thank you. I'm going to mark this as having passed the GA review. Thank you for writing this; it's a very nice piece of work and an important addition to the encyclopedia. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:58, 29 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Prose

Some of the lead does not summarize material in the main body. "Its Hawaiian name is nananana makakiʻi", "The specific epithet grallator is Latin for "stilt walker""

"a spider in the family Theridiidae that resides on the Hawaiian Islands." I think you want "which resides" (https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/grammar/that_vs_which.html).
Just passing by. Wanted to say that this is a restrictive clause, so "that resides" is correct. This might be easier to see if we consider a simplified version of the sentence: "Theridion grallator ... is a spider that resides on the Hawaiian islands" (vs. "Theridion grallator ... is a spider, which resides on the Hawaiian islands").

Changing this to a non-restrictive clause would require the introduction of a comma before "which", and the sentence would then imply that the whole family (not just this spider) is restricted to the Hawaiian islands. And that's not true, according to the family article. Armadillo pteryx 17:25, 27 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Armadillopteryx, I stand corrected. Thank you. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:29, 27 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"In addition to the variety of color polymorphisms present in T. grallator, this spider also demonstrates the interesting quality of diet-induced color change..." Maybe rewrite as "In addition to a variety of color polymorphisms, T. grallator demonstrates diet-induced color change..." I think it reads better, and leaves out the editorializing about which qualities are interesting.

"small spider with a body size less than 5 millimeters long", If this information is available in a WP:RS, include the overall length, including the legs.

"resembling a smiley face", I'd make all of "smiley face" the linked text.

"Each spider has a unique pattern", I could be missing something, but all I see in the cited reference is, "the amount and pattern of pigment varies greatly among individuals". That's not quite the same as every individual is unique. In fact, if "Some lack abdominal markings altogether", then all those lacking any markings at all are clearly not unique.

Link "polymorphism" the first time it's used, although I'm not sure which of the various articles listed under Polymorphism#Biology is the right one.

Link "dominant" to Dominance (genetics) the first time it's used.

Link "allele".

Be consistent in how you spell "Hawaii" (mostly you use "Hawai’i", but in one place I spotted it without the apostrophe).

"T. grallator lives beneath the leaves of plants, where they spin a much reduced web.". Reduced compared to what? This could also be combined with the next sentence, i.e. "T. grallator lives beneath the leaves of plants, where they spin a much reduced two-dimensional web."

"It is usually found on the underside of the leaf", clarify that "it" refers to the web, not the spider.

"T. grallator spiders tightly cling on to underside of leaves" -> "cling to the undersides"

"turn around rapidly and toss its silk onto the prey to unravel it." I don't understand what this is saying. What is getting unraveled? The web? The prey?

Link to Olfaction the first time it is used.

"somatic movements and web-plucking." somatic should link to something, not sure what. Somatic cell, maybe?

"Because T. grallator belongs to a family of spiders with very low levels of visual acuity.", was this intended to be connected to the next sentence?

" notably aggressive against intruders right after the birth of her young," is "birth" the right word here? "Hatching", perhaps?

That does it for my first pass. I'll come back, probably tomorrow, and pick this up.

References

http://wehewehe.org/ reference needs full citation. Also, when you use it in the lead, you translate "nananana makakiʻi" as "face-patterned spider", but the dictionary calls it "Happy face spider". I'm also not sure if this qualifies as a WP:RS, as it's unclear how much editorial oversight there is.

You cite this paper via JSTOR, which unfortunately doesn't provide the full text. However, it's available here, so please link to that. Sadly, I can't find a DOI for it.

"Guanine as a colorant in spiders: development, genetics, phylogenetics and ecology" is available full-text on ResearchGate, so link to that.

General comment: please make a run through each of your citations to peer-reviewed literature which don't have DOIs or links to full-text versions on line and see if you can locate those. Copy-pasting the title into google (surrounded by quotes) is often constructive.
- Just to clarify, Research Gate isn't considered a WP:RS per-se, but as long as you have a full citation to the original peer-reviewed publication, adding an additional RG link for the full text is useful if the full text isn't otherwise available.

Other than the above comments, no issues with WP:V.

Other criteria

No problems with breadth of coverage, neutrality, stability, or illustrations.