Talk:Unionopterus

GA Review

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

Reviewer: Ashorocetus (talk · contribs) 21:31, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Starting my review. Should be able to do the bulk of it Saturday. Ashorocetus (talk | contribs) 21:31, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

OK, here's my thoughts: The article is looking very close to meeting the criteria. The biggest issues are with the writing (But cheers to you for writing in a second language!).

Well-written

I noticed and corrected a few areas where the wording wasn't 100% clear. There's a couple other where I'm not certain enough of the meaning to fix it boldly:

• "It was probably a swimming organism as well as other eurypterids, although with less facilities than these." - I think you mean to say something like "It was probably a swimming organism, like other eurypterids" but I'm not sure what the "although with less facilities than these" means here; does it mean it wouldn't be as good at swimming as its relatives?

Exactly. I changed it to "although not as good as its relatives"

• "The pretelson (12th segment anterior to the telson) and telson ("tail") are not known, but due to the opisthosoma structure, the last one was probably the same as in Hughmilleria (styliform and lanceolate)." - What does "the last one" refer to here, the last segment or the telson or the opisthomosoma structure (or are those the same thing? It's not clear to a non-expert in any case)? Also, I think "the same as" should probably say "similar to" or "the same structure as".

Yes, you're right, with that I want to refer to the telson, but I tried to avoid repeating the word. Wording changed, but you might have a better suggestion here.

• "The first segment was twice as short as the rest, while the fourth was the widest. From this segment, the opisthosoma would begin to narrow gradually." - It should be clarified that this is the first segment of the mesostoma and not the first segment of the whole animal. Also, using "while" here suggests that "wide" and "short" are contrasting each other.

In fact, if it refers to all the segments. I have added "opisthosomal" to clarify this, and I have replaced "while" with "and".

• "Due to its temporal rank (Lower Carboniferous, one of the first finds from this period), Chernyshev considered the genus as worthwhile for the knowledge of Eurypterida and its evolution and placed it under the Pterygotidae family." - This sentence is unclear; it has a lot of ideas in it and should probably be split into two or three sentence, but I'm not entirely sure everything you're trying to convey so I can't give more specific advice.

I have added a comma but I am not sure if I should split the sentence or the second one could be very short.

• "Victor P. Tollerton Jr. considered Unionopterus as adequate for his new family Adelophthalmidae, and placed the genus in it in 1989 based in the possession of spines in its appendages and their similar appearance with those of Adelophthalmus,[5] with what other authors agree." - "Adequate" is not the right word here (it has the connotation of passing a test or being morally good enough). I'm also not 100% sure what the second part "with what other authors agree" means. If you are saying that other authors agree with this, you're contradicting what you say in the classification section.

I replaced "adequate" with "part of". With the end of the sentence, I want to say that other authors support this classification, while others do not. I have added "some" in both parts to emphasize that this opinion varies.

• "There are several factors that help the inclusion of the genus in Adelophthalmidae, such as the possession of spines in the appendage or epimeras in the postabdomen, but the trapezoidal shape of the prosoma is different from all adelophthalmids." - Are you saying these traits point to classification within adelophthalimidae or classification in a separate clade?

Within Adelophthalmidae, but the last characteristic is not presented in any other adelophthalmid.

• "unpublished thesis encompassing every eurypterid genus with under two-thirds of missing data" - I am not sure what this means. Admittedly, it has been a few years since I did anything with phylogenetic analysis, but this should be clarified so the layperson can read it.

To be honest, I do not know why I thought it would be a good idea to include this, I have removed it since it seems too detailed and the explanation (which I do not understand very well either) could be very long.

• The paleoecology section could benefit from being split into multiple sentences. Also, the wording "Compared to other forms with a similar body structure, it is likely that Unionopterus was a benthic..." implies that it is more likely for Unionopterus to be this way than the similar eurypterids. (When you so "compared to X, Y is Z" it means Y is more Z than X is).

I have replaced "compared" with "like", and I have divided the sentence into three.

OK, this all looks good now. By the way, props to you because I understand how difficult it is to write in a language other than your native language. Ashorocetus (talk | contribs) 21:23, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! Super Ψ Dro 13:18, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Verifiability check

I don't have access to all the sources, but I don't see any major issues. You should probably mention "third possibility" that Tetlie and Van Roy (2006) discuss in their discussion of Unionopterus, i.e. that Chernyshev (1948) misinterpreted the carapace shape of Unionopterus in the same way that Stainer (1917) had misinterpreted that of A. dumonti, in which case synonymy of the genera is possible.

Sure, it seems strange to me that I have forgotten it since I remember perfectly having read it.

Broad coverage

Coverage is good, not overly in depth on anything, and answer most questions I would have. However, a couple minor details are missing that would greatly improve the quality of the article:

• It might be good to mention that the common name for eurypterids is "sea scorpions".

Done.

• "Only four pairs of appendages are known." - You should mention at some point how many appendages eurypterids would normally have to give some context for how complete finding four pairs is.

This is explained in "In the sixth and last pair of appendages, also known as swimming legs".

I see. I would add it at the top of the appendages paragraph for maximum clarity (see my recent edit).

• In the "History of research" section you mention the etymology of the specific epithet, but the article never gives the etymology of the genus name.

I thought that the name could refer to the Soviet Union, but this is never mentioned in the original description.

Unfortunate. Guess we'll have to leave it as. Ashorocetus (talk | contribs) 21:31, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

• Perhaps it's a nitpick, but I don't see the necessity of mentioning Merostomata.

In fact, yes, I don't think it's necessary.

Neutral

No problem

Stable

No problem

Illustrated

I think this would greatly benefit from an anatomical diagram of a euryptyrid, just so I can get a sense of what the different parts mentioned in the description section are. File:Eurypterus anatomy.png is very good, even if it's not a close relative of Unionopterus.

The illustrations you include are difficult to interpret. Which direction are they facing and how do they fit with the rest of the animal's body? For someone who is not knowledgeable about eurypterid anatomy these illustrations are a bit cryptic.

The illustrations are like that in the original description and have been criticized by other authors as being of little use. I think the image of Adelophthalmus already fulfills this function and gives an idea of how a eurypterid looks like.

Thank you for the context. The image of Adelophthalmus does serve that function adequately, but being positioned so late in the article, it means that if I read it top to bottom without a good knowledge of eurypterid anatomy I will be confused until I get there. Also, it doesn't serve the same function as an anatomical diagram with labeled parts. I had to pull up the Eurypterus anatomy pic in another window to understand the description section, since most of those anatomical terms are unfamiliar to me. Including a labeled picture would make this section much easier to understand. Ashorocetus (talk | contribs) 02:49, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

I personally would not like to add an image of Eurypterus since, as you said, they are not relatives. Do you think it would be enough to put the image of Adelophthalmus in the description so that it can be seen from the beginning? Super Ψ Dro 13:02, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

I would recommend having that be the first picture people see on the page. It makes it much easier to understand the other two illustrations. I do understand your concern with adding the Eurypterus diagram, but it is immensely helpful. While not closely related, it lets an layperson understand terms like 'telson' or 'metastoma' easily and makes the description section vastly easier to understand. Ideally, you would include a similar diagram based on Adelophthalmus or another closely related eurypterid, but I don't see one in Commons. Is it possible to get this type of picture? If not, I do feel like including the Eurypterus is better than not having any labeled diagram. Ashorocetus (talk | contribs) 21:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Hope it's okay for me to comment on this, I've written many of the current eurypterid articles. In general, the Eurypterus diagram isn't featured in articles for individual genera, where anatomical terms are explained as well as they can be in simpler terms. This is even the case in the fragmentary Necrogammarus (which is much worse off in terms of fossil material than Unionopterus). In general I do think most articles on animals assume some understanding of the anatomical terms associated with any given type of animal. For instance, the article on the dinosaur Baryonyx (FA) uses terms like "lacrimal bone", "prefrontal bone" and "postorbital bone" without any explanation as to what these are and where they are located. That being said, I do think some explanative image could be helpful in this case due to the less than ideal images (not anyone's fault here since they are directly based on what the researcher who described it drew). The best option in that case, though that would probably need some work, would be to make one exclusive to Unionopterus. I might be able to throw one together for you. Ichthyovenator (talk) 11:26, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

You mean a body diagram of Unionopterus? In that case, maybe I could add some more restorations of appendages from the original description that I decided not to do until now because they are of little use for the article. Super Ψ Dro 13:18, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I was thinking something like stitching together all the drawings we have on top of an appropriate Adelophthalmid silhouette and then add the names of the various body parts in a similar manner to the Eurypterus diagram. Ichthyovenator (talk) 13:54, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Alright, and what silhouette would we use? The only cool image we have of adelophthalmids is that of A. irinae, the rest are simple drawings. Although I am not sure of this idea either, since among the only things different from the Eurypterus diagram would be the epimera of the seventh segment and little else. Super Ψ Dro 22:21, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

There are plenty of adelophthalmid silhouettes in the size diagrams that could be used. Maybe using the Eurypterus diagram would be fine though, if you specify that it portrays Eurypterus in the caption and that it isn't very closely related. Ichthyovenator (talk) 15:02, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I think it will be easier to use the Eurypterus diagram. But thanks for your proposal! Super Ψ Dro 18:43, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Conclusion

It's almost there. I'm putting the nomination on hold for 7 days so you will have time to deal with the above issues. Ashorocetus (talk | contribs) 23:23, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry for the delay, I have addressed all the points above. Super Ψ Dro 17:27, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Ashorocetus, I guess now all the points have been clarified. Super Ψ Dro 18:16, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi, sorry for my long delay! This has been a busy time for me. Looks good though, it's a pass. Ashorocetus (talk | contribs) 06:05, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Don't worry. Thanks for the review! Super Ψ Dro 14:33, 24 June 2019 (UTC)