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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:02, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

DYK toolbox

Agile wallaby

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  • ... that when food is scarce, the agile wallaby sometimes eats seeds that have passed through the guts of fruit-eating birds?

5x expanded by Cwmhiraeth (talk). Self nominated at 09:26, 2 August 2014 (UTC).

Began Review completed. Points may please be addressed. Attention Cwmhiraeth. AshLin (talk) 06:03, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

  • New enough, 5x expansion, more than 1500 chars.
  • Adequate citations.
  • Hook interesting, accurate, cited inline & verified.
  • At times, close paraphrasing exists where the text is uncomfortably close to the source..example
    • "Agile wallabies are sexually dimorphic, with males being considerably larger than females." vs "The Agile Wallaby is sexually dimorphic with males reaching twice the size of females" (ref 5)
  • Recommended that an image, such as this one be included.
I have rephrased the sentence you mention, omitting the term "sexually dimorphic". As for the image, I didn't think either of the ones in the article would look good at thumbnail size, and the Gould one you suggest looks like a portrait of half a corpse! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:14, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • ALT1 ... that when food is scarce, the agile wallaby sometimes eats seeds excreted by fruit-eating birds? EEng (talk) 02:13, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
The original hook is better because the word "excretion" is wrongly used in ALT1. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 04:57, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Um, can you explain what "pass through the guts of birds" means other than going in one end of the bird's digestive system and being pooped out the other end? EEng (talk) 05:20, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
P.S. If your concern is that excrete is wrong as a formal biological term (though it's certainly correct in general usage -- it's where the word excrement comes from) then we can say the seeds have been defecated by the birds. (I don't think DYK is ready for shit quite yet.) But I think "pass through the gut" is too much of a euphemism, and honestly I think a lot of readers won't even know what it means (though I suppose that might be a problem with defecate as well,, for that matter). EEng (talk) 05:26, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
There is a lot in what you say, however I don't think we should use the word "excreted". How about
  • ALT2 ... that when food is scarce, the agile wallaby sometimes searches for seeds in bird droppings? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:24, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Perfect. That's much better than "passed through the gut" (I thought for a moment that it had somehow come out through the wall of the bird's belly or something) and much more tasteful than defecate and its kin. I've struck the original, OK?
AshLin, please re-tick for ALT1? EEng (talk) 18:50, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Alt2 - EEng, Hook 2 wording not interesting in my humble opinion, "sometimes searches for...", may I suggest that a more direct verb be used instead. The hook must entice. AshLin (talk) 10:20, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
You mean like "sometimes eats birdshit?" Except I don't think e.g. "eats seeds in bird droppings" is right, because the animal doesn't eat them in the droppings -- it finds them in the droppings and removes them (at least I hope that's what happens). What did you have in mind? EEng (talk) 18:36, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
EEng, the verb "Forages on" or "feeds on" with the "sometimes" word removed would improve the hook. AshLin (talk) 08:13, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
To me, forage connotes a kind of wandering, wide-ranging search, and I'm not sure that applies here, but
ALT3 ... that when food is scarce, the agile wallaby will feed on seeds it finds in bird droppings?
Anyone else want to opine here? EEng (talk) 20:31, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
for ALT3 AshLin (talk) 20:45, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
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