This is an archive of past discussions with User:Shyamal. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
There was a separate article on Himalayan porcupine, Hystrix hodgsonii, which seems to be synonymised with H. b. hodgsonii[1]. Just added a camera trap photo of this sub-sp from Pakke Tiger Reserve and am trying to expand and work on the sub-spp of H. brachyura. Was thinking that making the above move would be better. What say?
^van Weers, DJ (2005) A taxonomic revision of the Pleistocene Hystrix (Hystricidae, Rodentia) from Eurasia with notes on the evolution of the family. Contribution to Zoology, 74 (3/4) LINK
Presume you mean that the subspecies has been elevated to a species (rather than synonymised). No access to the relevant literature, but if there is evidence for the elevation it should be a good idea. Shyamal (talk) 14:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for those. Some of the refs I was aware of, such as the haemocrit ones, but decided not to use because the information was pretty trivial, but there are certainly others that look worth following up.
I didn't realise there were so many old images out there! Interesting, although in practice there are probably enough images in the article for FAC, and the Gessner woodcut is obviously the "old" one that has to be there
Happy New Year to you too.Also very late.Very busy recently with a Diptera checklist. Now out. Hymenoptera next. I have e-mailed a friend at NHM re Margaret Bushby Lascelles Cockburn. Hope to hear soon.Hapy Darwin Day too. Robert Notafly (talk) 09:47, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
Muscovy duck
Hello, I have found your Models of birds to be fantastic, it would be nice if you can produce a model of a muscovy duck, and it would be nicer include all or most its colors or disigns. I would like to use them to make a geneology of all the coat colors, i believe there are 10 difrent colored coats
Will need time to examine this and see if the related research on genetics and evolution has been added to the target article to see how well an illustration can add value. Also this is the beginning of the week so will have to wait. Shyamal (talk) 02:15, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Hi, I did look at it. Not sure if I can help much. I do not see the Muscovy Duck article talking much about the genetics of these breeds and do not see any development in terms of content. I feel motivated only if I can see good science communication being done. Regrets, but you may like taking your request to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Illustration. Good luck. Shyamal (talk) 02:30, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
This img, I uploaded recently. What is the policy you follow on imgs when a good svg illustrating the id features exists? To put it in the tbx or in the body? prashanthns (talk) 16:01, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
I now have access to Bridson, Gavin. The History of Natural History An annotated bibliography 2008 2nd Edition.Comprehensive and very usefl indeed.Anything you need from it-Let me know.Warmest Regards Robert Notafly (talk) 13:57, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Could you have a read though please, and see if there is anything glaringly obvious that needs to go in? There is plenty of stuff on-line, but I'm wary of adding too much fine detail.
I've asked for a page number for the Philippines bit, but the user who added it doesn't appear very active, and I might have to take that sentence out. The other cultural items (dance and manga) were not referenced, a quick search failed to find sufficiently reliable sources, and I doubt the notability of the manga. There was also no clear indication that it was this sparrow, although I suppose that in Japan it must be P. montanus.
I'm not sure what to do about the taxobox image and the first text image, which are facing out. Should I replace them? thanks for your input into this, jimfbleak (talk) 10:52, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Will look over it soon. I agree that the cultural items can be comfortably removed if no citations are found. I suppose it should be ok to produce a derivative sparrow image with a flip. Shyamal (talk) 13:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Unidentified Spider
Hello, the image File:BarkSpider.jpg is a Lichen Huntsman Spider(Pandercetes gracilis), and is a good picture, I never seen it that well camouflage before. Bugboy52.40 (talk) 12:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Sorry to be a killjoy but unfortunately I have some formal training in related fields, particularly entomology and can assure you that the identification of spiders can rarely be done reliably by comparing photographs. There can be big differences between the male and the female and taxonomic characters of the genitalia, bristles on the underside, palps and so on are key to identifying species. You would naturally know that species that come from biodiversity hotspots such as the Western Ghats need to be more carefully examined due to the high endemicity. Shyamal (talk) 02:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
Hope good sense prevails. I have suggested something similar in the past to aid scholarship that feeds into WP but it seems this might go the (that favourite institution in Bombay) way to feed flight fares... Shyamal (talk) 12:47, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
Tree Sparrow
Clements just gives a list of places where it was introduced, and the Eastern Ghats is one of them - it does seem to be a very isolated population. The only references given for this species are Summers-Smith's The Sparrows (1988) and a reference Sultana (1975). This is Maltese research, so I suspect that everything except the Maltese hybridisation is taken from Summers-Smith. Is there any reason to doubt Rasmusssen? She's usually a stickler for fine detail. jimfbleak (talk) 06:43, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Tree Sparrow
I can understand your frustration - I also get irritated with how many research papers on the Internet are purchase only, although interestingly Yahoo is much better than Google at finding free versions. Obviously the Eastern Ghats bit isn't essential - hybridisation elsewhere is well-attested, and only the fertile young in Norway and the Maltese bit are unusual - but it's good to have material from outside Western Europe, since the problem for me with some articles, like Red-billed Chough, is that most the research is British.
Where are you based now - it reads as if you are still out of India?
and is not as close to the House Sparrow as the Pegu Sparrow and Spanish Sparrow reads ambiguously to me - is it the House Sparrow or the Tree Sparrow the others are closest to? If the latter, its closest relatives are the Pegu Sparrow and Spanish Sparrow might be clearer, no need to mention domesticus. I think the point with the hybridisation is that although it is fairly common, fertile young are rare, suggesting a greater distance than between House Sparrow and Spanish Sparrow where fertile offspring are common, and where the status debate of Italian Sparrow also suggests minimal genetic distance jimfbleak (talk) 11:14, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Re: taxobox image widths
Hi. Thanks for pointing out my error. I think I copied that from Tawny Owl (and I haven't changed my preferences from the default), but I'll know for the future now. Katie. Bogbumper (talk) 15:10, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
Distraction display
Yeah, I've just not found the time to finish it! But I made it this month's newsletter challenge (if I can find a bot owner who's actually still on Wikipedia these days to deliver the darn thing), so hopefully somebody will get it started. And the rest of us can add bits and pieces when we have time. MeegsC | Talk16:17, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
It feels like I have been bothering you a lot lately, but as I identify a lot of images, yours just keep coming up. Well, anyway, the image File:DivingBeetle.jpg, is possible a Sunburst diving bettle, Thermonectus marmoratus. And if you have any comments, you can tell me on my user page. Bugboy52.40 (talk) 01:40, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
The February 2009 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. MeegsC | Talk22:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Shyamal,
Thanks for tip on DVD. Will follow up. Many times have tried to research old articles there, now I can.
Marcus
FYI: got this message this morning you may want to contact this guy, a total bird nut.
Hello Marcus,
Randomly bumped into the article you are putting together on birds and wildlife sanctuaries in Tamil Nadu. Very cool. You have linked to my webshots page of bird images from my first trip there.
I however went back to Tamil Nadu and conducted a systematic bird survey of Karaivetti Sanctuary for four weeks to fulfill a capstone project requirement for my BS degree in Env Biology back here in the states.
I kept a near daily blog of the events here with a good number of photos
(I recorded some nice rarities during this time, detailed in my blog).
I pulled out the entries that pertain to my stay in Tamil Nadu here:
http://midwestbirder.blogspot.com/2008/01/karaivetti-wildlife-sanctuary-tamil.htmlhttp://midwestbirder.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.htmlhttp://midwestbirder.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html
I also have a flickr group page dedicated to Tamil Nadu bird images as well
(I'm the only contributor thus far).
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1006518@N20/
I hope this might help you as you put together your article.
If you have any more questions feel free to email me.
Sean
Karaivetti is a well looked over water body thanks to its proximity to the Salim Ali school of ecology at Pondicherry. Shyamal (talk) 08:02, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Proposed deletion of Otto Kleinschmidt
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I'm off to Brazil for a couple of weeks from Sunday, would you mind keeping an eye on the sparrow for me? Can you think of anything significant that needs to go in? I looked for fossils, but found nothing. There's lots of stuff, but much of it is too technical or trivial for a Wikipedia article. thanks jimfbleak (talk) 07:14, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for further edits, I think it's about ready for GA now. Do you fancy listing it at GAN, then we could polish it for FAC when I get back (absolutely no pressure on this - it can mean a lot of work if you get a good reviewer like Philcha)?
Thanks for the material Shyamal! Created articles for 2 of these people above and had great fun learning about them! Interestingly, Mason's article was only focussing on his missionary achievements and did not have anything on his wonderful flora fauna work on Burma...probably, cos most of the article was from EB. Added a line to Balfour as well about Theobald borrowing from his work. GOod fun altogether!prashanthns (talk) 15:02, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
Help!
Please help! Everytime I upload something with Inkscape, it looks discombobulated! I am starting to hate inkscape with a passion. Please, can you fix it, File:Harvest mite cycle.svg. Thanks in advance!
It is a nice illustration and it looks fine in Inkscape. There are bugs with the commons renderer and perhaps you should take this to [10] SVG help forum on commons. Shyamal (talk) 02:00, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks and a request
Thanks for signing up at Wikipedia:Peer review/volunteers and for your work doing reviews. It is now just over a year since the last peer review was archived with no repsonse after 14 (or more) days, something we all can be proud of. There is a new Peer review user box to track the backlog (peer reviews at least 4 days old with no substantial response), which can be found here. To include it on your user or talk page, please add {{Wikipedia:Peer review/PRbox}} . Thanks again, and keep up the good work, Ruhrfisch><>°°04:39, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
Synonyms
Sorry, but the criterion is taxa, not literature. Each name has a type specimen, and if the type specimen is included within the species (circumscription), it is a synonym, if not, it is not a synonym. So, to include this is taxonomically and nomenclatorially bullshit. Explain in the text that the species has been included in asimilis and that therefore that name has been used for this species. -- Kim van der Lindeat venus04:46, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Indrella ampulla
Hi Shyamal, Thanks so much for ID-ing the beautiful snail for us! Now we can make an article for it. Can I ask you: what resource did you use to ID it? Was it a book on the snails of India, or a website, or what? Many thanks and best wishes, Invertzoo (talk) 01:47, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Thank you so much for a very fast and very helpful reply! (I see you have a S. J. Gould quote on your page. I nearly ended up working for him when I was working in the malacology section of the Museum of Comparative Zoology back in 1981. And I was lucky enough to make friends with E.O. Wilson there.) Oh and thanks for yet another helpful reply that I see you just posted. Many, many thanks ... who knows, maybe one of these days we can get you interested enough in snails and slugs to even be part of WikiProject Gastropods, as well as all your other terrific zoology projects. Good wishes Invertzoo (talk) 02:17, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Thank you once again Shyamal. And in general please feel free to photograph and upload images of any other slugs or snails you come across. Thanks so much. Invertzoo (talk) 13:51, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Good that you have been keeping track. Keep an eye on fishbase.org , they are quite up-to-date on these new findings. Shyamal (talk) 06:57, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
In case you're interested, the article is full-length now, based mostly on the paper. There are a few photos in the article, and I've got three more to add when I get a free moment in the next few days. Bob the Wikipedian(talk • contribs) 03:05, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Hi again Shyamal, I wonder if there is any chance that you could possibly ask N. A. Aravind if he would be kind enough to tell us what species this slug is? It is a nice image of a slug from Tadiandamol, Coorg, but we don't have an ID for it. Once we have an ID, we can write an article for it. The Indrella ampulla article is up now, and I am working out a "Did You Know" hook for it, so maybe we can get it onto the Mainpage. All the very best wishes to you, Invertzoo (talk) 00:55, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
The March 2009 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. This has been an automated delivery by BrownBot (talk) 21:47, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I was struggling a bit to find a challenge for this month, and came across the red-linked acoustical luring in several articles (including Barred Forest-falcon) while working on our recently-updated project cleanup listing. No reason we couldn't start an "avian foraging" article, and redirect "acoustical luring" to a subsection of that. BTW, got any ideas for next month's challenge?! :) MeegsC | Talk09:30, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
Shyamal, Oops, sorry. I'm used to always having animal names with capital only on 1st word. I now realize bird names are an exception and follow the capitalization rules set out in WP:BIRD. I'll undo the changes I made.--Marcus (talk) 14:42, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Would you consider improving 'Ornithology' tby responding to the reviewer's comments? I don't know enough to tackle it for GA. I'm busy with 'Bird' in my spare time.
Thanks for picking that up, it should be "A horticultural" in BE, checked with my big dictionary, and made the change jimfbleak (talk) 07:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Just happened to check mail actually ! Thanks. They could of course easily be African imports. Especially given that Kutch lies on that trade route. Shyamal (talk) 14:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
Nope, but it seems the person in the picture could well be K S Dharmakumarsinhji per As guests of the ardent naturalist and falconer, Kumar Shree Dharmakumarsinhji, youngest brother of His Highness, the Maharaja of Bhavnagar in the Kathiawar States, the Craighead brothers observed and enjoyed the final days of the centuries-old sporting traditions of India's Rajput princes. Shyamal (talk) 15:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
Dont know how these titles go, but if it is the same as RS Dharmakumarsinhji, [12] long dead (1917-1986)! That was 1939. And I just saw from the recent JBNHS that M K Himmatsinhji has also passed away. Reminds me that I have some quaintly Colonial typewritten correspondence from M K H. Shyamal (talk) 15:20, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
WikiProject Birds April newsletter
The April 2009 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you. MeegsC | Talk16:02, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
This[1] paper talks of flower dehiscence before decomposition of the flower. I was just googling flower dehisce and I see several usages of this combo, but invariably referring to anther dehiscence. So, am not really sure what's going on here. Could it just be anther dehiscence? Also see Anthesis. A parasitic plant site talks specifically about flower dehiscence in Helosis cayennensis and carries a photo.
^Adhikari, D., Arunachalam, A., Majumder, M., Sarmah, R. & Khan, M.L. (2003) "A rare root parasitic plant (Sapria himalayana Griffith.) in Namdapha National Park, northeastern India", Current Science 85 (12), p. 1669. PDF
The reason I added that tag was my personal ignorance mainly. I have only heard of dehiscent fruits, but I am imagining a fleshy flower breaking up rather than breaking off (abscission) and if that does happen, it may be good to have a subarticle on subsection on a suitable article. Do ask on WP:PLANTS. Shyamal (talk) 03:50, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Hmm....even I am not really sure of this. Will ask there. Thanks. Meanwhile, I put up my first ever DYK hook for this article. :)prashanthns (talk) 04:23, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Hello. I spent some of my time authoring Cleome ornithopodioides. Much of that time was spent finding sources which are available to everyone and (at least here) when looking at them, viewers/readers are not also looking at a lot of advertisements.
I was disappointed that the two free (and advertisement free) dictionaries did not provide the somewhat ancient definition needed to explain the name, so I instead turned that opening into something I would find interesting if it were to appear as a DYK. Passing through the dinosaur wikilink verified the birdfoot name, and while the latin root in their names are the only thing they have in common, the lack of a free and advertisement free dictionary for the definition is shared for the same reason -- the way that the latin naming works (or used to work or was intended to work....) was at least exemplified in this case.
I am slowly getting around to asking if you could consider reverting your change to that article until a free source became available. As it is, I cannot verify what you changed the article to say and I would have liked to have read this. It is what the internet is supposed to do (I think, at least one of the things). Provide information to all.
I think it is really cool to have a whole article with sources that can be read by all. It is not a rule though.
Perhaps it was a case of me not searching online enough and an appropriate definition can be found! I am asking that you consider and perhaps revert your changes until a more accessible source can be found.
Personally, my goal is to make a great article, properly cited which does not require a browser with javascript even. Perhaps it is like building a mansion with only a shovel, but it is my opinion that it is allowed that I can have unreasonable goals like this....
Hi,
If you have a moment, could you pop over to
the Singing Bushlark talk page. See the entry under "Wrong information" and go from there.
Your name is frequently seen on bird pages so I thought you would be a good editor to write this to.
Thanks, Hamamelis (talk) 15:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I think it should remain as Bushlark. Here are some snapshot stats from Google searches, if it helps (minus the word "Wikipedia" to somewhat eliminate self-referential numbers).
Staphylinidae Coleoptera Confusing aren't they? Had a real piece of luck.Felix Stumpe let me have terrific pics of two recently discovered Parnassius - huberi and davidyovi the first a paratype.Uploaded today. I got lots of pics of Morpho in Wiesbaden museum and some India butterflies too.Dealer specimens so the locality details were sparse.Also I saw some of Sibylla Merian's buuterflies.Thrilling history! Going to Sweden (Uppsala) in June, birthplace of Linnaeus.RobertNotafly (talk) 20:36, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
The May 2009 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
I see you have a new map for this species. I think it is still somewhat incomplete, lacking info on South American and African wintering grounds, should I send you more info to improve? Sabine's Sunbirdtalk10:41, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Luciola
Hi Shyamal. Thought I'd better explain myself re Luciola tagging. I put the tag there because of there being footnotes with linked numbers, but references without. I'll referesh my understaning of the guidelines on these, but I tagged based on them effectively being the same thing (with further reading being for general information not specifically related to a particular piece of info in an article). Anyway, now that it is clear that the article is still being put together, I'll leave you to it - probabaly should have from the start, given your record as an editor. Cheers. Heds (talk) 23:53, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
No problem. I think the primary aim is to make information sources traceable, formatting is a secondary issue and there are variants. Here is a featured article, Flight feather, that uses some more formatting that allows you to click on the footnotes and see the relevant reference. Shyamal (talk) 01:14, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Articles are always in the process of being put together ! In this case I happen to have a photograph of a putative Luciola, which will be added once I can get some confirmation on the ID. Shyamal (talk) 01:36, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for that, anything helps, there's just not much on this species. At least with red-billed there was the UK conservation and cultural stuff. jimfbleak (talk) 18:38, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I didn't put the height in because at the time I couldn't get the Condor ref to open, although it was fine today. I've uploaded the Gould image too, it's a bit different to the photos at commons. jimfbleak (talk) 06:10, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
I wish it was that easy just to retrace it, but it would look blurry and distored without font, I actually ahd to redraw it; for Chigger bite.png, I was going to do the same and recreate it, but I frogot. Bugboy52.4 | =-='16:14, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
Actually, I did not mean to say that tracing solves the copyright problem. If it is someone else's creativity then it is copyrighted, if it is information it is not. In this case the creative expression is still copied. It would need a different "presentation" to overcome copyright. It is a complex issue and it is worth reading up on the principles. Shyamal (talk) 01:37, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Image Galleries (again)
Hi Shyamal,
I've noticed that you've recently been moving large image galleries from the WP:Bird Project to Commons, there was a recent debate on the usefulness of these 'galleries' to show 'Various views and plumages' (for want of a better phrase!) and the consensus seemed to be that they were a indeed a useful addition albeit with limited images and no duplicates and that moving them to Commons would prove counter-productive (Please read WP:Image Policy WP:IG It might help explain better than I can)
The feedback that I've received is that they are very worthwhile when kept efficient.
As a major media contributor to WP:Birds I feel rather offended when my images are removed unnecessarily after spending my precious spare-time uploading them to a non-commercial site, and I'm sure others (...such as one of your countrymen, JM Garg) would feel similarly-aggrieved.
Surely it would be good for all if we just 'trimmed' those Galleries that were over-loaded? Look forward to your views, Tom. Avicedatalk07:05, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Shyamal, I'll be honest, there's another user (Dysmorodrepanis) who seems to be adding 'move-gallery to commons' scripts to many of the bird-article 'galleries', just wish that he could either thin the images-out or make a script to bring this to others attention to fix. I wonder if there's a bot that could replace this with a 'rationalize gallery' script? (...or something similar?) I can certainly see the problem with a gallery of masses of duplicate images but have contacted one user to ask him to upload more responsibly and he certainly seems to have got the message. Avicedatalk09:16, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
Vernacular names
OK, I trust your judgement and I've reverted my edit to Greater Coucal. I have to say that I have doubts about these lists of names except in two cases. One is where the species is endemic to a single country or language region, eg the Maori names of NZ endemics, and the other is where the name is interesting in itself, such as the names for the Wild Turkey. The problem with lists of foreign language lists per se is that if there is no other justification, we might as well keep going and add the French, German, Tagalog... jimfbleak (talk) 05:17, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I see that problem too, but I think there is a difference between contrived names and culturally/locally evolved names. I agree with avoiding contrived names. Shyamal (talk) 05:33, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
WikiProject Birds June newsletter
The June 2009 issue of the Bird WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.
Thank you for tidying up at Papilio prexaspes. The confusion arose for me when checking links from another article. I have found that Fuscus Swallowtail redirects to Papilio prexaspes. However, that now seems to me to be wrong. The Fuscus swallowtail, by one web page is visited, is Papilio fuscus. However, when i visit Papilio fuscus on WP, it is a nothern Australian butterfly, whereas the references i saw were to something in nothern NSW. Any idea what is going on here, and how to fix it?
I know nothing about this subject, so at this point I'm going to bow out. Good luck and thank you for any help you might provide! hamiltonstone (talk) 06:21, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
despite several attempts, I cannot get the link you posted at FAC to open - it keeps timing out. Any chance you could email it to me, or suggest another link (obviously i don't ven know the paper's title. thanks, jimfbleak (talk) 14:26, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for paper and for making the edit. I still can't get the link to work, so if it seems to be a problem for other reviewers, we may need to remove the link. The image is ideal for the bit about ruffs being trapped for food, so I've replace existing pic in that section jimfbleak (talk) 06:10, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Hi. Your image to the right says "sensitivity" in its name, but appears to be more a plot of "absorption". Curiously, the one it was made from, center, said it was a plot of absorption, and looks more like spectral sensitivity. I had fixed up a trichromat version (measured resonsivities, left). Now I'm wondering what that source says that you noted on commons; does it have the data? Absorption, or responsivity? Dicklyon (talk) 21:52, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
My error. I assumed that sensitivity was measured as a function of absorption. I am still unclear about the method and whether this really matches in vivo response (nerve potential measurements or some method like that?) Let me look for the source again and check it more carefully. My recollection is that it had the graph, not the method description or data measurements. Thanks for being eagle eyed. Shyamal (talk) 01:05, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Ok, here is the original image caption
Fig. 1.1 Normalized absorbance of the visual pigments from the four types of
single retinal cone cells in the Gouldian finch (Erythrura gouldiae): UV = ultraviolet,
SW = shortwave, MW = medium wave, LW = longwave. Curves are the best-fitting
visual pigment templates for the average spectra based on microspectrophotometry.
For comparison, the wavelengths of maximum spectral sensitivity of the blue,
green and red cones of humans are indicated by arrows at the top of the figure.
Redrawn and adapted from Hart et al. 2000. Journal of Comparative Physiology,
Series A 186: 681-674
The full reference cited is Hart, N. S., Partridge, J. C., Bennett, A. T. D. and Cuthill, I. C. 2000. Visual pigments, cone oil droplets and ocular media in four species of estrildid finch. Journal of Comparative Physiology, Series A 186: 681-674.
Some addition things they say in the adjoining text
Second, the retinas of birds and humans differ in the number and type of light sensitive cones present. Humans possess only three single cone types,
which are maximally sensitive to wavelengths of light in the blue, green and red regions of the human visible spectrum (see Fig. 1.1). In contrast, birds
possess six cone classes: four types of single cones, and the two dissimilar double cones, which are also found in fish and turtles (Liebman and Granda
1971; Ohtsuka 1985), but are lacking in humans. While the function of the double cones remains unknown (Hart et al. 1998; Wilkie et al. 1998), current
evidence suggests that they are not used in color vision (Vorobyev et al. 1998; Vorobyev and Osorio 1998). The avian single cones span the avian-visible
spectrum fairly evenly, although there is some variation between species in the wavelengths of maximum sensitivity of their visual pigments. Most birds,
including the Passeriformes (and Budgerigar) have a true UV visual pigment, with a maximum sensitivity around 355-380 nm. In contrast, in the
Anseriformes, Ciconiiformes, Columbiformes and Galliformes, the UV sensitive cone is replaced with a violet-sensitive cone (lmax 400-426 nm). The reasons for this dichotomy between bird families are unknown at present (Bowmaker et al. 1997; Yokoyama et al. 1998; Yokoyama et al. 2000), but importantly, both the UV and violet sensitive cones allow birds to see in the UV. The three other single cone pigments are more similar in their spectral sensitivity, but not without some variation (Hart et al. 1998): short-wave (lmax 430-463 nm), medium-wave (lmax 497-510 nm) and long-wave (lmax 543-571
nm) sensitive visual pigments.
Lastly, in birds, each of the four single cone photoreceptors contains a different type of oil droplet through which light must pass before reaching the
visual pigment (for a review see Hart 2001). In all but one of the cone types, the oil droplets contain carotenoid pigments (i.e. short-wavelength absorbing pigments) that act as cut-off filters of the incoming light. This narrows the absorption peak, shifting it to longer wavelengths before the light reaches the light sensitive part of the cones, and thereby reducing overlap between adjacent spectral types (Bowmaker 1991, Bowmaker et al. 1997; Maier 1994b). Consequently, birds differ from humans, not only in their sensitivity to the UV spectrum which increases the range of wavelengths over which they can see, but also in their superior ability to detect and discriminate spectral differences, perhaps even within the human visible spectrum.
There is nothing much explaining the connection between sensitivity and absorbance. Let me know if there is any detail that might help. Shyamal (talk) 01:20, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks; but now I'm very confused. I can't find the quoted figure caption or other text in the paper you pointed me at, or in any of Hart's other papers there. One of us is looking in the wrong place? Ah, here, I found it in this book; but I can't read it all. Oh, nevermind, I see that you were saying that book cites that 2000 paper; got it now.
Anyway, responsivity or sensitivity is a physiological response measure, which is often hard to get, whereas absorbance is a physical measurement, often easier. They correlate, pretty much, because a photon has to be absorbed to be detected. But lots of short-wavelength photons get absorbed where they don't do any good, rather than in the opsin, which is why the curves have those funny tails. Dicklyon (talk) 04:52, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
OK, here's the deal; he killed the birds and did microspectrophotometry on their retinas. Figs 1A, 2A, 3A, and 4A in the 2000 finches paper are like your drawing. But then he did difference between that absorbance data and a repeat after "bleaching" the pigments with white light, which makes the non-pigment-related "tails" go away; but the data gets noisier. In the "D" figures he shows the same curves, but also the adjusted data points. We could make a sketch of a curve fitted to those, too, and that would represent sensitivity better; or at least represent the opsin absorbance better. Dicklyon (talk) 05:21, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
I updated the figure description and source info a bit, and tightened up the bounding box so it makes a better thumbnail, and updated the caption and refs at tetrachromacy. Please verify. Dicklyon (talk) 05:40, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
I need at some stage to do a map for Chough. The two species each have their own map in different shades of green, and it would be good if the Alpine map could be superimposed on the Red-billed. Is this possible? If not, I suppose I'll have to draw a composite map, which is time consuming, or have both maps, which is sub-optimal. Any thoughts? jimfbleak (talk) 13:46, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
I have just tried a draft based on the two maps, unfortunately the base maps did not quite align in spite of various stretching attempts, so a bad match on Spain for instance. File:Choughmaps.svgShyamal (talk) 15:52, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for that. I think I'll need to do a couple of things to get the three maps coherent. The separate maps for Europe need adjusting, there shouldn't be anywhere with Alpine but not Red-billed Chough, and I'll need to tweak the colour scheme of the combined map to be consistent, but your efforts have put this well on the way. Thanks again, jimfbleak (talk) 05:31, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Flatworm
Wonder if you think this is identified right at the phylum/class level! It never fails to remind me of some 70s toothpaste. Shyamal (talk) 08:14, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes, wow, what a fantabulous animal! I reckon it has to be a terrestrial turbellarian (note spelling). How long are they? How often do you see them? You are lucky to see such interesting creatures. There are also things such as striped leeches, for example one is shown here: [14] but I don't think your creature is one. Invertzoo (talk) 14:38, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
You're very welcome. I don't really know very much about these creatures, but I think they are fascinating. These land ones and the related marine ones often get mistaken for slugs (gastropods), so because of that they fall somewhat into my area. Bipalium species (arrowhead flatworms) I have seen quite a few pictures of, (and even helped identify very loosely). For some examples, scroll down here [15], I am Susan H. The arrowhead flatworm from Singapore is particularly gorgeous. Best, Susan, aka Invertzoo (talk) 13:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Bird names
Hi, and thanks for noticing my bird edits, and for the comment you placed on my talk page! Well, whether the name the bird is called in its natural habitat (especially when it is an endemic bird) is not of interest to English wikipedia, is a debatable topic. However, I may not be qualified even to make that argument because; honestly I did not fully understand your comment about interwiki links. I think I need to know few technical details. I will slow down till I understand more about general consensus in English wikipedia. Thanks for the helpful comment
Thanks, I know someone with a bit more expertise with the two species (edwardsii and javanicus) who actually commented on the problem. Apparently, the feet need to be showing well in the photograph to really tell the difference, especially when size cues are missing. Shyamal (talk) 12:17, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, I've been around these guys all week, and I can tell you that the photos in the current article look nothing like Herpestes javanicus. Viriditas (talk) 12:42, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
Ok ! Do post the pictures. Out there the population identity is unquestionable, but do note that the article mentions "genetic diversification due to drift and population isolation" though it does not seem to mention morphological difference from the native populations apart from size. Shyamal (talk) 12:57, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
Will do. I've got several photos in front of me right now, but none are ideal. If all you want to see are the feet, I could easily show you just that. I'm hoping for some better photos tomorrow. Viriditas (talk) 13:08, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia is having some server issues right now (particularly in regards to images and intermittent connections) so I'm going to wait another 24 hours before uploading anything. I got a great photo of a mongoose with his mouth wide-open and his tongue hanging out (he was grooming his tail) but it was sadly out of focus. More later... Viriditas (talk) 08:10, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
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