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Cockatoo map

Oaky, I am posting here as i didn't want to clutter up the FAC page further and thought this'd be pretty straightforward - I don't have a scanner handy, but the range covers Lombok, Sulawesi and the Phillippines (except northern Luzon) eastwards across eastern Indonesia, New Guinea and Northern Melanesia (Bismarck Archipelago (New Britain only), Bougainville and Solomons), as well as Australia. The reference is Cameron, p. 51 (of the book tghat is a cited text on the page). He does go into discussing different cockatoo species regions (eg SW Australia, SE Australia, melanesia, and Wallacea) but many species overlap and I have not seen this segmented out elsewhere so just one map would be good. I appreciate you offering to do this :) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:11, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'll look into it tomorrow. Some further details: you said it occurs on Palawan, can I assume that it occurs everywhere in between Luzon, Palawan, Sulawesi, Lombok, and New Guinea? Should I also include the fossils on New Cal? Ucucha 04:21, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, they can be considered as everywhere in between. Including fossils is intriguing. Might be worth a different coloured dot and ref...yeah, why not? :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:33, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I also did that for Lundomys and Pseudoryzomys and no one complained. OK, no further questions from me--I'll work on it tomorrow. Ucucha 04:37, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Great, much appreciated. Went to the library today but it was shut for Xmas/NY/summer recess until Jan 4 to link up derivation of cacatua to malay word in ref, and Sabine's Sunbird is looking that up tomorrow too, as well as the woodpecker thingy. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:43, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here it is. That was a lot of islands. Ucucha 23:07, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, that looks fantastic! Thanks very much! Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:00, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. 01:07, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Cyclura nubila

Hi, do you have time to revisit the FAC? It's difficult to see which of your points are still to be resolved. Best wishes, Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 18:14, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I struck all of my points that are resolved. I might move some stuff over to the talk page, though--I'll look into it tonight. Ucucha 21:54, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

DYK for Oxymycterus hucucha

On December 15, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Oxymycterus hucucha, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page _{(here's how)} and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Royal broil 19:36, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, they named a rat for you! Congratulations! Drmies (talk) 19:36, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but see what it brought me... Ucucha 19:38, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's the funniest thing I've seen all day! This won't be good--something is going to use this against you, this BLATANT conflict of interest. Say, eh, do you have interdigital webbing too, by any chance? Drmies (talk) 20:17, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You got it... Thanks for that stub by the way, will have a look whether I can make a DYK out of it. Ucucha 20:20, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's a good thing your admin voting was already closed. --Aranae (talk) 21:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am afraid so, yes. Now let's hope community de-adminship won't get through, because otherwise I don't doubt I'll be the first to go. Ucucha 21:17, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Drmies: I expanded interdigital webbing with all the random animals I could find that have it, which apparently includes fossil whales, and nominated it at DYK. Ucucha 22:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OMG, that's so cool. Wish there's one named after my name (or at least part of it) OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 22:44, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So neither Acomys johannis nor Ctenomys johannis qualify? --Aranae (talk) 23:08, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

<--Ucucha, that's entirely too much honor, but I appreciate it--and I wish I could contribute. Sad but true: I don't even need to proofread your stuff. If you look in the history you'll see that some science person removed what I considered to be important information, even if unverified; I have been able to verify, beyond any doubt, that the Coypu is a charming creature: see this impeccable source. It's not relevant to his toesies, though, and I could not find an easy spot to insert it in the beverrat's own article. I think every beast-article should come with a section on the critter's meaning to us. (The other way around is silly: we usually mean death, and there is no Wikipedia for animals). Drmies (talk) 16:28, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I had no idea there were this many rodents. Amazing! Drmies (talk) 16:36, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ucucha, I get the feeling that there is a some confusion between interdigital webbing and syndactyly. Tell me--in salamanders for instance, that's real webbing, right? Drmies (talk) 17:06, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As for the coypus, that's a delightful text. I guess you immediately fell in love with Myocastor there. Well, what do you think Lundomys and Pseudoryzomys mean to us?

I am not too confident about this myself, venturing into strange anatomical territory from the familiar rodents. It looks like syndactyly is a broader term than interdigital webbing (IDW for now)--I wouldn't describe that baby hand in the picture on the syndactyly article as interdigital webbing. But what exactly is what I don't really know. IDW is generally present in animals which live in the water, and there may be a different good term for other forms of fused digits, which are apparently present in siamangs and kangaroos. I guess we'd best find some general anatomical reference that gives us some enlightenment on this. I think I saw a few sources that did describe ducks as having IDW, and it's also arguably true for salamanders I think. Ucucha 21:53, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Syndactyly occurs when two digits are fused, either skeletally or by sharing a sheath of skin. Diprotodontia and Peramelemorphia are the famous mammalian examples (classically united into a clade called Syndactla or Syndactyli). I'm not sure if the ruminants count; the magnitude of the fusion may take it into different verbal territory. In interdigital webbing, there's a thin layer of flesh connecting the digits, but the digits themselves are largely free to move mostly independently. What I'm unsure of is what, if any, distinction there is between webbed toes and interdigital webbing. I'm not sure that I'd really make the distinction between the webbed feet of beavers, ducks, platypuses, otters, frogs, etc. and the more subtle interdigital webbing found in black labs, with, say, hydromyines, ichthyomyines, and yapoks, sitting somewhere in the middle. Perhaps "interdigital webbing" is a broader term, encompassing all of these (as well as perhaps bats), but "webbed foot" might exclude black labs, the bats, and some of the more subtle examples. --Aranae (talk) 01:41, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for noting the webbed toes article and for the Syndactyli. I'm afraid we have several poorly defined terms at work here, and I can't immediately find a source that does define them. The Wikipedia articles, as well as most scholarly articles mentioning either syndactyly or webbing, focus on the rare condition in humans, which isn't that helpful either for our purposes. We might arrive at something like the following typology:

Syndactyly		Extent of fusion
Syndactyly		Limited, digits can move independently: interdigital webbing	More expansive: ?
Hand/foot	Hand: webbed fingers	Example: Bats?; platypus	Example: ?
Hand/foot	Foot: webbed toes	Example: Lundomys	Example: Kangaroos

But that is OR-ish.

As for the article itself, I think it can stand separate from both the syndactyly and webbed toes articles (note that the latter only covers the toes, not the fingers). "Interdigital webbing" seems to be the most widely used term for the entire range seen in semiaquatic mammals, from the small pieces of skin between the toes of the Marsh Rice Rat to the complete webbing, extending nearly to the tips of the fingers, in beavers. This is an interesting paper that shows a nice diagram that brought me to this book about aquatic mammals, which I'm now reading. However, our IDW article should cover more than it currently does, including frogs, ducks, and sea iguanas, as well as various mammals which are still missing. There are also some non-aquatic mammals that apparently have it and should be included, such as lion tamarins (your "black lab" refers to labrador retrievers, right?). Ucucha 02:40, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

<--Yes (speaking for someone else...), black labs are labrador retrievers. Nice dogs. They're not the only dogs, though, as suggested by this.

See, I initially thought that IDW was reserved for mammals, though I'm not sure what that was based on, and that in the case of ducks, for instance, we were dealing with something else--but I must have thought that because of the linguistic slippage between interdigital webbing and webbed toes: webbed toes in humans, if I understand it correctly, means the fusion of digits; webbed toes in ducks is really IDW. Correct? BTW, Ucucha, this may give you a nice footnote for that sentence you so adroitly stuck in the lead in one of your first edits. Aranae, thanks for weighing in; Ucucha, thanks for letting me play in the field of biology. Drmies (talk) 06:55, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think webbed toes means primarily that it is about the toes, not the fingers. Drmies, thanks for the further info; I'll go about expanding the article later today. Ucucha 12:43, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're in a real interesting business, Ucucha. (I look at your talk page also to learn interesting science facts.) It sounds like you get a lot of you out of your work--good for you, and good for the rats you love so much. Drmies (talk) 14:46, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Great to hear that you like it. A paper has just been published recognizing two new species of oryzomyines (genus Oryzomys) and it is of course quite unacceptable to have any oryzomyines that do not have a Wikipedia article, so I consider this as an emergency and am writing the articles right now. There was a couple of other nice papers in the same volume (a festschrift for Guy Musser): no less than eight new species of moss mice from New Guinea (Pseudohydromys and a new genus). Very interesting animals, which are somewhat convergent on shrews. They include a few species (Pseudohydromys ellermani, Pseudohydromys germani and two others now described) that lost almost all of their teeth. Then there is also a new pygmy rat related to Philippine giant rats, a new spiny pocket mouse from Venezuela, a new harvest mouse from somewhere in Central America, and a couple of new shrews from Southeast Asia. Interesting stuff. Ucucha 15:10, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Those Spiny Pocket Mice sound interesting. Too bad there's no photographs for any of them, or for the Harvest Mice (except for that small picture of Reithrodontomys raviventris)--all those critters could easily benefit from the Bambi effect. Wasn't there a Dutch animal--now I remember, some sort of korenwolf, which wreaked havoc on developers' plans maybe in Limburg or so. Which reminds me that I have a draft for Aaibaarheidsfactor somewhere in a sandbox. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday! Drmies (talk) 22:32, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The "korenwolf" is just the common European hamster (Cricetus cricetus - don't know what name is used for it here). South Limburg is the very edge of its distribution and it's apparently very important that the edge of the range doesn't shift a little, considering the attention it has received in the Netherlands. As for the spiny pocket mice, this paper has a drawing of a Costa Rican species. It's a rather dreary-looking animal, really. Too bad we don't have pictures of all those nice animals here, but it's not going to change. I can use old pictures of skulls (example pictured), though, which are nice in their own way. Enjoy your Sunday! Ucucha 23:28, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I made a redirect for the hamster (Korenwolf sounds much nicer--and I'm sure you've had that beer made by Gulpen). I have to agree on the mouse. The side view is fine, but the frontal view is decidedly unattractive. Still, I want to go to Costa Rica, now. And I think you should go on a mission, to take nice pictures of all of them--surely, this little "college" you're at will fund you for a year to go on a "research trip" to Central and South America, no? Drmies (talk) 00:20, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It'd sure be nice to do that one day. But I'll see - there's some other things to be done now, as I'll be flying back to the other side of the Atlantic in a few days and there's a lot left to do here now. Ucucha 00:34, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

DYK for Amphisbaena ridleyi

On December 21, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Amphisbaena ridleyi, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 03:43, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank You

Thanks for the welcome back and congratulations on becoming an admin Ucucha. Cheers Zoo Pro 12:51, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks indeed

For the clarification re quoll.Nishidani (talk) 16:18, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A DYK question

Would you mind if I demote "your" lead hook from queue 4 to a non-lead one. Just checking the ground. Abstracting from any possible egos, it just does not feel like a lead to me, in many ways - picture, localization, hook .. Cheers. Materialscientist (talk) 22:55, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you think it necessary, go ahead. I think it's a pretty interesting hook, though, and the article is about as detailed as it'll ever get. Ucucha 23:03, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. It was a somewhat difficult question to ask and answer - we do care most about our work. Yes, article is good, as always with you. IMO, this lead would be fine if it had an image of a cute living rodent. Just for you to know, rodents are actually among my favorite animals :-) Cheers. Materialscientist (talk) 23:18, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the image of a skull serves to emphasize the point that this animal may be extinct - it says "Look, this is all that's left". It's more appropriate here than it was for the Nephelomys hook, for example, which was not a lead hook, but which was about actually living animals.

And I agree this is a difficult question to ask and answer - I try to ~~resort~~ refrain from "This is my article and it should be the lead hook!". But I think there are legitimate arguments for having it in the lead; I gave a few. Ucucha 23:22, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You know, I stopped fighting for placement of my hooks after I started promoting them, that is thinking about the project in general. I disagree with the logic - extinction is only a justification to have that image, not the reason; IMO, image should bring what the words can't say, and the word extinct is strong enough there. Anyway, this is not to argue with you. I would agree that from time to time we should promote "unpopular" topics, to urge people think wide. Materialscientist (talk) 23:30, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't completely follow you there. Where do you get the "fighting" from? You asked me about it, I gave some arguments and said that you should go ahead if you think you should. As with any picture, this one gives more information on the subject--namely what its skull looks like, which is admittedly not the best we could possibly have--which would be a reason to include it, and the extinction, in my view, provides an additional argument. But I repeat: go ahead if you feel you can improve that would improve the queue. I won't mind, and I'm sure you always have the best interest of the project in mind when you're vetting for DYK. Ucucha 23:48, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah no, no slight to you, forgive my awkward wording. Cheers. Materialscientist (talk) 23:58, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, and let me add that I meant all of what I said in my previous post--no irony intended. Ucucha 00:01, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Move request: Little River (northern Georgia) to Little River (Etowah River)

Hi- Thanks for moving the page, but it got moved in the reverse direction than requested. Is it possible to move Little River (northern Georgia) to Little River (Etowah River) to conform with the customary river naming convention? Thanks Gjs238 (talk) 13:49, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for that. I solved it now. Ucucha 14:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And by the way, there was actually no need for a move request there--you could just have merged the contents of one page into the other and then redirected it. Ucucha 14:09, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks - I was concerned about moving the history and discussion :-) Gjs238 (talk) 15:36, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Chimpanzee

Your most recent edits solved this. If you are changing the meaning of text, as in this case from "formerly" to "also" you should include a properly formatted reference within the article to support the change. I don't know what that link was in your summary, but when I clicked on it, I got something like a google search result, which isn't a reference. Your current changes are good, so problem solved anyhow. Bob98133 (talk) 17:41, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your message. However, I believe it is flawed on several levels:

I was reverting an IP who made an unsourced edit. Therefore, I probably have a lot more right to chide you because you reverted that without citing sources.
There is no requirement (as far as I am aware) for giving a "properly formatted" reference for one's every change. I linked to a Google Scholar search result that contains several very recent papers referring to Pan paniscus as the "pygmy chimpanzee". That is not a sufficient reference for a featured article, I know, but I wasn't writing a featured article. You apparently looked at that search result and thus also saw those papers using "pygmy chimpanzee", but nevertheless you reinstated the wording "previously known". That is introducing a factual error despite knowing better.
You re-introduced the sentence in the article that says that the bonobo is not a chimpanzee, even though the first sentence of the article states that the term "chimpanzee" refers to both the common chimpanzee and the bonobo. Thus, you introduced a contradiction into the article, without citing a source for your edit.

Please be more careful before reverting an edit in the future. Ucucha (talk) 18:46, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

25 DYK Medal

		The 25 DYK Medal
		This minor award specifically goes for your high-quality DYK contributions, and should only be considered as a starting point for the other DYK decorations ;-)

Materialscientist (talk) 10:34, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

DYK for Oryzomys peninsulae

On December 24, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Oryzomys peninsulae, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Wikiproject: Did you know? 11:42, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Great White Monster

Hi there. You removed a speedy-deletion tag from this article, and as an explanation you wrote in the edit summary "a mushroom is not animal". Wikipedia's Rule of Speedy Deletions is valid for "individuals, animals, organizations & web content." I selected CSD A7 which includes non-notable web content as deletion criteria. This article about a great white monster is clearly a non-notable article created by a user who already had, on the same day, created a similar hoax article which got deleted. You are an administrator, and therefore I would like you to please explain why you removed this valid Speedy-Deletion tag? Thank you. Amsaim (talk) 13:19, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article was about a mushroom, which is neither an animal nor web content; thus, CSD criterion A7 is not fulfilled. I don't believe it's an obvious hoax either. It doesn't seem to be notable, true, but that is not a speedy deletion criterion. You'd best prod it. Ucucha 13:24, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Various rodent-related questions

I have a couple of questions for you: which banners should I add to rodent talk pages: {{rodent}}, {{MaTalk}}, or both? My guess is rodent only for most, and the mammal banner also for important ones, which is what I've been doing. Do you know if the origin of South America's hystricognaths remains a matter of debate? (A claim to this effect is the only thing I've found while trying to find info on rodent evolution.) Lastly, are you going to work on Sigmodontinae soon? (You don't have a to-do list on your userpage, like a lot of users.) I'd love to learn more about these rodents, which I knew nothing about until you corrected my link at rodent. As for hamster names: Please change them to whatever you think is fit, or keep them as they are and correct links if the present arrangement seems right. Ah, one more thing: any suggestions for a rodent group that needs a lot of work to concentrate my contributions on? Rodents are not the animals I Know About—that would be waterfowl—, and the only ones I'm familiar with are the squirrels of my part of the world. I'd be quite happy to work on some rodents I currently know nothing about, and I certainly want to choose one: I've already done this with birds, choosing not only waterfowl but also finches & sparrows. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 17:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's a lot of questions and I'd be happy to give you my opinions:

I really don't see the need to put {{MaTalk}} on any rodent talk pages. It only further clutters the talk page, in my view. Rodents is a subproject of mammals anyway.
What exactly do you mean with the origin question? The 1990s hypothesis that "guinea pigs aren't rodents" has been thoroughly discredited (I think Aranae can tell you more about the details there). I'd have to read up on the specifics, but I believe it's currently fairly widely accepted that SA hystricognaths (Caviomorpha) descend from some Eocene ancestor that dispersed from Africa (similar to the platyrrhine primates).
My main project is User:Ucucha/Oryzomyini, and Sigmodontinae is somewhat outside the scope of that. However, the page is currently in abominable shape for such an important group, and I might take a shot at it some day soon.
All rodent groups need work. I would guess that currently about 95% of the species articles is at Polbot-stub level, and it's about the same for all groups. I'm going to work slowly through them to rename all articles with improper vernacular-name titles (most of them), and will also be adding/updating a little while doing that. I really don't see any particular group in need of attention.

Hope this helps. Thanks for your interest in WP:RODENT and feel free to ask any further questions. Ucucha 18:04, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Thanks for that. As for the origins of South America's hystricognaths, I think this is in reference to some theory of spread via the northern hemisphere, but I'm not sure. The rodent page says a Miocene ancestor—if they spread then, it must have been by sea, but not so for the Eocene. As for the rodent group I'll put some effort into (if I don't pick one, I'll contribute a good deal less) I'll change it from time to time, and I'll start with dormice, if I can find enough refs at the local libraries, otherwise chipmunks. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 19:02, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The hystricognaths certainly got there before the Miocene, as there are Eocene fossils from South America, even of animals that are recognizably members of modern families, I believe. It's of course possible that they got there via North America, but that's somewhat inconsistent with the total absence of hystricognaths in the early North American fossil record.

Good luck with the dormice. They're taxonomically fairly stable; I think the only change since MSW 3 has been the description of a new Graphiurus (chapter 9 here).

Your chipmunks reminded me of something else that you might want to do. The genus Spermophilus has recently been split up because it was completely paraphyletic with respect to all other North American ground squirrels except the chipmunks (Helgen et al., 2009, PDF here). Our pages need to be updated to reflect that, but I haven't come around to doing so. Ucucha 10:45, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Should I follow the taxonomies in these papers then, or have things changed some more? If so, I'm not so sure I want to make all the taxonomy changes. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 19:01, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's something else: Do you know where a page on the genus Mus went? I thought there used to be one, but all I can find is mouse. It is a bother not being able to find a certainly complete list of species with articles. —innotata (Talk • Contribs) 21:04, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, there is none; mouse is the closest we have to it. My preference would be to have a separate article at Mus (genus) and make "mouse" into a kind of extended disambiguation page that lists the rodents commonly referred to as "mice" and explains the history of the term as well as its connotations. Ucucha 21:11, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is a list at User:Ucucha/List of mammals/Muridae, though. Ucucha 21:12, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]