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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 22:23, 20 January 2010 [1].

Noronhomys

[edit]
Nominator(s): Ucucha 23:08, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Toolbox

When Amerigo Vespucci visited Fernando de Noronha in 1503, he saw not only lizards with two tails and some snakes, but also "very large rats". It took nearly five centuries before anyone found the large rats back, but here they are now at FAC. Ucucha 23:08, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Now look what you made me do!--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 22:39, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, you stole my article! ;-) Ucucha 22:43, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Always amazes me how much is not yet covered in this big ol' wiki. --an odd name 23:55, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Technical comments

--an odd name 23:55, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the checks. I changed the map alt. As for the IUCN citation, it is mostly as recommended by the IUCN itself and is consistent with usage in other Oryzomyini articles. The main work is titled "IUCN Red List of Threatened Species" and the author is "IUCN", so that's how we should cite it, whether or not that looks awkward. Ucucha 00:02, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Images

Wow, that looks impressive. Yes, commons has some maps of the archipelago itself; I will add both after I am finished expanding the article on the local amphisbaenian. Ucucha 00:39, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Made a new map indicating the fossil site where they dug it up. Ucucha 03:32, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Source comments Everything fine. RB88 (T) 20:13, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image review: all images and maps as of this revision are verifiably sourced and licensed, or in public domain. Jappalang (talk) 11:34, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Leaning to Weak support:

  • "... the authenticity of which is controversial ..."
    Why is it controversial? Elaborate for the readers.
  • Furthermore, "An account of his voyage, the authenticity of which is controversial, recorded that on August 10, 1503, he visited an island just south of the equator, identified as Fernando de Noronha, where he saw "very big rats and lizards with two tails, and some snakes"." is a very fragmented sentence... (count the commas). Can it be broken down into shorter sentences?
    (On both comments.) There's several levels of controversy here (whether the voyage actually took place and whether the account we have of it is authentic). I want to avoid going into too much detail, as it is not directly about Noronhomys. I expanded a little on it now, however, and will try to write complementary articles on the Lettera and his voyage.
    Suggest changing "which took him to Brazil. The Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci delle Isole Nuovamente in Quattro Suoi Viaggi[4] recorded that during his fourth voyage he visited an island just south of the equator on August 10, 1503." to "which took him to Brazil; the Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci delle Isole Nuovamente in Quattro Suoi Viaggi recorded that he visited an island just south of the equator on August 10, 1503." Jappalang (talk) 22:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Done. Ucucha 21:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... that growth continued in adults, with old adults having larger mandibular dimensions than adults, and does not provide evidence ..."
    Suggest change to: "... that growth continued in adults—the older the animal, the larger its mandibular dimensions—and does not provide evidence ..."
    Done.
    Eh... "—with old adults have larger mandibular dimensions than adults—" is not what I suggested; for one thing, the concept of "old adults ... than adults" seems strange on the tongue. Jappalang (talk) 22:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry for that. "Old adults" and "adults" are often used as distinct age categories in studies on rodents. In this case, they sorted the mandibles in three age categories (young adults, full adults, and old adults) on the basis of tooth wear and eruption and measured them. Their results (table 5 in Carleton and Olson 1999) show that length and width of the molars do not vary with age (as expected - rooted molars don't grow when erupted), that height of the molars is negatively correlated with age (as expected again - with wear it becomes lower), that two measures of the incisor and two of the depth of the mandible are positively correlated with age, and that the length of another part of the mandible, the condyle, is also unrelated to age. They discuss it in the text on p. 27, but don't go into too much detail. I changed the phrasing again to something close to what you suggested to be a little more precise. Ucucha 21:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... in 39 specimens in which the entire molar row is preserved."
    Suggest change to: "... in 39 specimens with intact molar rows."
    Done.
  • Are there reliable records of measurements/estimations of the whole creature so that a size comparison chart (like what is seen on dinosaur articles) such as File:Largesttheropods.svg can be made? Saying "large rats" is not as impressive as getting a visual hint on how big it can actually be... like this.
    No. The animal hasn't been featured in the popular literature or anything similar, and of course, we can't have pictures of the actual animal (unless someone actually drew one in 1503). However, the article already states that it was larger than a black rat and I now also added a body mass estimate.
    The body mass helps. What I meant was did anyone (notable scientist) make an estimation of the entire size of the rodent, (since the article does go into detail of the measurements of individual parts)? If that is the case, a chart like that for dinosaurs (which are sometimes based on estimations) can be made. Jappalang (talk) 22:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    No, no one did. Total length is probably very difficult because we don't know how long its tail was. Head and body length may perhaps be estimated from available measurements, but no one has tried so far. Ucucha 21:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It cannot be helped then; quite unfortunate. Jappalang (talk) 23:39, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The mass of scientific names (of body parts) astound me... I do not know what precisely they are, but have an inkling. It seems overly technical to me, but I guess this would be expected of a biological article. It does seem a bit worrisome that most technical names are red-linked. Perhaps this is a bit too technical? I feel overwhelmed at times and some terms seem sudden and abrupt, e.g. "The upper incisors are opisthodont, ...": what is "opisthodont", which was never introduced earlier.
    I believe all technical terms are explained or bluelinked. "Opisthodont" is explained in the following part of the sentence. I rephrased a few sentences to improve on this.
    Not quite, "anterolophids", "mesolophids" and several other terms are used in explaining previous terms. I am not so hard up over this, as like I said, I do get a certain idea of what is said (just not clear comprehension). Jappalang (talk) 22:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Anterolophids and mesolophids are part of a phrase which starts "The molars lack many accessory ridges, including ...", which should make clear that these are all accessory ridges. Going into more detail on them is possible, but would be difficult to do without a full explanation of the nomenclature for molar features (for example, the anterolophid is a ridge in the protoflexid, in between the anterolingual cuspulid and the protoconid). Are there any others that you think require more information? Ucucha 21:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    On re-reading the sentence alone, you are correct. However, I think my confusion (when reading the article as a whole) was influenced by the mass of technical terms used. Like I said earlier, perhaps this also cannot be helped for such an article (biology). Jappalang (talk) 23:39, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    As I implied below, articles like this have to balance between being not comprehensive enough in failing to address salient morphological points and too detailed in including too much technical description. I have tried to limit it to taxonomically significant characters (like the absence of accessory ridges, an important synapomorphy of the Holochilus group) and some more easily understood ones (like the proportions of the molars). I hope I've struck the right balance, but am open to improvements. Ucucha 08:03, 10 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting article but mayhaps a bit too technical for the average reader interested in animals? Jappalang (talk) 11:34, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can see how that might be a problem, but we have to go with the sources and the information we have, which in this case is largely limited to the technical description in Carleton and Olson and the even more technical account of the incisor enamel microstructure in Weise and Malabarba. I have tried to keep the information readable by explaining more arcane points of morphology and their evolutionary significance (such as the absence of the entepicondylar foramen, a synapomorphy of the Sigmodontinae). Not including this information would make the article fail FA criterion 1b (comprehensiveness).
Thanks for your comments! Ucucha 13:54, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Clarifying that I am supporting this article, but it is a bit uncertain due to what I perceive as a mass of technical terms (possibly a subjective concern, hence it tempers, but not obstructs, my support). Jappalang (talk) 00:38, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the clarification. Ucucha 08:20, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - leaning towards support. I'm impressed by the depth on such an obscure subject - extinct species on remote islands can be very difficult to get info on. A few minor quibbles.
The entepicondylar foramen is absent,[15] as in all members of the Sigmodontinae; if present, it perforates the distal (far) end of the humerus (upper arm bone). - If it is absent how can it be present? Is it usually absent?
The first two paragraphs of taxonomy are more a history of the species and humans than taxonomy, perhaps breaking into related subsections might be good, or modifying the section heading to "Description and taxonomy"?
Thanks for your comments. This one was in fact fairly easy on the information, because it was recently and comprehensively described and no substantive other information is known about it.
As for the foramen, it's present in rodents that are not sigmodontines (deermice and hamsters, for example, I believe). I added a clarification to account for that.
Such an image would be original research, I believe. There are no body size estimates, only a rather crude estimate of the body mass. Ucucha 21:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fine and fine. Still think the taxonomy sections needs a rename though. Sabine's Sunbird talk 22:10, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for missing that. What about "Discovery and taxonomy"? Ucucha 08:33, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds right. Sabine's Sunbird talk 09:54, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Ucucha 10:01, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments, leaning toward support. Overall it is good, and accessible enough if you can get past all the technical body part names. I do have a concern about overlinking, especially the red links. Are most of these really likely to become articles, or should they redirect to larger articles? Additionally, some of them are linked multiple times, creating the quite visually distracting sea of red links. I'd like to see some strategy in place for remedying this, even if it's putting together a small task force to create stubs for those articles. --Andy Walsh (talk) 17:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for commenting. Which terms are linked multiple times? They should not be, and I think I avoided doing that (except for mesoloph, the second occurrence of which I delinked). Writing articles on those terms is somewhere on my list of things to do, but it may take some time. I do think they deserve their own articles, perhaps with the exception of some of the molar features (such as the entoflexid). Ucucha 21:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I went through and delinked a few more items. It's not just the redlinks—you had some other terms linked multiple times, sometimes even in the same paragraph. --Andy Walsh (talk) 19:10, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, thought you were referring to red links only there. Thanks for catching these links; I found one more. I just created an article on one of the anatomical terms (posterolateral palatal pits), and will continue to do so. Ucucha 19:52, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support now—concerns have been addressed. Good work! --Andy Walsh (talk) 13:56, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I read this ages ago, but got sidetracked by real world events. My few niggling concerns seem to have been addressed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:31, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: The "extinction" section is awfully short (one paragraph), and to me that's the most interesting thing about the subject, so I'm wondering if there's more that could be written. Since there was no human habitation at the time, I'm sure information is scarce, but I'd imagine we could have some more detail on scientific speculation. Everyking (talk) 23:15, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Carleton and Olson discuss this on pp. 48-49 (link to full text is in the article - you can read it for yourself if you wish). They go into a bit more detail than the article does, but nothing really relevant to this article, I think. Not much has been written on this animal. The only piece of original biological information we have about the living animal is that Vespucci saw it (with the associated uncertainties of that account); otherwise, we have to use the subfossils Carleton and Olson used to describe the species. In some cases, the subfossil records may be so good that they can be helpful in determining the cause of extinction (for example, one may see a gradual replacement of indigenous rodents by introduced mice and rats over time), but that doesn't seem to be the case here.
    • In that case, the only thing left is speculating informed by what's happened in other island rodents. There's an awful lot of such rodents that got extinct over the last centuries (see Rodents of the Caribbean for one regional overview), and some have better information. For example, the Canary Islands rat Malpaisomys and the Christmas Island rats Rattus macleari and Rattus nativitatis apparently succumbed to disease brought by introduced rodents, and Megalomys luciae and Megalomys desmarestii of the Lesser Antilles are thought to have been driven to extinction by mongoose predation. The article currently contains a summary of Carleton and Olson's speculations on that, as it should, and although I just added one minor point, there doesn't seem to be anything else to add. Ucucha 13:39, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments Looks good, just a few suggestions: Sasata (talk) 05:46, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "N. vespuccii was a fairly large rodent," I've been told you shouldn't start sentences, let alone paragraphs, with the abbreviated genus name.
    • Quite true. Done.
  • I'd like to know in the lead if the fossil remains were complete or partial, and if complete, if there was more than one fossil.
    • "Numerous but fragmentary fossil remains"
  • caption: "…the island group to which Noronhomys is endemic." shouldn't this be past tense?
    • Yes, that's better. Done.
  • Michael D. Carleton -> use non-breaking spaces for names with initials (or the equivalent {{nowrap}} template)
    • Done.
  • "The material is now in the United States National Museum of Natural History" shouldn't that be States' (i.e. a possessive, not an adjective)?
    • No, "United States" is used as an adjective here.
  • link specific name
    • Done.
  • the convert templates are set to Brit spelling output, contrary to the spelling of the rest of the article
    • Killed them.
  • "Analysis of metrical data" is this the same as morphometrical, mentioned in the last section?
    • Yes, changed this into morphometrical.
  • "which are uniserial (consisting of a single prism)" what's a prism?
    • It's the tooth enamel. Incisor enamel microstructure is so arcane a subject that even technical papers which report on it generally include an introduction explaining important terms and concepts.
  • link vulcanism
    • Done.
  • "Remains of Noronhomys were found in association with various reptiles, birds, and snails" do you mean the fossilized remains of these creatures?
    • Of course. I changed it.
  • "The introduced black rat..." link introduced
    • Done.
  • I'd like to have a better idea of how well-known the fauna of this island is. What are the chances that this rat is not actually extinct, and just hides in the bushes whenever a scientist comes on the island? Do people live on the island?
    • There are a few thousand people there. The fauna perhaps isn't terribly well-studied (I think they had Ridley around 1890, who studied pretty much everything, and at least some people studying lizards etc. thereafter), but neither Carleton and Olson nor the IUCN include any speculation that it is still extant, so I don't think we should, even implicitly. Ucucha 08:20, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • My database gives the spelling of one of the source authors as Weiss, not Weise
    • Looks like you're right. The Zoological Record does list Weiss, and I think it is this student.

Diff. Ucucha 08:20, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support I also checked 1(b) and 1(c); the coverage looks thorough, and the article uses all available scholarly resources. Props for finding enough relevant pics to make it visually interesting as well. Sasata (talk) 08:38, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • See WP:RED; redlinks are not a problem, and stubbing them is not required. However, the redlinks in this article leave sentences incomprehensible to the layperson, so unless the redlinks are stubbed, definitions would be needed here. One example:
What is an alisphenoid strut? I can figure out that the masticatory ... and foramen are two parts of the skull, I guess? In cases like this, the absence of a stub makes the article hard to digest. Sample only. Another sample:
  • The entepicondylar foramen is absent,[2] as in all members of the Sigmodontinae; if present, as in some other rodents, it perforates the distal (far) end of the humerus (upper arm bone).
Even after reading that it "perforates the far end of the upper arm bone", I still don't know what the entepicondylar foramen is. Another sample:
So, I know these bands are uniserial, and that is defined, but I still don't know what they are. Also, per WP:MOSBOLD, volume numbers in Literature cited should be bold; that can be done manually, or by using {{cite journal}}. The jargon here needs work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:40, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I clarified the first two samples you mentioned. I think it should be clear from the existing wording that the MBF and the FOA are openings in the skull. I'll create a stub on the HSB tomorrow.
MOSBOLD only says "[v]olume numbers of journal articles [should be bolded] in some bibliographic formats"; in the bibliographic format (reference style) I chose, they are not bolded. Ucucha 22:49, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hunter-Schreger band is beautifully blue now. I believe all other redlinked terms are in fact adequately explained. Ucucha 10:11, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Better: thank you! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:00, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good. Is there anything else you feel needs to be addressed? Ucucha 22:30, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference CO13 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference CO16 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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