Wikipedia:Peer review/Perijá tapaculo/archive1

Perijá tapaculo

I've listed this article for peer review because it has recently passed a GA nomination and I am considering taking it further. Described in March 2015, there is as yet little scientific data about this tapaculo, a rare passerine bird whose type specimen was caught by playing its own song back to it.

Thanks, Thine Antique Pen (talk) 14:45, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Comments from JM

Nice subject- I've written FAs about birds and about recently described species, but I'm no expert!

• "It is partially protected by the Chamicero de Perijá Nature Reserve in Colombia and the Sierra de Perijá National Park in Venezuela." Are these worth links? Don't be scared of red links!

Done

• "Its irides are" I'm assuming that this is a typo?

Done - fixed

• "measure nearly 58 mm" Why nearly? Why not just say what they are? ("nearly 6 cm" I could understand, as that's a fairly round number)

Done - used the exact figure

• Could the taxonomy section not be bumped up a little? It sometimes comes before "description", sometimes after (I prefer the former) but it certainly should come above "ecology"

Done - I've put it above the description

• Non-breaking spaces should be used when you're abbreviating genus names

Done

• The information about its closest relative really belongs in "taxonomy"

Done - moved

• "seven specimens showed that they fed exclusively on insects" Not really. "suggested" would be better- you'd need more to show that.

Done

• " Its nests, which are built in underground cavities, have been found to have a diameter of around 12 cm (4.7 in) with a depth of around 14.5 cm (5.7 in) and a width of around 9 cm (3.5 in)." Diameter and depth I understand, but what is meant by width?

Done - I've clarified that the diameter and depth refer to the underground cavity its nests are built in, and width is of the interior of the nest

• "Some individual specimens have been observed while feeding in dense thickets within 1 m (39 in) of the surface" The surface of what?

Done (replaced with "the ground")

• "northern white-crowned tapaculo (S. atratus nigricans)" Unless our article on the subject is wrong, S. a. nigricans is a subspecies of the northern etc, not the northern etc simpliciter

Done - I've simply used "S. atratus nigricans" in the article

• "but comparing their data proved inconclusive." Comparing it with what? Or were they two people comparing their own respective data?

Done - I've fixed this error

• Why is the Watsa source not in the main reference list? You only cite it once.

Done

• Are you committed to italicising Amphibians.net?

Not at all, although {{cite web}} automatically italicises the content of the website parameter. Perhaps it could be omitted?

• Perhaps you could consider an alternative layout with both photos and the map in the taxobox and the habitat photo in the distribution section (especially as, if you shift "taxonomy", the distribution section would be lower). On larger screens, I worry this would be a little crowded.

Nice little article; it's great that we have the images! Please double-check my edits. Josh Milburn (talk) 19:56, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I've started working on this. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 16:26, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Have you seen that there's an article in the open access journal ZooKeys which discusses the species in passing here? There're even freely licensed images. Another structural suggestion: Perhaps keep the stuff about close relatives in the taxonomy section, but move how to distinguish it from other species (buffed with something from the ZooKeys article) into the description section. You could have a whole paragraph on how to differentiate it from similar species. Josh Milburn (talk) 19:16, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

@J Milburn: Thanks, I hadn't spotted it. I've moved the stuff about distinguishing it from other species to the description section and have expanded it using the journal. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 18:05, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Is FAC the plan? If so, I'll try to find some time to see if I can help you squeeze any last bits out of the sources... Josh Milburn (talk) 21:08, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

FAC is indeed the plan. That'd be great. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 21:20, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

@J Milburn: I've fiddled with the layout a bit and created (albeit not very well!) a more reflective map of the distribution of the species. I had to use {{clear}} to not mess up the ecology section when moving an image to the left, still unsure about that. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 11:50, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Comments from Cwmhiraeth

I haven't got time to do a full review but here are a few comments:

• You need to avoid stringing together things on different subjects in the same sentence.
• "... the Perijá tapaculo is found at altitudes of 1,600–3,225 metres (5,200–10,600 feet) and measures 10 to 12 centimetres (3.9 to 4.7 inches)."
• "Females have a sharper brown spot on their nape than males, and males have chests mixed with pale buff."
• "Female specimens are distinguished by having a sharper brown spot on their nape than the males, and the bottom of the male's chest is mixed with a pale buff colour."
• The word "white-washed" has a more specific meaning than you intend (white-washed building for example).

Replaced

• The lead should be expanded a bit to cover all the topics mentioned later in the article. At the moment it does not mention taxonomy for example.

Expanded taxonomy info slightly, although I don't want to expand it too much

• That's all for now. Cwmhiraeth (talk)

@Cwmhiraeth: Are the first three quotes examples of "stringing together things on different subjects in the same sentence"? I'd say that the latter two are about differentiating between the genders and are somewhat related/ Otherwise, I'm unsure what you mean. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 11:50, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

They were examples of what I meant. It would be better to keep the female as the subject and say that it has less buff on its chest (more usually termed breast), or have the male be the subject of both halves of the sentence. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:29, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

@Cwmhiraeth: I've made some changes to the article regarding the wording. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 15:58, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

That's better, and by the way, the sentence "The species has not been identified as sympatric with any other species of the genus Scytalopus." needs the word "being" to be inserted before "sympatric". Cwmhiraeth (talk) 17:14, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Done. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 17:34, 9 September 2015 (UTC)