Talk:Bottlenose dolphin/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Under review. Axl ¤  [Talk]  10:35, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

From the lead section, paragraph 3: "Bottlenose Dolphins live in groups that can number more than 100 animals, but are usually much smaller." How about a range? Axl ¤  [Talk]  10:40, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * -- range provided. Rlendog (talk) 20:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

From "Description", paragraph 1: "The Bottlenose Dolphin is perhaps the archetypal dolphin." Original research? Axl ¤  [Talk]  10:45, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * -- revised and sourced comment. Rlendog (talk) 00:05, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

From "Description", paragraph 5: "Bottlenose Dolphins can live for more than 40 years." Is this the average lifespan? Is there a difference between captive dolphins and wild dolphins? Axl ¤  [Talk]  11:00, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * -- This is a maximum lifespan. I think this is clarified by the additional info I added on wild dolphins, where I explicitly noted the "average lifespan" in the study.  I'd like to say coluclisvely that the 40+ years is from captive dolphins, since it probably is based on the lifespan of captive dolphins whose dates of birth and death are known, but there could be census data on wild dolphins that confirm this.  I haven't seen explicit references to this however, and I think the additional information on wild dolphin census should address this issue adequately.Rlendog (talk) 20:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

From "Taxonomy": "the Common Bottlenose Dolphin ... colour sometimes almost blue". Colour sometimes almost blue? This needs clarification. Axl ¤  [Talk]  11:03, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * -- clarified; color is grey but shade varies; bluish grey is one of the possibilities. Also added reference for that and the Indo-Pacific BN Dolphin description and range. Rlendog (talk) 19:23, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

In the "Taxonomy" section, what about the two North Atlantic ecotypes? Axl ¤  [Talk]  11:08, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * -- added discussion. Rlendog (talk) 20:19, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

From "Taxonomy": "The taxonomic situation of these animals is likely to remain in flux for some time to come." This requires a reference, otherwise it is original research. Axl ¤  [Talk]  11:14, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * -- removed comment. Rlendog (talk) 00:05, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

In "Diet", can we have a reference for the second paragraph please? Axl ¤  [Talk]  11:47, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * -- refs added. Rlendog (talk) 01:01, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

From "Respiration and sleep": "A dolphin is able to exchange 80% or more of its lung air with each breath; contrastly, humans are only able to exchange 17%." This is misleading and untrue. Does it refer to alveolar volume, tidal volume or vital capacity? The value quoted for humans is incorrect, whichever of the three it refers to. Axl ¤  [Talk]  12:16, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I am not sure which definition this is referring to but I found several references to both the 80% for dolphins and 17% for humans (in some cases this is expressed as a range of 10% to 20%). See         The last few may be copied from each other to some extent, but the first two seem independent of the rest. Rlendog (talk) 19:59, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I did revise the wording a bit and add a couple of refs, if that helps. I could also remove the specific range for humans and just state that the dolphins lung air exchange is "much greater than that for humans", if that would help.Rlendog (talk) 20:05, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * -- I revised the discussion of respiration relative to humans

based on information I found in the Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals. If the above sources are not reliable, I have not been able to find the specific reference to the 80% and 17% in a reliable source, so I removed the statistics. Rlendog (talk) 01:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

From "Reproduction", paragraph 1: "The female has one genital slit, housing the vagina and the anus." Is this a cloaca? Axl ¤  [Talk]  12:22, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think this qualifies as a cloaca.  I've never seen it described that way, for the bottlenose dolphin or any other cetacean.  And the dolphins have separate urinary and intestinal tracts; it's jus that the openings from those tracts (or the penis and anal opening for males) are hidden behind this separate slit in the skin (presumably to provide a smoother ventral surface for swimming, and to protect the sensitive organs from cold water).Rlendog (talk) 19:42, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

From "Cognition": "Such research has been ongoing from the late 1970s through to the present, and include the specific areas of: acoustic mimicry,[48] behavioural mimicry (inter- and intra-species),[49] comprehension of novel sequences in an artificial language (including non finite state grammars as well as novel anomalous sequences),[50][51] memory, monitoring of self behaviours (including reporting on these, as well as avoiding or repeating them),[52] reporting on the presence and absence of objects, object categorization, discrimination and matching (identity matching to sample, delayed matching to sample, arbitrary matching to sample, matching across echolocation and vision, reporting that no identity match exists, etc.), synchronous creative behaviours between two animals, comprehension of symbols for various body parts,[53] comprehension of the pointing gesture and gaze (as made by dolphins or humans),[54] problem solving, echolocative eavesdropping, attention, and mirror self-recognition." This long sentence should be split. Axl ¤  [Talk]  12:37, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * -- Listified and parsed the long sentence. Rlendog (talk) 05:14, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

From "Tool use and culture", paragraph 1: "Rendell & Whitehead have proposed a structure for the study of culture in cetaceans,[59] although this view has been controversial (e.g. see Premack & Hauser)." Can we have an in-line citation for Premack & Hauser? Axl ¤  [Talk]  12:45, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * -- ref added Rlendog (talk) 19:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

For "Natural predators", paragraph 1, can we have a reference please? Axl ¤  [Talk]  13:03, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * -- refs added Rlendog (talk) 02:05, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Again, "Interaction with humans", paragraph 1 requires a reference. Axl ¤  [Talk]  13:11, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
 * -- ref added Rlendog (talk) 02:04, 1 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the comments. I am about to leave for vacation for a few days, and so will have limited (or no) computer access for the next few days.  I will try to address these when I get back, probably over next weekend. Rlendog (talk) 14:48, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Great work!
Excellent work so far Rlendog! [I'm impressed that you found some time during your holiday for this.] Thanks for providing the lung volume references. I'll relist them here for clarity:-


 * 1) ThinkQuest
 * 2) 2dolphins.com
 * 3) Bottlenose Dolphin Facts
 * 4) SeaWorld
 * 5) ThinkQuest [Duplicate link]
 * 6) Saving Dolphins [Source acknowledged as "SeaWorld"]
 * 7) Dolphinaris

None of these are reliable sources. They are all wrong. Only "2dolphins.com" actually indicates the type of volume measured; it's apparently the tidal volume. Wikipedia's article on "Lung volumes" is accurate, indicating a tidal volume of about 500 ml in a total lung capacity of 6 litres, i.e. 8–10%. It is grossly misleading to suggest that the dolphin's higher relative tidal volume (80%) makes it more efficient than a human's. I'm not going to digress into a physiology tutorial (unless asked). I'll need to have a closer look through the references.

There are a couple of other places where references would be helpful:-
 * In "Taxonomy", could we have a reference to the distinction between "Pacific Bottlenose Dolphin" & "Black Sea Bottlenose Dolphin"?
 * -- Added citations referencing each of the subspecies. Rlendog (talk) 19:08, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * In "Reproduction", paragraph 2, can we have a reference to courtship behaviour?
 * -- I revised the paragraph and provided references.Rlendog (talk) 01:30, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Axl ¤  [Talk]  17:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

From "Reproduction", paragraph 5: "The young live closely with their mother for up to 6 years; the males are not involved in the raising of their mother's subsequent offspring." I'm not sure what the second part of this sentence means. Axl ¤  [Talk]  06:40, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * -- I reworded the sentence and removed the part about males. I suspect it meant that the male does not form a long term bond with the female that continues for multiple births, but I don't think the sentence is necessary in light of the rest of the description of the mating process. Rlendog (talk) 05:07, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

The only other outstanding problem is the long sentence in the "Cognition" section. Axl ¤  [Talk]  06:40, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Still working on this one in my sandbox. I've listified the sentence, but I think the list could still use some parsing. Rlendog (talk) 05:08, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Just addressed this. See if the revised format works. Rlendog (talk) 05:14, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

GA pass
It is well-written, accurate, broad in coverage, neutral, stable & appropriately illustrated.

My congratulations to Rlendog. For future improvement, the references should be examined more closely; some of them may not be reliable sources. Axl ¤  [Talk]  09:45, 6 October 2008 (UTC)