Talk:Collodictyon

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 August 2021 and 6 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Gmoore12. Peer reviewers: Vferreiraa12, HugginsLogan.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:18, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

photos needed
Request photos of this creature; extra points if one finds a photo of this creature cannibalizing another of its fellow creatures.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:25, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Question
I am unclear why collodictyon is only found in Lake As; if so, then why were U. California researchers studying it in the 19th century? And I had thought that microscopes were not powerful enough back then (in 19th century) to see collodictyon, but presumably they were -- able to see a single celled creature with just lenses and such.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:47, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Optical Microscopes can easily see down to 1 micron, and these cells are up to 50 times wider. I suspect the Lake As is a misunderstanding. That is where the samples for the latest experiment came from. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 13:11, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. There was a report the creature was only found in Lake As but I suspect it was wrong; or perhaps it was a mistake for the Norwegian researchers to declare it as a new branch of life called Collodictyon. I just know that something isn't right here in this article; I added a "needs attention from expert" tag. Plus, the article is getting huge attention (1500+page views) but there is little coverage about it in newspapers. So, something is off.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:40, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

The lake is properly spelt "Ås". I haven't edited this as it produced a dead link but both this article and the article on lake Ås need to be changed. AJP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.113.76.34 (talk) 21:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I did a search using "Lake Ås" and didn't come up with anything. My sense is something about this lake is fishy.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:19, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Well Ås means Hill in Norwegian. The lake is called Årungen and it is in the municipality of Ås. So we have the article for the lake wrong.  The press release also mentions Japan and south east Asia as unconfimred places for a similar organism. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:14, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Good to know. What I still don't get is how the press (apparently) bungled this -- France 24 is usually a good source -- or, maybe we are still talking about two different creatures here -- the collodictyon named by Norwegian researchers and described as a possible ancestor to humans, and the collodictyon described by the Berkeley researchers. But both creatures are similar -- single-celled, four flagella -- so I am still confused about what is going on here.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 11:44, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The two are the same, as in Apollon ref, the Norwegian researchers mention the earlier 1865 discovery. It also says that the researchers only found it in that lake. Not that it is only found there ever. How about we prune the beginning of the article to leave the more reliable sourced info rather than the hype? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:41, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Nominated for Wikipedia:In the news
I've nominated this story / article at In the news/Candidates, so all efforts to resolve any issues speedily will be important. __meco (talk) 12:24, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Start of clean up
I have reorganised most of the text here to make it resemble something like a WP article.

There are a few issues here. The first is that this organism does appear to be very basal in the eukaryote lineage. It appears to have evolved close to or at the division of most extant eukaryotes into Unikonts and Bikonts. This has been known for over a decade. I have no idea why there has been a press release about this 10 years later but who understands the press? For this reason it does genuinely appear to be important in evolutionary terms and it deserves a better treatment on WP than it has received to date. DrMicro (talk) 10:55, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

The clean up this article has received so far seems to have improved it considerably. I am debating whether or not the tag could now be removed. Any opinions here? DrMicro (talk) 08:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The worst of the problems (Earliest human ancestor B.S. ) are gone with the related refs (thank u DrMicro). Since the cleanup notice is specifically about this, I'm removing it. Will try to add a line or two to spell out what the fuss is about. Still needs other cleanup and expansion work though.Staticd (talk) 17:26, 2 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree with the above comment. The difficulty here is that there is very little published on this organism. This makes it a tad difficult to create a sensible WP article.DrMicro (talk) 19:08, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

A note
This is not the only weird protist known that has yet to be classified. Another is Protaspis grandis and Im sure there are others. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrMicro (talk • contribs) 11:01, May 1, 2012‎ (UTC)


 * It seems that Protaspis grandis has been classified into the CercozoaDrMicro (talk) 12:15, 30 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Please don't use the term “protist”. I explained below why that term is inappropriate; besides, I consider the term derogatory because it suggests something primitive and simple, like the first eukaryotes must have been, when some “protists”, like giant kelp (see Macrocystis pyrifera), can be 45 meters long, whereas the longest blue whale ever recorded was only about 34 meters long. Instead of “protist”, I suggest “eukaryote” or “small eukaryote”.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 16:20, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Feeding habits
Can someone please clarify what is meant by the feeding habits quote.

It seems (if I read it correctly) to say that when the collodictyon is moribund then it pushes everything out of its body, and I'm guessing the quote is suggesting that the feeding habits look similar - but dying collodictyon are distinguished from feeding collodictyon by noticing they are wafting food inward with their pseudopoda?? Is that what the paragraph means ?

Thanks in advance. EdwardLane (talk) 10:25, 3 May 2012 (UTC)


 * As far as I can make out of the quote (so far I have been unable to read the original source myself) it seems that this organism feeds by extending its pseudopodia around food particles and ingesting them. When 'moribund' (I am unsure what criteria were used to make this diagnosis) it appears that it expels material from its cytoplasm. I agree that the quote itself is less that clear but without other material describing its habits it may be difficult to improve on this section. DrMicro (talk) 19:11, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Kingdom
I changed the "Kingdom" from "Protista" to "?" because said genus has not been assigned to a particular kingdom and Protista is not a valid kingdom (not monophyletic). In taxonomy, I strongly dislike using non-monophyletic groups; I even find treating Artiodactyla (even-toed ungulates; deer, cattle, pigs, camels, etc.) as a valid taxon, unacceptable unless whales are included. Does everyone approve of my edit?--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 11:04, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I reverted this edit for the time being, simply because I don't think "I strongly dislike" constitutes justification for a change. When I added the taxobox, I used a different protist as an example, and this was the format followed in that article (can't recall which one).  This sounds like a much more foundational change; not just applicable to this article, but any article relating to species of paraphyletic groups.  Is there a standard for taxoboxes?  If so, I'd bring the discussion to those folks (Talk: taxobox is apparently not the place).  Otherwise, I guess it comes down to consensus on this page.  -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:08, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I disagree, the consensus among biologists is that non-monophyletic taxa are to be avoided.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 16:22, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I've been reading Template: Taxobox and WP:How to read a taxobox, but see nothing from Wikipedia as to whether the ranks must include monophyletic groups. I'm not a biologist and am not really arguing for or against this change; I do, however, think a proposition of this nature ought to be made explicit (such as in a guideline or policy), so other editors will know whether or not to use paraphyletic groups uniformly.  -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 16:42, 16 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Perhaps Wikipedia doesn't have clear guidelines on whether paraphyletic groups are acceptable, but the consensus among biologists is that they are not, and I agree, so I strongly recommend that the kingdom for an organism or taxon never be given as “Protista”; especially since “Protista” is so far from monophyletic; to get it you have to take all Eukarya, and arbitrarily remove Plants, Animals, and Fungi, which have nothing in common aside from being Eukaryotes.


 * In fact, when I read Halvaria and it lists the kingdom as “Chromalveolata”, I find it confusing because the template below showing the 15 or so kingdoms of Eukarya has no “Chromalveolata” -- and with good reason: It says Chromalveolata is not monophyletic. Please avoid non-monophyletic “kingdoms”.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 14:37, 19 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Solomonfromfinland, I was hoping other editors would weigh in on this, but that is looking unlikely. I don't really care if this change is made or not, so feel free to make the change again and I will not revert.  I'm just suggesting that you create a guideline or policy page so other editors will know that Wikipedia doesn't use paraphyletic groups in taxoboxes.  -- MisterDub (talk | contribs) 15:14, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * MrDub added the taxobox with Protista. My feeling is that we should say something, even if just a note to say there is no scientific consensus on what it should be called. Using "?" is just confusing and will invite someone to change this back to Protista or the like. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:50, 21 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay. I'll list the kingdom as Diphyllatea, as stated in Template:Eukaryota. Thank you for agreeing not to revert my change.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 08:53, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Just wanted to suggest taking the generic argument to the wikiproject microbiology talk page, but to address the issue Graeme Bartlett mentioned then putting a comment such as  next to the change in the article would leave the article apparently unchanged but give anyone thinking about editting the question mark back to protista (or whatever) a warning and allow the change to remain until a consensus is arrived at. EdwardLane (talk) 10:56, 21 May 2013 (UTC)