Talk:Eyespot (mimicry)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 October 2018 and 15 December 2018. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Iriscmire.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:05, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Article name
Since it seems clear that they aren't always used in mimicry, and may not be at all, perhaps a more neutral name like eyespot (marking) is desirable? Richard001 (talk) 11:51, 20 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with Richard

Confused lead, what's the message?
Possibly related to the 2010 comment about the article's title, the lead needs rewriting. It sets out several contradictory theories, directly cites recent primary sources (research papers, not review articles or books that discuss and place the research into context) - and it shouldn't contain refs or discussion that aren't in the diminutive article body either, and mumbles repetitively about possibly not being functional. Cott 1940 was crystal clear that eyespots were highly functional, and nobody frankly has contradicted that.

Suggest the article needs new clear section on each of the theories (deimatic/startle; mention of aposematic/foul-tasting honest signal where applicable; strong resemblance to vertebrate predator (binocular vision) eyes, i.e. mimicry in service of deimatic effect; sexual selection; sometimes perhaps just 'spandrel' accident/morphogenesis), and rewritten lead that makes these points shortly and sweetly. Of these, I think mimicry is just part of the deimatic/aposematic signalling effect.

List of refs needs to go back a bit to get some historical perspective, with a section on 'Early research' or just 'History' - Cott of course; and Messrs Darwin, Wallace, Bates do rather need a mention. So, we rewrite the lead, and the body, and the refs. Guess that at least leaves the article name unchanged ... 'course, we could change that too. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:20, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Image Placement
I migrated some examples from the page "Automimicry" to here, because they are more appropriately placed in this page. Some of the pictures are quite nice, but I don't know how to arrange them on the page. Some appear all the way down by /*Morphogenesis*/ :( Can someone with more Wiki skills please edit their placement? Dwkikuchi (talk) 00:24, 25 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, we could. It's obviously your responsibility if you import images to put them somewhere sensible - space for images is always limited, and many editors object strongly to image clutter (specially at GA, and even more at FA). It's not generally all right, therefore, simply to import images that are "quite nice" - the criterion for inclusion is not "could do with it" but (as in Three Men in a Boat) "can't do without it". So please remove anything that isn't ESSENTIAL.


 * The first thing is simply to paste in each image in the section where you want it, and as a quick rule of thumb, no more than one per section unless there's a lot of text there.


 * After that you can set the parameter |left to place one or two images on the left hand side - that takes care, as you don't want to foul up section headings, quotes, or tables, nor do we want the text squeezed between a pair of images as the window is resized. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:42, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

What about cockroaches?
This does not mention cockroaches. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.21.196.65 (talk) 12:29, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It rightly doesn't. If you know otherwise, cite your evidence here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:43, 28 September 2016 (UTC)