Talk:Microhodotermes viator/GA1

GA Review
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Nominator: 05:50, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Fritzmann2002 (talk · contribs) 02:14, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I will begin the review of this article shortly. Fritzmann (message me) 02:14, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Prose
 * For the names in the lead, I recommend only putting the most commonly attested common name at the start of the article. It should also probably have an etymology section that discusses both the Latin name and other common names in more detail. That will also remove those references from the lead and put them in the body. You can also discuss the Afrikaans (?) names for it separately than the English names.
 * The lead is not quite long enough. It should address all aspects of the article, missing now are the description, behavior, and symbiosis sections.
 * I notice there is no taxonomic history section. Typically for specific taxa, there is at least a paragraph on the synonyms and taxonomic history of the species. Because there are several synonyms on the taxobox, this seems like it should be rather feasible. The first sentence of the description sentence could be split into this taxo history section.
 * Wherever non-English text is used, the Lang template needs to be used for accessibility
 * Link or explain "tarsi", "tibiae", and "femora"
 * Perhaps discussions of color could be their own paragraph in the description section? I also wonder why these different authors describe the species as being slightly different colors; is that discussed at all by any chance?
 * A brief mention of the roles of workers, soldiers, and alates is warranted. I also see you call the alates the reproductive caste in the infobox image caption, which may be a helpful descriptor in the text.
 * Is it found particularly on the west coast of Namibia, or particularly on the west coast of Namibia and South Africa?
 * Throughout the article, "is" and "are" are used interchangeably to refer to the species. For example: "Microhodotermes viator is found in..." vs "Microhodotermes viator are eusocial insects...". I typically try to stick with the singular, as it makes grammar easier to reconcile.
 * Do the termites directly consume and digest the foraged plant material? That is the impression I got from the sentence on cellulose but I wanted to make sure
 * Is there any material on their mating behavior or life cycle? That seems to be the only part of the species that was noticeably not covered
 * "The distribution of heuweltjies represents roughly 49% of the distribution of M. viator" I'm not sure what this means; the use of "distribution" may be causing some confusion here
 * "zoogenic hypothesis" is there a link for this?
 * Is there a link for burrowing bees? Also, what kind of mole-rats, there are several relatively unrelated species that have that common name
 * That bit about the ancient carbon reservoirs is really interesting, and would make a solid DYK
 * I think that for the symbiosis and parasites section, the lists of associated species could be put into footnotes, and just the family/common names could be used. That would improve readability a lot, and I don't think most people will need to know the individual species anyways. For example, it could simply be: "Rove beetles and clown beetles live in M. viator nests, as do insects of the order Zygentoma. If that is done, I think the section could be condensed down to not need subsections.
 * Is Psammotermes allocerus a predator or a mutualist?

References
 * Citation date style needs to be standardized, I recommend # Month 20xx
 * I notice there are at least a handful of references on the talk page listed as useful for expansion of the article that have not yet been incorporated – at least not that I could see. Is there a reason for this, and does leaving out these references still allow the article to have broad coverage of the species in your opinion?
 * Have the two hidden notes in the symbiosis and parasites section been addressed? If so can they be removed?

Images
 * Images could use alternative text for accessibility

On the whole, the article is pretty close to GA. The lead needs a bit of expansion, a few new minor sections might be warranted, and a few prose nitpicks should be addressed. I have not conducted an image license review or source spotcheck yet, but wanted to leave these comments so you can start working on them while I do those last items. Fritzmann (message me) 17:46, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all these notes! I'm currently in the process of moving house, but I'll work on the article as soon as I can. ꧁ Zanahary ꧂ 00:17, 13 July 2024 (UTC)