Talk:Myrmecia nigrocincta/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs) 18:37, 6 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I propose to take on this review and will make some preliminary remarks shortly. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:37, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

First reading
You have made a good start on this article but it needs a bit more work to bring it up to GA standard.
 * I started off by looking at the references. It is customary to use italics for genus and species names.
 * The lead section is rather brief. The lead should be a summary of the information in the body of the text and should not contain information that is not dealt with elsewhere.
 * Be careful about mixing singular and plural. The first sentence reads "Myrmecia nigrocincta ... is an ant of the genus Myrmecia." The third reads "They are abundant in Australia", and would be better with something like "Colonies of this ant are abundant in Australia".
 * The distribution section seems to be alphabetical. It would be better to order the places you mention geographically.
 * Some of the places you mention are wikilinked and others are not. I would advise wikilinking them all, making sure to avoid linking to disambiguation pages. Blackall Range should be fully capitalised. What is the "National Park" you mention?
 * "The ants have been recorded visiting flowers of Eucalyptus regnans and Senna acclinis and is considered as a possible pollination vector for the tree." - Which tree?
 * "The species is distinguished from others in its species group by ..." - which other species are within its species group? It would be nice to have a taxonomy section.
 * "In a 2011 Australian ant allergy venom study, which determined what native ant species of Australia were associated with ant anaphylaxis, showed that of the 18 jumper ants belonging to the Myrmecia genus that caused a reaction, 15 of them were from the M. nigrocincta species.[17]" - This sentence is a bit muddled and I don't think you have drawn the right conclusions from this study, what about the 176 Myrmecia pilosula?
 * The article seems rather incomplete. What are the nests like? Can you say more about the habitat? How does a new queen found a new colony if there is no nuptial flight? Do they forage on the ground or in trees? What else do they eat? What eats them?
 * I will stop there for now and will look again when you have dealt with these points. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:37, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to point out what is needed to be addressed. I will be looking into the issues stated above and general improvement. Keep in mind it could take awhile, seeing as I have lots of assessment tasks and work from school to finish. I will fix, expand, or elaborate some issues now however. I have looked at the source about "National Park" that you said, and the source only says "National Park" and nothing else. I may remove it if I cannot find the particular park it mentions. Burklemore1 (talk) 11:27, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Take your time, there's no rush! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:25, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Okay, so I have done some work. Here is some overview so far:


 * Italics have been done on species and genus names appearing in the reference section.
 * Lead section will be worked on very soon.
 * Third point *should* be done, unless it has not been 100% addressed, which I will get onto if that's the case.
 * I will get onto that very soon, as well.
 * Wikilinking has been done and I have not found any particular mention of "National Park", so perhaps I will remove it. I have made sure that they did not link to any disambiguation pages.
 * Eucalyptus regnans is the tree it was talking about, I have edited/fixed the sentence. Senna acclinis is a flowering plant.
 * Wrong choice of words, so I changed it. Does "M. nigrocincta is prominent in the Myrmecia genus" sound better?
 * I will get onto this point and rewrite about the 2011 study.
 * Nests have been described and a slight expansion about the habitat has been made. They forage mostly on trees and vegetation but sometimes on ground, which has been added to the article, and I have found they eat caterpillars and spiders, and they have several predators. I have added that information onto the article. As for queens, they do nuptial flight, but workers also can reproduce. Would you suggest a new section about their life cycle/reproduction? I have found at least one source from a book online supporting the fact that workers can reproduce. Can be seen here! Another source describes their larva, unless that should be added to the description content? Seen here. Burklemore1 (talk) 04:15, 9 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Okay, I have found some information based off habitats. According to Antweb.org, specimens have been found at: "3 times found in Rainforest, 1 times found in Poor rainforest, 1 times found in Rainforest edge, 1 times found in Savannah, 1 times found in Sclerophyll woods, 1 times found in wet sclerophyll, 1 times found in Dry open sclerophyll woods, 0 times found in Dry sclerophyll, 1 times found in Dry sclr. woods, 0 times found in Edge of rainforest, ...", and were collected from elevations of "80 - 1219 meters, 590 meters average". Would you consider antweb.org a reliable source? I mean it's hosted and supported by the California Academy of Sciences, and it has dozens of links to many other sources. Also here is a link if you wanted to have a view of it. Burklemore1 (talk) 04:32, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I think antweb.org can be considered a reliable source. I have read through the article again and think it is coming along quite nicely. Nevertheless, there are numerous places where the prose is awkward or the sentences a bit confusing. I could either list the instances here at some length, or I could copyedit the article. Which would you prefer? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:42, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Well that's good. I will be adding further information then. Also, just list the instances here and I will get onto it. Burklemore1 (talk) 00:36, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I have done some more editing. Here is what I have done or will do:


 * I created a distribution map and added it to the article, which I sourced from the Atlas of Living Australia.
 * Lead section has been expanded and contains two paragraphs, but I'm a bit unsure if it meets the requirements.
 * New section was created, but if it needs working on in order to meet GA standards I will immediately do it. Contains life expectancy for workers (life expectancy for queens was unavailable), some info on their young (trying hard to find a source saying how long their eggs develop) and their gamergates gene. I thought this information was rather important and useful to expand the article, as you said seemed incomplete, so it helps.
 * Slight expansion on the habitat.
 * I removed National Park since I couldn't find any mention of what particular park it meant, or location.
 * 2011 study will be worked on shortly. I'm carefully reading the conclusion of the study.

Also, can you please further explain about the issue in regards of listing distribution locations alphabetically and how it should be mentioned geographically? I'm slightly confused about that. Does it mean that prominent or major locations should be listed first, or am I thinking of something else? Burklemore1 (talk) 07:21, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
 * When I am writing on distribution for an organism I start at one end of the range as in Spot-tail shark. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:15, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh, that's pretty understandable then. I have noticed that the Australian states mentioned have been organised like that. Working on the issue now. Burklemore1 (talk) 09:10, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Second reading
Some prose points. Where I have suggested better versions, you do not need to follow them exactly.:
 * "M. nigrocincta prefer to forage on trees, rather than on the ground, where they are known to pollinate flowers off trees and shrubs." --> "Rather than foraging on the ground, M. nigrocincta prefer to forage in trees where they are known to pollinate flowers."
 * "The ant is a large species, where some can grow over 15 millimeters in length" - "where" is inappropriate here.
 * "Life expectancy of a worker ant is over 1 year." - figures under ten are best written in words though I would use "a" here.
 * "Abundant to Australia, the jumper ant prefers the temperate bushlands," --> "Abundant in Australia, the jumper ant prefers temperate bushlands,"
 * "Based on collections of M. nigrocincta specimens, they can also be found in other sort of habitats different to their preferred habitat range, at elevations ..." --> "They can also be found in other sorts of habitat at elevations ...".
 * "M. nigrocincta is prominent in the Myrmecia genus by ..." --> "M. nigrocincta can be distinguished from other species in the Myrmecia genus by ..."
 * "Predators of the M. nigrocincta (and the Myrmecia genus whole)" --> "Predators of the M. nigrocincta (and the Myrmecia genus as a whole)".
 * "The ants have been recorded visiting flowers of Eucalyptus regnans and Senna acclinis and is considered" - "are considered".
 * "They live in nests of sandy soil, sometimes having a mound, which resemble mole-hills." --> "They live in nests in sandy soil, sometimes having a mound, which resembles a mole-hill."
 * "Other materials can be found to distinguish M. nigrocincta colonies include dry leaves, rocks, vegetation, and twigs." - "conceal" would be better than "distinguish", if that is what you mean.
 * " Nests are at the base of a clump of grass, bushes or the bottom of trees." --> " Nests are beside a clump of grass or bush or at the base of a tree."
 * "Wheeler (1922) describes the reaction of M. nigrocincta to the disturbance of their nests that" - "their nest as".
 * "The M. nigrocincta is a primitive hunter towards arthropods, even being observed attacking larvae on several occasions." - Having looked at this source, I suggest you word this sentence as "M. nigrocincta has been observed to prey on the larvae of imperial hairstreak butterflies, even jumping while carrying them." Then I would relocate the sentence to the second paragraph of the Behaviour section where the ant's diet is referred to.
 * "This factor means a colony which loses its queen can still remain with the absence of the queen." --> "This means a colony which loses its queen can still thrive in the absence of the queen."
 * "In colonies of M. nigrocincta where there was no queen present, worker-laid eggs were reared to mature males, showing that workers are highly fertile." - I thought this a strange statement, but referring to the source I see it is correct. Maybe you short start it off "In laboratory colonies...".
 * "In a 2011 Australian ant allergy venom study, which determined what native ant species of Australia were associated with ant anaphylaxis, showed that of the 18 jumper ants belonging to the Myrmecia genus that caused a reaction, 15 of them were from the M. nigrocincta species." - This statement is still incorrect as 176 Myrmecia genus ants are mentioned as venomous in the study, most of them Myrmecia pilosula.
 * Wikilink or explain such technical terms as "queenright", "sclerophyll", "gaster", "mesonotum", "pronotum" etc., "type specimen", "pheromone", "occiptal carina" (needs an extra "i"),
 * The lead mentions enslavement but the Behaviour section does not.
 * The article uses a number of varying names for the ant and in fact, Myrmecia pilosula is also called the jack jumper ant, hopper ant, jumper ant or jumping jack according to its article page. For this article, I suggest you stick to M. nigrocincta all the way through.
 * I have perhaps listed these further points needing attention too soon because I see you are still working on the article. With the extra information you have added, the article is much improved. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:43, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll work on this when I wake up tomorrow. Burklemore1 (talk) 13:13, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

I decided to work on the article rather than later and took all your points. However, there was one issue with your suggestions:

While you said there is no mention of the ant enslaving other ants, there is. "M. nigrocinta is known to enslave Leptomyrmex and other ants." Burklemore1 (talk) 16:07, 11 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I fixed the two last points you addressed in your first reading; I looked up the locations and listed them geographically (Como and Heathcote are Sydney suburbs so they have been bracketed). The 2011 study has finally been fixed which acknowledges M. pilosula and other Myrmecia species that caused reactions, with a better explanation on the objective and conclusion of the study M. nigrocincta was involved in. Burklemore1 (talk) 02:35, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

GA Criteria

 * The article is reasonably well written, having improved considerably since it was nominated. It complies with MOS guidelines on prose and grammar, structure and layout.
 * The article uses many reliable third-party sources, and makes frequent citations to them. I do not believe it contains original research.
 * The article covers the main aspects of the subject and remains focussed.
 * The article is neutral.
 * The article is stable.
 * The images are relevant and have suitable captions. They are either in the public domain or properly licensed.


 * Final assessment - I believe this article reaches the GA criteria. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:18, 15 August 2014 (UTC)