Talk:New Zealand parrot

To be done
Ok, I have some ideas of what could be added to this page (to be expanded):


 * 1) Distribution map of four five species in single map with four different colors. I have the distribution maps, but need to combine them.
 * 2) discussion of phylogeography.
 * 3) Evolution of various species
 * 4) Chatham Island kaka

-- Kim van der Linde at venus 20:56, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions and possible additions

 * The number of surviving skins of the extinct species in the world and other evidence of existence. Fossil evidence?
 * Added no of surviving skins. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 22:25, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Photographs of the sub-fossils and a skin would make nice illustrations. With skins in existence it should be possible to write a good description of the extinct Norfolk Island Kaka, including its length. Snowman (talk) 11:00, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * We maybe could get permission from the Museum in amsterdam, their legal notice seems to be relative permissive. Their rules:
 * The data is not used for commercial purposes;
 * You may copy and retain data solely for scholarly, educational or research purposes;
 * You acknowledge the source of the data by the words "With the permission of the University of Amsterdam" in a position which is reasonably prominent in view of your use of the data;
 * You are not allowed, without the permission of the University of Amsterdam, to publish our data and to give any of your data to any third parties. Other use of our data after permission always requires duly acknowledgement.
 * Leiden is more stricts, and that are the only three images of skins I am aware of. Could this work? -- Kim van der Linde at venus 18:47, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Are there any surviving eggs of the extinct species?
 * No. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 22:30, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Descriptions in the table with references.
 * Done. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 18:47, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Try to determine what subspecies the kaka images are and if there is a north and south on commons.
 * Determined subspecies at commons, and added them as separate taxa. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 21:52, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Infobox caption could include the kaka subspecies. Snowman (talk) 10:54, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 18:23, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Say something about what is not known about the extinct species.
 * kind of done, maybe needs more? -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There is an image of a Kea in the snow on commons, which could be added sometime. Parrots living in the snow - is this unique? How do they do they survive in the snow? What adaptation for snowy conditions?
 * It is not unique, for example think-bbilled parrot and patagonian species. But yes, it is something to add to the ecology section. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 04:55, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * In aviculture? - there are some photographs of these species as pets on commons.
 * More details descriptions of habitats with discussion on adaptations. What is the long upper beak for?
 * Long upper beak varies dramatically between species,. I will have a look into it. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The introduction can be expanded, perhaps when the article is fuller. The introduction as a summary of the article - information occuring only in the introduction should be in the main body of the text.
 * Will happen with the expension of the text. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * What was the old classification, and is it still in use? When did the new classification with the nestoridea as a separate parrot family start?
 * Whoww, I could write a whole wikipedia page just about that. I thinkit is best left as a summary like it was a mess. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Vulnerability of the ground nesting kakapo.
 * Added under treats.-- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Bergmann's rule - Can this jargon be avoided?
 * Yup. And does need to be added to some other section on ecology etc. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 22:12, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Can the jargon be avoided or explained? Snowman (talk) 22:16, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * There are seven parrot species endemic to New Zealand, and the others need explaining or the nice phylogeographic table of a few of them seems rather mysterious.
 * I see, another group of parrots arrived on New Zealand much later. Was the later arrival of parrots a chance event, or explained by the geological activity of the epoch? Snowman (talk) 10:48, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Island hopping, will add a paragraph in that. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 18:47, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Added. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 19:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Norfolk Island is part of Australia according to its wikipage. Amendment probably needed, but do not take my word for it. What is the government of Philip Island and Chatham Island? Snowman (talk) 21:38, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Norfolk and Philip are under Australian rule, Chatham under New Zealand. That is why I called it New Zealand and surrounding ocean islands. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 22:53, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The wikipage says something like "they are self-governing, but part of Australia". Snowman (talk) 23:19, 27 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Metabolic rate - Slower in the Kakapo, I think. Body temperature?
 * Very species specific, covered in Kakapo. My feeling not really worth adding here. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * OK. Snowman (talk) 22:43, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Do they have gall bladders? Cockatoos do, I think. I would anticipate that the parrot ancestors would have had gall bladders, and I wonder if the Kakapo has kept its gall bladder. Perhaps, I am mistaken, or there is an entirely different way of looking at this. Snowman (talk) 10:48, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * No, the Kakapo does not have one. This actually raises an interesting question on the evolution of this. This could mean that the gall-bladder was lost twice in the parrot tree. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 18:47, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Significance to the Māori. Snowman (talk) 13:57, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Done.-- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:56, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * For clarity it would be better to say something about the original wild life of NZ without small mammals, allowing birds to make nests on the ground.
 * Excuse my lack of knowledge on the history inhabitants of the islands, I do not know much about the history of the Polynesians or the Māori. The article appears so assume some knowledge. Snowman (talk) 11:16, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * added some info under threats. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 02:26, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * That has explained it well. Two small points:
 * 1. the Kea looks for "human food sources"; what food is this?
 * 2. I thought that there was at least one introduced possum that eats eggs it finds in ground nests, but I might be wrong. Snowman (talk) 11:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The Biodiversity section of the New Zealand page indicates that there are Brushtail possums in NZ, but does not say what they eat. Snowman (talk) 23:09, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Adding a bit about adaptation of plumage that is camouflage coloured against birds of prey, would contrast well with no adaptation against smell guided hunters. Incidentally, as birds (including birds of prey) see UV light, it would be interesting to know what "colour" the camouflaged feathers are with UV detecting equipment. Snowman (talk) 11:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Where there owls in NZ that hunt partly by sound? Anyway, I expect a Kakapo is too big for an owl to hunt, and a Kakapo, does not seem worried about its booming call, as far as I can guess, but do not take my word for it. Snowman (talk) 11:26, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Images

 * The image with the three images of NZ would look better in the same colour scheme as the big NZ schematic. That is with green forests and the blue sea. The black and white image illustrates the point ok, I am just thinking about the overall artwork. Snowman (talk) 22:37, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I could change the black and white one rather easily in photoshop I think to the colours of the distribution map. is that what you suggest?
 * Whoops, I see now. The forests might need to be a different shade of green, to avoid the mistake I just made about the maps. Possibly with a "key" for colour of forests - it would depend on what it looked like. OR the green in the distribution map changed. Not sure. And use a bigger font for the writing in the sea, where there is plenty of room. Snowman (talk) 22:50, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It is a gif from somewhere else, but I can whipe out the text and replace it with bigger text, which should be a good idea. I will use a different shade of green for forest, rather no change the distrinution map as I need a certain number of resonable colours. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 23:00, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Is the mountain Mount Cook? Adding a geographical detail in the caption would make more interesting. Snowman (talk) 22:37, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Seems to be, added .-- Kim van der Linde at venus 22:45, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * yes, it is clear from commons images I have just seen. Category for Mount Cook added to image on commons. Snowman (talk) 23:31, 2 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The main evolution schematic does not quite work without a frame, I think. It might be ok with a narrow frame actually on the schematic (a border the thickness of a line on the very edges of the schematic) OR the background being very slightly off-white OR return wiki frame format for the image would be a good option too. Perhaps, I am being too fussy about page artwork. Borders often get removed so the option with an off-white background and no border would be best I think - but need to see to be sure. The mouse will hover in the off-white zone, so people will not accidentally click on it. Snowman (talk) 23:36, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Looking for word
There is a special word for names based it carriers call, but I forgot. anyone? -- Kim van der Linde at venus 17:25, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Onomatopoeia. Snowman (talk) 18:38, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! -- Kim van der Linde at venus 18:57, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

refs
There is a ref for  in both tables that are the same. Suggest putting in page numbers, so that the references are different in each table. Currently, with two refs the same the lowest portion of the page is not displayed and refs take same time to be rendered on the page, with Firefox anyway. It is difficult to analyse the refs because some are in the templates, and there might be more than one problem, see if this suggestion fixes it or not. Snowman (talk) 14:53, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The pages are in php, so they are server side processed before given to the reader. Hence, the browser is relative unimportant in that case for how the references are processed. When the value of the name attribute is exactly the same, it will use the first entry it encounters and I have a single entry in the reference section for this ref. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 15:34, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It is working ok now. I do not know why it did not display properly at times. Snowman (talk) 16:29, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Ok, seems fine to me as well. If there are problems again, let me know, I can have a look at it. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 16:47, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Anyway, when sourced from a book, it is a good habit to give page numbers, or a chapter - I think it is expected at GA. Snowman (talk) 23:11, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

page width considerations
Is there kind of a norm for which minimum width you should judge your pages? -- Kim van der Linde at venus 22:38, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Questions

 * From the Kakapo table, What is "snow tussock Danthonia grassland"? Snowman (talk) 00:11, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * See New Zealand tussock grasslands. It is a type of grassland dominated by Danthonia grasses. Do not know much more than that about it. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 02:57, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I already have looked at that page, which says "Most of the plants referred to as tussocks are in the Carex, Chionochloa, Festuca and Poa genus." It does not mention "snow" or "Danthonia". Snowman (talk) 09:35, 3 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I have a question please. Sorry to ask, but since when have they been in this family? --HoopoeBaijiKite 05:01, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * They have gone back and forth in this family, and pretty much moved around in and out of this family and in the larger parrot family. You can find articles far back as the 1880's, 1890's, 1910's etc. to more recent, for example the 1970's. The main issue was that nobody really knew for a long time, and that different authors based on different criteria came to different conclusions. Now, with molecular studies, it is very clear and the doubt about the validity of this family is gone. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 05:23, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Nestoridae at DYK
Ok, Nestoridae is currently the lead entry of WP:DYK-- Kim van der Linde at venus 05:27, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, the phylogeny is based on very suspect data. As usual, they didn't take the fossil record into account; the new Danish parrot fossils don't really fit in there, and to work, the Pseudasturidae and Quercypsittidae would either have to be something else entirely, or Psittaciformes would have to be older than Galloanseres, shorebirds, procellariiforms... (at least they don't claim the Cretaceous ovoraptorosaur mandible to be from a parrot, as far as I can tell).
 * In brief, any mol-phyl study on parrots that does not extensively discuss is probably not worth the paper it's printed on... see also  for why the basalmost position of Nestoridae might simply be an artefact of genetic drift must be treated with caution, and  for the actual prehistory of NZ parrots as far as it is known fact and not a statistical assumption. This is one possible case of "Popperian" OR conflicts: how do you appropriately reference the absence of evidence? None of the sources pertain to the case of the Nestoridae, but taken together, they make it reek like a month-old red herring.
 * It did not affect the DYK though. 18:42, 3 January 2009 (UTC)


 * See this is where WP can excel by presenting both sides for the popular reader, so the above is ideal material to add. I have always fealt WP is an ideal place to start educating the public about seeing two sides of every story, and the jigsaw of fossil evidence is frustrating but fascinating. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:22, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, the first article is not around on the Web. It's a shame, because this is one of the very best fossil-record reviews I have seen, with reconstruction drawings and everything. If anyone should ever happen to come across Mr. Waterhouse, he might want to put his work online. The scientific community has thus far ignored it, and it deserves to be cited very often. Waterhouse has co-described the Danish parrots with Dyke though, and thus the information is in good hands.
 * There was this Indonesian guy(?), Dwi Astuti, who is into parrot mol-phyl. Might pay to keep an eye open for any new works from there; what I saw to date looked very nice (they figured out much of the non-Nestorini phylogeny). Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 21:48, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * (BTW this is why I put the ref annotations on the main page: I tried using the Talk page, but it tends to be overlooked and eventually dumped in some archive. Putting them on the main page virtually ensures someone will come across them eventually, usually during a major overhaul, and in such cases it's often people with above-average access to ref material) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 21:53, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Casliber, I agree, see my response to Dysmorodrepanis below. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 22:20, 3 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Dysmorodrepanis, it is easy to conflate several issues. The molecular phylogeny shows the relative position of the various clades with regard to each other. In the parrots, it is clear that the Nestoridae are a basal clade, relative to all other parrots, which include the Psittacidae and Cacatuidae. Unless one wants to downgrade the Cacatuidae to a subfamily (Cacatuinae), the two main other subfamilies are the Nestorinae and Psittacinae. The question of rank is effectively indepedent of the topology, and to a large degree subjective, although the age of a clade can be instumental in determining what rank to asign.
 * The available fossils for parrots are few and far between, and all early fossils are from the Northern hemisphere is I am correct. From all the articles about parrot fossils that I have read, including the one that you provided, but also others, (Mayr 2002, Dyke and Cooper 2000, etc.), early Eocene species are considered to belong to separate families (Pseudasturidae, Quercypsittidae), all  sister clades of the Psittacidae. As far as I have seen, none of those has actually included Nestoridae or Cacatuidae species in their analysis, except for Mayr who inlcuded the Cockatiel. No-one is claiming that those fossils are actually the ancestral species of the current day Psittacidae. All fossils assigned to the Psittacidae are in concordance with the age of the family.
 * Or, as Waterhouse concludes:
 * The recent phylogenetic placement of parrots deep within modern birds, along with the latest fossil discoveries of parrot remains, implies a divergence time for order Psittaciformes of at least the Lower Eocene (possibly the Upper Cretaceous). However, as with so many of the problems in modern palaeontology and evolutionary biology, the only way to truly resolve the problem of the timing of parrot divergences is with the discovery of additional fossil material.
 * The problem is dating, not the phylogeny. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 22:20, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * BTW, if anybody wants a copy of the Waterhouse reprint, I have it, please contact me by e-mail. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 22:20, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The issue of genetic drift as an explaining for the, implied by you, odd basal placement of the Nestoridae would pretty much put the world of phylogenetics up side down. The whole mechanism is based on genetic drift, which is is the accumulation of random events that change the makeup of a gene pool slightly, but often compound over time. Selection of any type makes phylogenetic reconstruction more difficult. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 22:40, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * For the record, for Dysmorodrepanis and others, I think setting upa to-do box on the talk page, and placing removed but useful material which may be introduced later is a good idea, that way it doesn't end up in talk page archives - see top of talk:major depressive disorder. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:40, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I have never figured out how these darned things work. I put some material in the Birds project box, assuming it would only appear at one particular species; it didn't. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 12:54, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * re timing/phylogeny: the phylogeny too becomes problematic if you try and figure in all undisputed psittaciform fossils that have been described. Either they push back the supposed origin of Psittaciformes into times where we'd be happy about any undisputable record of Neornithes at all, or they require all sorts of highly implausible gain/loss/re-gain or perfect convergence scenarios for foot, skull and beak evolution.
 * re "(possibly the Upper Cretaceous)" - Waterhouse is caveat emptoring here, in case that UCMP 143274 is not a caenagnathid after all. His "Upper Cretaceous" is early Maastrichtian rather than early Campanian. The Mopsitta paper ends with:
 * "The presence of basal psittaciforms in Northern Europe, along with other, previously described parrots from the Eocene of Europe (e.g. Mourer-Chauviré 1992; Mayr 1998; Mayr and Daniels 1998; Dyke and Cooper 2000), and no real fossil record of parrots below the K/T boundary (Dyke and Mayr 1999) is certainly consistent with an early Cenozoic radiation for (at least) the psittaciforms (Dyke and Cooper 2000)."
 * re genetic drift - I should have said "founder effects and multiple bottlenecks possibly coupled with rapid population expansion in the Nestoridae"; it's not the presence/absence of drift that is the issue here, but the amount/speed.
 * In brief, either
 * the scenario as outlined in the Nestoridae article,
 * Hackett et al.'s large-scale avian phylogeny discussed above (or at least its placement of Psittaciformes), or
 * the prevailing theory of birds originating from some tiny maniraptoran theropod in the mid-late Jurassic
 * cannot be all correct; at least one is factually wrong.
 * See also for another source that might be relevant here. Also, see here and perhaps . Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 12:54, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, relevant discussion can be copied to the talk page, so it is archived with the articles talk page discussions. Snowman (talk) 11:22, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 12:54, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * (un-indent)There is no conflict. See figure, which is based on figure 3 of Wright et al, with superimposed know dates for fossils and their association. Species assigned to extinct families are at the bottom. Origin of the birds has been added as well, as well as a branch for the extinct european parrot family (Yes, I know, there are at least two or three branches for that, but they are all basal to the current day families)




 * There is a 70 million year period between origin of the birds and the split of Nestoridae and Psittacidae/Cacatuidae when calibrated with the split between gondwana and New Zealand or even more when the oldest undisputed fossils are used. Using the New-Zealand-Gondwana split to calibrate results in far less ocean crossing migration events in the family. The problem is that there is not a clear Psiattacidae/Cacatuidae/Nestoridae ancestral fossil available that is well dated. This is not that weird as the centre of origin for the extant taxa is in the Australasian region, while all older fossils are from Europe essentially.


 * As for the drift arguments, founder effects, bottlenecks and expansion result in a reduction of genetic variation, which results in shorter branch lengths in the phylogeny. This is exactly what you see in the phylogeny of Wright etal. and others. It is not a mechanism that can result in obvious faulty placement of the clade, unless all variation that actually links the clade to a different sister clade (say for example the Lorries) is purched and replaced with a sequance that is void of the characteristic variation for the actuall sister clade. That simply does not happen. Founder effects result in a random purching, bottlenecks the same except for the genes under the extreme selection (and that are NOT all genes). Both mechanisms reduce the branch lengths. Rapid expansion might result in some additional variation, showing up in increased branch lengths. The total branch lengths for the Nestoridae are relative short, comparable with the length of the basic cockatoo species.
 * To summarize, the fossil evidence is in line with the phylogeneography. The bird origin at mid-late Jurassic is perfectly possible, and the phylogeny of the birds does not conflict. Founder effects, bottlenekc and rapid expansion can explain the variation in branch lengths. but are unlikely to explain a complete diffetent topology with regard to the Nestoridae. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 19:47, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

DYK traffic
The DYK resulted in about 2,500 hits, and an traffic increase for all species linked. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 12:45, 6 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Wow, great news :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:19, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Towards GA
Ok, what does this article need before it can go to GA? -- Kim van der Linde at venus 19:34, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Looks pretty good (as in 'Good') at first glance. In 'relationships with humans' bit is it worth noting that they aren't seen as pets? Also, I do recall the keas being a bit of a tourist attraction. Not hugely essential though..I can look in more detail later. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:48, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I forgot - I always try to lookout for ways of replacing scientific terms with plainer English words as long as meaning is not lost. I might try to post some ideas later, with this and Cockatoo. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:50, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * This article is in good shape but has a bit to go before being GA worthy. Compared to another GA family article, storm-petrel, aspects of its biology, particularly behaviour, feeding and breeding, are somewhat lacking. In fact, almost entirely lacking. Also, given as how persecution was responsible for the extinction of the Norfolk Kaka and the decline of the Kea its ommision from threats is somewhat glaring. The conservation of the Kakapo, possibly warrants more than one short line, it is a famous example of conservation. Sabine's Sunbird  talk  20:53, 19 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Please add relevant external links and see also. A link to Wikispecies is also required. AshLin (talk) 02:17, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

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