Talk:Xylocopa varipuncta

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Junsang.cho. Peer reviewers: Eliseoh, Rasikareddy1019, Kew8888, Megxb.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:13, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Not sure if this is a valley carpenter bee
Can someone ID this for sure? I have found male valley carpenter bees in the same place I saw this. --Calibas 02:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * After some research I see there's another similar species in California that's black with a green or blue sheen. I'm sure this one was all black, adding to page. Calibas 03:43, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's one
http://vagrant123.deviantart.com/art/Bumble-48367086

(I took that image too) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.196.194.119 (talk) 01:01, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Edit for class
Greetings, I am an undergraduate student at Washington University in St. Louis and I will be editing this article for class. I hope these edits can make a difference in the long run! Junsang.cho (talk) 02:07, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

General Comments Behavioral Ecology Wikipedia Project
This article is beautifully written and extremely informative. I have listed below some changes that may assist in the flow of information as well as details that may be included in order to improve the article.

In the introduction/overview section, the sentence “females are a metallick black,[ ]while males are…” I believe that the comma can be deleted. Further, the sentence that states “A distinguishing characteristic that uniquely separates” is repetitive through the statement of distinguishing and unique.

In the Taxonomy/Phylogeny section, the beginning sentence “This X. varipuncta are the larges native bees” appears to be a typing error and should delete the term ‘This’ in the beginning of the sentence. The term polymorphism should also be hyperlinked within the section.

In the Description Identification section, the term lek should be either expanded on or hyperlinked for those unfamiliar with the term. A connection explaining why Carpenter bees are compared to bumble bees should be included as well, such as perhaps introducing with “bumble bees are known to be similar to Carpenter bees.”

For the Distribution/Habitat section, it may be beneficial to shift the last two sentences into the Nest subsection heading. This is because the last two sentences discuss the habitat of the bee more so than the distribution, and further includes information on the nesting habitat.

Under the Life cycle section, the second and third paragraph discusses much about the nests of the bee. This should be moved to the Nest subsection heading under distribution and habitat.

Under the social behavior section, I added an s in the second sentence “In one specie[s]” as it appears it was forgotten and an [s] was also added to the second and third paragraph. It also may prove helpful to chance the title of or subsection the social behavior section to refer to female behavior specifically.

In the Pollination section, perhaps listing some common species of flower that the bee pollinates would also prove helpful if information is to be added.

For the Enemies section, deletion of the source in the section title should be done, and I believe that Wikipedia advises against making lists so be wary for this section. The species should be hyperlinked as well. Kew8888 (talk) 23:49, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Overall, I think this article did a great job in having enough information for each section and engaging the reader. I removed “as well as some parts of Mexico” from the overview because it was redundant. I also changed “there is no harm to humans” to “they pose little harm to humans” to improve the style and flow of the paragraph. It may be advisable to elaborate on “they avoid painted or stained wood, however, in order to avoid predation” because I didn’t really understand how painted or stained wood would cause a greater likelihood of attracting predators. In the “attractive pheromone” section, I changed “mark the central area of their territories with chemicals obtained” to “mark the central area of their territories with the pheromones” because it was more concise and appropriate. I also added a numbered list to the reasons for the role of pheromones as a chemical attractant because it made it clearer to see the points given. Megxb (talk) 05:26, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review
Hi! Great job on this article – the introduction had me hooked immediately, and the rest of the article was just as interesting as the introduction. Personally, I can only suggest a couple of minute changes that I feel would help the reader get the most out of the article. I reworded a couple of sentences in “Taxonomy and Phylogenetics” and “Distribution and Habitat” to fix for grammatical errors, as the sentence structure was a bit awkward. In general when mentioning the full name your species, it’s not necessary to have the article “the” before the name, and I went ahead and fixed this for you. Under “Social Behavior,” you mention various kinds of social behavior for species. I would even suggest as to provide explanations behind these observations using DKW. I really enjoyed the gallery of pictures at the bottom – I would move into the “Description/Identification” section, so readers can have a visual guide as you describe the bees. All in all, great job! Eliseoh (talk) 03:05, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Peer Final Edits
Hello, I am an undergraduate student at Washington University in St. Louis editing this page for a class assignment. For this article, I was able to help improve the article by eliminating awkward syntax and making the wording flow easier for the reader. Specifically, I was able to make unnecessarily or awkwardly wordy sentences more concise and easier to understand. For example, in “Site Fidelity”, a subsection of “Behavior”, I changed “First, if the mortality rate of resident males is high there will be frequent turnover rates…” to “First, high mortality rates of resident males is significantly correlated with frequent turnover rate…” since the point of this sentence was to emphasize the importance of the connection between high mortality rates of resident males to frequent turnover rates, without using an “if statement”. Overall, this is a very minor fix, so your article is very good and the "Stub-class" rating is obviously outdated and needs to be reconsidered for Good Article status. Marcus.kwon (talk) 05:41, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 1 one external link on Xylocopa varipuncta. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20100220194551/http://entomology.ucdavis.edu:80/news/valleycarpenterbees.html to http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/valleycarpenterbees.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 13:04, 21 July 2016 (UTC)