User:Devynbrandt/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Chamberlain's dwarf salamander

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because this salamander is currently listed as a "special concern" species in the NC Fishing and Wildlife page and the article is lacking many important sections regarding the salamander (This silly salamander deserves some coverage!!). I also like salamanders and being as it is a species found in this state I thought it would be super fun to cover.

Evaluate the article
-The article is lacking information and only has very general, surface level information concerning the gecko. The entire article is only seven sentences for reference, with three sections. There are no headings or subsections so I think once more information is compiled this should be structured properly. The article starts by listing that the salamander is endemic, which is true and important to mention, it also provides the states the salamander is endemic to, but then it has basically no information on it's habitat range or preferences, I think adding a picture with the habitat range would be helpful as well as expanding on more specifics on the salamanders habitat, since it is endemic to certain places it clearly has very specific habitat preferences. Then it goes into the next section, it describes how the salamander was originally thought to be a morph of another species but then was described as a distinct species in 2003. The specific year of when it was described it good but the following sentence references how a "2017 article confirms this" I think if this article is to be referenced it should be a significant article to helping describe the salamander and not some random article, also more information regarding the article should be disclosed. What were the reasons the salamander has been described as a distinct species compared to it's original ruling? I think this is important to disclose to the reader as it would be helpful! The last part of the article is just a single sentence that says who the salamander was named after. I think this should not be a standalone section but it is a cute fun fact, also the reason the salamander was named after this guy should be included. The article hasn't been altered since 2021 so I think there are probably lots of important updates regarding the species that need to go into this article! The tone for this article is neutral so there is no issue there. There is nothing on the talk page but this is a low importance article so it's probably just been overlooked for a while, it is a part of the WikiProjects Amphibians and Reptiles. Overall, this article needs to be bulked up with relevant information and new studies so I look forward to helping with that!

References:

-The first reference listed has not been updated since 2004 and the site even says it needs to be updated so I think this is not a good source to use and should have other more reliable sources backing it up.

-Reference two has great specifics regarding the species morphology so I'm not sure why they were not referenced more! It however does not seem to be updated regularly, it says it was originally posted in 2003 when the species was described and edited in 2004 but I'm not sure if there have been updates since then!

-Reference 3 provides no new information and is just a blurb of references inside sentences that don't make too much sense, I am not sure why it was included as it does not seem to be helpful to the reader.

-Reference 4 is the study published once they made the Chamberlain salamander a distinct species. This would be good to use when describing what methods they used to decide that the species was in fact not a morph of the Southeastern dwarf salamander.

-Reference 5 is not accessible if you do not buy it so I'm not sure if it used to be free and now is not or if the original article writer purchased it but being as it isn't freely accessible I would not consider this a good reference for a wiki article.