User:RNAsilencing/Spiny dogfish

Pacific Spiny Dogfish
Areas of interest include Gills and Spiracles - looking more broadly.

Shark Anatomy
Want to add: section on pregnancy and the urogenital system, how the structures look when the shark is pregnant and include images of the eggs and pups from our own dissection. Currently have three sources that go over the physical changes that a dogfish experiences when pregnant as well as developmental stages that are prominent. Also mentions the pups and how they survive being birthed live. I will also be basing a lot of my information on the textbook used during lab, making sure the information I find is correct by having multiple sources with similar information.

External Sources:

Oceana - Spiny Dogfish https://oceana.org/marine-life/spiny

NOAA Fisheries https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/pacific-spiny-dogfish

Squalidae
Intro.

Body
 * "no anal fin," yet picture of spiny dogfish depicts clear pelvic fins (plural, as in ventral pair similar to pectoral fins, but smaller in size and located towards caudal end). Although internal wiki (see Fish fin page) does elaborate on different kinds of fins, personally I think further clarification concerning difference between pelvic and anal fins should be included in the intro to avoid confusion between the two as said image may be partially misleading.
 * remove "tend to have" slender bodies - all dogfish species have streamlined body morphology
 * remove "known to be" - In comparison to other shark species, dogfish are smaller and more compact in size
 * Squaliform order comprised of 7 families (see List of sharks page), including Squalidae. Squalidae family itself contains only two major genus: Cirrhigaleus (3 species) and Squalus (28 species)
 * "Dogfish sharks earned their name... dog-like packs" should probably be moved into beginning of intro as somewhat informal / less important information (^ after "119 species" and before "they have two dorsal fins...")

Create section: "Taxonomy"

breakdown of scientific classification including...


 * all families & descriptions of each
 * all genus of each family & descriptions
 * potential color-coded chart?

Create section: "Phylogeny"


 * Common ancestors?
 * Closest living relative?
 * phylogenetic map

Create section: "Characteristics"

Variations in....


 * anatomy / morphology
 * sexual dimorphism & reproduction
 * behavior
 * diet
 * habitat
 * sociability

External Resources:

Encyclopedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/animal/dogfish

Article Evaluation
Overview

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiny_dogfish

The article's lead is decent. I think it could have more information about its phylogeny and maybe have another section devoted to that. It briefly went over it but there could definitely be more information on that subject. The explanation of how the species had gotten their name could be included in the lead as well.

There is repetition under "Description and Behavior" subsection regarding how the species reproduce sexually. It would be better to discard the first sentence that mentions how males use their clasper since the subsequent paragraph talks more about reproduction as well as the male clasper.

It would be extremely helpful for the readers to have a diagram of the different axes of the shark. Especially, with an emphasis of the two spines that they have on the anterior side of each dorsal fin. The images displayed show the teeth structure but no where in the description does it talk about teeth. As a revision, I can either remove the pictures or add a description regarding the teeth/jaw.

There seems to be a few missing references when talking about reproduction.

Plagiarized from planet shark divers site (below):

https://planetsharkdivers.com/piked-dogfish-or-spiny-dogfish/

Looking at the article as a whole, there seems to be a lack of balance regarding the content. The information under "Conservation status and management" is helpful and informative. However, I think the "Description and Behavior" section should have more information and depth relative to the "Conservation status and management" section.

Article body
I would take out the whole section for "Commercial Use." The whole section is plagiarized from a site that is not credible.