User talk:Invertzoo/Archive 2

ARCHIVE PAGE 2: November 2007 to December 2007

Conflict?
Hi InvertZoo, You might like to look at the articles Haustrinae and Ocenebrinae. The same genera appear in each - do you have an opinion on which is right, or maybe whether the genera lists should be rationalised, one deleted, etc? GrahamBould 09:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi again Graham, I did take a look. I also wrote in some text explaining the situation on both of the articles, otherwise pretty much leaving them the way they are. I am sure they both have multiple links to them so deleting one is not a very straightforward thing. And I certainly am not qualified to decide which of the two taxonomies is more "correct". And I don't know whether the WP gastropod project has really agreed by consensus whose version of the taxonomy to use. In any case rationalizing the taxonomy according to one version is a big project that I am going to leave for later or let someone else do. (It means a great deal of looking things up in order to be able to change many of the taxoboxes as well as the text on so many of the articles.) And of course the gastropod taxonomy will continue to change for the next goodness how many years... Invertzoo 17:16, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Latia & others
Hi Invertzoo, Little confused about these pulmonate gastropods, a lot of them live entirely under water so I'm wondering how they can be described as air-breathing. I don't have much info on them, so maybe I'm wrong. But if I'm right perhaps we should agree suitable wording - something to explain that they are Pulmonate but given up using their air-breathing abilities.... By the way, do you know how to archive a User page? GrahamBould 07:24, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Graham, Yes the Siphonariodea are a fascinating group. Even though they are marine and are underwater almost all of the time, they do actually wait until low tide to take a breath. Crazy huh? They take in a bubble of air into their mantle when they get the chance, and make it last half a day until the next low tide. During the time they are underwater they are inactive. I don't know anything about the breathing arrangements in Latia per se, but that is what the marine pulmonates Siphonaria Trimusculus and Williamia do, so I am assuming that is the same. As far as I know, none of these marine pulmonate limpets live subtidally, otherwise they would drown. I guess I need to explain that in all of the relevant articles, that is if I can find a good source that says that. By the way, it would be helpful to me when you are mentioning an article on these talk pages if you make it a live link, put in the  around it so it turns blue. Sorry I myself don't know how to archive a user page -but- I searched and there is a page Help:Archiving a talk page that tells you how to do it. Invertzoo 12:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for taking the time to explain. Only thing is, Latia & others live underwater under rocks, etc, in rivers, with no tidal zone. No source says they are air-breathing (but again, I can't find anything that says they aren't). GrahamBould 13:19, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * They are freshwater limpets, & they live in non-tidal rivers (but they are still pulmonates) GrahamBould 14:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes, you are right, I was confused. I work on dozens of different articles each day. Yes they are freshwater limpets and they are not closely related to Siphonaria etc. They are indeed technically pulmonates. Whether they still use air to breathe, or whether they flood their mantle cavity with water and absorb oxygen that way is probably not actually known. I can't find a reference to it online. I know someone I can maybe ask, but he may not know either. I will let you know if I get any better info. Invertzoo 14:15, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

River limpets and their breathing mechanisms Just wanted to let you know that I found out more today about how the river limpets manage. Apparently they have both a mantle lung and a gill created out of mantle tissue a "pseudobranch" or false gill. When they can't get up to the surface they use the false gill to respire. Invertzoo (talk) 00:17, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, that's how they do it. Thanks very much for finding that out.  I think we need to put this explanation in the relevant articles.  I'm happy to do this, but at what level should it be done? Family, genus, or on each species?  Do you know the highest level in the tree that this characteristic separates out?  If you're too busy, just let me know & I'll do some digging.  Cheers for now GrahamBould (talk) 10:31, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Graham, Sorry. I think I may have somehow completely overlooked your final question about the river limpets. I don't know for sure at what level of taxonomy the pseudobranch appears, maybe the families Ancylidae and Acroloxidae? You would need to research that to be sure though. (I guess I was indeed too busy and I did not realize how busy I was. Sorry about that, I don't know how I managed to ignore your post completely unless perhaps I got two new posts on my talk page at the same time, one from someone else on another topic, and perhaps I assumed there was only one new one?) Happy New Year if I don't talk to you before. Invertzoo (talk) 01:20, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Have added pallial lung comments on pages from Ancylidae, Acroloxidae and Latiidae downwards. I notice there is a discussion (Onchidiids above) about not needing to repeat info from higher levels down to lower levels. Personally, I don't agree with this. If that was strictly enforced you wouldn't even mention that a mollusc was a mollusc, because it had already been mentioned at a higher level.  Users (not contributors) wouldn't know to look elsewhere, they want a self-contained article. Again, thanks for your time and help. GrahamBould (talk) 14:46, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Purple dyes of antiquity Tyrian purple
Hello. I am trying to expand on the contents of the Phoenician dye making content on wikipedia. Do you know what the range of Murex branaris and Murex trunculus are? were both present at Tyre and at western Morocco? If you have any papers of yours you are reluctant to reference I would be happy to include them as sources, since wikipedia badly needs sources on such specialties as this? Thank you very much. Sincerely Ouedbirdwatcher 22:45, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Ouedbirdwatcher, Nice to meet you. To be honest, I don't think anyone knows for certain what the exact ranges of any species was thousands of years ago, other than by implication, i.e. finding the shells used in large numbers archeologically. However, I am certain that the modern ranges for Murex brandaris and M. trunculus are sort of reasonably well known. I don't have references at home here for Mediterranean species, although I can try to ask a friend of mine who has a couple of books on the Mediterranean fauna and see if the books give ranges. However, if the books do give a range they may simply indicate where a species is found in a very general sense such as maybe "the Mediterranean Sea". You see, hardly any species in the world have actual dot maps of their distribution so that you can say, "Yes this species occurs right now in such and such a locality". It would be a huge amount of research to go through a lot of papers and a lot of museum material and work out actual places where the species as been found. Sorry I can't be any more helpful on this question. Invertzoo 22:59, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Invertzoo. Thanks for your quick reply; what you said is already helpful. If you get any more distribution data, that would also be helpful. Even information such as Mediterranean Sea or Atlantic coast off Morocco would be useful distribution information for the two species. regards. Ouedbirdwatcher 01:06, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

More info on Tyrian purple snails
OK, Ouedbirdwatcher, a very good shell fancier friend of mine gave me the following info. Just to explain... Bolinus brandaris is the more modern name for Murex brandaris, and Phyllonotus trunculus is the modern name for Murex trunculus.

The range for Bolinus brandaris (Linnaeus, 1758) is "Central and western Mediterranean" (p. 29), and for Phyllonotus trunculus (Linnaeus, 1758) it is "The Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of Europe and Africa (Spain and Portugal, Morocco, and the Canary Islands)" (p. 93).

Radwin, G. E. and A. D'Attilio, 1986. Murex shells of the world. An illustrated guide to the Muricidae. Stanford Univ. Press, Stanford, x + pp. 1-284 incl 192 figs. + 32 pls.

best to you, Invertzoo 22:24, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the great insights. I have attempted to work this info into the article.  I think it really helps with the expansion. Feel free to review my edits and alter as you see fit. Best regards. Ouedbirdwatcher 23:13, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Powelliphanta Sp.Anatoki Range and other similar articles
Hi InvertZoo, The described species are from Powell's book, but the undescribed ones are from other, government sources (as listed). All except one are provisionally named after geographical features (appropriate given the extremely limited ranges of these rare snails) - the vittatus, I don't know. Happy to Move the title of the undescribed articles, to what you suggest. Could we agree the first one as an example: ''Powelliphanta sp. from the Anatoki Range''. If you are happy I'll Move the lot, just let me know. Thanks for all your work. GrahamBould 16:24, 15 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Graham, I think that  -- Powelliphanta sp. from the Anatoki Range --  would be a good way to refer to this species and so you could Move it and the other unnamed ones in a similar fashion.


 * As for the so-called vittatus I don't know either, but you could call it -- Powelliphanta sp. "vittatus" --  I guess... you have to put the name vittatus in quotes because it has not yet been actually named that I guess as far as we know.  How recent are the government publications?  Invertzoo 22:09, 15 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi. Will do the name changes soon. The references to the govt publications is in the article.  Separate topic - You might want to look at Pterotracheidae again, there seems to be two families mixed up, I think it might be a typo.  Cheers GrahamBould 07:13, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Pterotracheidae
Yes you are quite right. I had put the family instead of the superfamily. I fixed it. Thanks for spotting that. And a reminder please: when you mention an article on these talk pages would you making it a live link by putting in the   so I can go straight to it? thanks. Invertzoo 14:47, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Nudibranch
Hi InvertZoo, I wonder whether the first sentence of this article is a little misleading - are all sea slugs nudibranches? Should the sentence be turned around to say nudibranches are one type of sea slug? GrahamBould (talk) 10:53, 18 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes you are absolutely right Graham. Thanks for any and all checking that you do (and thanks for the live link too). I do this stuff really fast so I certainly do skip over things things and create my own errors and so on. That article does need tweaking in the intro section; I got involved in other stuff on that page and forgot to do that. It is certain true that not all sea slugs are nudibranchs, (by the way, the plural is spelled nudibranchs in all the sources I checked) but I have noticed that one person who wrote or edited a lot of articles on sea slugs seemed to believe, mistakenly, that all sea slugs were nudibranchs. So anyway thanks again, Invertzoo (talk) 14:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Powelliphanta
Hi, For the duplicate articles you could do one of two things - ask an Administrator to delete one article, or, Move one article to the name of a new article you are writing. The first option is probably more correct but is a bit of a fuss and might take a while, the second is easy and immediate but will leave a strange history for the new article (but you can explain that in the comment). Cheers GrahamBould (talk) 07:38, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, all I did was change the name of the original article by using "Move", which I have done before in other cases successfully. This time for some reason I ended up with two articles rather than just the new one. Any idea how to fix this? Invertzoo (talk) 14:56, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi InvertZoo, the answer is in my message above - must have crossed... GrahamBould (talk) 16:22, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * OK! Now I need to ask you how do I ask an Admin to delete the second of the two articles? Thanks Invertzoo (talk) 00:21, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
 * If you are the only substantial contributor, you merely need to add the tag to the top and it will disappear in a few minutes. DGG (talk) 00:50, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much DGG, that did fix it, just as you said! I really appreciate your advice.Invertzoo (talk) 13:39, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi InvertZoo, There is only one article.  One of the two names you mentioned gets to the article by way of a Redirect. This is exactly how a Move works.  So everything is fine.  You will find that all of the Moved Powelliphanta articles have Redirects from the previous name.  Move does this automatically. GrahamBould (talk) 08:48, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Graham. Yes, now there is indeed only one article, but that is because at 00:50 I did exactly as DGG kindly suggested and used the command he mentions. By the way, for any species that does not yet have an official species name, only the generic name is italicized. Best to you, Invertzoo (talk) 13:39, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Ranella olearius
Hi, have taken care of this. I remember being a bit confused about this at the time, thinking that someone with a bit more knowledge would eventually put me straight. And that's what happened... Thanks. GrahamBould (talk) 16:29, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Roya kermadecensis
Hi again Graham and thanks for your corrections. OK, according to the Australian Faunal Directory, the names Roya kermadecensis and Capulus nutatus are both synonyms for Williamia radiata nutata (Hedley, 1908), which is a subspecies of Williamia radiata (Pease, 1861). This is a small marine pulmonate limpet in the family Siphonariidae. So that's... Superorder: Heterobranchia, Order: Basommatophora, Superfamily Siphonarioidea. Two good references are: http://www.mollusca.co.nz/speciesdetail.php?speciesid=1704&species=Williamia%20radiata%20nutata http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/abrs/online-resources/fauna/afd/PULMONATA/tree.html Invertzoo (talk) 14:17, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Even Powell was uncertain.  You might want to check out what I've done.  Thanks for spotting that. Cheers GrahamBould (talk) 15:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Onchidiids
Hello, again, InvertZoo. I'm beginning to do a little work on veronicellids, and naturally looked at what already existed among the Systellommatophora. The answer, of course, was not a heck of a lot, outside of your and GrahamBould's work on four species of Onchidella. I hope you won't be offended if I make one suggestion for improvement in that series. The family article, Onchidiidae, includes the descriptive phrase "These animals are quite unusual in that they are emphatically not opisthobranchs with gills, as are almost all of the sea slugs. Instead these creatures are pulmonates. They are more closely related to air-breathing land and freshwater gastropods than they are to most marine snails." This is well-written and appropriate. The same family-level phrase, though, is also migrated downward into the generic level article and into all species levels. Actually, throughout the Wikipedia taxonomic series, unless otherwise specified, the characteristics of the higher taxa are assumed to be present in all included lower taxa as well. Otherwise, we would soon run into very lengthy listings for many of the lower taxa. I hope this comment is helpful :-). Tim Ross ·talk  12:24, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Tim Ross, 1. It will be great to have more info on veronicellids, I look forward to that. There are a couple of Veronicellidae articles but they are very minimal. 2. And thanks for your suggestion. I will give the lowest level Onchidella articles an explicit link to the family article for more info. I do appreciate all helpful suggestions, as I signed up with WP this July, and am still learning my way around. 3. By the way, what do you personally think about nesting mollusk articles in categories, I mean at what level to create the categories? I see some people have put mollusk species into family categories (which are good because the taxonomy often does not change much at the family level, unlike some of the higher levels!) but other people feel that there are too many mollusk families and therefore that would create too many categories. I anticipate that the gastropod taxonomy will continue to change a great deal over the next 10 years and more. 4. Oh and I have been attempting to use the "Southern Synthesis" for my taxonomy but I that see the gastropod project page suggests a slightly older publication. Any comments? Invertzoo (talk) 14:14, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the encouragement, Invertzoo, on the veronicellids. May take me a while to do anything substantial, though.
 * In terms of your question about editing at the family level or higher, I must admit to being a splitter. Families, I think, are a pretty usable level for many mollusks, and usually work well as the location for detailed information. In some cases, though, either a higher or lower taxonomic level may make a better choice. In other words, my answer is that I don't have an answer.
 * I fear I must plead ignorant, or at least our-of-date, with respect to the latest thoughts on molluscan systematics. My last real involvement was 40 years ago, and I've been in environmental biology since that time. I have a good deal of faith in Winston Ponder (of Ponder & Lindberg 1997) with whom I once spent some weeks doing fieldwork, and will be happy to follow the insights of that work. No doubt, in a few years, another arrangement will float to the top. Happy editing! Tim Ross ·talk  17:31, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Thais (genus) ...and... Thais (gastropod)
Hi again Graham, I am up to the "T"s now, and I see that we actually have two articles about the sea snail genus Thais. I can't imagine we need to have two. Do you think you could merge them into one? I don't know how to. Invertzoo (talk) 00:13, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Menopause and spotting
Hi Invertzoo. , As stated “a woman who still has her uterus can be declared to be in post-menopause once she has gone 12 full months with no flow at all, not even any spotting.” I read everywhere that a woman must go 12 months without a period but I haven’t read about going 12 months even after spotting. 1.Is there any research into this and could you direct me to articles? 2.I was wondering if perhaps after spotting the time to being declared post menopausal was less than 12 months? Thank youStardom78 (talk) 07:11, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Stardom, How come you don't have a user page at all? ...Anyway, of course you, or anyone else, when it comes to medical matters, should absolutely check with your/their doctor. For medical matters no one at all should rely on articles in an encyclopedia or anywhere else, but, let me just say that, during perimenopause, as long as you are still in the time when you have not gone 12 months with nothing, even a very small period still counts as a period. Even an episode of spotting counts as a period. This link is not exactly primary research, but take a look at:  Invertzoo (talk) 13:38, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Trochoidea (genus) and Trochoidea (superfamily)
Hi InvertZoo, Have knocked up the page (Trochoidea). The Trochoidea (superfamily) page may need a little more attention - References, etc, & the sentence mentioning what Families are in the Superfamily does not gel with the actual list. Let me know if I can help further. Cheers GrahamBould (talk) 21:43, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks so much Graham, that's good. I will take another look at that superfamily entry. The whole thing with the taxomony constantly changing so much is a big nuisance in some ways. Invertzoo (talk) 21:47, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Spatula
Hi, Thinking of creating a short article on 'spatula', which I understand to be the mark on the inside of limpet shells where the muscle used to be attached (apparently spoon-shaped). Not even sure whether this is right, as I can't find any references to this. Any ideas? Cheers GrahamBould 17:33, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi again Graham. Well I personally had never heard of that area of the inside of a limpet shell being called a "spatula" until I read your pieces, although after a bit I caught on to what it must mean. If you do a google search for... spatula limpet ...you will see that the word is used in that way on more than one Australian website and a few others that are not Australian. It strikes me as being a really good idea to have a name for that part of a limpet shell, and that part is very often shaped sort of like the end of a spatula, so it is not a bad name for it. The word is in a glossary (maybe for kids?) at: http://www.mesa.edu.au/friends/seashores/glossary.html Invertzoo 22:47, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I was aware of the site but it's not a very authoritative one, but I may be stuck with it. None of the online dictionaries mention it. I wonder if you could have a look at these images in Commons & give your opinion on what actually is the spatula on the shells. One, I think, is very much clearer than the other. [Image:Matsubagai070926-2.jpg] & [Image:DSCN1201.JPG]  Thanks GrahamBould 07:42, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * What I will do, Graham, is ask an older friend of mine in Florida who knows the mollusk literature well, and see if he can come up with a better reference for the term spatula, assuming he is familiar with it. I might also try to ask a professional malacologist about it. As for the two images, yes the first one is clearer. The limpet shell is shown upside down in that image, with the head end at the bottom. You will see that the spatula is a sort of owl-shaped dark area with a ring of light muscle attachment scars around it. I think that image is maybe of a Lottiid. The other image is of a Patella limpet, and on those limpets you can't really see that area so well at all. Invertzoo 15:53, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for checking up on Spatula. As the term is not commonly used, instead of creating a page, I've changed the word to a phrase wherever I had used it - eg see Cellana stellifera. Also delinked the 2 images above as it was dominating your page!! Cheers GrahamBould (talk) 23:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)