User talk:Invertzoo/Archive 3

ARCHIVE PAGE 3: December 2007 to January 2008

Categories
Hello, there are already categories in Succinea putris and in Catinella arenaria articles. There is no need of category:Gastropods, because they are categorized in genus or in family. Thank you for your cooperation. --Snek01 (talk) 16:45, 16 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Please categorize articles about species and genus gastropods in their family category (or in their genus category) only. Not in category:Gastropods because there are too many of them. Thanks. --Snek01 (talk) 16:52, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, Snek, thanks for the heads up. Perhaps you can help me remove the categories I put in that are redundant. Sorry about that. I don't understand quite how the category system is actually supposed to work right now within the Mollusca: I imagine ultimately it is supposed to be a complete nesting system of hierachies, arranged according to the taxonomy, but right now it is not functioning that way.

Another thing I have been attempting to do today is to change some of the category "Snail" listings. I personally do not think that "Snail" is a useful category. What do you think? Invertzoo (talk) 16:57, 16 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not know what to do with snails and with slugs categories. I have suggested to delete them a long time ago Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gastropods - there should be concensus about it. I think that they should surely be categorized in families (and maybe in genus categories if needed). For example birds are categorized in orders and then in families but I think that gastropods should be categorized in families because classification of molluscs is a little bit instable and families will be OK. Any comments appreciated at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gastropods. --Snek01 (talk) 17:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with you 100% on the categories "Snail" and "Slug"; I think they are useless categories. I also agree with you on the idea of using the gastropod families as a category, because the higher levels of taxonomy are way too much in flux right now. I think I remember someone saying that the family category idea is not good because there would be many hundreds of them, but I do not really see why that is such a problem.


 * Can I ask you why it is those succiniid articles of yours appeared in the Category:Snails when I looked that up?


 * We may not be able to get those categories deleted, but we can at least remove the category tags "Snails" in those articles that have that, that is what I am doing now.

Invertzoo (talk) 17:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

AMNH tour
Thanks for contacting me. I think we can get everyone in for free, but your expertise in the areas that you work for will be most appreciated. See what your department thinks about this outreach project and they may just give you access! ScienceApologist (talk) 04:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * It's hard to know exactly how many we will have. I would estimate somewhere between five and twenty people. At the meet-up page, we'll ask who will show up to get a preliminary count. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:35, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

''Cross-posted reply from User talk:ScienceApologist:


 * Shelves of living mollusks would be fun, too. Really, I think I would find it interesting to see any of the back rooms with giant rows of shelves storing various types of specimens (biological, mineralogical etc.) — or at least this is my cherished mental image of the behind-the-scenes of a natural history museum.  As to attendance, I would plan for about 10 at this point, but when we set up the RSVPs we should get something more accurate.--Pharos (talk) 04:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Mating Nudibranchs image
Thank you for your message, Invertzoo. It is very nice to meet you too. To answer your question I kind of believed that nudibranches and sea slugs are the same or very similar animals. I believe you are right and these are sea slugs. They looked very much as this one. I've removed the image from the article. Best regards.--Mbz1 (talk) 01:18, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Forgot to thank you for catching my mistake.--Mbz1 (talk) 03:46, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi again, Invertzoo. To tell you honestly I should have known better than this that the image was of sea slugs and not of nudibranches. I know Bill Rudman and I submitted few images of different nudibranches and sea hares to him. Looks like his site is down now and I cannot check on my prior submissions. I forgot, if I've ever submitted the image of Kona sea slugs to him. Still, if I were not so lazy as I am, I should have checked for the correct description of these sea slugs. I saw my first nudibranch out of the water in tide pools. I showed it to my husband and he told me: "it is a garbage". At this point "garbage" started moving. It was funny. Then in Mexico I found something strange. When I've touched it, it pured ink all over me. It was the first image of a sea hare I've submitted to Bill. Ever since I took images of few different nudibranches and I used to know what they were, but now I do not.If you have a time and wish, maybe you could take a look at the two images and tell me what these are:[[Image:Nudibranch in tidepool.jpg|70px]] [[Image:Nudibranch.jpg|70px]]. The images were taken in tide pools in California. Thank you again for your message.All the best. --Mbz1 (talk) 17:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi, Invertzoo. Thank you for your response. The thing is that, when I tried to look at the link you've provided, I 've got the whole page of these strange symbols: *�?��ܕQoڈ�~?H?j%??iӪ?��ڄC@??ͺ??b�թ?}�4쌎?��u_?߆?p5???񗋫a�^3�槑�??޹?6̌*+?Њe�\?<𲧖gA?^???M?̥򝠵?䧮񎏏???e�$?e葪c݌0᯿?N8I糌`J�SY,a?M?C�?ȤR BlК�k??톏IezN�AaN?ק��?*{??r?7'렒ȟ:??6.? and so on. I just did not want to copy them all to your talk page. I get the same symbols, when I try to look up my submissions at Bill's page. Strange! That's why I believed his site was down, but looks like it is working for you just fine. I need to try it out on different computer. The images I asked you about were taken a litlle bit to the South of San Francisco. Should I call it Central California? May I thank you for doing my job for me? Best.--Mbz1 (talk) 02:22, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I still cannot see anything, but strange symbols. I'll try to find other computer tomorow, but it is really strange. Thank you for everything,Invertzoo.--Mbz1 (talk) 04:08, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

RE: More IDs on the nudibranchs
Thank you very much,Invertzoo. I corrected the description of the image and added it to the gallery of nudibranches article. I have no idea why Bill's page does not work for me. Something wrong with my broweser I guess. BTW, if you wish, you could look up my submissions to Bill. Here are the links: 12;3; 4 I got them by google for my name and "sea slugs". Of course I cannot see the content of the pages myself, but you may be able to see it. Thank you very much for your time.--Mbz1 (talk) 15:23, 22 December 2007 (UTC)


 * You are very welcome Mila. By the way you (or we) could perhaps also place a copy of that image on the page Polyceridae ( a family of nudibranchs) because that species ... Triopha catalinae J. G. Cooper, 1863 sea-clown triopha ... is listed there since it belongs to that family. Since the species name Triopha catalinae is linked to a non-existent page, we could even (if we felt like it to) start a new page for that species. (By the way, in English the word nudibranchs is spelled without the "e".) I did try to look up your images on Bill's site, but I was not able to get to the exact page on a lot of them, there was just a list and at the present time I did not take the time to try to track them down any further. Maybe I will do that later. Invertzoo (talk) 17:23, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi,Invertzoo. I wish the spelling of the word "nudibranchs" was my only spelling issue with English :) At last I was able to get hold of my husband's computer and Bill's page works just fine for me there. I was able to find few of my submissions including mating sea slugs. I updated descriptions of my images. I've uploaded 2 more nudibranchs images, that were not submitted to Bill. I'll submit them, when I have a time. Once again I'd like to thank you for your time and for your help and please forgive my English. Cheers.--Mbz1 (talk) 18:55, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

AMNH tour
We need to get a preliminary head-count for the AMNH tour happening before the meet-up. If you think you would like to go, please sign up at Meetup/NYC. Thanks! ScienceApologist (talk) 03:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

As you can see, we're trying to start getting an accounting. If you think of anything you want Wikipedians to view, please drop me a note. ScienceApologist (talk) 03:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, let's play it by ear. If we could get into the other staff and volunteer sections, I'm sure our group would appreciate it. Otherwise, we can just do a walkthrough of the public sections. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:32, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Hooded Merganser
Hi Firs. Can I ask you one thing? (I am not primarily a birder, more of a mollusk person.) I had trouble understanding this section, which I have just made into a separate paragraph in order to keep it separate from the info on the Hooded Merganser in the USA: "Although they have occurred as vagrants to Europe, this attractive species is so common in collections that only a ringed bird would be likely to be accepted as anything other than an escape." What does "collections" mean? To me the word collections means museum collections, but here I suppose it means when people keep a selection of ornamental birds on their property like Muscovy ducks, peafowl and so on? If that is what it means can we possibly make this sentence a little bit clearer? I think maybe it needs a little rewriting to clarify it. Thanks for your help. Invertzoo (talk) 15:28, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Invertzoo!
 * Thanks for your note. I actually don't know what was meant here: I am assuming stuffed collections, but I am far from sure. I'm going to ask for you at WT:BIRD, and ask for some clarification. Best wishes and happy editing, Firsfron of Ronchester  16:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Athoracophoridae
Hello Invertzoo, compliments of the season! Small point, I haven't been able to find any evidence that the Athoracophoridae is anywhere else but Australia & New Zealand. If you have a reference perhaps you (or I) could include it, & state what the other areas are. Cheers GrahamBould (talk) 18:02, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Graham, good question. Maybe you can help me here. Athoracophoridae as a family is described as being "South Pacific" in distribution. I don't know what exact area South Pacific is supposed to include. The following is a quote from the abstract of an article entitled "Biodiversity and biogeography of non-marine Mollusca on the islands of the Southern Ocean" the abstract is fouhd at, "The malacofaunas of the cool-temperate and sub-Antarctic islands of the Southern Ocean are extremely depauperate, comprising a mere 68 site-records of 51 species from 27 genera in 13 families. The South Atlantic records are confined to the Falkland Islands, which harbour nine species (one bivalve, five pond snails and three terrestrial aliens), and South Georgia, where there is one Notodiscus sp. (Charopidae). The fauna of the South Indian Ocean islands of Prince Edward, Crozet, Kerguelen and Heard, comprises two alien slugs and endemic Notodiscus hookeri (Charopidae). The majority of species occur on the South Pacific Ocean Islands of Macquarie, Campbell, Auckland, Snares, Antipodes, Bounty and Chatham to the south and east of New Zealand. The Chatham fauna is dissimilar to that on the other South Pacific Islands, though both represent vicariant remnants of common South Pacific Is." I suppose I could maybe get ahold of that journal at the AMNH and try to see what it says about Athoracophoridae. Is every one of these islands (Macquarie, Campbell, Auckland, Snares, Antipodes, Bounty and Chatham) part of the country of New Zealand? I also don't know if any species from the family are present elsewhere as introduced species. Also can I ask, are there any island groups or island which are sort of in the vicinity of New Zealand and Australia but which belong to other countries? Invertzoo (talk) 18:52, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

If we can't work this out by ourselves, we can also ask Kaarel, who was the person who claimed that not all the family is endemic to New Zealand. Invertzoo (talk) 19:02, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

It looks to me as if we should maybe say "New Zealand and the subantarctic islands"..... Take a look at. Invertzoo (talk) 19:08, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I hope it's all right if I jump in here. I saw athoracophorids in Vanuatu quite a few years ago. G. M. Barker's "The Biology of Terrestrial Molluscs" has this statement on the topic: "Athoracophoridae are confined to the south-west Pacific region, with the subfamily Aneitinae occurring from New Guinea through eastern Australia to New Caledonia and Vanuatu, and the Atheracophorinae in New Zealand and the Subantarctic." (p. 74) They're very interesting beasts. Wish I knew a little more about them. Tim Ross ·talk 19:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Taken another look at my sources, and I think I have slightly misread them. Have updated the article with the extended range.  About your question about all the sub-Antarctic islands mentioned - they are all New Zealand except Macquarie Island.  This should be NZ as it's geographically close, but the Aussies have nabbed it. Maybe we should send a gunboat...(named Malvinas I suppose).  Hope this sorts the matter out, & thanks for your help again.  Cheers GrahamBould (talk) 20:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Mesogastropoda-stub
I came across the comment you had inserted into the Mesogastropoda-stub template. I removed it because articles are not supposed to contain these sorts of signed comments, but I submitted the stub for deletion through the process described at WP:SFD. I proposed that it be deleted and articles using it be reclassified, because that seemed to be what you were suggesting as I understood it. Any further explanation or clarification you could offer would be very useful, over on the discussion here: Stub_types_for_deletion/Log/2007/December/31 - TheBilly (talk) 04:58, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi TheBilly, Thank for explaining that to me, I did not know that yet. And thanks for your assistance, but, I am not sure Project Gastropod has agreed to switch those stubs over right now. The taxon "Mesogastropoda" is certainly outdated (the roughly 800 mesogastropod stubs were created by PolBot from outdated source material so the taxoboxes in every one of those stub articles are also outdated). Unfortunately gastropod taxonomy is still extremely actively in flux right now, with new papers coming out every year or so, although I believe most likely our newer stub category "Sorbeoconcha" should hopefully remain somewhat stable for a while. If you have the time maybe you can read the discussion on the talk page of WikiProject Gastropods entitled "So-called Mesogastropod stubs". I asked the person who started Project Gastropod and who has done most of the work, JoJan says on his talk page, "These stubs and this category was auto-generated by PolBot. Several mistakes were made. First : the bot used the outdated taxonomy in the databases that were dumpied into wikipedia. Secondly, several common names are misspelled and proper names begin with a small letter. I've changed all this for the family Hydrobiidae, but there are still more than 800 stubs left. A new bot may do more harm than good. I think it will all have to be done manually. JoJan (talk) 14:14, 25 December 2007 (UTC)." What do you think? Would the switch likely make things worse in some way? Invertzoo (talk) 15:11, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Vote for a post-meetup restaurant
I'm charged with making the reservations for us, so let's make it official. We'll do this via voting and everyone including anonymous voters, sockpuppets, and canvassed supporters is enfranchised. Voting irregularities and election fraud are encouraged as that would be really amusing in this instance. Please vote for whichever restaurant you would like to eat at given the information provided above and your own personal prejudices at Meetup/NYC. The prevailing restaurant will be called first for the reservation. If a reservation cannot be obtained at the winning restaurant, the runner-up restaurant will be called thus making this entire process pointless. Voting ends 24 hours after this timestamp (because I said so). ScienceApologist (talk) 17:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)