Wikipedia:WikiProject Arthropods

The aim of this WikiProject is to set out broad suggestions about how to organize data in the articles relating to insects, arachnids, crustaceans and other arthropods. We also hope to encourage the development of important stubs and articles following these suggestions. In general, these are only suggestions, and you shouldn't feel obliged to follow them.

Related WikiProjects
This WikiProject is an offshoot of WikiProject Tree of Life


 * WikiProject Science
 * WikiProject Biology
 * WikiProject Tree of Life
 * WikiProject Animals
 * WikiProject Arthropods


 * Portal:Biology

Descendants of this project include:
 * WikiProject Insects
 * Ant task force
 * WikiProject Lepidoptera


 * WikiProject Spiders

Articles
Arthropod articles can be on any level that makes sense in context. Most will be about particular taxa. For example:


 * Regnum:  Animalia
 * Phylum:  Arthropoda
 * Subphylum:  (if applicable) Crustacea
 * Class: Insecta, Arachnida, Malacostraca
 * Order: Lepidoptera, Araneae, Euphausiacea
 * Family: Papilionidae, Liphistiidae, Euphausiidae
 * Genus: Iphiclides, Heptathela, Euphausia
 * Species: Iphiclides podalirius, Kimura spider (Heptathela kimurai), Euphausia superba

Other levels of taxonomy may be added if necessary : subclass, infraclass, suborder, infraorder, superfamily, subfamily, etc.

In many cases, it makes sense to combine several taxonomic levels in a single article. For example, the genus Limulus contains only one species, Limulus polyphemus, so the one article covers both levels. Conversely, sometimes it is better to cover only a part of a taxon: mite deals with four different (but related) families and ignores the other families in the order Acari.

Some large families, such as the Papilionidae, will need to be broken down at some stage because of the number of species. For this, lists of species by subfamily may be created. In some cases, geography, logistics, familiarity with fauna, and convenience may require a study to be restricted to a region or political boundary. Spider taxonomy and List of butterflies of India (Papilionidae) are good examples of attempts to achieve this.

It may be useful to start with a high-level article, such as a family article, and then split off genus and/or species articles as the material builds.

If possible, create links to articles on the levels immediately higher and lower. An article on a genus such as Bombus should link back to the family Apidae and order Hymenoptera, and down to species articles where they exist. Considering the vast number of species in some genera (or genera in some families, etc.), this may not always be possible, but should be tried as often as possible.

Overview of the classification of arthropods

 * Arthropods
 * trilobites (extinct)
 * Pancrustacea or Tetraconta
 * Crustacea – now considered to be a paraphyletic group with respect to Hexapoda
 * Malacostraca (including Decapoda, Amphipoda, Isopoda)
 * Branchiopoda (primitive fresh-water crustaceans, including brine shrimp and Daphnia)
 * Maxillopoda (including barnacles and Copepoda)
 * Ostracoda
 * Cephalocarida (9 species of simple crustaceans)
 * Remipedia (rare, cave-dwelling crustaceans)
 * Hexapoda
 * incertae sedis
 * Collembola (springtails)
 * Protura
 * Diplura
 * Insecta
 * Apterygota (Archaeognatha and Thysanura)
 * Pterygota (all other insects)
 * Myriapoda
 * Diplopoda (millipedes)
 * Chilopoda (centipedes)
 * Pauropoda
 * Symphyla
 * Chelicerata
 * Merostomata (horseshoe crabs)
 * Pycnogonida (sea spiders)
 * Arachnida
 * spiders (Araneae)
 * scorpions
 * Opiliones (harvestmen)
 * Acari (mites and ticks)
 * pseudoscorpions
 * Amblypygi
 * Uropygi
 * Solifugae
 * etc. (see arachnid systematics for the whole list)

For more information on classification, see arthropod classification, crustacean, arachnid classification, insect classification, Myriapoda and trilobite.

Criteria for inclusion
At what level is it worth having a separate Wikipedia article for a particular arthropod? Any level you like. If we write individual articles for all one million-odd described species, we will be at it for a long time! The simplest (and probably best) rule is to have no rule: if you have the time and energy to write up some particularly obscure subspecies that most people have never even heard of, go to it!

As a general guideline though, combine several species or subspecies into a single article when there isn't enough text to make more than short, unsatisfying stubs otherwise. If the article grows large enough to deserve splitting, that can always be done later.

Also, it is preferable to start at a higher taxonomic level and work our way down to particular species than the reverse.

What about extinct arthropods? At the very least, we should include arthropods that have become extinct within historical times: within the last 5000 years or so. Most extinct arthropods will be much older however, but there seems to be no obvious reason to exclude any of them: there is already a nice page for trilobite; if an expert on fossil arthropods comes along and wants to contribute more, all the better.

Names and titles
In cases where common names are well-known and reasonably unique, they should be used for article titles. Scientific names should be used otherwise. Note the following guidelines in using scientific names:


 * Names of genera are always italicized and capitalized&mdash; Drosophila, Homarus, Limulus.
 * Specific epithets are always italicized and preceded by the name of the genus or an abbreviation of it&mdash; Limulus polyphemus or L. polyphemus, but never plain polyphemus, since such identifiers need not be unique (e.g. Gopherus polyphemus, Antheraea polyphemus). They are never capitalized.
 * Names of higher taxa are capitalized but not italicized&mdash; Limulidae, Orthoptera, Crustacea.

In the orders Odonata and Lepidoptera, common names may be capitalised; other common names should be in lower case.

In cases where a group only contains a single subgroup, the two should not be separated. If there is no common name, the article should generally go under the scientific name that is most often used when discussing the group, or under the scientific name of lowest rank if there is no clear preference. However, for a genus that contains a single species, the genus name should be used since it is included in the binomial. For instance the order Amphionidacea, which has the single species Amphionides reynaudii, is discussed at Amphionides.

Not all species need have separate articles. The simplest (and probably best) rule is to have no rule: if you have the time and energy to write up some particularly obscure subspecies that most people have never even heard of, go for it! As a general guideline, though, it's best to combine separate species into a single entry whenever it seems likely that there won't be enough text to make more than a short, unsatisfying stub otherwise. If the entry grows large enough to deserve splitting, that can always be done later.

A useful heuristic is to create articles in a "downwards" order, that is, family articles first, then genera, then species. If you find that information is getting thin, or the family/genus is really small, just leave the species info inline in the family or genus article, don't try to force it down any further.

Taxonomy and references
This is likely to be the single most difficult part of the project. Not only does arthropod taxonomy vary significantly from one authority to another, but it is in a state of constant change. There is no single authority to rely on; no one list can claim to be the list.

Article contents
The following items are desirable for articles of all levels, although the detail will vary depending on several factors. These items do not need to be separated into distinct sections; text should flow in continuous prose so far as possible. The order this information is included is also relatively unimportant, although the order listed is generally preferred.
 * Taxobox – See Template:Taxobox/doc for full details on constructing a taxobox.
 * Description – A brief overview of the animal's appearance, including typical sizes. How does it differ from related taxa, or other taxa with which it could be confused?
 * Distribution – Where does it live, geographically?
 * Ecology / behaviour – What habitats does it inhabit? What does it eat? What eats it? What other taxa does it interact with (symbioses, competitors, parasites, etc.)?
 * Importance to man, if any
 * Taxonomic history – When was the taxon first described, and by whom? How is classified now?

Assessment statistics
Note: the table below only shows articles tagged with the WikiProject Arthropods template, so excludes those tagged as belonging to descendant wikiprojects.


 * Quality operations: A bot-generated daily log which lists articles Reassessed, Assessed and Removed.
 * Popular pages: List of top articles with the most frequent views, updated monthly.

New articles

 * New Arthropod articles created in the last 14 days, compiled by User:AlexNewArtBot (Log, Rules)

To do
'''Arthropods requested articles now have their own page: WikiProject Arthropods/Article requests. Please put them there.'''

Photo requests can be made by adding  in the assessment template or using.

Good Articles lacking focal image
The following articles have been assessed as Good Articles, but lack illustrations of the subject. If you can find, or create, a suitably licensed illustration or photograph, please upload to Commons and add to the article(s) to make them even better.
 * Andreacarus voalavo (mite)
 * Hemigrapsus estellinensis (extinct crab)

Other tasks

 * You may want to check existing articles to see if they are up to Wikipedia standards. If you find them dissatisfying, you can modify them yourself or add them to one of the lists above. It would be good if we could bring all the articles about orders up to a good level, and then work down. In this way, we would have a good basis to improve family, genus and eventually species-related articles.
 * If you are feeling very brave, you may want to improve taxonomical lists such as (this is far from being a comprehensive list):
 * Arachnid taxonomy
 * Acari taxonomy
 * Araneae taxonomy
 * List of amblypygid genera
 * Crustacean taxonomy (see taxobox)
 * Malacostraca taxonomy
 * Insect taxonomy
 * List of Coccinellidae genera
 * List of subgroups of the order Coleoptera
 * List of butterflies of India and List of butterflies of India (Papilionidae)
 * Millipedes and centipedes have several orders and families without articles, and several important subtaxa without adequate coverage. Polydesmida, the largest millipede order by far, is especially in need of expansion.
 * You can also browse the taxoboxes of articles concerning groups that you like, and create articles when you find a red link (see for example the taxobox on the Braconidae article). Don't forget to add the appropriate stub template (see below). Many classifications may be found on specific pages, such as : Cucujoidea or Apocrita for example.
 * You can also help categorise the articles sensibly and consistently.

Participants
Please consider adding a few words about your areas of expertise/interest (if any) after your username.


 * A.Ou – Mainly insects, with a chief interest in myrmecology and other social insects (such as termites).
 * Aderksen – Currently working with Thysanoptera, but fond of parasitoids and paleontology.
 * Affe – Arthropod genomics
 * AJseagull1 – Social Insect Biology, particularly honey bees.
 * Al-Ghazali
 * Animalparty - Myriapods, miscellaneous bugs.
 * Andy Temperley – Mainly interested in land crabs from the genus Cardisoma. I can provide photos of most species in the genus.
 * Anna Frodesiak – Interested in mites, especially the more unpleasant ones.
 * Appleton11 – Enthusiatic ameteur interested in endemic New Zealand spiders. Looking to create and update pages related to this.
 * Arboviral – I study insects and ticks involved in the transmission of pathogens (i.e. vectors). Specifically mosquitoes, Culicoides biting midges, ticks and large biting flies (tabanids, stable flies (Stomoxys), etc).
 * AshLin - Primarily Lepidoptera but interested in all insects and arthropods.
 * Ba'Gamnan – Mostly interested in Vespidae (wasps).
 * Bfpage - most likely to be working on the Monarch butterfly.
 * Bolosphex – Centere d in Hymenoptera, mainly aculeate wasps and especially Vespidae.
 * Brian8710 (amateur, mostly interested in Coleoptera)
 * BMW (Can dig up quite a bit of information on North American Aquatic Hexapoda)
 * Bugboy52.4 All bugs are of interest. I will make articles on random species, and will help identify bugs for people.
 * Mark Bushell Interested in Phasmatodea and related taxa, also Arachnida. Currently employed at Bristol Zoo Gardens as curator of invertebrates.
 * Carlosp420
 * Ceabaird (have info on subarctic pacific euphausiids, pelagic mysids, and pelagic decapods)
 * – Looking to improve Opiliones articles.
 * Crustaceanguy – various groups, but predominately crustaceans
 * - mainly images and references
 * writing new articles, adding photographs and taxonomic data to existing articles, etc. See Stagmatopterinae, etc.
 * Dixonsej – Insects generally but mainly Lepidoptera, with a bit of Odonata and Orthoptera thrown in.
 * DjangoSan – Zoology student. Loves: hymenopterans, dipterans, insect anatomy.
 * Dyanega - terrestrial insects, nomenclature (esp. ICZN queries)
 * Edward-Woodrow — Beetles and Myriapods, especially large tropical centipedes of the family Scolopendridae
 * Edwbaker (mainly interested in Phasmatodea)
 * Enlil Ninlil I am aminly involved with Australian and fossil species.
 * Entoaggie09 (undergraduate entomology student, research and employment in insect systematics and taxonomy)
 * Ensignricky - mainly crustacean articles
 * entoman09 (undergraduate entomology researcher)
 * Funkamatic – Zoology undergraduate student. Mostly interested in insects and specifically ones of the order Hymenoptera.
 * General Eisenhower
 * gibsepisg Interested in biological control, primarily by hymenoptera and diptera.
 * Guru42 A general interest in the various insects.
 * Harmonic
 * Hatch68 Working on pseudoscorpion taxonomy structure currently.
 * Heds did my learning, did some research, became a manager (doh!)
 * Huzzahmaster018
 * IronChris – Master's student, interested mainly in insects, though my MSc is about mites
 * Jackson070792 I am obsessed with arthropods for some weird reason. I am trying to research more about the Broad-bodied Chaser
 * Jasonaltenburg Interested in entomophagy, and taking pictures of insects.
 * Jkadavoor Interested in taking pictures of insects.
 * Jnpet
 * Kaarel I am a molecular biologist and an amateur entomologist interested in invertebrate zoology... have done some research on Coleoptera and Thysanoptera
 * leomk0403
 * User:Louisnastasi Entomology student interested in order Hymenoptera
 * Lenn Sisson I am an amateur researcher in Agnostoid Trilobites.
 * Lycaon Marine biologist mainly interested in Brachyura and Peracarida
 * Lunakeet
 * M. A. Broussard - Entomologist/pollination biologist. Specialized in bees, interested in Hymenoptera and pollinating Diptera.
 * Maharama Interested in Opiliones; will attempt to revamp everything at least down to family level.
 * MDaxo Interested in isopods, specifically trying to make articles for many of the obscure species in the Armadillidium genus
 * Megan McCarty I'm mainly interested in Lepidoptera but I'm also interested in other insects as well
 * melliwhitaker Graduate student studying myrmecophilous lycaenid butterflies
 * MMalay – PhD student; I study barnacles and hermit crabs. Love all inverts & anything related to the tropical Indo-West Pacific.
 * Mothman27 - High school student with a very large insect collection of Lepidoptera, coleoptera and others. I am knowledgeable on US moths and Worldwide Silkmoths and will create species pages.
 * Mweites interested in insects, especially coleoptera
 * Noca2plus – Interested in improving lice articles.
 * Paleodude – I'm an amateur paleotologist I like trilobites and insects
 * P.A.M.S leader or admin – leader of the club p.a.m.s phasmids and mantids studies, specialising in the two.
 * PrimaLInnstinct- High school student interested in life of everything
 * Pro bug catcher (Mostly insects, will soon work on entomophagy)
 * Richard Barlow
 * RileyBugz – Creating species articles, mostly on crustaceans.
 * Ryūlóng
 * Salazarjhan - Spiders
 * Samasnookerfan – I know a lot about Dragonflies, which is the area I will contribute to most.
 * Sarefo – mostly spiders (in WP:SPI), but insects are cool, too ;)
 * SB_Johnny – Applied entomology... I mostly work on wikibooks about how to kill, control, or sometimes attract arthropods, but also take a lot of photos which I post on commons.
 * Shyamal
 * Spizaetus
 * SP-KP
 * Stemonitis – chiefly crustaceans
 * SuperCockroach – Knows a ton of stuff about cockroaches and is successful breeder of them...
 * Svampen chiefly interested in insects and arachnids, can contribute with photos
 * Swilk
 * The Earwig insects, particularly Dermaptera (hence the name), but also Myriapoda
 * TheLastClassicist1750 My interest is with all arthropods; they are all so amazing that I could not possibly choose a favorite.
 * Threefingeredlord (Mainly interested in Notostraca, but also crustaceans in general)
 * Tumble-Weed – Absolute newbie
 * vaihead Undergraduate biology and mathematics student researching leaf cutter ants
 * Vianello – Amateur fascination with parasites of all kinds, especially suicide-inducing parasitism. Basic academic understanding of biology.
 * Vinsfan368 Interested in insects
 * VirenVaz
 * wikiskimmer – a semester or two on ants, some botany, entomo, fungi..
 * Wilhelmina Will – I have created many pages on extinct crustaceans, and intend on creating many more.
 * Wloveral Butterflies, ants, bees, and social and potter wasps. Arthropod phylogeny.
 * LeónHormiga General interest in Ecdysozoa, alive and fossil. Biogeography and entomology in academy, multimedia upload and page creations in Wikipedia.
 * Billthekrill Currently interested in myriapoda
 * User:Feralcateater000 entomology student interested in expanding stubs
 * Fond of king crabs, interested in expanding information about them.


 * AWolfSpider I'm interested in most invertebrates, specifically insects

Stub templates
Remember to mark up stubs with the appropriate template. Where specific templates do not exist (e.g. Merostomata, Pycnogonida, etc.), use arthropod-stub. Otherwise, see below.

Talk pages and grading scheme
Please place WikiProject Arthropods at the top of an article's talk page so articles can be assessed. What this template does:
 * 1) It will help to lead new editors to this project.
 * 2) If complete with quality and importance grading (see Article Classification and grading scheme), it helps us to stay on top of the huge number of arthropod-related articles.

Categories
Please make sure to add articles to the appropriate categories among the ones listed at Category:Arthropods. If there are any categories that you think should be created, please request them here or on the talk page.

In some cases, there might be more appropriate ways to group articles than categories, such as lists or article series boxes. For more information, see Categories, lists, and series boxes.

Userbox
Userbox enthusiasts may want to put this one on their user page: User WikiProject Arthropods to show that they are members of this WikiProject.

Award
Know a user that has done tremendous work on Arthropod-related articles? Give them this barnstar! Just add... to the user's talk page.

Images
To find suitable images for articles, the first place to start is Category:Arthropoda on WikiCommons, where you can search or browse by category.

CC licensed publications
Note:"Open Access" does not always mean "free to use". Media licensed "CC-BY" can be used without restriction, while "CC-BY-NC" or -ND (non-commerical or non-derivative) cannot be used on Wikipedia. (See Commons Licensing for more details)

All images and text published in these journals are free to use on Wikipedia when authors are attributed, unless otherwise noted.
 * BMC Evolutionary Biology
 * European Journal of Taxonomy
 * Pensoft Publishers
 * ZooKeys
 * International Journal of Myriapodology (volumes 1-3 are not free)
 * Zoosystematics and Evolution
 * Biodiversity Data Journal
 * PLOS One
 * PeerJ
 * Zoological Letters
 * Zoological Studies
 * Hindawi Publishing Corporation (Open Access statement)
 * Advances in Biology
 * Advances in Zoology
 * International Journal of Biodiversity
 * International Journal of Ecology
 * International Journal of Zoology
 * Journal of Animals
 * Journal of Marine Biology
 * Psyche: A Journal of Entomology

The following journals may have free CC-licensed publications (verify for each article)
 * Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
 * Frontiers in Zoology
 * Scientific Reports (Open Access Policy)
 * Royal Society Open Science

Taxonomy
The pages below provide fairly up-do date information on species names and classification, but it's a good idea to verify when the data was last updated and verified.
 * Catalogue of Life
 * World Register of Marine Species

Cladograms can be requested for creation here.

Tools

 * Main tool page: toolserver.org


 * Reflinks - Edits bare references - adds title/dates etc. automatically to references
 * Checklinks - Edit and repair external links
 * Dab solver - Quickly resolve ambiguous links.
 * Peer reviewer - Provides hints and suggestion to improving articles.