Talk:Banded sugar ant/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: FunkMonk (talk · contribs) 15:23, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

• Hi, I'll begin this review soon. FunkMonk (talk) 15:23, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Cheers for taking on the review. Burklemore1 (talk) 15:48, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

• First, the common name should probably be mention first in the intro, then the binomial in parenthesis, as in other articles where the common name is the title. FunkMonk (talk) 15:39, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, seems the editor who changed the name must have done this edit. I've now swapped it around.

• "The banded sugar ant was first described by German entomologist Wilhelm Ferdinand Erichson, who called it Formica consobrina. " Called could be "named", and remember to add the year.

Done.

• "based on a holotype queen" There can only be one/the holotype, so "a" is incorrect. I've fixed this and other problematic wording under taxonomy, pay close attention to those changes for another time.

Thanks.

• "by entomologist Julius Roger in his work Verzeichniss der Formiciden-Gattungen und Arten." Listing the year is more important here than the name of the publication.

Done.

• "It was placed in the genus Camponotus as Camponotus dimidiatus, now considered a synonym of the banded sugar ant" This sentence has afew problems. First, if the queen was already a holotype of another species, does this mean Roger synonymised Formica consobrina with Camponotus dimidiatus? And when talking about synonyms, you should use the scientific name, not the common name, otherwise it is hard to understand what the last part of that sentence means.

Partially done.

Rewrote, but please double check.

Still makes little sense "Formica consobrina was later synonymised with Camponotus dimidiatus, now considered a synonym of Camponotus consobrinus, by entomologist Julius Roger in 1863." If the species is consobrina/consobrinus, dimidiatus cannot have been a senior synonym, as this name is newer. FunkMonk (talk) 19:07, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Alright it seems my thought process tricked me and I believe Campontous dimidatus was considered a different species after checking out the Hymenoptera Name Server. Formica consobrina was synonymised with Consobrinus . Are we clear now?

Then I guess it would make more sense to say the species was moved to the genus Camponotus as C. Camponotus... FunkMonk (talk) 14:08, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Done. Are you satisfied with the sentence now?

• "making them a large species." Compared to what?

Other species. Clarified.

• "being more small and slender, while the soldiers are more robust and large." smaller and more slender etc. would read better.

Done.

Also goes for the rest of the sentence, "while the soldiers are more robust and large". FunkMonk (talk) 19:16, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Does "while the soldiers are larger and robust" sound fine?

"larger and more robust" would be it. FunkMonk (talk) 14:48, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Done.

• "Different workers in a colony have different morphologies due to their distinct developmental pathways" and "appear significantly different from each other." Differences like what? You just state they are different, which doesn't help the reader much.

Size.

• Perhaps the paragraph discussed above is better under life cycle.

Moved.

• The second paragraph under description would probably be better at the bottom of the section, colouration and other such features are more important, therefore should be at the top.

Done.

• There are many terms under description that most readers will be unfamiliar with but are not explained.

As in insect anatomy terms or complicated vocabulary that may be difficult to understand?

• "The eggs of this species are often consumed by the Australian Aborigines.[63]" This is sourced to a 1910 article, which should be noted, as it may not be true today.

Explain?

What are you asking? FunkMonk (talk) 19:16, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

What I am asking is how you believe it may not be true due to its age. Is there some sort of Wikipedia policy in regards to these sorts of things, or is it just an assumption?

It may be true (we cannot be sure without a more modern source), but the source is more than a hundred years old, so this context needs to be explained. FunkMonk (talk) 14:48, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

I have decided to remove the sentence unless I do find a source that further explains this. I must mention however that Australian Aborigines are known to eat Camponotus species, especially the honeypot ants. I believe the name "sugar ant" is also due to their abdomens tasting sweet when they are consumed. An editor a long time ago on this talk page mentioned a documentary or show that goes on about it.

I don't think it should be deleted, just rewritten, the change could be as simple as "The eggs of this species were often consumed by the Australian Aborigines." Or According to author x in 1910, Australian Aborigines often consume..." FunkMonk (talk) 11:16, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I have reincorporated the sentence and source with one of your suggestions.

• "Relationship with other organisms" This should be titled "ecology".

Renamed.

• The structure of the behaviour section is messy. There is ecological info in it (about relations with other ants and predators), while you also have a separate info for relationships with other species. Either the two are merged, or the info is moved around.

Merged.

• "Banded sugar ants will often attack the nests of other species" Ant species?

Yes. Clarified

• "s banded sugar ants only spray formic acid and lack a sting, they do not pose any threat to humans, even when swarming. The formic acid is however corrosive to human skin.[34]" Would appear to belong under human relations.

Moved.

• When common names are followed by binomials, you are inconsistent in whether they are in parenthesis or not.

While I understand this problem clearly, what is the extent of this?

Well, giving it a glance, sometimes binomials are in parenthesis, sometimes they are not, and sometimes they are not mentioend the first time a specie sis named at all. Other time,s only a binomial name is mentioned. So you could read through the article and make sure it is consistent. FunkMonk (talk) 19:16, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

I'll go and read the article and fix it up. I'm not feeling the best right now so I'll do it when I wake up in the morning.

I have worked on this issue, so can you please go double check and see if I have missed any?

• "this is the fourth Camponotus species that exhibits polygyny." That is recognised/known as exhibiting polygyny.

Done.

• "The ant Camponotus pennsylvanicus is known to adopt larvae and pupae from banded sugar ant colonies (laboratory colonies)" Which is what?

Decided to remove this.

• "since the colony may lose health over this" Lose health? Seems an odd way to put it.

Well, that's what the source implies so there isn't really much we can do here.

"The health of the colony may deteriorate"? FunkMonk (talk) 19:16, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

That sounds better explained. Meat ant colonies never nest near shaded areas since they love the heat and hate the cold (they rely on the sun to heat the nest, thus sustaining the health of the colony). I have seen sugar ants forage in temperatures below 10 degrees, but meat ants who stay out in that sort of coldness will die. With this said, the shade prevents the colony being heated up, ultimately killing the colony.

• "Starlings have been observed to" Introduced starlings, or some native variant?

Source doesn't specifically say what Starling.

I believe we just had an edit conflict. Some of the issues you raised have been solved and will do further edits here to clarify which exact ones. Burklemore1 (talk) 13:46, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Edit conflicts should not be a problem, as long as what you've written after me is added separately again. FunkMonk (talk) 13:48, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Yeah I have rewritten everything, so everything is all fine. Burklemore1 (talk) 13:51, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

• "a cosmopolitan genus of ants commonly known as carpenter ants." This is only stated in the intro, but there should be no unique info there. Also seems odd to use so much space in the intro on this, when more important things mentioned in the article aren't.

Removed sentence and added some more info in the lead.

• Alright, changes look good, so will pass this now. FunkMonk (talk) 13:00, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the review. Burklemore1 (talk) 13:31, 29 June 2015 (UTC)