Article Evaluation
Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
A big distraction for me was the use of primitive, biologically primitive. They said primitive was interchangeable with ancestral but then states that frogs are not more biologically primitive than humans. I wasn't sure if this was true as frogs would be more ancestral.
Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
The article seemed to be very neutral. I didn't see any outrageous claims that seemed biased.
Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
The synonymous words for primitive seemed unnecessarily overrepresented.
Check a few citations. Are they properly formatted?
Yes.
Do the links work?
Yes on the websites they do. Some were books so they didn't work, as there was nothing to link to.
Does the source support the claims in the article?
The three that had links did however, the book with a normal citation, there was no way to tell.
Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
There is almost always some bias, but it seemed minimal. Two of the websites were Berkley websites, so yes, they seemed reliable.
Are there any instances of plagiarism on the page?
Not that I can tell.
Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
As of right now, I would say it's not out of date. The input was submitted sometime in 2015 so its 3 years or less old.
Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
Wrong quotes having wrong citations that were fixed and a potentially accidental case of plagiarism.
How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
It is not rated. It doesn't seem to be part of any WikiProjects.
Food Habits
- Current plan
There isn't much information of the food habits of amphiuma. The information gathered on this subject will be uploaded to the amphiuma wiki page. Furthermore, I will explore the behavioral aspects of why amphiuma hunt they way they hunt and if their geographic location affects the prey they pursue.
On top of eating frogs, snakes, fish, crustaceans, & insects they have also been found to eat annelids, vegetables, arachnids, mollusca, and insect larvae[1]. Arguably the preferred food of the amphiuma is crawfish, which they will pursue over any other food in captivity. In the wild their food choices are directly related to the availability of food. It has been suggested that large amphiuma will not pursue small crawfish due to the expenditure of energy in relation to the gain in energy and prefer to wait for large crawfish[2]. In captivity the behavior they display has been observed to be dependent on the presence or lack of food. Where they will lay in wait when food is absent but will become more active once food has been introduced into their habitat[3].Biologicalamphibian (talk) 22:57, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Peer review.
Bat review: The drafts seem very well articulated and organized. All sources were credible. The pages this would be editing is 3.2, 3.4, and 3,5 which are wings and flight, internal systems, and senses respectively. It is quite obvious that some drafts were longer and more articulate than others, however, after doing a draft of my own it could quite possibly be that there is more information on certain topics then others. Sentence structure looks good to me.
Due to having smaller eyes in comparison to Megabats, Microbats depend on echolocation to navigate and find prey. It was found that their poor vision was attributed to the underdevelopment of visual processes in the retina. General retinal elements, such as rod and cone bipolar cells, AII amacrine cells, and RGBCs (retinal ganglion cells), as well as retinofugal projections, contribute to the microbat's visual ability; however, a third photorecptor, called intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs), are yet to be identified in any bats that contribute to their vision. These cells are responsible for the microbat's ability to respond to light and plays a role in both non-image forming vision, such as circadian rhythms, sleep regulation, and pupil responses, as well as image forming vision.
Fluid intake for bats is an important factor for survival. Due to their body composition of having over 80% of the body surface is naked they are more prone to dehydration rapidly. Water helps maintain their ionic balance, thermoregulation system, and removal of wastes and toxins from the body via urine. They are also susceptible to blood urea poisoning if they do not receive enough fluid.
Flying has many positive contributions to the species that participate in this form of travel. One of these includes options of migration, covering large masses of land for resources because of distance coverage in a day as well availability to cross land masses that are difficult to cross on land, such as mountains, water and desserts. Yet, flight does not come at a cheap expense. It takes a lot of energy, a sufficient way of respiration and metabolic transfer to the flight muscles. Energy supply to the muscle's engaged in flight require double the amount to those animals that do not use flight as a means of transportation.[16] In parallel to energy consumption, oxygen levels of flying animals is twice as much than that of their running transportation counterparts.[16] As blood supply controls the amount of oxygen supplied throughout the body, the organs and systems functioning in blood supply must respond accordingly. Therefore it is not shocking that, compared to a terrestrial traveling animal of the same relative size, the bat's heart can be up to three times larger (dissect this part compare it to relatively other smaller mammals).[16] In comparison to other animals that do fly (birds), bats have lower oxygen consumption rates relative to body mass. Relative to blood supply compared to birds, bats have more red blood cells and those red blood cells contain more hemoglobin resulting in more oxygen supply to the muscular structures that need them for flight. [16]
So the bat page has some information on reproduction already including the separation of the pelvic girdle, as well a section for torpor. But I found some info on how mothers decide to go about energy saving and intake during pregnancy that could be added.
Torpor which is a reduced physiological activity may be taken advantage of during harsh conditions when food expenses cannot be met. It is stated that one can reduce energy requirements by becoming heterothermic. Female little brown bats have shown to become heterothemic during early stages of reproduction but stop before lactation and prior to birth.[16] The mother being in a heterothermic state during the entire cycle of pregnancy suggest the fetus cannot fully develop under those circumstances.
Pigeon review: The first draft was very well written while the second was a list. The second could use send actions that the muscles perform during flight such as adduction, abduction, ect. However, both drafts did get their points across and seeing that it is a draft, I'm sure it will be more articulate when reworked. The first draft also had great sources where the second had none. The sections that these drafts would add to are behaviors and descriptions.
The neck of a bird is composed of 13-25 vertebrae which allows birds to have increased flexibility for reaching difficult areas on its body. [1] Many birds have immobile eyes, so a flexible neck allows birds to move their head more productively and center their sight on objects that are close or far in distance.[2] The neck plays a role in head-bobbing which is present in at least 8 out of 27 orders of birds; head-bobbing allows for birds to stabilize their surroundings.
Muscles used in flight Pectoralis - used in the downstroke
Depressor Caudae - used for steering
-Levator Caudae - used for steering
Types of feathers used in flight Primaries - used for forward thurst
Secondaries - used for lift
Under wing coverts - smooth airflow under the wing
up tail and under tail coverts- smooth air flow under tail
tail - acts as a rudder for steering
I am also looking to add images from dissection to show these in detail
Adjustments based on Peer review
° One critique I got was that my food habits section my have repeated some already written statements. This was intentional, the first sentence had what was already written but I expanded it. ° Secondly I received multiple comments about working on my sentence structure so I re worked it. ° The last piece of advice I got was to rework my statement on preference of crawfish and energy expenditure pursuing larger vs smaller crawfish, so I addressed that. ° I think expanding on more ways amphiumas display predatory behaviors and sectioning these differences may help tie my section together.
I plan to work with the author of the jaw section to tie predatory behaviors with the biomechanics and anatomy of the jaw to really wrap my section up.
Food Habits draft 2
The amphiuma’s predatory behaviors and food selection is very calculated and variable depending on abundance of food. In addition to eating frogs, snakes, fish, crustaceans, insects, and other amphiuma, amphiuma have been found to eat annelids, vegetables, arachnids, mollusca, and larvae[4]. Amphiuma seem to have a preference for eating crawfish. It has been documented that amphiuma will pass on smaller crawfish in order to consume larger ones[5]. It is suggested that perhaps this limits wasting energy pursuing prey with less caloric density. In captivity, the predatory behavior amphiuma display depends on the presence or lack of food. Amphiuma will remain inactive when food is absent, and will become more active once food has been introduced into their habitat[6]. This shows that the amphiuma, although ancestral to many amphibia, has developed a deductive approach to its predation.Biologicalamphibian (talk) 03:22, 14 April 2018 (UTC)
Have you proofread your caption? -YES Is the image your own? -YES Can a reader easily understand what they are looking at? -YES Does the image supplement and improve the article? -I don't think it does but I only think that because my section is on food habits and predatory behavior is very difficult to capture with an uncommon animal on a non copyrighted photo.
Week 13: improvement of article edit
I moved my sentences into the amphiuma page to make sure everything goes smoothly. I also updated my picture to include directional details and moved that into the amphiuma page as well.
Week 14: final edit
I changed is to are on the first sentence, took perhaps out of my article, and fixed a few of my grammatical errors thanks to my team catching them.
- ^ Taylor, Harrison, and John P. Ludlam. “The Role of Size Preference in Prey Selection of Amphiuma Means.” Bios, vol. 84, no. 1, 2013, pp. 8–13. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23595338.
- ^ Chaney, Allan H. “The Food Habits of the Salamander Amphiuma Tridactylum.” Copeia, vol. 1951, no. 1, 1951, pp. 45–49. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1438050.
- ^ Taylor, Harrison, and John P. Ludlam. “The Role of Size Preference in Prey Selection of Amphiuma Means.” Bios, vol. 84, no. 1, 2013, pp. 8–13. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23595338.
- ^ Taylor, Harrison, and John P. Ludlam. “The Role of Size Preference in Prey Selection of Amphiuma Means.” Bios, vol. 84, no. 1, 2013, pp. 8–13. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23595338.
- ^ Chaney, Allan H. “The Food Habits of the Salamander Amphiuma Tridactylum.” Copeia, vol. 1951, no. 1, 1951, pp. 45–49. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1438050.
- ^ Taylor, Harrison, and John P. Ludlam. “The Role of Size Preference in Prey Selection of Amphiuma Means.” Bios, vol. 84, no. 1, 2013, pp. 8–13. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23595338.