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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sea otter

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 02:58, 2 March 2008.

Sea otter

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previous FAC (04:36, 22 January 2008)
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(Self-nomination.) Since a few months ago when it looked like this, the article has been rewritten from several quality sources, thoroughly referenced, re-illustrated with some beautiful photographs, restructured a few times, and faithfully wikignomed by several copyeditors and reviewers. I believe it now accurately depicts many dimensions of this fascinating and much-loved species. A very special thank you to Eliezg for providing sources, Russian translation, and high-quality feedback all along the way. Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 04:27, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Was the Marmi paper I sent you of no use? It's more recent, and I noticed some significant differences over divergence dating. Marskell (talk) 17:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The paper was useful, thanks, and the quick answer is that the current version of the article does not disagree with the Marmi paper. However I understand where your question is coming from, so I'll explain the background: Until a day or two ago the article said, "The sea otter lineage diverged from the other Old World otters approximately 13 million years ago" which was sourced to a Koepfli and Wayne paper from 1998. Marmi's 2004 paper gives the divergence date at 10.1 to 7.5 mya. Both papers agree that the sea otter shares a clade with the Eurasian otter, African clawless otter, small-clawed otter, and speckle-throated otter, although they use different Latin names for some of these species.
I would have put both analyses in as opposing views (as you did with Giant Otter), however there is a new Koepfli 2008 paper. It agrees that the five species mentioned above share a clade (along with two others which had not been previously evaluated). However it positions the sea otter as a sister taxon to the speckle-throated otter and says that these two lineages diverged around 5 mya. So on the weekend I removed all mention of the divergence date that (Koepfli 1998) and (Marmi 2004) seem to disagree on, and replaced it with an as-yet-uncontested divergence date of 5 mya between the sea otter and its as-yet-uncontested closest relative, the speckle-throated otter. There are for me a lot of unanswered questions about why the three papers disagree about dates to such a significant extent, however the claims that are actually in the article appear to be well-supported and so far not controversial. Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 08:58, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support it has many citations and inline notes. Very well done. LOTRrules (talk) 17:27, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved MoS issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Notes: pls see this section of WP:MOSNUM regarding this text: ... up to 150,000 hairs per cm2 (nearly 1 million per in2). It was hard to find, but I think you need to say sq in? Review WP:PUNC throughout (sample, Latin word lutris, meaning "otter."[5]) Review WP:DASH, example: The sea otter's body is highly buoyant because of its large lung capacity - about 2.5 times ... (should be either endashes, which you use later, not hyphens, for example, later you have spaced endashes: the male biting the female on the muzzle – which often leaves scars on the nose – and sometimes holding her head under water). Review WP:MOSNUM on percentages, ( It must eat an estimated 25% to 38% of its own body weight ... is incorrect, but the next usage is correct, Its digestive efficiency is estimated at 80 to 85%, ... ) In the Physical characteristics section, the dental formula 3.1.3.1 2.1.3.2 is left hanging at the bottom, making it look like some sort of formatting error, can that be handled differently? More WP:MOSNUM, check throughout: ... from 24% to 60%, apparently depending ... Another WP:MOSNUM, no spaces before %, ... have been estimated to cause 10 % of sea ... check throughout. WP:MOSBOLD fix needed: Thus began what is now called The Great Hunt, which would continue for another hundred years. A few citations say Accessed on, most say Retrieved on, should be easy to make consistent. Ocassional inconsistency in date linking in citations, see Okerlund, Lana (October 4, 2007). Too Many Sea Otters?. Retrieved on January 15, 2007. Also, Barrett-Lennard, Lance (October 20, 2004). A few others. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:22, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the detailed notes! I think I've fixed them all. Kla’quot (talk
  • Support. I promoted this article for GA, and it's still as good as ever. bibliomaniac15 00:41, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. But it will cost you: you need to send me Koepfli 2008 :). I don't think it would hurt to have a single sentence on earlier divergence dates. Marskell (talk) 12:06, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, looks amazing. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:33, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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