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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Loggerhead sea turtle/archive1

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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 by SandyGeorgia 20:05, 4 June 2010 [1].

Loggerhead sea turtle

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Loggerhead sea turtle (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): TimHAllstr (talk) 01:45, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel it is ready to be taken through the FA review process and is almost at FA status. TimHAllstr (talk) 01:45, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

media Images with faces should not point away from the text, the File:Loggerhead_turtle.png should not be political, and if it is political it should not be a UScentric political map Fasach Nua (talk) 05:32, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done all images now face into the article. Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 21:31, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, the flipped version shouldn't have been uploaded over the original; and "original image reversed" ought to be added to the caption. Or a better image could be used—it's not very good. —innotata 15:01, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't have a problem with political maps as such, since for land-based species country boundaries make distribution clearer. Country boundaries are unhelpful but harmless here, but having US state boundaries is US-centric Jimfbleak - talk to me?
my only concern was the US states, so for me, yes. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 10:59, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 20:23, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Interestingly the map appears to contain both Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia Fasach Nua (talk) 13:32, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Have removed all country boundaries from the map now. You may have to refresh to get the latest version. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 19:33, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You left the Australian border in, but I can forgive that! FAC3 met Fasach Nua (talk) 19:41, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I removed three dead links. Were there any particular ones you noticed that linked to the wrong article? Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 20:29, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • It was given its scientific name by Carolus Linnaeus in 1758. — worrying that there's an error in line one, Linnaeus named it Testudo caretta — I see you give the correct name later, but the first sentence is still factually incorrect
*In lead The loggerhead is considered an endangered species and is protected under the United States' Endangered Species Act. — US-centric, isn't it protected anywhere else?
I changed that statement to: "The loggerhead is considered an endangered species and is protected by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature." This is also stated in the conservation efforts section. Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 20:35, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • In many places during the nesting season, workers and volunteers from organizations such as the Fripp Island, South Carolina, Turtle Patrol search the coastline for nests — is this the only place in the world this occurs? no no no
  • What would you suggest would be the best way to go about fixing this? I can't imagine it being practical to list every organization that deals with the conservation of sea turtles. Maybe I could list areas that have major organizations for the conservation of loggerheads and sea turtles in general?--TimHAllstr (talk) 22:24, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fixed: Rather than draw attention to one specific organization or counter with numerous specific organizations - best to generalize here and remove Fripp Island and replace with "volunteers" - perhaps add "around the world" if that is the case.--JimmyButler (talk) 04:21, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • You rely almost exclusively on US sources, so Raccoons are the primary predators of loggerhead nests lacks credibility since these mammals do not occur in most of the turtle's range
  • Almost 45% of the Mediterranean juvenile population has migrated from the Atlantic — doesn't make sense
What part of that statement is confusing? I'll try to fix it, but it makes sense to me. 45% of the juveniles residing in the Mediterranean came from the Atlantic meaning they weren't born in the Mediterranean but reside there for a portion of their lives. Does that make it clearer? Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 02:01, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are there any differences between the subspecies other than average size?
  • The Spotila book resource that is currently in my possession mentioned something about genetic differences, but the book was very vague and confusing in its description. I will work on finding more info regarding this.--TimHAllstr (talk) 23:51, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Up to 40% of nesting females have been recorded to show wounds believed to come from shark attacks — evidence? The source appears to be just for US and Canada.
The source is named Turtles of the US and Canada. It does not just give information on the sea turtles based only in this area. It gives information on the species as a whole because it is often found around the United States and Canada.--TimHAllstr (talk) 00:09, 28 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Artificial lighting threatens loggerhead hatchlings, contributing to thousands of deaths per year. — evidence for this outside Florida, the only source given?
Fixed added a new reference that generalizes the information instead of referring only to Florida.--TimHAllstr (talk) 23:37, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Only the US and Australia are quoted as having national conservation laws. Don't South Africa, India or any of the other countries have legislation? A quick search found this for example
  • What's the Cartegena Convention? Red-linked and unexplained.

Another read through later perhaps, but there seems to be a tendency to generalise from local studies to apparently global claims. This is more like Loggerhead turtles - a US perspective. There's no indication you've even looked at sources like this or this Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:42, 25 May

copyedits by Jimmy Butler for style and me for links, I'm sure some of the other scientists have articles too Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:35, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We apologize for the US based article. Naturally, US-based sources have been the most readily available for us since we are a class from the US. I will work to make the article more worldly.--TimHAllstr (talk) 22:21, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Having said that, in the days of the internet, non-US sources are readily available, even if you restricted yourself to just English language publications. You have to make a conscious effort to write from a global perspective, it's too easy to produce an unbalanced article which looks fine to your compatriots but has glaring omissions to non-Americans. When I wrote Red-billed Chough, I was having to dump masses of UK-based research whilst scouring the remoter corners of the internet to find foreign and non-English sources. Despite the tone of my comments, I'm not unsympathetic to this article, but I'll wait now to see how it develops during FAC before deciding whether or not to support. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:32, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sourcing issues: While the sources themselves seem on the whole to be OK, there are numerous problems relating to formatting and access.

  • What is the basis for listing some sources under the "Reference" headings, but not others?
References are now divided into Footnotes and bibliography similar to the bog turtle article. Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 21:37, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some of the citations in the "Notes" section omit publisher details. See, specifically, 19, 59, 60, 61
  • Fixed these occurrences. Will screen for more. --TimHAllstr (talk) 22:45, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • It seems that some numbers have changed. For above, read 19, 60, 61 and 62. For 60, the magazine (EcoHealth) and other details (issue, date, ISSN etc) should be added. For 61, the year 2005 should be added to September 18, and Chicago Tribune should be italicised. For 62, add Marine Turtle Newsletter and the year, 2007. Brianboulton (talk) 22:47, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some online citations are missing retrieval dates
    • Ref 64. needs a retrieval date
Fixed, retrieval date added. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 02:02, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The format of citation 41 is non-standard (publisher's name given first).
  • Italics: where the source is a print journal or newspaper the name should be italicised, otherwise not. Check throughout for consistency in this.
  • 39: Is "Marine Ecology" a journal? If so you should give details such as volume and issue number, and a page reference, to enable the article to be traced. Similar point with 47 ("The Journal of Experimental Biology")
  • The links to 6, 12, 25 and 31 all seem to be problematic. In each case I got the "could not find" message.
Strange, the links work fine for me. They all happen to be NOAA sites. Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 20:45, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am still getting a "broken" message on each of these. Brianboulton (talk) 22:47, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
6, 12 and 31 work for me but 25(http://www.coastal.edu/cmws/projects/turtles/anatomy.html) says Not Found: The requested URL /cmws/projects/turtles/anatomy.html was not found on this server. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 22:59, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed - 6, 12 and 31 have now been webcited for reliability. Link 25 has been removed. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 01:06, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Access to 33, 53 and 55 appears to be restricted. Do these require subscriptions? If so this should be stated, using the (subscription required) template.
DoneVancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 20:48, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note 63: the link goes to an unheaded page in handwriting. The internal link marked "Home" does not work, so how can the validity of this source be established?
  • The Spotila book is listed twice in the References section
  • The Peaker book details include "pp. 231", presumably referring to its pages total. No other books have this information; suggest delete.
  • The Wynne book details include a page range 104–05, yet in the notes there are citations to pages outside this range. You don't need to include this page range here, and I suggest it is deleted.

Brianboulton (talk) 14:16, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments – Read through about half of the article, and most of it looks quite good to me, though I'm not that knowledgeable in comprehensiveness or sourcing standards for species articles. I did find the following items, which are all minor:

  • "with the combination Caretta caretta being first introduced in 1902 by Leonhard Stejneger." The word "being" is making the sentence a bit awkward to read, and can safely be removed without harming the meaning.
Done Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 22:22, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • A further source comment: references 27 and 73 should have the all caps in their titles removed.
Done Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 22:22, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Distribution: no need for multiple Arabian Peninsula links in a paragraph. One is enough.
Done Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 22:22, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 22:22, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • I've asked this elsewhere, but is "alt=Map of the range of the loggerhead sea turtle" satisfactory for alt text?
  • In the sentence "The English common name loggerhead refers to the animal's large head," should "loggerhead" be put in quotes rather than italics?
Yeah, it was more of a question on my part...not sure.--NYMFan69-86 (talk) 14:32, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it should be italics; it doesn't seem to fit under any criteria listed at Wikipedia:ITALIC#Italic_face. Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 14:54, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Two subspecies are recognized: C. caretta gigas in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and C. caretta caretta in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.[5]"--I'd be interested to see what else the source says about this. What are the differences, do they account for the large range in size and weight, why were two subspecies recognized?
  • "Temperatures from 27–28 °C (81–82 °F) are best suited for nesting females.[12]"--this wording makes it sound like the water changes temperature for the female (I think it should be reworded to most suitable.)
More minor things to follow, nice work.--NYMFan69-86 (talk) 03:50, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

More comments

  • "The return journey to the natal beaches in Japan was long suspected, although the trip would cross unproductive clear water with few feeding opportunities.[19]"--awkward wording, I think "was" and "would" may have to be changed.
  • I think the Evolutionary history section should explain why two subspecies are recognized (or maybe that can be done in the Taxonomy section and here it could be discussed how the subspecies came about).
No, it is more of a taxonomic issue, I was just wondering if you could turn up anything about how the differences in the two populations came about.--NYMFan69-86 (talk) 12:49, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We have that already in the evolutionary history section. Last paragraph. Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 15:14, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This isn't a comment, just a compliment: I really like the info on sexing juveniles...good stuff.
  • "Escalation typically follows four steps"--Do the first two steps have specific names? The third and fourth are sparring and separation...right?
  • "Along the southeastern coast of the United States, the raccoon (Procyon lotor) is the most [...]"--Can't raccoon be linked in the first paragraph of this section?
More to follow later, kinda busy. Sorry this is so broken up (maybe its easier that way...I don't know).--NYMFan69-86 (talk) 20:34, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • On my browser there is a huge (20+ cm) white space before the map. Can this be fixed?
  • What browser are you using, this problem has not appeared to me. Are the synonyms in the taxonomy box expanded? I included a clear template before the picture in distribution because the list of synonyms was covered up by it and you couldn't read them. Also, do you have javascript enabled? Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 14:31, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Done -I think that I fixed this. I have tested it with Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome and it was okay before. I assume the issue was not having javascript enabled which expands the synonymy's on the right column, an issue in all browsers. Anyhow the clears have now been removed from the top of the article so excess spacing cannot appear. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 15:53, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The images seem to be scattered at random. I would suggest either right-aligning all, or alternating left/right
  • Taking the red link off Cartagena Convention doesn't actually explain it. Can we have a few words to clarify?

Comment

Much better.

more comments

  • "Female-female aggression is uncommon, especially in marine vertebrates. However, it is common among loggerheads."--can these two sentence be merged?
  • "In Australia, the introduction of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) by English settlers in the 19th century lead to significant reductions in turtle populations. In one coastal section in eastern Australia during the 1970s, predation of turtle eggs destroyed up to 95% of all clutches laid."--are these sentences talking about all turtles, or just the loggerhead?
  • "Up to 40% of nesting females have wounds believed to come from shark attacks.[38]"--the sentence before this was talking about loggerheads in the southeast U.S. ... is this sentence referring to those turtles as well?
  • "Trematodes of the family Spirorchiidae inhabit"--can Spirorchiidae be linked (or red-linked if the page doesn't exist)?
  • "Other food items include sponges, corals, sea pens, polychaete worms, sea anemones, cephalopods, gastropods, barnacles,"--you've already said "gastropods" in the previous sentence.
  • " [...]with their large and powerful jaws.[6][37] Large, projecting scale points[...] "--"large" repetitive.
Alright, I'm through "feeding."--NYMFan69-86 (talk) 00:48, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Separation into subspecies is based on color, body size, number of neural and peripheral bones and number of marginal scutes.[8]"--any info on which subspecies has the different characteristics (i.e. which is larger, what are the differences in color)?--NYMFan69-86 (talk) 02:40, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • This information is from the Marquez reference.

    The subspecific status should be re-assessed because the two described subspecies, one for the Pacific, Caretta caretta gigas and the other for the Atlantic, Caretta caretta caretta, are not valid in the light of available information, since they were based on characters showing considerable variation, principally colour, body size, number of neural and peripheral bones and number of marginal scutes (caretta 12-12, gigas 13-13). Most authors now recognize caretta as a single polymorphic species.

    Based on this information I don't think it is notable to mention the separate subspecies. Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 13:13, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see. Than, I would put in that the current taxonomic organization is debatable.--NYMFan69-86 (talk) 13:55, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done mentioned that it is debatable but most recognize it as a single species.--TimHAllstr (talk) 14:25, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

more comments

  • "During this seasonal migration, juvenile loggerheads have the ability to use both magnetic cues and visual cues.[51]"--this sentence is separated by quite a bit of text from the migration its talking about. Any way to rearrange this to make it clearer.
  • "if one aid is not available, the other suffices.[51] Female loggerheads first reproduce"--these ideas don't seem to flow...perhaps a paragraph reorganization would help.
  • Same thing with the next few sentences about average and maximum length.
Sure. I was confused by these sentence in several ways: "Nesting loggerheads have a straight carapace length of 70–109 centimeters (28–43 in). Seventy centimeters is the minimum size for breeding, although not all loggerheads begin breeding at this size. Therefore, carapace length is not a reliable indicator of sexual maturity.[52]" First, you say previously that the loggerhead reaches "a length range of 70 to 95 centimeters (28 to 37 in)," which leads me to believe that nesting loggerheads are somehow bigger than non-nesting loggerheads. Second, the wording of the second sentence may throw some readers off. It seems like your saying that 70 cm is the smallest size at which a loggerhead is ready to breed but that they may be bigger than this when they start breeding. Well...we already knew that because you gave us a range of lengths. Third, its placement (or at least its wording) is somewhat awkward. Are the readers to assume that loggerheads reach this length at "ages 28–33" or at "ages 17–30" or at "unknown" ages?--NYMFan69-86 (talk) 02:21, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's a little better, but why is this phrase even necessary: "however not all loggerheads begin breeding at the minimum size?" Also, I am still unsure if the length correlates to the age in any significant way.--NYMFan69-86 (talk) 21:57, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mating-induced ovulation is a bit much to grasp. Is there an article (or perhaps a heading on an article) that can be found that explains this?
Okay, I think it should be clarified a little in the article.--NYMFan69-86 (talk) 13:02, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Clarified Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 15:19, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Two hypotheses account for this correlation"--the word "account" isn't correct here..."explain" might be better.
  • "Multiple paternity is possible due to sperm storage. The female can store sperm from multiple males in her oviducts until ovulation.[60]"--This needs to be moved next to the other text concerning this.
  • I think the age of sexual maturity should either be moved to the reproduction section or repeated in the reproduction section.
  • "The prolong time required for loggerheads"--prolonged?
  • "On developed beaches, nest are often clustered around tall buildings"--nests?
  • "They uncover them, count the eggs, and, if necessary, relocate them for protection from threats such as high spring tides and predators. The nests are checked daily for disturbances."--suggest merging
  • The last section "Conservation efforts" needs a link to the Threatened species and/or Endangered species article. If there already is a link the this/these in another part of this article, ignore this comment.
Great work guys. Fix these last few things and I'm a supporter.--NYMFan69-86 (talk) 14:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for all support and comments.--TimHAllstr (talk) 20:48, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: this article needs a MOS review (perhaps Dabomb87 (talk · contribs) will do it?). I also wonder about WP:OVERLINKing-- do we really need links to commonly known places like South Africa or Central America? Pls ping me when MOS has been checked. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:26, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Thank you! Vancemiller (talk · contribs · count · email) 20:34, 4 June 2010 (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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