Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lepidoptera

Non-stub "stubs"

While we have an absolute proliferation of actual stubs, it seems--based on randomly checking a number of stub-rated articles--we've also got a good number of pages that still languish in the stub category but are in all actuality at least start (and perhaps even C). Not a massive issue, but still means it's hard to get a view of what articles most desperately need work when pretty near enough the entirety of our project is ranked as stub whether it is or not.

So if, when working on a Lepi article that's clearly not a stub, you would please consider checking the talk-page to see whether it's been appropriately rated (and if not, adjust it), that would be much appreciated. AddWittyNameHere 05:08, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Good idea. I'll try and do some in my travels, though low-level editing at the moment. Tony Holkham (Talk) 08:53, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

You don't have to go to the talk page to see the current quality rating. Go to Preferences>Gadgets>Appearance, and enable either "Display an assessment of an article's quality in its page header" or "XTools: dynamically show statistics about a page's history under the page heading" (or both). "Display an assessment" makes the title a color in a spectrum from red (stub) to green (GA), and gives the quality in text below the title. The XTools option displays a colored circle for the quality along with other statistics. The XTools display is slower to show up with a bad connection so I'd go with "display an assessment" if you're only doing one of them. Plantdrew (talk) 14:55, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

A quick browse tells me that many articles on tribes, subfamilies etc. are basically lists with onward links, and so are maybe as complete as they can be, so start articles. Perhaps they should have been list articles (but that's above my pay grade)? Tony Holkham (Talk) 09:48, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

...there also seem to be articles which do not have the stub tag footer, but whose talk pages still say stub, so they need changing. Tony Holkham (Talk) 10:06, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

@Tony Holkham: Yup. Some of those are in all honesty stubs but some editor came along, saw that it was over an arbitrary amount of bytes, and removed the stub tag without looking at whether it's a stub content-wise, and no one replaced it. (Some of the AWB users were prone to that, for a while) A whole bunch of them genuinely aren't stubs but no one bothered to update the talk page, though.

As for your remarks about tribes etc., yeah, most of these should be start if complete, some should be converted into lists (or redirected to the parent taxon with a separate list article linked from the parent taxon, in some cases that would make more sense)—but many of them desperately need referencing and taxo-updating before they can reasonably be deemed complete. (I'm currently working on Hesperiidae and Bombycoidea, but I know there's a good number of other taxa that aren't exactly up-to-date either, ranging from "several new child taxa have been described but not added" to "major revisions not yet included")

Probably best to only re-assess the ones that show they're at least moderately current, for now. (E.g. not referring to 1999 publications as a "comprehensive overview" of the taxon when there's been major revisions since cough) AddWittyNameHere 10:44, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, understood. I'm not well-versed on taxonomy, so will just continue with common sense. Let me know if I'm on the wrong track. Tony Holkham (Talk) 11:56, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

No one is well-versed on taxonomy of the entirety of Lepidoptera, it changes far too often for that.^[FBDB] Nah, but more seriously, major advances in phylogeny means that we've had a lot of revisions within Lepidoptera the past fifteen-twenty years, and in many areas the research and revision efforts are actively ongoing. Basically, if you're not familiar with what the currently-up-to-date placement of a taxon is, assume "probably incomplete or otherwise not up-to-date" for taxa above genus if:

• The most recent academic source referred to is pre-2000, if there is any at all; and/or
• The source of the taxon's placement and/or child taxa is not given; and/or
• The given source of the taxon's placement and/or child taxa is a general* Lepidoptera database (or worse, a general insect, animal, or all-lifeforms database); and/or
• The given source of the taxon's placement and/or child taxa is a specific* Lepidoptera database, but the access-date is about a decade or more ago (or the site itself specifies its version as something like "July 2009"); and/or
• The given source of the taxon's child taxa is a regional^ database when the taxon in question is not endemic to that region (or at least lacks a reference for being so); and/or
• The taxon's article content and its taxobox contradict one another (especially when the taxobox is an automated taxobox), or the taxon's article and its parent taxon's article contradict one another.

* General vs specific Lepidoptera databases: general accumulates everything related to all (or almost all) Lepidoptera taxa; specific focuses on a single group of taxa like a particular family or superfamily, or on taxa showing a particular type of behaviour (e.g. leaf mining). General databases almost invariably struggle with the same outdatedness issues we've got, because it's just not feasible for a handful of people to stay on top of the nuances of placement of ~180000 species and all associated higher taxa and keep track of everything newly described. Specific databases can be outdated too, but are more often at least somewhat up-to-date—not least because the folks running them very often are, or work together with, the folks involved in the revision efforts)

^ Regional databases: generally only mention the taxa actually occurring in that region, and therefore are not a good source to find all child taxa of a taxon (except when the entire taxon is actually endemic to that particular region, of course), leading to incomplete lists of child taxa when used as sole source.

Far as I can tell, you're definitely on the right track: articles like Dingy skipper and Great purple hairstreak indeed absolutely aren't stubs, and removing stub classifications from redirects or other non-articles, like at Danaidae, is also always a good thing.

Giant skipper had some easy, quick improvements that could be done (which I did--separate Biology into its own section & delink tribe names because we really don't want people to create those articles when all that can be said about them is already in the giant skipper article. If anything, they should be redirs, and those don't need to be linked in their target article), but even without those changes, deeming it a start seems about right to me.

Lycaena rauparaha is in need of some attention, from a quick look: nothing about the appearance of the adults, and I spot some too-close paraphrasing in that Biology section besides. (I'll fix both those issues in a bit) Still, reasonable enough to argue it's a start rather than stub, even if I might not have de-stubbed that one until after fixing those issues, myself (but that's personal preference, and de-stubbing it isn't wrong) AddWittyNameHere 13:27, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Wow, thank you for all that sound advice. I will do my best to assimilate it. BTW, when does the "Article assessment and quality" table update, as I'm using that as a guide to what needs checking. All the best. Tony Holkham (Talk) 13:58, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

You're welcome, and sorry for slamming half a novella down in front of you. As for when the table updates, once a day but I'm not quite certain at what time it generally does. However, I just put in a manual update for you, which is currently in progress (and should, judging by the speed at which its progressing, be finished around the time I post this reply). AddWittyNameHere 14:56, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Ah, yup, it finished, we went from 99,9-something stubs to 99,891 stubs. AddWittyNameHere 14:58, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Good, made a start anyway - I concentrated on the high importance ones first. Tony Holkham (Talk) 15:07, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Good, made a start anyway - nice pun :P Anyway, yeah, high importance first makes sense. If during the de-stubbing process you come across anything you figure needs desperate attention now rather than in the next few years, feel free to toss it my way and I'll see if I can't do something about it. (Think we're getting a bit away from stuff relevant to the wider WikiProject, though. Happy to continue the conversation on either of our talkpages, but I don't blame you if you're thinking "Oh gods no please no not more conversation with 'm", I know I'm rather verbose today, so I'll leave that up to you.) AddWittyNameHere 15:47, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

You mentioned de-linking tribe names - are you referring to the binomials such as Euglyphis lankesteri on Lasiocampidae? Tony Holkham (Talk) 16:17, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

That one was more relevant to that specific article than a piece of general advice, and requires a bit of judgement. I'll post my full explanation on your talk-page, because it's mostly not relevant to the wider discussion. AddWittyNameHere 16:55, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Dudusinae or Dudusiinae

Anyone happen to know which of the two spellings is correct? They're both being used, sometimes even in the same source (like Schintlmeister 2013, who mostly uses Dudusinae but still has a Dudusiinae in a graph). As a result, they're also both getting used on en.wiki, which is potentially confusing. AddWittyNameHere 06:04, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

I think the answer is that Dudusinae is the correct spelling. The type genus is Dudusa and this source identifies where the misspelling came from.

Dudusinae Matsumura, 1925, Zool. Mag. Tokyo 37:406, misspelled Dudusiinae by Kitching & Rawlins, 1999, type genus: Dudusa Walker, 1865 (Notodontidae)

However, as you say, both are used. Lepindex uses Dudusiinae and Lepindex is widely used a source on Wikipedia. I think Dudusinae should be used in taxoboxes with appropriate source, but articles will need to mention the alternative spelling if their sources use it. —  Jts1882 | talk  11:02, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

All right, that makes sense, and provides me a way of handling things going forward. Thanks! AddWittyNameHere 15:05, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

I've changed the taxonomy templates and used the above reference with a quote of the info on the spelling. —  Jts1882 | talk  16:26, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Huh, thanks! I'd been planning to tackle that after dinner, but one less thing on my long, looong list of Lepidoptera work is quite welcome. Moth work is never done... sigh AddWittyNameHere 18:22, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

References

Saturnia (Agapema)

Could someone who understands the situation sort out the current status of Agapema - according to LepIndex, Saturnia (Agapema)?[1] Saw this while attempting to add a valid taxonomic ref to Draft:Agapema dyari, and still unsure what to do there (now apparently Saturnia (Agapema) anona ssp. dyari, for added flavour [2]). Cheers --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:19, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Elmidae (and pinging Agapema who is the draft's creator): Per Kitching et al 2018, which is the most recent comprehensive global checklist of the Bombycoidea, Agapema is indeed a subgenus of Saturnia (and dyari is indeed a subspecies of anona).

Someone does need to sort out the entire cluster of Agapema articles to reflect the above-mentioned current taxonomic status, though if no one else gets around to it or feels comfortable doing it, I will get around to it eventually as I am on-and-off working on bringing the Bombycoidea in line with Kitching et al. 2018 amidst other Lepidoptera updates. Might be a few weeks down the line, though, so if anyone else does feel comfortable doing it, by all means please go ahead.

Onto the draft in specific: Subspecies don't typically warrant their own article except when there is a lot to be said about them that doesn't apply to the species as a whole, and that doesn't appear to be the case here. What relevant contents in the draft that aren't already in the article on Agapema anona should be added there, (e.g. synonyms, Hodges number) and then Agapema dyari should be created as a redirect to it. No need to wait there for someone to sort out the wider Agapema article cluster, as the redirect can always be retargeted post-move. AddWittyNameHere 09:17, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Much obliged! If I get time today and the current setup is not too convoluted, I may give it a go later today- --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:50, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

If you run into any issues/need advice on how to/want a second pair of eyes on whether everything is done right afterwards, you're more than welcome to ping me & I'll take a look. AddWittyNameHere 10:17, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this up! I'm still new to Wikipedia, and saw that red link as an opportunity to get experience writing articles. I'll update Draft:Agapema dyari to be a redirect to Agapema anona, and add the Hodges/MONA number to that page. Again, thanks for the feedback :) Agapema (talk) 14:57, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

References

Template help required

Hi there. I am in the process of converting taxoboxes to automatic taxoboxes for various lichen genera, and have come across a "conflict" with one of the templates maintained by this project. The template {{Taxonomy/Dirina}} is for a lepidoptera subtribe, but links to the lichen genus! I'm assuming that's a mistake, and that the link was meant instead to point to Dirina (butterfly). Does it make sense to move the template to match that, and allow the lichen genus to sit at Dirina instead? MeegsC (talk) 14:39, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

In the case where taxa share a name, and the article for one taxon is at the base title and the other taxon has a disambiguator, the taxonomy template for the taxon with the disambiguated article absolutely should not lack a disambiguator. That is just confusing. I'm not sure whether the lepidoptera subtribe is accepted; if it is, perhaps the lichen should be moved and Dirina made into a disambiguation page. But given the status quo with article titles, using {{Taxonomy/Dirina}} for the lichen is an improvement. Plantdrew (talk) 15:00, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

"The butterflies of Sulawesi: annotated checklist for a critical island fauna" has been released under a CC BY license

Hi there, I'd just like to alert this community that "The butterflies of Sulawesi: annotated checklist for a critical island fauna" has been released under a CC BY license over at the Naturalis repository: https://repository.naturalis.nl/pub/220217/ Naturalis are the copyright holders - they are the institution that used to publish the journal this was first published-in, back in 2003 (Zoologische Verhandelingen) and so they genuinely can do this, this post-publication re-licensing is legit and not a 'mistake'.

I have been slowly harvesting some of the lovely image plates onto Wikimedia Commons, but only the butteflies which are in there identified with binomials. Are all the sub-species plates , the trinomials (e.g. Tacola eulimene badoura) also helpful and of interest to people? Now that this key publication is CC BY licensed, I feel it might be a treasure trove for this community to harvest from and improve hundreds of butterfly articles...? Please fire away... Metacladistics (talk) 13:34, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Are there subspecies plates for which there is no plate for the binomial (because, for example, the nominate subspecies doesn't occur in Sulawesi)? In general, I think subspecies plates would be a low priority. Plantdrew (talk) 15:04, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Very roughly speaking, I'd say species/nominate subspecies plates > subspecies plates where the (nominate sub)species has no plate > subspecies plates that illustrate/compare multiple subspecies of the same species > individual, non-nominate subspecies, as far as priorities go.

Exception for plates of any of the 62 butterfly subspecies that happen to have a separate article, if any of them even occur on Sulawesi. Those should be treated with the same priority as species, I'd say. (On a separate note, those probably need looking at because while some of them are independently notable, a good portion of them would likely be better off merged into the relevant species article)

Also, thanks for the heads up! I'll be adding it to my ever-growing list of references over at User:AddWittyNameHere/LepiRefs. At a glance, beyond those images, there's a lot of textual information that could be useful for various articles, too. AddWittyNameHere 22:57, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes! the text on range & food plants appears to be very useful to fill-in gaps and to improve the accuracy of articles too! Metacladistics (talk) 14:24, 22 September 2022 (UTC)