Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Cyclura nubila/archive1

Comments from Ucucha

Resolved comments moved to talk page:

• No need to repeat the subspecies in the taxonomy section.

Fixed

• "As these iguanas have only a few rods or photoreceptor cells, they have poor vision in low-light conditions, which accounts for their diurnal activity" - wouldn't that be the other way around?

Not according to the source.

• "Cuban iguanas have evolved a white photosensory organ on the top of their heads called the parietal eye" - isn't that present in lots of other lizards too?

Yes

• Does it occur on Isla de la Juventud?

I will have to double-check a print source that is 400 miles away from me at the moment, can this one wait until Monday?

Yes it has quite an active population there as well!

• "The study compared the head-bob displays from the source population on Cuba with these animals on Isla Magueyes." - which study?

It's in the previous paragraph, i highlighted it in this paragraph for skimmers as opposed to readers, thanks for pointing that out

• Are the Cubans doing anything else than coining pesos to conserve it?

Not really, there's some stuff done, but most work is done by Scientists at GITMO. Hell, the US Government is looking to wipe out the feral population in the study mentioned above!

• Is there any reason to use "Cuban Rock Iguana" in the taxobox when the article is titled "Cyclura nubila"?

Most popular "common name"

• Why are you citing ITIS instead of the IUCN for the conservation status in the taxobox?

Probably got hosed up when people were walking on my edits, fixed now.

• "one of the largest native land vertebrates in the Caribbean." - would it be possible to replace this with something more specific (for example, "largest lizard", if that would be true)? There are various other large native vertebrates (sloths, monkeys, giant rodents), and in any case it's better to be as concrete as possible.

Definitely the largest lizard and I know of no monkey or sloth that would be "bigger" in the Carib

Megalocnus was pretty big, but it has been dead for some time. What about making it "largest lizard"?

Done!

• Don't think the lead is complete yet. Perhaps some more information from "description"?

Let me know if I'm on the right track or heading off a cliff.

• "Study of Fauna from Curaçao and Caribbean Island" - are you sure you got that title right? In 1959, it was "Studies on the Fauna of Curaçao and other Caribbean Islands", but they may have changed it a few times.

Possible, I'll double check, yep, you're right! Fix-ed!

• "Limbs are black with pale brown oval spots." - in both sexes? If yes, it might be good to add that since you have just established that the sexes are rather different in coloration.

Limbs are the same color in both sexes

• Why do we need the three alternative names for the parietal eye here?

Someone got butt-hurt over that in another piece I wrote, I'm cool with just using one as long as nobody else threatans to slash their wrists over it.

It looks pretty pointless to me to give the three others - let's just hope no one notices. :)

I took them out

• "northeastern Havana coast" - isn't Havana in northwestern Cuba?

yes, but it's "the northeastern coast of Havana", not "the northeastern coast of Cuba"

Would "coast northeast of Havana" be clearer?

It doesn't sound right to me...sounds like it would imply the immediate coast to the north and east of Havana, but not the "northeastern part of Havana, itself"?

Well, fair enough - "northeastern coast of Havana" may get the point across more clearly in the article, though. Ucucha 04:14, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Fix-ed!

• Do all the external link pass the guidelines under WP:ELYES - i.e., do they offer content that cannot be offered on Wikipedia?

I killed the encyclopedia link, ours was more comprehensive, one link is to a Conservation site, the other to the study group responsible for thwe bulk of sources used in the various other Cyclura and Ctenosaura pieces I've written. The other is a "husbandry guide", I keep these animals and breed thenm, but in general do not like "how to" information in the wiki pieces.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 02:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough then.

OK, and one more comment: you mention various species throughout the article, but aren't consistent on capitalizing vs. not capitalizing common names (Galapagos Land Iguana vs. Ricord's iguana, for example, and various plants which you do capitalize). I don't care which one you choose, but it would be good to settle on one style for the entire article. Ucucha 04:14, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Got it! I went to lowercase except proper name's (Galapagos, Ricors, Cuba, Cayman, etc)--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 04:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Moved - Ucucha 12:51, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Oppose Comment for now. While I'm sure you have put much effort into this article and it contains a lot of good information, the prose needs a lot of work. I made a few edits and will come back later to have another look. I suggest having a good look over the article to check for consistency, avoiding repetition, and general prose quality (also see WP:1A). Some examples:

• "After years of research comparing scale counts on the heads of Caribbean iguanas, including those found on Little Cayman, Cayman Brac, Grand Cayman, Cuba, and the Bahamas, as well as mitochondrial DNA analysis performed by Catherine Malone, a biologist from Texas A&M University to re-examine the phylogeography of the different species revealed this original classification to be inaccurate." - this just goes on and on without a clear sentence structure. Should be split.

Thought I split this out yesterday...apologizing in advance because everytime i make a change tonight either my edit gets walked on or this site goes down...i almost put my fist through the screen this last time!--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 08:53, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

This has been totally rewritten.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 15:48, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Check whether headers of the "Conservation" section match the contents.

Do you think I should yank the two subheaders? The sections aren't that big to begin with.

Ucucha 02:35, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

That or add a header for each paragraph?--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 15:48, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

As Graham said, the article has improved a lot. Still, I have a number of questions and comments:

• Is there really nothing to say about taxonomic history between 1831 and 1973?

If there was I'd put it in there. This has been the most stable sized group of Cyclura since the 15th century, my theory is because of the size of the Cuban mainland in comparison to the other islands in the Carribean where Cyclura occur. Most taxonomic studies have been done on the smaller populations of the more obscure species and subspecies, in the past 100 years the focus has been on trying to preserve them moreso than anything else. My guess is in the future some of the subspecific forms found in the Bahamas and even C.n. caymanensis will be elevated to species status. However, even what is documented on this is beyond the realm of this article.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 15:48, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• In "anatomy and description" you first have head and body length as a measurement for the species in general and then total length for very large individuals. It would be better to use one measurement continuously there (if the sources permit).

I think I fixed this, they measure differently than most lizards because the tail is very thick and snout to vent, while important to a researcher, doesn't do it justice.

The current text says that the tail is equally long, while giving HBL at 46 cm and TotL at 1.6 m, which isn't quite right. Ucucha 02:41, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I reworded it, I feel I have t give both lengths as that's what the sources say...one gives "average size", the other gives a maximum size (but typical for GTMO). I pulled Ricky (my 3 year-old male) out of his cage...snout to vent he's 18", snout to tail-tip he's 41", I did the same with his mate, Lucy, she's 15" snout to vent and 33" overall. These are not fully-grown animals, either.

WP:NOR alert ;-) It might be best if you have a source that goes into some more depth on ranges, averages, extremes, etc. for size, but if there is none you can't do much about it. Ucucha 04:14, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

In true scientific fashion, the bulk of the published credible work to be found is on scalation counts. Some sources go snout to vent for measurement as tails can be broken and regenerated and the rule of thumb is the tail is slightly longer than this length.

There is more to come - I am not fond of the current organization of the article, and will offer some comments on that later. Ucucha 01:45, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the changes made so far! Ucucha 02:41, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

• The "Distribution" section should at least mention the Cayman Islands population. This book has some good information.

Well, that's a subspecies and has its own article:Cyclura nubila caymanensis; I can surely add it, and I'm surprised those have not been raised to species status yet.

I would think that this article is about the species Cyclura nubila, which includes both the Cuban subspecies (C. n. nubila) and the Cayman subspecies (C. n. caymanensis). It's natural to focus on the more widely distributed and well known C. n. nubila, but the other subspecies shouldn't be swept under the rug entirely.

I added it to distribution. I'm planning a bigger expansion on C.n. nubila one of these days, BTW.

Looks good.

• The "According to Honigsberg," part in the last sentence on the court case seems odd. Surely whether the Court took the case is an established fact that doesn't need to be attributed. I would have done it myself but remember that there was some discussion about this section.

He's attributing that argument as to why the SCOTUS heard the case, SCOTUS might have done it for other reasons, fact is they will never offer comment. He also owns the domain cubaniguana.net, BTW.

I see, but the sentence now is just "According to Honigsberg, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case." Perhaps change it to "... to hear the case because of this argument."?

Done! Thanks, that was a good one.

Moved again - Ucucha 08:11, 11 January 2010 (UTC)