Jump to content

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Floury Baker cicada

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Voting period is over. Please don't add any new votes. Voting period ends on 19 Feb 2012 at 09:27:45 (UTC)

Original – Abricta curvicosta, commonly known as the floury baker, is a species of cicada found in Australia.
Reason
I had enough time setting up for this to achieve optimal quality. The details compare favourably to our only featured adult cicada. The only three images of this species on Commons were uploaded this year, and I think this is the best.
Articles in which this image appears
Abricta curvicosta
FP category for this image
Wikipedia:Featured pictures/Animals/Insects
Creator
99of9

Concerns adequately addressed? Makeemlighter (talk) 21:55, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not entirely convinced we've got solid refs either way. The source 99of9 has used says "Representatives of both genera share the unusual habit of sitting upside down on trees" at the top of the page, then "Adults normally sit upside down..." further down the page, which is a bit vague and semi-contradictory. Would like to get a solid ref that confirmed the 'not always' bit, or conversely an expert confirmation of the species (in which case we'd have the proof of the pudding ...). Don't guess anyone's got access to Moulds, M. S. (1990). Australian Cicadas. New South Wales University Press, Kensington as referenced by the above site, to see what that source actually says? On the other hand, don't want to hold this up indefinitely, although there's other conditional votes. --jjron (talk) 13:16, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not convinced either. It is entirely plausible that the specimen was a one-off mutant, as it seems no second specimen could be found to confirm the observation. Any claim that we could make about it would amount to original research unless backed up with a good source. Papa Lima Whiskey 2 (talk) 01:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Let me point you to some specific photos to show that it's not a one off mutant: [1] [2] (yes, that is OR, but hopefully convincing to stop talking about mutants). Regarding encyclopedic material, please note that my edit to the page was not OR, it was sourced "normally sit upside-down". I don't think this source is self-contradictory, because it is note-worthy that other cicadas don't normally sit upside-down, so indeed "these genera share an unusual habit of sitting upside-down" (even if only much of the time). --99of9 (talk) 01:35, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since you lot are so suspicious, I've now got Moulds sitting in front of me. The photographs (plate 5-1 and plate 15-4a) obviously show that this is the correct species. In the species description (pp 119-120), the behaviour section reads "Adults tend to be solitary. Like other Abricta species they normally sit on limbs facing downwards. Their flight is rapid and agile." On the genus description (p 118) it says "Unlike most other cicadas, adults always face downwards when at rest." So it seems that Moulds himself was the source of the contradiction. --99of9 (talk) 02:58, 21 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted File:Floury Baker cicada side.JPG --Makeemlighter (talk) 21:32, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]