Talk:Cockchafer

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Cockchafer/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Sddarealone (talk · contribs) 14:21, 28 July 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 10:05, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Comments

Extended content

• "alongside Melolontha hippocastani (the forest cockchafer)" - can't see any good reason to pick out this species in the lead. Reply - Hard disagree; M. hippocastani and M. melolontha are broadly located near to each other (one in forests and the other in fields) but for breeding both species females migrate to forests and have similar mating patterns; the female stays put while the male beetle searches for its mating partner. Both also have low genetic differentiation are historically divergent species which makes them very closely related. In fact, multiple research works compared M. hippocastani and M. melolontha side by side.  Done

• • OK, then you need to point out that fact, and the reason for comparing the two species.

• "when they are fed on by females" - remove "by females", this is unconditional.  Done

• "Similar animal trials also occurred for many other animals in the Middle Ages." - remove as off-topic, not about Cockchafers.  Done

• I've done some very small copy-editing.

• The list of synonyms is too long for the infobox/sidebar. Suggest you collapse the list. One thing that would help a bit, too, would be to remove the (supposed) subspecies of M. vulgaris as these don't represent attempts to create a new species, i.e. all the M. vulgaris XYZ subspecies of Papp, Kraatz, and Westhoff add up only to M. vulgaris which needs to be mentioned only once (Fabricius 1775).  Done

• The taxonomic history (as implied by the infobox) is missing from the article. At least the key points (Linnaeus's 1758 formal description of the species, Fabricius 1775, Moll 1785, Westhoff 1884, and Papp 1943's attempts all need to be mentioned and cited in the text, in a "Taxonomic history" section.  Done
  • I have prepared a draft for taxonomic history or taxonomy to be added under Cockchafer § etymology section. Can you check if it can be added or not?
    • Checked.

• There needs to be at least a brief mention of the current taxonomy, i.e. that Melolontha is in the Melolonthini, a tribe of the Scarabeidae family, cited to a suitable source. The primary source is Leach 1819 but we should have something more recent (and secondary) as well.  Done;
  • can you check if this source can be used to cite the tribe of M. melolontha?
    • Not sure. Why not just use NBN Atlas, it's sufficient.

• Why is Bacillus thuringiensis named as "B. T. japonensis"? The name does not occur in the linked article.  Done; it's a subspecies of Bacillus thuringiensis.

• There is a substantial amount of clutter, in the form of claims that are true of all insects (6 legs) and some that are true probably of all bilaterian animals (absorb glucose in the midgut).  Done

• Similarly, "It has been shown that proteolytic breakdown of toxins is a common resistance mechanism for agricultural pests.[19]" is visibly a claim for pests-in-general, not for cockchafers specifically, so it's off-topic here. Another example is "Along with maxillary and labial palps, these antennae consist of structures like sensilla that helps the grub to perform its olfactory and contact chemosensory functions": well yes, as in all insects (I've edited that one). We should remove all such "noise" and focus on cockchafer-specific biology, so please read through the whole text and cut the text down to that.  Done; read the whole article at least once and now the text should be focused on the subject.

• No need to introduce rare and never-reused redlinked term "homoacetogenic": too technical for the general reader.  Done

• The section "History of pest control" is extremely long in the context of the article's size: 900 words out of 3400 (including the lead). It's also in a sense peripheral, as it's logically part of the "Relationship with humans" chapter, even though it's not positioned there at the moment. That means we have over a quarter of the text for what I'd call a subsection (7. Relationship with humans; 7.1 History of pest control), which is well into WP:COATRACK territory. In addition, quite a lot of the section's text is off-topic, e.g. "Since the 1970s, agriculture has generally reduced its use of pesticides. Because of environmental and public health concerns (pesticides may enter the food chain and thus also the human body) many chemical pesticides have been phased out in the European Union and worldwide.[34]" does not belong in the article. Equally, comments like "This gave rise to events that seem bizarre from a modern perspective." are not about cockchafers, nor really about pest control either, so we'd be better without such things. One solution (A) would be to split the whole section out as a new article, and replace it here with a short summary and "main" link to the new article. Another option (B) would be to cut down the section radically and move it to become a short subsection of "Relationship with humans".  Done; did A
  • Did the copyedits for keeping the context M. melolontha specific. Also if I merge this Cockchafer § History of pest control section into Cockchafer § Relationship with humans section, 1. the latter would become too large and 2. I would need to decide on the section names also. Should I proceed with the change?
    • It would definitely become much too large, unless you take one of the actions (A) or (B) as suggested above.

• The section "Intestinal components and microbiome" at 400 words is nearly 1/8 of the article's text. It is placed as a subsection of "Description", a chapter normally reserved for the physical appearance of an organism, or at least on key identifying features. This section, in contrast, goes into full coatrack mode ("Proteolytic activity of enzymes in the midgut is hypothesised to increase resistance to entomopathogenic bacteria") which isn't a plain description in any sense, but speculation, which is indeed the apparent purpose of the whole of the second paragraph. I suggest that the entire section be cut down to the basic facts of the microbiome (gut bugs enable the beetle to digest plant materials) and moved to become a short subsection of the Ecology chapter.  Done; I kept the important points while making it as a subsection.

• I've marked a citation needed tag in Etymology. The last sentence "The generic name "Melolontha" originates from ancient Greek, meaning "fig-sheep", because it actively feeds on wild figs." is a close paraphrase from the cited source.  Done; I put the CLOP sentence within double quotes.
  • Sorry but I'm not convinced that is an adequate response here, as the etymology is at best disputed (and there's no known association with figs, either). Ancient Greek mēlon is the familar word for "apple"; more loosely and by extension, it could also be used to mean "fruit", but it does not mean "fig"; and óllymi means to destroy, so "fruit-destroyer" would be the plain sense. We cannot therefore just quote the fig-sheep theory directly; at best, we could say that H. Frisk proposed it, but it absolutely must not be in Wiki-voice, nor can it be presented as the one and only theory, when it's a hypothesis based on a conjecture about vowel changes and word reduction. We need the plain etymology first, and (perhaps) the fig-sheep thing second.
    • @Chiswick Chap: Ok I get what you're saying. There are only two options that would work here then: either removing the sentence or using this context I found on wiktionary and keeping the peer reviewed citation as the source. Which one should I choose? Sddarealone (talk) 11:12, 8 August 2026 (UTC)
      • We can't cite Wiktionary as such, though if it has used a reliable source we can cite that. Wiktionary's entry for Ancient Greek μηλολόνθη provides two dictionary sources which support the derivation from μηλολόνθη, so we can cite them for that.
      • The same page also briefly mentions both candidate etymologies but does not cite them. Your existing source is not written by linguists: the scientists involved are plainly not very interested in etymology, and could have picked up the passing mention of the Greek from Facebook or a wiki, so it's not really usable. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:52, 8 August 2026 (UTC)
        • Alright, I found the source here for the Ancient Greek name of the cockchafer. The only problem is it translates to French as "hanneton, sorte de scarabée doré" which means cockchafer, a type of golden beetle. The other source gives just one word translation for the Ancient Greek word. Can I use the Greek to French source? Sddarealone (talk) 13:25, 8 August 2026 (UTC)
          • Yes. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:19, 8 August 2026 (UTC)
            •  Done Sddarealone (talk) 14:49, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Images

Extended content

• All images are on Commons and are plausibly licensed.

• I've formatted some images to the default size, avoiding pixel dimensions.

• Why is there an image of "a group of cockchafers in Ukraine" in the "Relationship with humans" chapter?  Done; removed

• Why are the Male, Female, and Larva images in 3 different sections? Suggest a small gallery at the end of "Description" for all 3 of them.  Done; I added one more image to the gallery.
  • Much improved.

• Commons has good images of the larva in cocoon (File:Engerling in cocon (Melolontha melolontha).jpg) and of the Pupa (File:Meikever pop zijkant (Melolontha melolontha).jpg), which we ought to include in the Description gallery.  Done

Sources

Extended content

• Please rename all refs of the form ":0", ":1" etc to something more maintainable, like "Fraval 1998" (with space and quotation marks).

• I have tagged an uncited claim as citation needed.  Done; removed–I never found a reliable source to support this claim.

• Spot-checks: all the sources I've checked seem to verify the claims made, with the following caveats:

[2] Marren Mabey is missing page number.  Done

[3] EB: We can cite EB (in desperation) but as it's a tertiary source like Wikipedia it's not ideal. Best we find a secondary source instead.  Done removed and replaced with Bug Life ref

[6] Reinecke 2002 is an oddly-specific source for several of the claims it's used for: it's about alcoholism in cockchafers, not about their general biology. Best use other sources; since the instances it's used for are already cited to another source, we could just drop it. I see you've re-added it: how can it be justified?

• This citation is of a different paper although it has the same author(s) and date of publishing. I made an error of judgement while removing the alcoholism ref. Sddarealone (talk) 08:25, 10 August 2026 (UTC)
  • OK... the "green leaf volatiles" paragraph in "Mating" does seem a bit undue (not quite a coatrack), given that it's over half the section's content. Suggest slim it down a bit, and perhaps make it a separate section.
    •  Done Sddarealone (talk) 09:12, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

[9] Fraval is a dead link (just goes to INRA home page), needs archive and probably other parameters.

[31] Der Mythos der Maikäfersuppe is lacking website/publisher. It's also a dead link, needs an archive.

• • • Found archive.

[32] What is "De Geer"? Could be a multi-volume book or journal article, but title is missing and author's name is incomplete, other parameters unclear or unspecified.

• Found and added source (2 books).

[38] Martin is missing the publisher and page number.  Done

[39] is missing the page number.  Done

[41] is missing the chapter or page numbers (either would do).  Done; added page nos.

Summary

• OK, first pass completed. This article is in a reasonable state as far as sources and images are concerned, but the text seems to have suffered additions (by students?) which appear as coatracks (on side issues) rather than key components of the article. These need to be cut down or moved out. The other items are basically minor and should be quickly fixable. There is nothing in the article about taxonomy and phylogeny/evolution, so some sort of addition here appears essential. When those changes have been made I will rescan the article. Let me know here (or ping me). Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:09, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

  @Chiswick Chap Thanks for your in-depth and a well rounded first review. You seem to be an entomologist as your eye for catching mistakes in these kind of articles is very sharp. I knew the text had issues because of the AI generated additions that started from here but never expected it to be this much. I tried cleanup to my level best (with my limited knowledge of insects) but from your issues raised, it seems that it didn't go as planned.

  To make all of the fixes, I need some time as some of the edits suggested are very large for which I need to look at it carefully. If this article gets passed which I hope, this will be my first AI cleanup to GA-class article which is nothing short of a milestone. Again thanks for not quick-failing this review and proceeding with it, Chiswick Chap :) Sddarealone (talk) 13:41, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

  Many thanks. Just an evolutionary biologist... There's no specific hurry as long as you're actively working on it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:50, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

OK, I think we've arrived. I fixed a few parameters and added some needed archives. I hope you're pleased with the result, which is certainly a lot more defensible. Good work! Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:13, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

A female cockchafer

• ... that Nikola Tesla as a child made one of his first "inventions" by harnessing four cockchafers (female pictured) to derive power?

• Source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/My_Inventions

• • ALT1: ... that in 1320, cockchafers (female pictured) were collected and killed because they could not withdraw from a town into a specially designated area in France? Source: https://www.buglife.org.uk/bugs/bug-directory/common-cockchafer/
  • ALT2: ... that the soil damage done by first-stage cockchafer larvae is only noticeable above a density of 1000 larvae per m²? Source: https://edepot.wur.nl/121073
  • Reviewed:

Improved to Good Article status by Sddarealone (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

Sddarealone (talk) 20:01, 10 August 2026 (UTC).

• The very first hook and ALT2 is still to undergo a review in the nom. I kindly request anybody to look into it as there's a timeout rule if the article is over two months old. Sddarealone (talk) 03:29, 15 September 2026 (UTC)
• Comment: A similar hook to ALT1 has been proposed for a separate DYK nomination. I was not aware of this DYK nom until going through this article's talk page. Apologies! Beta Beta Beta - talk 06:17, 11 August 2026 (UTC)
  • @Beta Beta Beta: No worries, it was rather surprising to me that the other article which I created just 2 days back would be nominated for DYK so quick :) A more funnier thing would be if both of us reviewed each other's DYKs Looks like I caught a COI loophole here; interestingly it's technically allowed as DYK rules don't oppose it. Sddarealone (talk) 10:06, 11 August 2026 (UTC)
    • Comment: This is much funnier without the image. You could probably do something for WP:DYKAPRIL Froglord (Finnfrog99) (talk) 08:41, 13 August 2026 (UTC)
      • I see where you're going. Here's a hook similar to ALT1 for DYKAPRIL and without the picture.

ALT3: ... that in 1320, cockchafers were punished to death as they could not go to a specially designated area in France?

Sddarealone (talk) 11:27, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

If we're doing DYKAPRIL, why not just ALT3a: "... that medieval cockchafers could face death sentences?" or ""... that, in 1320, cockchafers could face death sentences? — Chris Woodrich (talk) 03:23, 26 August 2026 (UTC)

Dont put a comma after 'that' Froglord (Finnfrog99) (talk)#

full review still needed Froglord (Finnfrog99) (talk) 12:19, 1 September 2026 (UTC)

• Guess I'll revisit this (and the comma after "that" is needed for dependent clauses). Article is new enough and long enough. Image-wise, I much prefer File:Hanneton commun (Melolontha melolontha) ♀, Parc de Woluwé, Bruxelles (51222810874).jpg, which is potentially FP level, as opposed to the cockchafer on the shoe. These are... quite different than the Junebugs I know, Mr. Tesla's remarks aside, but it does appear supported by the use of 'Maybug' in the lede. Overall, this looks good to go for the regular hooks. I'm not getting much of a desire from the nominator to run this as an AF hook. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 01:36, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

• Comment: Thanks for the review but I have a desire for every hook in this DYK nom to be reviewed. This includes the DYKAPRIL ones also. Unfortunately, my bad luck with DYKs don't seem to end :) Sddarealone (talk) 15:41, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

hi all, I'm reopening this per the quite extensive list of issues I've identified at Talk:Cockchafer#Suggestions for improvements. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure this meets GA criteria at the moment and we should probably hold off the DYK until there's a resolution one way or the other. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 14:22, 28 September 2026 (UTC) Pinging @Sddarealone, Crisco 1492, and TarnishedPath:. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 14:23, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Suggestions for improvements

Hi @Sddarealone: first of all, thanks for your work on this article and for the AI cleanup and other essential improvements you've done. However, I do have a few queries:

1. I'm concerned the lead is a bit rambling and over-detailed. I share Epicgenius's thoughts at the GA review that mention of M. hippocastani seems slightly arbitrary here, and certainly details on the latter's mating behaviour and lamellae are not needed in the lead.
2. I don't speak Latin, but I'm not convinced the translations of the Linnaeus and Fabricius sources are correct. For example, "mute, more like a shell" appears to be a mistranslation of muticus testaceus, which if I gather correctly refers to it being hornless and of a "testaceous" colour and, although Fabricius apparently does say that abundant cockchafers "foretell autumn diseases" ('autumnales morbos copiosior praenuntiat), this seems to be a miscellaneous observation rather than part of his taxonomic description, and the "autumn diseases" aren't identified so linking to influenza doesn't seem justified.
3. The "large and fan-like" antennae appears to refer to adult sexual dimorphism rather than to larvae.
4. Could the genetics passage be clarified? I don't understand what is meant by M. melolontha being "historically divergent" from M. hippocastani, or by one species having "lower genetic differentiation" than the other.
5. The green-leaf-volatiles section is confusing. As far as I can gather, GLVs are released by plants, but the article appears to describe it as a compound released by the adult beetle.
6. The sentence beginning "Climatic conditions influence..." is unclear. As written, it appears to say that higher humidity favours cockchafer occurrence but also causes larval desiccation. Is that what the source actually says?
7. The statement that "chemical pest control was later banned by the EU" doesn't appear to be supported by the cited source. The source refers specifically to a ban on aerial treatments rather than blanket bans, and talks separately about a lack of chemical products for soil treatment.
8. Could the sections on larvae/root feeding/crop damage be consolidated somewhat? The same aspects of the life cycle and feeding behaviour seem to be explained in several different sections.
9. The "Relationship with humans" section is a bit choppy, with several short or one-sentence paragraphs.
10. Quite a bit of copyediting of the text is needed, for grammar and mismatching singular/plural etc. e.g.:
    • "In its midgut, M. melolontha has enzymes which have been found to deactivate toxins by separating it from sugar"
    • "compounds such as sugar, amino acids and isoflavonoids which is released by plant roots"
    • "They will continue feeding [...] during its three larval stages"
    • "warmer temperatures and higher humidity level favouring their occurrence but adversely and severely affects the larvae"
    • "Other control methods which are now a common standard include but not limited to"
    • "Dexia rustica is a parasitic fly that uses M. melolontha larvae as their hosts"
    • "over 10 percent of the grub (or larvae) can be parasitised"
11. And finally, there's a contradiction about the soup. One section says reports of cockchafers being eaten or made into soup were found to be a myth, while a later section states in WP:WIKIVOICE that cockchafer soup is a European dish.

To be honest, I unfortunately don't think this is of GA quality right now and I'm minded to move to a WP:Good article reassessment, as the issues are quite extensive... @Epicgenius: as the reviewer, I'd be interested in your thoughts on these points as well. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 14:07, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

@Amakuru, appreciate the ping, but @Chiswick Chap was the reviewer for this article, not me. (Also CC @Phlsph7, who previously reviewed the article the first go-around and failed it.) – Epicgenius (talk) 14:21, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Ah, thanks @Epicgenius:, I must have seen your name somewhere else and got mixed up. Apologies for disturbing you!  — Amakuru (talk) 14:26, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

@Amakuru: I really appreciate the credit you've given me for the article but since this has happened before after doing DYK, I really don't want it to be pushed to WP:GAR. I can make the changes that you've listed rather than undo all my efforts that I took to make it a GA-class article as well as a successful DYK nom. I will be addressing them all by today. Sddarealone (talk) 14:31, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

Thanks @Sddarealone:, that sounds good. I'm certainly happy to give you the opportunity to address the issues above before considering GAR, so there's no rush on my account. Take your time and let me know when you've completed the work. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 14:45, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

@Amakuru: I've made all the necessary changes according to your suggestions.

As final remarks, 1. I wanted to state that the common cockchafer (M. melolontha) is genetically related to the forest cockchafer (M. hippocastani) for which there had been many studies. The studies show that they were once same but over time accumulated differences in morphology and thus became genetically divergent. Also among local populations or intra-species, M. melolontha has higher genetic differentiation (another example is Drosophila melanogaster or fruit fly) than M. hippocastani. 2. Also I disagree that the lede is not focused or lengthy but I have still made a few changes to keep it as a well-formed summary of the body.

If any more is to be done, ping me or else I'm looking forward to the DYK being kept at the earliest. Thanks :) Sddarealone (talk) 07:19, 29 September 2026 (UTC)