Talk:Pennatomys/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: J Milburn (talk) 22:39, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to tell me to go away, but you're good to work with, write well and write interesting articles. As such, I'll review this too. J Milburn (talk) 22:39, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks; looking forward to your review. This one is likely to be my next FAC. Ucucha 22:52, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

• "Samuel Turvey and coworkers" seems an odd phrase. Perhaps explain who Turvey is? List the "coworkers"?
  • Zoologist, added. I'd prefer not to list the other authors (they're in the reference list and the taxobox, though); long lists of names aren't especially relevant to Pennatomys.
• "only occurring on islands" Which islands? Any islands?
  • The Galápagos, Fernando de Noronha, Tres Marías, Jamaica, Lesser Antilles. It doesn't especially matter which islands; the point is that clade D (with ~30 living species) contains >10 island endemics, whereas there are only a few among the >400 other species of Sigmodontinae.
• "bears week crests" I assume you mean "bears weak crests"?
  • Oops.
• "toothrows" Can that be a single word? OED Online doesn't know it.
  • It's always written as one word in the literature.
• Why do you put "Nectomys subclade" in quotes all the time?
  • No good reason; removed.
• I take it there is nothing that can be said about any part of the animal other than the skull?
  • They did get some postcranial bones, but didn't describe them.
    • Annoying. Perhaps mention that some other bones have been found? J Milburn (talk) 14:34, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
• "Amerindian" Link?
  • Linked in an earlier section.
• In "Range and history", could we have links to the ages and locations?
  • I linked the places, but don't see much of a point in linking the ages; no one reading this article is going to be helped much by the knowledge that there was a revolt in the Byzantine Empire in 790.
• "George Percy reported on the presence of "great store of Conies" on Nevis around 1606," What are Conies?
  • "A term of endearment for a woman", according to the OED. It is originally a term for rabbits, but was also applied to other kind-of-similar animals, like hyraxes (in the KJV, apparently) and American rodents such as hutias (cf. Jamaican Coney), agoutis, and guinea pigs.
• "respectively Saint Kitts and Nevis," I've never seen "respectively" used before the listed items
  • Changed.
• Category:Monotypic mammal genera? Category:Extinct mammals? Category:Fauna of the Lesser Antilles is perhaps appropriate, perhaps not as the species is extinct- your call.
  • All added.

As you're hoping to take this to FAC, here are a few more thoughts-

• I'm personally interested by the human side of things- any more on those rats being eaten? Any theory as to why the species is now extinct?
  • Turvey et al. (2010) don't say much on specifically this species, but make some general points, which I've added.
• There's no mention of what they may have eaten. Possibly a related point, the thought about them being semi-aquatic is interesting; Do the authors make the jump and suggest that this species is semi-aquatic? What does this tell us? Are we talking fresh water or salt water?
  • They actually say West Indian rice rats were probably not semiaquatic; the morphology of Megalomys suggests it was arboreal. Living semiaquatic oryzomyines such as the marsh rice rat will enter salt water, though—which is unlikely to have put them at a disadvantage for colonizing oceanic islands.
    • Anything reliable sources have hypothesised about the species' behaviour/the way it would live would be a great addition to the article. As I say, this was just a thought for pushing towards FAC, so I'm not gonna hold back GA status on the issue. J Milburn (talk) 14:34, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
• How big is a "medium-sized oryzomyine"?
  • The source isn't any more specific. The toothrow measurement suggests it was slightly bigger than Sigmodontomys aphrastus, which reaches a head-and-body length of ~150 mm—but quite a bit smaller than Lundomys (the largest living oryzomyine), with an average HBL of 193 mm. Ucucha 14:13, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Generally great, as usual. Sources good, no stability or image problems. I'm gonna place it on hold for now. J Milburn (talk) 23:14, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed review! Ucucha 14:13, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Everything I thought needed dealing with before GA status has been dealt with, so I'm happy to promote. I've left some more quick thoughts above to have a think about with a view to FA status (and, as ever, a picture would be a great addition, but I appreciate the difficulty), but I'm happy to promote now. Nice work, and good luck! J Milburn (talk) 14:34, 3 January 2011 (UTC)