Talk:Fauna of Australia/Archive 1

message: I agree that spiders and other arthropods might be better of in their own list.
But in Australian fauna are we including - 
*Animals exclusively endemic to australia (or possibly own list, or have some sort of identifier in this list)
*Any animal endemic to Australia
*Any animal that can be found in Austrlia
*Animals that migrate seasonal in Australia (including whales oddly missing from this list)
I have several Animal texts, including a few Aus specific ones. So I think this might become my first pet-project after my exams in a few weeks.
--ZZ 01:35, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  What to include? 

message: List up this well. Then move lists to list pages, and make this a page with a pragraph or two on each category of Australian animals. Explaining broad generalities on each group, and what makes them unique from other groups - this is nota  list of... page, but it should probably start out that way.--ZayZayEM 14:07, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Current objective

message: I am currently testing an automated Wikipedia link suggester. Ran it on this article, here are the results:
* Can link fresh-water: ...s==  Australia has both salt-water and fresh-water species of crocodiles and turtle...
* Can link Clarence River: ...s king brown *Rough-scaled snake or Clarence River snake...
Notes: The article text has not been changed in any way; Some of these links may be wrong, some may be right; You can leave positive feedback or negative feedback; Please feel free to delete this section from the talk page.  -- Nickj 08:22, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible Wiki Links

message: *Wasn't the Irrawady confirmed to actually be the Snubfin a few weeks back? Its the other way around, the snubfin was been shown to be a seperate species from the Irrawady in June/July.
*Dugong in Torres Strait? Yes it is and its also found off the Great Barrier Reef.
--nixie 10:13, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay. Thanks nixie. -- Cyberjunkie | Talk 10:26, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Questions

message: Nixie asked for my opinion on the article, and I thought I'd post it here instead of on her talk page.  It's probably good enough to pass FAC already, but I think these things should be addressed:
*What's a "general reference"?
*Ideally, more things would be cited (the whole inverts section only has two footnotes)
**General references are my attempt to rationalise the number of refs, I have read a number of source documents without citing anything directly from them, so in that way they they're similar to a bibliography, they are also texts/websites that peeople could use to verify anthing in the article. I agree with one of the FAC commenters that people are severly overdoing inline cites, for example everwhere I have mentioned a number of species within a genera or a family I have used the Australian Faunal Directory to verify the number of extant species, it would be ridiculous to have 30 inline cites in each of those circumstances. I have only used cites where information may not be generally understood.--nixie 07:01, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The absurdity is in the caption for the Spotted Quoll. A great deal of italicizing must be done for all the formal taxonomical names, as in Dasyurus maculatus. As for the common names, is there a standard for for capitalization? My own instinct is to lower case them unless an otherwise proper noun is being used, as in "Sydney funnel-web spider and the red-back spider".  --FourthAve 14:00, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The convention for birds is always to capitalise. For mammals in wikipedia it seems to have become the convention when refering to specific species. I don't know about other groups, except fish which aren't ever capitalised. Sabine's Sunbird 14:57, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sure it is usually Yellow-bellied Anything, Sabine's Sunbird 18:18, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thats the way capitalisation on Wikipedia is going at the moment, so I have used caps for individual species, (Red Kangaroo), and lowercase for terms that apply to groups of species like (kangaroos).--nixie 07:01, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "peer review" from Dave 

message: :User:Ambush Commander/LinkFix dump
================================================================================
LinkFix Dump
Fauna of Australia
2005-08-31.16-47-10
================================================================================
2   Reptiles -> Reptile
2   Amphibians -> Amphibian
2   Placental -> Placentalia
2   Venomous -> Venom
4   Indigenous Australian -> Australian Aborigines
9   Arid -> Desert
12  Wolf -> Gray Wolf
22  Arboreal -> Tree
22  Nocturnal -> Nocturnal animal
26  Bettong -> Potoroidae
26  Potaroo -> Potoroidae
26  Tail -> DISAMBIG
26  Bipedal -> Biped
30  Chiroptera -> Bat
30  Rodentia -> Rodent
30  Genera -> Genus
30  Rattus -> Rat
32  Lepus capensis -> Cape Hare
32  Sus scrofa -> Domestic pig
32  Domestic Goat -> Domestic goat
34  Ziphiidae -> Beaked whale
34  Pinnipedia -> Pinniped
38  Ratites -> Ratite
40  Bird of Paradise -> Bird of paradise
42  Bird of Prey -> Bird of prey
48  Tree Frog -> Tree frog
48  Hylidae -> Tree frog
51  Scincidae -> Skink
53  Fierce Snake -> Taipan
54  Gekkonidae -> Gecko
54  Agamidae -> Agamas
54  Scincidae -> Skink
54  Blue-tongue lizard -> Blue-tongued lizard
56  Fierce Snake -> Taipan
56  Hydrophiidae -> Sea snake
59  Respiration -> DISAMBIG
60  Percichthyidae -> Temperate perch
60  Murray cod -> Murray Cod
60  Rainbow Trout -> Rainbow trout
62  Bony fish -> Osteichthyes
62  Angelfish -> DISAMBIG
64  Heterodontidae -> Bullhead shark
64  Bull Shark -> Bull shark
81  Platyhelminthes -> Flatworm
89  Nematoda -> Roundworm
93  Mollusca -> Mollusk
97  Annelida -> Annelid
101 Onychophora -> Velvet worm
105 Crustacea -> Crustacean
113 Insecta -> Insect
117 Echinodermata -> Echinoderm
127 Insecta -> Insect
127 Mollusca -> Mollusk
127 Insects -> Insect
127 Coleoptera -> Beetle
131 Oligochaetes -> Oligochaeta
133 Cherax tenuimanus -> Marron
135 Ctenophora -> Ctenophore
135 Echinodermata -> Echinoderm
135 Brachiopoda -> Brachiopod
135 Mollusca -> Mollusk
137 Brachyura -> Crab
137 Amphipod -> Amphipoda
137 Ostracoda -> Ostracod
147 As of 2002 -> 2002
151 Extinct -> Extinction
174 CSIRO -> [[Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research
Organisation]]
# DONE
There was an error midway through the dump, so one link was not checked. Beware! — Ambush Commander(Talk) 21:27, August 31, 2005 (UTC)
*Done. --nixie 10:56, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  LinkFix dump 

message: Before there was a logical problem ('because'). Now I'm not sure that it's any better. Any ideas? I suppose I'm thinking along the lines of a somewhat grander, bigger statement at the opening, pointing out uniqueness, diversity, and the exotic nature of much of the fauna. What thinkest thou? Tony 05:49, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The lead definately needs some more drama. --nixie 06:09, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  My version of the opening sentence still a problem 

message: How do people feel about using this initialism to stand for 'million years ago'; it's not uncommon in fields that involve the frequent use of the phrase. But would it jar? Tony 10:03, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  MYA? 

message: MoS for animals says, basically, caps for species common names - lowercase for a name that applies to a group of species, I had them all in this format.--nixie 12:19, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The format that was initially in place was correct. Further to that, many links worked only with the capitalisation (indicating a need for redirects), and are now red links in lower-case.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 12:52, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Names

message: Sorry to cause extra work with the caps. Tony 14:58, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We could just replace "exotic" with "megadiverse", and thus erase any ambiguity the word might have brought. Okay, so that's a bit of a shallow point ;). It's just I'd prefer to keep "megadiverse".--Cyberjunkie | Talk 13:24, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't see a problem with merging "Human Impact" and "Conservation" under the latter's heading. But I'm not fussed either way.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 05:10, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

text: ANU has a subscription, I dread to think how much it would cost an individual user, but you should be able to access the details from here  --nixie 05:14, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Um, http://www.oed.com/. It's a subscription thing, but. Thankfully, I have my very own OED ;-).--Cyberjunkie | Talk 05:16, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mea culpa 

message: Yes, they even occur in Tasmanian, in the inland of Australia when there is water and always around the coast.--nixie 01:52, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Pelicans

message: I saw this in the news Monday, Australia apparently has no offical faunal emblem (the red kangaroo and emu are just heraldic animals). It seems like it's worth a mention in this article, but I don't know where to put it, I don't want to start section on Australian Fauna in popular culture. --nixie 05:37, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Emblem

message: Why is nutrient-poor soil associated with endemicism? Tony 02:38, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  opening 

message: Opening sentence—I've been worried about the use of 'animals'. Are fish and birds that? 'Comprise' might be nicer than 'compromises', to throw the emphasis on the many parts rather than the whole, here. 'Continent' excludes today's Tasmania.
Existing: 'The fauna of Australia comprises a huge variety of unique animals; some 83% of mammals, 89% of reptiles, 90% of fish and insects and 93% of amphibians that inhabit the continent are found nowhere else.'
What about: 'The fauna of Australia comprise a huge and unique variety; some 83% of its mammals, 89% of reptiles, 90% of fish and insects and 93% of amphibians are found nowhere else.' Not sure ... Tony 00:26, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Animal describes anything that isn't a plant or one of the other weird primitive things like protists, fungi and so on- it also covers birds and fish which otherwise aren't exclusively mentioned. --nixie 00:30, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Climate change probably had the biggest effect on the environent generally including the flora, which had a indirect effect on the fauna - the types of habitat, food, and so on that were available whould have effected the type of fauna that could exist in a particular location, which may have led to local extinstions or radiations of various fauna.--nixie 00:43, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

text: You'll have to trust me cause the texts are at home so I can't give direct quotes, but it is one of the factors cited in most introductory chapters on the fauna of Australia. There was almost no climate change from the Mezozoic til 15 million years ago- thats why there are so many wacky species left over from Gondwana (that don't occur elsewhere) - then a good chunk of Australia got arid so there was speciation here that didn't happen elsewhere to deal with that.--nixie 01:51, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Now I see what you're getting at, I'll tinker with it.--nixie 02:24, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  another run-through 

message: Peta, it's a geologically involved account, and readers may lose track of when each period was, even though you specify the years on first occurrence. I wonder whether there's a diagrammatic representation of the geological periods on Wikicommons, or in another related article, that could be used towards the top of the article. Tony 08:20, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Besides it seems a little off-topic; we're discussing fauna extensively, not epochs. By the way nixie, that was Skyring who just popped by - . --Cyberjunkie | Talk 10:18, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  suggestion for a diagram 

message: Why is the bit on Carp raising turbidity constantly removed?  The Carp's very serious impacts in lowland Murray-Darling waterways are two-fold: 1) destruction of submergent macrophytes ("water weed") 2) permanently elevated levels of turbidity (yes, lowland Murray-Darling waterways regularly had periods of great clarity in summer/autumn before the advent of Carp).  I know what I am talking about here, SO PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE THE MENTION OF TURBIDITY AGAIN.  Thanks.  Codman 10:05, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Codman, please refrain from using capitals to express your wishes. It is considered extremely offensive: the online equivalent to yelling. Also, place new comments in chronological order; that is, post new comments at the bottom of a talk page.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 12:15, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Carp and turbidity