Talk:Xenoturbella bocki

Xenoturbella bocki has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. Review: February 18, 2019. (Reviewed version).

A fact from Xenoturbella bocki appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 21 February 2018 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that the marine paradox worm may resemble the common ancestor of humans and mollusks? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2018/February. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Xenoturbella bocki.

This article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Animals Low‑importance Xenoturbella bocki is within the scope of WikiProject Animals, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to animals and zoology. For more information, visit the project page.AnimalsWikipedia:WikiProject AnimalsTemplate:WikiProject Animalsanimal articles Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. WikiProject Animals To-do: edit history watch purge Here are some Open Tasks : Copyedit: Merge: GLAM/ARKive donated texts into articles about endangered species. Improve: Photoperiodism, Tool use by non-human animals, Omnivore, Animal suicide, Sphaerium beckmani (a species in family Sphaeriidae), Requests: Mammals: Invertebrates: Campocraspedon Fishes: Zaniolepis frenata Merge: GLAM/ARKive donated texts into articles about endangered species. Expand: Junqueira cow, Atka mackerel Nominate and vote: Science collaboration of the month, Article Improvement Drive, WikiProject Animals Collaboration Marine life (inactive) This article is within the scope of WikiProject Marine life, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.Marine lifeWikipedia:WikiProject Marine lifeTemplate:WikiProject Marine lifeMarine life articles

This review is transcluded from Talk:Xenoturbella bocki/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Dunkleosteus77 (talk · contribs) 17:49, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• You put some ecology stuff in the Description section. You should limit the Description section to anatomy and split off an Ecology section for things like diet and hunting behavior or symbiosis or burrowing   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:49, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• There seems to be a lot of unnecessary and unexplained big words here (like "opening is anterior to the circumferential furrow, on the ventral side of the animal")
• You only talk about taxonomy in the lead, I think you can add some more on anatomy and ecology. Also, the taxonomy stuff in the lead needs to also be said in the Taxonomy section   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  17:49, 31 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I believe I've addressed most of these concerns with my recent edits. The only one I've made no attempt to fix is the dense anatomical terminology. I intend to return to this and try to fix it, but I don't have time until at the earliest this Sunday. Hopefully I will get back to this then. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 02:59, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think I have simplified the language. Do you think that the article is now ready for GA status? --HighFlyingFish (talk) 04:04, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Whatever is said in the lead needs to be said in the body of the article. Sixten Bock and Einar Westblad need to be discussed in the body, and you should give their occupations and nationalities   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  04:42, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Naming section, start off by saying that the species is called Xenoturbella bocki, say why, what it means in whatever language it derives from, and then move onto synonyms   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  04:42, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For the life of me I can't find what Xenoturbella means. Its in latin, and I know someone who studies Latin, so I could ask them. The roots would also be easy to look up. However, I worry that either of those is WP:OR. I haven't been able to find a source that says "Xenoturbella means". --HighFlyingFish (talk) 05:20, 23 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

you can just look up the roots. It happens quite often that authors don’t break down the etymology   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  16:02, 23 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Give Israelsson's first name, occupation, and nationality   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  04:42, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Don't use spaces with dashes   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  04:42, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• "due to the possibility that, as a deuterostome, it may be more closely related to humans than other, more complex, invertebrates such as lobsters," this isn't worded right I don't think. Are you trying to say that if it is classified as a deuterostome, then it's more closely related to humans? If not, why's it a possibility?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  04:42, 6 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• "X. bocki was the first species discovered in the genus Xenoturbella," that's not how you say it because that implies the genus existed before the species was found   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  01:43, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• You should state Platyhelminthes is a phylum and turbellarians is a class, and you're probably gonna have to restructure that sentence to avoid repetition   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  01:43, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• "this is understood to have come from misclassification due to contaminating DNA from its food," you might wanna say it was considered a bivalve by a genetic study from a certain year (I'm assuming here) and define "Early classifications" while your at it (use a year).
• Explain what deuterostomes and protostoma are on first mention   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  01:43, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• "Recent studies support the later," we don't use "recent" because that's liable to change in a little while (give the year of the study at least) and did you mean "latter"?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  01:43, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• There seems to be a lot of missing dates and studies (for example, you seem to imply there's a study out there published in 1999 by an Israelsson that tried to separate off a new species). I assume this worm is on the obscure side of life so there should be maybe a max of 20 studies, might as well find them all, see what they have to say   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  01:43, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Good points. Will do soon. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 09:32, 7 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So where are we at?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  20:59, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think with my recent edits the only thing left from your comments is to expand on the "study out there published in 1999 by an Israelsson that tried to separate off a new species". I found the original study, but I haven't had time to read it yet. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 02:24, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Ok I think that's everything? What do you think about it now? --HighFlyingFish (talk) 18:44, 6 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Instead of saying "epithelium" do you wanna say "skin"?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:43, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Description needs a ref at the end   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:43, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• You need to make sure everything you say in the lead is said in the body of the article, you completely missed Westblad   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:43, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• ref no. 14 displays an error
• Make sure all scientific names (even in titles of refs) are italicized   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  02:43, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I'll get to the latest batch of reccomendations in a bit, but first I have a question: Why did you remove these two lines: "This animal lacks an anus" and "The "mouth" opening is anterior to the circumferential furrow"? Both seem like notable facts about the animal's anatomy. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 20:38, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

it’s not that the animal lacks the anus, it’s that the anus is the same opening as the mouth   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:02, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Reliable sources do not agree with that interpretation. For example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4657256/ this article says "Due to its simple morphology, which lacks a centralized nervous system, coelom, anus, or reproductive organs, its phylogenetic position has long remained obscure". Our page on anus gives the definition as "The anus (from Latin anus meaning "ring", "circle") is an opening at the opposite end of an animal's digestive tract from the mouth" which necessitates a mouth. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 18:38, 9 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well you know more about the worm than I do, go on ahead and add it back, but the sentence "The 'mouth' opening is anterior to the circumferential furrow" means absolutely nothing to me   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:43, 9 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So I think your overthinking "circumferential furrow". Based on this https://doi.org/10.1186/s40851-015-0018-z I'm pretty sure it is literally a furrow on the circumference of the body, in the middle of the body. Granted, it has now occured to me that I essentially wrote "The mouth is at the front" in complicated language with the original sentance, so I think I will put in a rephrased version. Also, I regret that we did not have a gloriously WP:LAME edit war arguing back and forth over the definition of an anus ;-). --HighFlyingFish (talk) 03:48, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• You should try making or request an English version of that diagram, but it's not mandatory for GA   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:43, 9 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• "Israelsson believed X. westbaldi to be a distinct, smaller species," you never mentioned Israelsson before, and it's in the Naming section so it doesn't say what it needs to say. I'd word it as, "A second, now invalid, species, X. westbaldi, is named after Swedish zoologist Einar Westblad, who collected the first specimen"   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:43, 9 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Do any of the sources have a cladogram?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:43, 9 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Description, Ecology, Range, and Reproduction sections all lacks refs at the end of the paragraph   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:43, 9 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• For the image in the taxobox, you need to say what all the symbols mean   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:43, 9 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Done except the Russian diagram I think. I can actually translate that, but making the new image and translating some of the more technical terms on it will take more time than I have right now. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 05:11, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

you can just download the file onto MS paint or GIMP or whatever you have, put text boxes over the Russian, then upload the new version. It should be pretty simple, and for the translation, the image cites a source which I assume has a different version of the same diagram that you can use   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  05:42, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• ”At least one specimen that has been proposed to show a consumed bivalve larvae is preserved in the Swedish Natural History Museum” you’re mixing up your singulars and plurals, and why exactly is it proposed to show as opposed to just showing?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  05:42, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The source (10.1186/s40851-015-0018-z) its from is weirdly comitted to hedging on this. The first sentance of the diet paragraph says "Only circumstantial evidence has been reported for the diet of Xenoturbella". Later it does say "A bivalve trochophore-like larva has been reported within adult Xenoturbella" but I want to reflect the source's hedging and uncertainty in the article, especially because it says "Despite all the circumstantial evidence, Xenoturbella, even specimens starved for several months, were not attracted to any of the supposed food.". --HighFlyingFish (talk) 02:33, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

in that case, you wanna say something about the starved specimens   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  03:15, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I could. It seems odd to me to emphasize a single experiment in wikipedia, but its certainly a interesting result. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 17:41, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There's no rule against it, and it's pretty common to give some detail to specific experiments especially on rather obscure topics   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:13, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Reproduction missing a ref at the end   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  05:42, 11 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• For the cladogram picture, specify which model's on the left and which is on the right   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  21:13, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Ok I think that covers the latest batch. --HighFlyingFish (talk) 05:57, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This wouldn't be an unimportant worm if it were our first/closest ancestor. ^[1] Not sure how to include that in the article, though. This could be important to somebody studying this worm.

"First" in this case doesn't mean "closest", it means that it is the oldest so far discovered. The article does say "if it is classified as a deuterostome, it would be more closely related to humans than other, more complex, invertebrates such as lobsters.[5]" and also "A 2016 analysis of many genetic data sets supports the latter, and suggests that, like Xenoturbella bocki, the common ancestor of protostomes and deuterostomes likely had one opening" but related is different from ancestor, and resembles the ancestor is also distinct form is the ancestral species. The article these news reports are referring to is here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23443565 "Xenoturbella bocki exhibits direct development with similarities to Acoelomorpha" (because this https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/uog-cwk032713.php is the press release that the Atlantic article refers to and the DOI given there is 10.1038/ncomms2556.l which I think matches that article's DOI). If I understand the Nature Communications article correctly, its saying the latest common ancestor resembled Xenoturbella, which I think our page already says. Am I misreading the N-Com article? Is there more to it? --HighFlyingFish (talk) 07:39, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]