Talk:Zygiella x-notata

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 15 September 2020 and 17 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): SlyFox52. Peer reviewers: Prernask, Shaynarosenbloom, Sandeep525.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:32, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Student Edits

Overall, this article was very good. The main sections, Mating, Web, and Diet, are all well-developed with lots of properly cited information and the subcategories within them are well-titled and well balanced in terms of how much information is in each and in terms of how the information flows from one to the next.

In the section titled Description, I don’t think the last sentence belongs. The sentence “Zygiella x-notata are commonly found on human constructions, such as window frames, walls and fences, as well as on urban vegetations such as bushes or shrubs They are also typically found around boats and on docks throughout the world” would be better suited for the habitat and distribution section to explain what structures the spiders like to live on or around. Further, I think the description under habitat can be more detailed. Readers will likely want to know more about where the spider is originally from and what continents/regions it can be found in today.

Lastly, in your article you mention several researchers and their published work (According to Anotaux et al..., Bel-Venner et al. shows that… etc etc). I’m not sure you have to do this if you cite the source at the end of the sentence. Perhaps in order to aid the brevity and readability, you can take these introductions out.

Overall, your explanations of the spider mating behavior and web construction and prey capture was very clear and intelligible. I think this article has minimal edits that can be made to improve it as it stands. Sandeep525 (talk)

Hello! This article was well done and very informative. I moved the last part of your Description section (which was discussing where the spider can be found) and edited it into the Habitat section. I also made the distribution section a little clearer based on other information you had given in the article. Shaynarosenbloom (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:55, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

I really liked the details about web construction and how their web weaving technique is unique. I have added another subsection regarding web building flexibility under the web section. I also created a new section about this species being an invasive species in California and how it impacts humans. Prernask (talk) 02:59, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Zygiella x-notata/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

As with many/most(?) of the spider articles, lack of citations! For example: "Catching prey is instinctive in Zygiella in which it differs from other Araneidae, who have to learn this behavior." Who established this to be so? 212.202.28.67 (talk) 16:47, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 16:47, 22 December 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 11:20, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 19:46, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that male spiders of the species Zygiella x-notata use vibrational courtship signals when entering a female's web to alert her of his presence as a potential mate rather than potential prey? Source: Tarsitano, Michael; Kirchner, Wolfgang (2001). "Vibrational courtship signals of Zygiella x-notata" (PDF). British Arachnological Society. 12: 26–32.
  • ALT1:... that Zygiella x-notata spiders received their common name, the missing-sector orb-weaver, by spinning webs with an area free of silk spirals (not including the signal thread) in the upper half of the web? Source: Anotaux, M.; Marchal, J.; Châline, N.; Desquilbet, L.; Leborgne, R.; Gilbert, C.; Pasquet, A. (1 November 2012). "Ageing alters spider orb-web construction". Animal Behaviour. 84 (5): 1113–1121. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.08.017. ISSN 0003-3472.

5x expanded by SlyFox52 (talk). Self-nominated at 20:34, 20 October 2020 (UTC).

• @SlyFox52: This is an interesting and impressive article and is new enough and long enough. The hook facts are cited inline and either hook could be used, the article is neutral and I detected no copyright issues. This seems to be your first DYK nomination, so no QPQ is needed. Although the article is largely well-cited, the last sentence in a paragraph is often uncited. If a citation refers to several sentences, it should be after the last one rather than in the middle. And while you are looking at the references, the MOS suggests they should appear immediately after the sentence they apply to without an intervening space. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:04, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

• @Cwmhiraeth: Thank you for giving it a look! I went back and changed the citation formatting according to your recommendations. I hope this helps!. SlyFox52 (talk) 04:03, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you. I prefer the original hook but am approving both. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:09, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Behavioral Ecology Peer Review

I have condensed a couple sections into one (Juvenile + Adult Feeding --> Feeding, and Physiology --> Description), as some of the sections only consisted of a single sentence. I rearranged the image of the webs next to the "Webs" category, and I also made grammar, syntax, and punctuation edits. Overall, a very informative, well-written article. Dyklee (talk) 03:46, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I thought that Carolyn’s Wikipedia page for Zygiella x-notata was extremely thorough and had a lot of detail. There were minimal grammar errors and syntactical mistakes to correct since the article appeared to be very well edited. All of the sections were subdivided into smaller sub-headings specific to the topic discussed, which made it very easy to read. Of the few corrections I made, I was able to add some external links for terms, including “cephalothorax” and “orb weaver”. There was a header where I had to change “affects” to “effects”.

delanieludmir (talk) 23:26, 03 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi! I thought your article was really informative and had an extensive amount of information. I thought the web section was especially well-organized with appropriate subheader for each section. I changed a few grammatical details to help the language of the article be more concise and fluid such as changing the last sentence of Aggregations subsection. I thought it was more appropriate to place "predatory feeding behavior" and "vibratory signals" as subheaders of "feeding" so I applied accordingly. Overall, I thought it was organized nicely and the amount of images was adequate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidcho122 (talk • contribs) 05:42, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Behavioral Ecology Peer Review

I think that the Zygiella x-notata should be a GA. From all the articles I read for the class, I think that this one has a good about of information, is really well written. This article has the right amount of information for each of the sections/subsection, along with a good amount of references. Also, it has good information about the behavior of this species: Diet, Mating Behavior, Reproductive and Life Cycle, Social Behavior, Web Construction. I think these points can make it a good article! And how to forget that it was part of the Did you know section in November! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Salazarjhan (talk • contribs) 21:28, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Zygiella x-notata/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Esculenta (talk · contribs) 17:45, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I will start this review. First a few quick comments to see if the nominator is still around:

• overall, the article needs much more linking. Examples for the lead: caudal, sexual maturity, fecund
• Throughout the article, the species is referred to in the plural, which is incorrect. Examples: "Z. x-notata are a member"; "The adult female Zygiella x-notata have a body size"; "Z. x-notata are active all year".
• need a source for distribution in the "Population structure, speciation, and phylogeny" section. This section is improperly named, as none of these things are discussed in this section.
• what source was used for the taxonomic synonyms?
• the article is missing a section on taxonomy. Who named this species and in what year? Has there been any molecular phylogenetic studies? Are the subspecies still considered valid?
• section headings and subheadings should be in sentence case per MOS:HEADINGS

I will leave these starter comments for the nominator to address. Esculenta (talk) 17:45, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Esculenta Thank you for your comments. I will start editing to resolve them. SlyFox52 (talk) 18:21, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

@SlyFox52: Hi, many days have passed without any edits to the article ... are we doing this review? Esculenta (talk) 13:22, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Esculenta: Hi, sorry about that. I will complete the edits within the next 3 days. SlyFox52 (talk) 17:27, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

@Esculenta: Hello, I have gone through and edited to make plural references to Zygiella in the singular. I split the "Population structure, speciation, and phylogeny" section into a Common names section and a Taxonomy section. A citation was added to the taxonomy section along with a statement about the validity of the taxonomic status. I am still going through and adding more hyperlinks when needed. Could you specify what you mean in terms of "sentence case" for the headings? I looked through the MOS Headings page and am still unsure. Thanks!SlyFox52 (talk) 18:40, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I fixed them here. Esculenta (talk) 18:07, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

@Esculenta: Are you still reviewing this article? I would love for the nomination to go through. Thanks SlyFox52 (talk) 01:13, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, I had forgotten about this completely. Ok, I had a fresh look and have some more comments on the first few sections; will post more suggestions later. Esculenta (talk) 02:11, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

• "The adult female is easily recognized by the characteristic leaf-like mark on her posterior opisthosoma, caudal to the yellow-brown cephalothorax." this sentence is too complex for the average reader, and is especially out of place in the lead, which should be a friendly layperson introduction to the subject.

• "lending to the common name of spider as the "missing sector orb weaver." grammar needs to be fixed

• ”This species is distributed widely around the world, primarily inhabiting areas of human occupancy in northern Europe.” it is unclear to me how the word "primarily" fits in here. Is there an area it inhabits secondarily? Does the species have a cosmopolitan distribution? Is is in the Southern Hemisphere at all?

• "Common prey include flying insects" I don’t know if Pterygota is meant here, but if so that link could be piped to flying insects

• "males discontinue web production in search of fecund females." is "fertility" close enough in meaning to fecundity that we could swap in the more easy-to-understand term while still linking to the jargon term?

• I think lifespan would be a good addition to the lead.

• if you wanted, you could use a convert template to add metric -> imperial conversions to make it easier for some American readers. For example, 5–11 cm (2.0–4.3 in). I don't think it's strictly necessary, just good practice.

• the description section is quite laborious to read for a non-specialist because of all the technical terminology; I understand the difficulty of getting across technical material to the layperson. Try glossing (adding brief explanatory notes) more frequently. For example:

now: “In adult females, the carapace width is 1.5 mm”

post-gloss (with number conversion, too): “In adult females, the width of the carapace (upper section of the exoskeleton) is 1.5 mm (0.1 in).”

• "The prosoma is yellow-brown" Here prosoma links to cephalothorax, but then the word cephalothorax is used later; do they have the same meaning?

• "Zygiella x-notata was named by Clerck in 1757” Should add his first name and a link here. Any chance of including a citation to Clerck's original publication (and a link, if it's available online)?

• from what source did the list of synonyms in the taxobox originate? They should be mentioned, if only briefly, in the taxonomy section. Something like "Zygiella x-notata has been placed in several different genera in its taxonomic history, including Aranea, Zilla, Pseudometa, and Larinia." or something like that, with a citation.

No response from the nominator (nor Wikipedia activity) for 3 weeks ... am closing this review due to inactivity. Feel free to make the suggested article improvements above and re-submit for GAN. Esculenta (talk) 17:49, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Zygiella web.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:38, 4 March 2022 (UTC)