Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Newsletter/011

File:Tree of life by Haeckel.jpg

;{{big|February 2020—Issue 011}}

;{{huge|Tree of Life}}

;Welcome to the Tree of Life newsletter!

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|+Newly recognized content

{{icon|FA}} Segnosaurus by {{noping|FunkMonk}}

{{icon|FA}} The Goldfinch (painting) by {{noping|Jimfbleak}}

{{icon|GA}} Gharial by {{noping|BhagyaMani}}, reviewed by {{noping|Dunkleosteus77}}

{{icon|GA}} Steller's sea ape by {{noping|Dunkleosteus77}}, reviewed by {{noping|Hog Farm}}

{{icon|GA}} Poinsettia by {{noping|Enwebb}}, reviewed by {{noping|Starsandwhales}}

{{icon|GA}} Honeynut squash by {{noping|Ɱ}}, reviewed by {{noping|Ealdgyth}}

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|+Newly nominated content

{{icon|GAN}} Danuvius guggenmosi by {{noping|Dunkleosteus77}}

{{icon|GAN}} Denisovan by {{noping|Dunkleosteus77}}

{{icon|GAN}} Homo luzonensis by {{noping|Dunkleosteus77}}

{{icon|GAN}} Homo naledi by {{noping|Dunkleosteus77}}

{{icon|GAN}} Horseshoe bat by {{noping|Enwebb}}

{{icon|GAN}} Cimicidae by {{noping|Cwmhiraeth}} and {{noping|Chiswick Chap}}

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| style="text-align:center;" | News at a Glance

*The Great Britain and Ireland Destubathon began on 1 March and runs for the entire month. Expansion of any stubs related to Great Britain and Ireland is welcome, inclusive of taxa. There are also monetary prizes for winners of specific categories in the form of Amazon gift cards. PetScan could be useful here to find the intersection of Stub-class articles and other categories: [https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?labels_no=&cb_labels_no_l=1&cb_labels_any_l=1&edits%5Bbots%5D=both&interface_language=en&cb_labels_yes_l=1&project=wikipedia&search_max_results=500&language=en&categories=Biota%20of%20Ireland%0AStub-Class%20articles&edits%5Banons%5D=both&ns%5B0%5D=1&depth=20&edits%5Bflagged%5D=both&&doit= Biota of Ireland]; [https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?&cb_labels_yes_l=1&edits%5Banons%5D=both&interface_language=en&search_max_results=500&ns%5B0%5D=1&categories=Biota%20of%20Great%20Britain%0AStub-Class%20articles&depth=20&edits%5Bbots%5D=both&cb_labels_no_l=1&edits%5Bflagged%5D=both&language=en&project=wikipedia&cb_labels_any_l=1&langs_labels_any=&doit= Biota of Great Britain]; [https://petscan.wmflabs.org/?sitelinks_no=&edits%5Bbots%5D=both&categories=Biota%20of%20the%20Isle%20of%20Man%0AStub-Class%20articles&edits%5Bflagged%5D=both&cb_labels_any_l=1&language=en&search_max_results=500&depth=20&cb_labels_yes_l=1&edits%5Banons%5D=both&interface_language=en&cb_labels_no_l=1&project=wikipedia&ns%5B0%5D=1&templates_yes=&doit= Biota of the Isle of Man]

The WP:WikiCup just completed its first round. {{noping|Dunkleosteus77}} had the most points of any Tree of Life editor, with 5 GAs and 6 GARs. Other Tree of Life editors moving on to round two include {{noping|Enwebb}}, {{noping|Sainsf}}, {{noping|starsandwhales}}, {{noping|Guettarda}}, and {{noping|Casliber}}.
Some winners of the 2019 Wiki Science Competition have been announced. For the finalists and winners, see [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Science_Competition_2019/Winners here].

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|Rodząca dafnia.jpg|Daphnia giving birth (Poland)

|Colon 1.tif|Immunofluorescence staining of a mouse intestine, "Microscopy" (Australia)

|The Bat Scientists Lauri Lutsar.jpg|Bat scientist Lauri Lutsar determining the age of a bat, "People In Science" (Estonia)

|Close-up view of a bioluminescent beetle Elateroidea.jpg|Close-up view of a bioluminescent beetle Elateroidea, "Wildlife and Nature" (France)

|Флуоресценция коралла.jpg|Coral fluorescence, "General Category" (Russia)

|Paleoanthropologist at work.jpg|Paleoanthropologist at work, "People in Science" (Italy)

|Ammonoidea fósil.jpg|Ammonite fossil from Morocco, "General Category" (Spain)

|Yellow orange-tip male Ixias pyrene.jpg|Yellow orange-tip male (Ixias pyrene), "Wildlife and Nature" (India)

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| style="text-align:center;" | The spread of coronavirus across Wikipedia

With the outbreak of a novel coronavirus dominating news coverage, Wikipedia content related to the virus has seen much higher interest. Tree of Life content of particular interest to readers has included viruses, bats, pangolins, and masked palm civets. Viruses saw the most dramatic growth in readership: Coronavirus, which was the 105th most popular virus article in December 2019 with about 400 views per day, averaged over a quarter million views each day of January 2020. Total monthly viewership of the top-10 virus articles ballooned from about 1.5 million to nearly 20 million.

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|+ Top 10 WikiProject Virus articles in [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Viruses/Popular_pages&oldid=935033936 December 2019] vs. [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Viruses/Popular_pages&oldid=940372596 January 2020]

!December 2019

!January 2020

!Rank change

|Gastroenteritis

|Coronavirus

| {{font color|#28a528|+104}}

|HIV/AIDS

|2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak

|NA

|Norovirus

|2019 novel coronavirus

|NA

|Smallpox

|Severe acute respiratory syndrome

| {{font color|#28a528|+47}}

|Shingles

|Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)

|NA

|Measles

|Spanish flu

| {{font color|#28a528|+3}}

|HIV

|Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus

| {{font color|#28a528|+124}}

|Influenza

|List of epidemics

| {{font color|#28a528|+54}}

|Spanish flu

|Timeline of the 2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak

|NA

|Dengue fever

|Coronaviridae

| {{font color|#28a528|+490}}

Total views

|1,466,143‬

|19,845,246

File:Bat viewership on ENWP during coronavirus outbreak.png, Bat-borne virus, Horseshoe bat, and Bat as food from 15 Jan. 2020 to 10 Feb. 2020]]

From October 2019 – December 2019, the top ten most popular bat articles fluctuated among 16 different articles, with the December viewership of those 10 articles at 209,280. For [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mammals/Bats_Task_Force/Popular_pages&oldid=940728562 January 2020], three articles broke into the top-10 that were not among the 16 articles of the prior three months: :Bat as food, :Horseshoe bat, and :Bat-borne virus. Viewership of the top-10 bat articles spiked nearly 300% to 617,067 in January.

While bats have been implicated as a possible natural reservoir of SARS-CoV-2, an intermediate host may be the bridge between bats and humans. Pangolins have been hypothesized as the intermediate host for the virus, causing [https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&range=latest-60&pages=Pangolin a large spike] in typical page views of 2-3k each day up to more than 60k in a day. Masked palm civets, the intermediate host of SARS, saw a [https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&range=latest-60&pages=Masked_palm_civet modest yet noticeable spike in page views] as well, from 100 to 300 views per day to as many as 5k views per day.

With an increase in viewers came an increase in editors. In an interview, longtime virus editor {{noping|Awkwafaba}} identified the influx of editors as the biggest challenge in editing content related to the coronavirus. They noted that these newcomers include "novices who make honest mistakes and get tossed about a bit in the mad activity" as well as "experienced editors who know nothing about viruses and are good researchers, yet aren't familiar with the policies of WP:ToL or WP:Viruses." Disruption also increased, with extended confirmed protection (also known as the 30/500 rule, which prevents editors with fewer than 30 days tenure and 500 edits from making edits and is typically used on a very small subset of Wikipedia articles) temporarily applied to Coronavirus and still active on Template:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak data. New editors apparently seeking to correct misinformation continuously edited the article Bat as food to remove content related to China: [https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-51271037 Videos of Chinese people eating bat soup] were misrepresented to be current or filmed in China, when at least one such video was several years old and filmed in Palau. However, reliable sources confirm that bats are eaten in China, especially Southern China, so these well-meaning edits were mostly removed.

Another level of complexity was added by the fluctuating terminology of the virus. [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Viruses/Article_alerts&oldid=940398041 Over a dozen] moves and merges were requested within WikiProject Viruses. To give you an idea of the musical chairs happening with article titles, here are the move histories of two articles:

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2

Began as Wuhan coronavirus on 9 January
Moved to 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) on 16 January
Moved to Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) on 19 January
Moved to 2019 novel coronavirus on 9 February
Moved to Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 on 18 February (current name)

2019–20 coronavirus outbreak

Began as 2019-2020 China pneumonia outbreak on 5 January
Moved to 2019–20 China pneumonia outbreak on 5 January
Moved to 2019-20 outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Wuhan, China on 15 January
Moved to 2019-20 outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) on 15 January
Moved to 2019–20 outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) on 15 January
Moved to 2019–20 outbreak of novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV on 23 January
Moved to 2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak on 23 January
Moved to 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak on 18 February (current name)

Awkwafaba noted that "the main authorities, WHO and ICTV, don't really have a process for speedily naming a virus or disease." Additionally, they have different criteria for naming. They said, "I remember in a move discussion from the article then called Wuhan coronavirus that a virus name cannot have a geographical location in it, but this is a WHO disease naming guideline, and not an ICTV virus naming rule. ICTV may have renamed Four Corners virus to Sin Nombre orthohantavirus but there are still plenty of official virus species names that don't abide by WHO guidelines."

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| style="text-align:center;" | February DYKs

{{main page image|image=Tistelsnultrot - Orobanche Reticulata (28).jpg|caption=Thistle broomrape|width=90}}

{{main page image|image=Shelton oak.jpg|caption=Painting of the Shelton Oak|width=x150}}

{{main page image|image=Acer diabolicum 9 (medium crop).jpg|caption=Female A. diabolicum flowers with curled stigmas|width=160}}

... that juvenile ornate surgeonfish are quite different in colouring from the adult fish? (1 February)
... that Quarry Moor is one of the few locations in England where the rare parasitic plant thistle broomrape (example pictured) grows? (2 February)
... that the hollow Shelton Oak (pictured) near Shrewsbury was so big that a party of eight could dance a quadrille inside it? (3 February)
... that growth in the brown seaweed Zanardinia typus occurs at the base of the hairs that grow around the edge of the frond? (4 February)
... that entomologist Karim Vahed led the team that found a cricket species in which the testes accounted for 14 percent of the insect's body mass? (4 February)
... that the ant Acropyga exsanguis shares its nest with several species of mealybug, including Geococcus coffeae? (4 February)
... that no fungi or algae are listed as endangered or threatened by the Illinois Endangered Species Protection Board? (5 February)
... that the blue pitta is a shy, secretive bird, but will respond to a recording of its call? (5 February)
... that Acer diabolicum, the devil maple, gets its scientific and common names from the curly stigmas of its flowers (pictured)? (6 February)
... that the alga Acetabularia acetabulum (pictured) resembles a green parasol? (7 February)
... that Bishop Monkton Ings in North Yorkshire, England, provides a habitat to the semi-parasitic marsh lousewort? (9 February)
... that although the bird of paradise fly was first described from an Angophora tree, it is quite likely that this is not the insect's host plant? (11 February)
... that Hack Fall Wood in North Yorkshire, England, hosts the rare lemon slug (example pictured)? (13 February)
... that the hairy sea cucumber has long tube feet on its dorsal surface, giving it a furry appearance? (14 February)
... that Diego (pictured) "had so much sex he saved his species"? (15 February)
... that common lousewort owes its name to the belief that livestock that ate it would become lousy? (16 February)
... that groups of social feather dusters sway in unison in the water current and retract into their tubes at the slightest disturbance (16 February)
... that the copepod Mesocyclops longisetus can be used in the biological control of mosquitoes? (17 February)
... that the specific name of Pterophorus pentadactyla, commonly known as the white plume moth, comes from the Greek for 'five fingers'? (22 February)
... that the laciniate conch (shell pictured) is able to flip itself off the seabed using its muscular foot? (25 February)

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|Acetabularia meditarranea.jpg|A. acetabulum caps

|Malacolimax tenellus.jpg|Lemon slug

|Galápagos tortoise (4229030962).jpg|Diego in 2009

|Sinustrombus sinuatus, Bohol, Philippines.jpg|Five views of a laciniate conch shell

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