Narwhal

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An editor suggested me to go here before my first FAC. I love narwhals, and would like nothing more than to see this article Featured. Your review is much appreciated. 20 upper (talk) 05:11, 23 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

RoySmith

• "Adults typically average", you could say, "Adults are typically..." or "Adults average...". Saying both is redundant.
  • Fixed
• "can reach lengths of up to 3.1m". Likewise, "Can reach 3.1m" or "Can be up to 3.1m"
  • Fixed
• "in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae" More on the redundancy theme. You could just say, "In his 1758 Systema Naturae". If people click the link, they'll find out it's the 10th edition, but knowing that isn't important to understanding the subject of this article.
  • Done
• "The narwhal is most closely related to the beluga whale" Provide the scientific name of the beluga here, to make it easier to understand how this relationship is depicted in the phylogenetic tree you provide in the next section.
  • Done
• On the subject of the phylogenetic tree, it would be helpful to indicate which entries are extinct. I'm not familiar with the conventions around this, so I don't know the best way to do that.
  • Done
• "The Monodontidae are distinguished by their medium size" The source you use calls the narwhal "relatively small", and "slightly larger" than the beluga, so calling the entire family "medium size" seems incorrect.
  • Fixed
• "Although the narwhal and the beluga are classified as separate genera, with one species each, there is some evidence that they may, very rarely, interbreed." I think what you're getting at here is that the ability to interbreed is the definition of a species. A biologist would know that, but you're aiming for a broader audience, so a short explanation of this would be appropriate here.
  • Bettered
• "According to a phylogenetic study, around 4.98 mya, narwhals split from beluga whales". Non-technical readers may not know what "mya" is, so link to Myr. Also, a casual reading of this sentence makes it sound like the study was done 4.98 mya, which is probably not true, so rephrase to avoid that. Maybe, "A 2020 philogenetic study by Louis et al suggested that...". I think it's useful to say when the study was done; a study in 2020 would have used very different techniques than one in the 1800s, so give the reader a hint. Also, link "sister taxon" to Sister group.
  • Done

(this takes me up to "Description", I'll pick up some more later)

As a general comment, I find the writing style verbose. For example: Males, at an average length of 4.1 m (13.5 ft), are slightly larger than females, with an average length of 3.5 m (11.5 ft). could be rephrased as Males average 4.1 m (13.5 ft) long; females, 3.5 m (11.5 ft) in half the space with no loss of information. The reader can figure out for themselves that 4.1m is larger than 3.5, and decide if 17% is "slight". There's certainly no reason to repeat "an average length of"; it's obvious from the context. Rather than continue to call these out, I'll just suggest that you look at each sentence and see which words aren't pulling their weight.^[1]

• • Fixed

• "Total length in both sexes, excluding the tusk", Calling it "total" is strange, since it excludes something.
  • Fixed
• "Both these characteristics are shared" is preceeded by a list of more than two characteristics (mottled pattern, becoming more white with age, lack of dorsal fin, joined vertebrae), so "both" doesn't work here.
  • Fixed
• "Approximately 15% of females have the ability to grow tusks" I'm not sure what it means to "have the ability". Does that mean "15% of females have tusks"?
  • Fixed
• "The leading theory has long been", I'd add something like, "First proposed in xxxx by Joe Scientist".
  • Fixed
• "millions of nerve endings connecting seawater stimuli in the external ocean environment with the brain." Where else is the seawater going to be other than in the external ocean, and where else are the stimuli going to be connected to other than the brain?
• "The rubbing of tusks together by male narwhals is thought to be..." Rephrase in active voice: "Martin Nweeia suggested in his xxxx paper that..." Also, in a scientific article like this, it seems odd to be citing a general readership publication like The Independent. Better to find the underlying papers (i.e. Nweeia, etc) and cite those directly.
  • Fixed
• "much like the antlers of a stag, the mane of a lion, or the feathers of a peacock." does the source actually use those examples?
  • Fixed
• "2.3 GB" link to Base pair#Length measurements. Also, I don't know what the official rule is, but Base pair suggests "Gb" or "Gbp" instead of "GB"; I think "Gbp" would be preferred, as it makes it clear you're not talking about gigibytes.
  • Added
• "similar to many other mammals" clarify if that refers to just "21,785 protein-coding genes" or also "37.9% repetitive elements". Also, link the later to Repeated sequence (DNA).
  • Fixed
• "The genome will help to place the narwhal both into the evolutionary context of other whales" That seems like such an obvious statement, it need not be spelled out. On the other hand, see my earlier comment about aiming for a broad readership, so maybe it makes sense to leave it in.
  • Fixed
• "this behaviour may exhibit tusk use as a sensory and communication organ for sharing information about water chemistry sensed in tusk microchannels" this sentence in "Behavior and ecology" largely duplicates "The rubbing of tusks together by male narwhals is thought to be a method of communicating information about characteristics of the water each has travelled through" under "Tusk". Maybe that's OK, but consider if there's a reasonable way to say this just once.
  • Fixed
• " Dives to these depths last around 25 minutes, including the time spent at the bottom and the transit down and back from the surface". An egregious example of excess verbiage. What other possible time could be included in the dive other than the time to go down, the time you stay there, and the time it takes to come back up?
  • Fixed
• "Curiously, whales in the deeper northern wintering ground have access to deeper depths, yet make shallower dives." Who thinks it is curious? If the source says that, then, "Laidre et al consider it curious that...". If it's you, then it's WP:OR and should be removed.
  • Fixed
• "a relatively restricted and specialized diet" Relative to what?
  • Fixed
• "rocks, accidentally ingested" How do we know it was accidental? Maybe they like how rocks taste? Maybe it serves some function like birds eating gravel to use in their gizards?
  • Fixed
• "Due to the lack of well-developed dentition in the mouth" isn't dentation by definition in the mouth?
  • Done
• "Narwhals have a very intense summer feeding society." It's unclear what "society" means in this context. Also, does the source actually say "very intense" as opposed to just "intense"?
  • Fixed
• "One study tested 73 narwhals" -> "Finley, et all, tested..."
  • Changed
• "395 cm (12.96 ft) long", limit significant figures in the conversion to the same as the input.
  • Fixed
• "The species is thought to go through menopause" the linked article Menopause is specificlly about menopause in humans. Is there a better target to link to?
  • Fixed
• "Hybrids have been documented between the narwhal and beluga (specifically a beluga male and a narwhal female), as one, perhaps even as many as three, were killed and harvested during a sustenance hunt." something is garbled in this sentence.
  • Fixed
• " Narwhals primarily vocalise through "clicks", "whistles" and "knocks"," If these terms are direct quotes, there should be a citation at the end of the sentence. Likewise with "bangs" later on.
  • Fixed
• TIL about Amino acid dating (which you should link to). That's way cool, and learning about it made my day! Also, beware of WP:SEAOFBLUE.
  • Added
• Linking "aerobic" to Oxygen seems wrong.
  • Changed
• "Killer whales group together ... To escape predators such as orcas" Killer whales and orcas are (I believe) the same thing, so it's odd that you refer to them by both terms. Pick one.
  • Fixed

(I'll pick up with Distribution the next time)

• File:Belugas+Narwhals.png You should explain why there's nothing for narwhals before 1970-ish. I assume it's just that nobody was collecting the data before then?
  • Yes
• File:Narwhals 1997-08-01.jpg is such a low-quality image, it really doesn't add anything. I suggest finding a better image to replace it, or dropping it completely.
  • Replaced
• It would help if there was a map showing the habitat range. I've found the folks at WP:WPMAPS to be extremely helpful in developing maps for articles, or ((maplink)) can be used to produce useful maps for those of us with no artistic skills. The map you have in the infobox is OK as far as it goes, but ((maplink)) would let you label all the places you mention. On the other hand, I have no clue if maplink can handle polar projections.
• "The northernmost sightings of narwhal have occurred...", should that be "narwhals", plural?
  • Fixed
• 85th parallel north is not a useful article, I wouldn't bother with the wikilink.
  • Done
• "There are an estimated 12,500 whales in northern Hudson Bay, whereas around 140,000 whales reside in the Baffin Bay" whales of all species, or specifically narwhals? Same question for other usages of "whale" elsewhere in the article.
  • Fixed
• "Narwhals are one of the many species of mammals that are threatened by human actions." This seems at odds with the species being listed as "least-concern".
  • Removed
• "The species is also classified under COSEWIC" Classified as what category?
  • Added
• "Inuit are able to hunt this whale species legally, as discussed above." I can't find where it says this (Some subpage of WP:MOS I would guess) but you shouldn't refer to locations like "above", since layout varies depending on how the reader is reading the article. For non-sighted persons using screen readers, "above" has no real meaning.
  • Fixed
• "amount of sea ice has been markedly reduced" reduced compared to when?
  • Fixed
• " Vikings and other northern traders were able to sell them for many times their weight in gold" clarify whether "them" refers to narwhal tusks or to unicorn horns.
  • Fixed
• The long block quote starting with ""The narwhal is armed with a kind of ivory sword, or halberd, as some naturalists call it...." has the citation oddly separated from it. Convention is to place the citation at the end of the preceeding sentence, ie: "... would have to increase by five or ten times:[77]"
  • Fixed

That's all I've got. I know I nit-picked about a lot of things, but overall this is a well-written and interesting article. I'm looking forward to it showing up at WP:FAC. RoySmith (talk) 03:28, 24 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Oh, one more thing... Some of your images are missing alt text. WP:FACR doesn't strictly require them, but I strongly recommend you add them. RoySmith (talk) 23:05, 24 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

PS, you should check out iNaturalist for additional images (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=41459). Actually, this is a good place to look for photos of any animal or plant species. Not all images will have licenses we can use, but some will and it's certainly worth a look. RoySmith (talk) 01:29, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Done 20 upper (talk) 13:36, 26 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

One comment: I noticed that some books cited do not have pages numbers. In particular there are several cites to Greenland's Winter Whales: The beluga, the narwhal and the bowhead whale with no pages specified. Also, as a first time nominator you will be judged on source fidelity and paraphrasing. Just want to give that note one last time. Good Luck. LittleJerry (talk) 01:00, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Done spot checks through a large part of the article; I believe I fixed everything. 20 upper (talk) 15:12, 27 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Okay but you still have to take care of the page cites. LittleJerry (talk) 20:04, 27 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Done with that. 20 upper (talk) 21:21, 27 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I looked through cite 14 and it doesn't seem to support the line "They may have migrated to Arctic and sub-Arctic waters in response to changes in the marine food chain during the Pliocene". This is want I mean. LittleJerry (talk) 02:43, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@LittleJerry: You were the one who added it, 20 upper (talk) 15:09, 27 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Now I remember. I remember reading a press article about the study and it mentioned that. So I added the text and cited the original article instead, assuming it was in here. My mistake. LittleJerry (talk) 17:18, 27 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Here is the press source. [1] LittleJerry (talk) 17:23, 27 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Here's a recent paper on feeding. I think it is a much better cite than the SeaWorld website. Detecting narwhal foraging behaviour from accelerometer and depth data using mixed-effects logistic regression LittleJerry (talk) 20:11, 27 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Added. 20 upper (talk) 21:21, 27 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]