Talk:Zygoballus sexpunctatus

Note for GA Reviewer

This article is extremely short, however, it includes every piece of information that has ever been written about the species in the English language (going back to the original 19th century description). Kaldari (talk) 18:36, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

The article failed currently, because it does not cover the subject sufficiently. Google alone hits over 30 straight sites about z. sexpunctatus, which could provide more material and sources. Once the article is expanded and sectioned out enough to reach at least C-class, you should re-nominate it. Three of the main section titles for organism articles include Taxonomy, Discovery and history and Habitat and distribution. You and other editors may consider organizing the article into these key sections, then expand and source everything as needed.-- Rcej (talk) 06:28, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I managed to find one additional reliable source that had unique information. I've added that info to the article and divided it into sections. I also created a distribution map. I'm really at a loss for anything else I can do to improve the article. Kaldari (talk) 14:49, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

If you don't want to take my word for it, the Global Species Database of Salticidae lists Z. sexpunctatus as "State of knowledge: Incomplete"[1] Compare against Z. nervosus, Z. rufipes, Z. electus or Z. incertus which are listed as "State of knowledge: Accepted" (yet are still obscure enough to lack articles). This species simply hasn't been studied sufficiently enough to create a more extensive article. Kaldari (talk) 19:27, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

The introduction should be a summary of the article. The current intro is too short to be considered a summary. --Ettrig (talk) 15:14, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I was having a hard time figuring out how to summarize any of the info without just reiterating specific details. Any suggestions? Kaldari (talk) 16:26, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I have added "Little is known of its behaviour and ecology." - we need some more negatives, to clarify that it is not an incomplete article. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:38, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot to transclude the below: Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:40, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll see how we can review this sort of article for GA status. I've had some experience in plants and fungi with extremely meagre information. Let's see what can be buffed up. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:32, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

• Okay, I know that not much is known but the lead is too small.
  • Any suggestions on this would be appreciated. Kaldari (talk) 21:21, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• You mention the spider is little known - in which case a reference which reports this and have it mentioned in the article (which it currently doesn't) e.g. "Little is known of its ecology - what it eats and what eats it" or something similar. Some sources might add that better-studied related species do 'x' and hypothesize about this species. Anyway, have a look.
  • Good idea. Kaldari (talk) 21:21, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• The article doesn't mention whether it is rare or common.
  • Like most jumping spiders, no information is known on its population distribution. Kaldari (talk) 21:21, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• Given we're scarping for info, finding out where the type specimen was collected and adding it would be good (and where it is currently housed).
  • True, I'll see if I can dig up such info. Kaldari (talk) 21:21, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• The life cycle leaves me mystified - what is the immature form? Also, where are the egg sacs laid? do the spiders guard them? If this is unknown then add it as such.
  • All of the lifecycle information is gleaned from a single entry in a table in the Gibson article. No specifics are provided. I'm not even sure if this information is really reliable enough for the article as it is only taken from a single location. However, I decided to include it since there is so little information otherwise. "Immature" just means not sexually mature, i.e. prior to final instar. Kaldari (talk) 21:21, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, this is small but an intriguing challenge...Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:32, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

FWIW: A search on Science Direct (which includes 1800 science journals) for Zygoballus sexpunctatus gives zero results. A search on the Biological Abstracts Database (which includes 4200 science journals) gives one result for an article that lists the species as existing in Virginia. Kaldari (talk) 23:06, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Original description

Finally received a photocopy of the original description from the University of Southern California today. It's from a somewhat obscure journal so I couldn't locate it on the internet or Google Books.

Hentz, N. M. (1845). "Descriptions and figures of the Araneides of the United States". Boston Journal of Natural History. Volume 5: p.202.

ATTUS SEXPUNCTATUS.

Plate XVII. Fig 14.

Description. Black; cephalothorax with the two posterior eyes near the base, which is wide and suddenly inclined at nearly a right angle with the upper surface, cheliceres with a strong inner tooth, and a long, curved fang; abdomen with six dots, and a line in front, white; feet, 1. 4. 2. 3., first pair with enlarged thighs and quite long.

Observations. This cannot be confounded with Attus fasciolatus, which is also designed from a female. By the characters derived from its cheliceres, it approaches Epiblemum. I suppose it must be a rare species, having never met with any other specimen.

Habitat. North Carolina.

The text "feet, 1. 4. 2. 3." is a ranking of the legs by length, starting with the anterior pair. Because very little was known about jumping spiders at the time, Hentz proposed classifying them into six "tribes" based on the relative lengths of the legs. Although he admitted that this method was "somewhat artificial", he considered it the "least objectionable mode" at the time. Hentz classified A. sexpunctatus in the tribe Pugnatoriae, which included all jumping spiders whose first pair of legs were the longest, followed by the fourth pair.(Hentz, p.199) It should be noted that Hentz's "tribes" do not correspond to the modern tribe taxon, as they were subdivisions of the genus rather than of the family. Kaldari (talk) 02:14, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

I've added some information from the original description to the article, listing Pugnatoriae as a "subgeneric group" rather than a "tribe" to avoid confusion. Kaldari (talk) 23:48, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Wow, fantastic stuff. Good to see. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:00, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Behavior

It looks like there may be some information about Z. sexpunctatus mating behavior in...
Davis, J. D. (1974). "Courtship displays as isolating mechanisms in some North American jumping spiders of the genus Zygoballus (Araneida, Salticidae)". Bulletin of the Association of Southeastern Biologists. 21(2): 50.
This journal appears to be quite obscure, however, so it may take some time to locate. Kaldari (talk) 23:51, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

That's cool. I can see you're working on it. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:00, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

At this point I've exhausted all information available on the internet as well as from modern books and journals. I've now moved to researching obscure publications confined to university collections. I would have thought such in-depth research would be required only for featured articles, but c'est la vie. Kaldari (talk) 00:11, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Just heard back from the Association of Southeastern Biologists. Unfortunately, they don't have a collection of their journal going back that far, but they said they would ask if anyone had copies that old. Apparently, the journal is now known as Southeastern Biology, BTW, which may help with library searches. Kaldari (talk) 17:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

There's hope for FAC - but rest assured in the warm glow that by doing that extra bit of ferreting you've assembled teh most detailed summary of the species anywhere to date. I find that really makes me feel good in lots of these bio articles :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:04, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Received a photocopy of the above article from a professor at the University of Tennessee. Unfortunately, it's only a brief abstract. Apparently the actual paper must have been an unpublished thesis or dissertation. This corroborates with the other citations of this paper which all say (abstract only). I'll reproduce the abstract below for reference (as it is very difficult to find otherwise for verification purposes):

Courtship displays as isolating mechanisms in some North American jumping spiders of the genus Zygoballus (Araneida, Salticidae)

John D. Davis

Mississippi State College for Women

The jumping spiders Zygoballus bettini, Z. nervosus and Z. sexpunctatus are incompletely isolated by humidity requirements. These three species have elaborate courtship displays and ritualized intermale agonistic behavior. Analysis from film shows that the fixed action courtship patterns of Z. nervosus differs from the other species in posture but not in timing, whereas the fixed action courtship patterns of Z. bettini and Z. nervosus differ in timing but not posture. Males of all three species will display to any female; however, in over 1000 courtship observations, no female was observed to respond completely to heterospecific males. Studies on Z. sexpunctatus from Mississippi, North Carolina and Florida show greater variability in courtship patterns within geographically distinct populations than between such populations.

Strange that the statements comparing the courtship displays are contradictory. They must have gotten two of the species confused there. Not sure I can actually pull a usable conclusion from that part. Kaldari (talk)

You don't have to then, you can just state that one source says this and the other that. It is okay not to have a conclusion in these things. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:40, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, well in this case one source is saying two things which contradict each other, so not sure what to make of that. To add further confusion, Z. bettini was made a synonym of Z. nervosus in 1988. BTW, I managed to contact the original author, John D. Davis, today. Turns out there is no paper, only an abstract. So that explains why it's so hard to find. I suppose I could come up with a couple sentences from the abstract, but I'm not sure it's enough to actually justify creating a behavior section. Thoughts? Kaldari (talk) 01:27, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I found a sentence about the spider's diet in Howell, so I combined it with what I could glean from the above abstract and created a small behavior and ecology section. Kaldari (talk) 20:17, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Update

Given the hard work and meagre content, this is an outstanding effort. Well done thus far. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:23, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. At this point I think the only thing I could do to expand the article further would be to publish my own paper on the species :) Kaldari (talk) 20:19, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Some pointers

Don't you think the lead should summarize the article? An the behavior and ecology section should be moved higher up? Bugboy52.4 ¦ =-= 21:43, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

It is tricky. Everything jostles to be at the top. Taxonomy and description we've placed first and second in just about all bio articles. Yes - feel free to add to the lead. Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:28, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I moved Behavior and ecology above Life cycle if that helps. The tricky thing about summarizing this article for the lead is that the article basically consists of a list of poorly connected facts about the species (since so little is known). It's hard to figure out how to summarize it without just repeating the facts. Kaldari (talk) 23:28, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I've done a bit of editing to the lead to make it a better summary. Hope that helps. Kaldari (talk) 22:55, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

David Edwin Hill videos and webpages as reliable sources

Prior to this article's peer review, I had not cited any material by David E. Hill in the article. Dr. Hill is a salticid (jumping spider) researcher who published several papers on jumping spider behavior and physiology in the 1970s. He subsequently left academia to pursue a career in business, but has continued jumping spider research on the side. He currently runs The Peckham Society website and is the general editor of the online journal Peckhamia, both devoted to jumping spider research. Recently, he uploaded two annotated videos of Z. sexpunctatus behavior to the Internet Archive and also published several annotated photographs documenting Z. sexpunctatus behavior on The Peckham Society website.

Technically, these are self-published sources, which are usually unacceptable for Wikipedia. However, since Dr. Hill is a published expert in the field of jumping spider research, he seems to meet the exception described in WP:V: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." Since virtually no other information is available on the behavior of Z. sexpunctatus, I have been encouraged to take advantage of this exception and include Dr. Hill's research in this article despite the fact that it hasn't been formally published. Kaldari (talk) 21:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Based on Dr. Hill's academic resume and publication list shown here (click on "partner" link and then Dr. Hill's name), it is quite obvious that he is an "expert in the field" of jumping spiders, and I support Kaldari's conclusion that the information from the Peckham Society website meets the criteria for inclusion outlined by the SPS guideline given above. Sasata (talk) 02:56, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

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Suggestions from a Behavioral Ecology Student

Hello, I am a student in a behavioral ecology class working on the wikispiders project. This article has great media that allow for a really visually appealing page and has interesting, clear, and concise information. One thing I would suggest is to add a separate mating section to include the information on the courtship rituals of the spider. These behaviors are really complex and have important evolutionary implications for the species. Akwan826 (talk) 04:42, 6 October 2020 (UTC)