Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Image:Christmas beetle jan 2007.jpg

Christmas Beetle

Christmas Beetle, Anoplognathus olivieri

High quality macro shot of the common Christmas Beetle, taken shortly after Christmas in early January. I had a few attempts at a focus bracket but it kept moving so was not able to do so. However focus and sharpness are excellent in the important bits (IMO anyway).

Appears in Christmas beetle and Scarabaeidae

• Support Self Nom. --Fir0002 06:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. A couple of the characteristics I always associate with Christmas beetles are the way they have a shimmery effect on their back and that they look like egyptian scarab beetles. See what I mean here. This side-on picture doesn't show that and as such I didn't recognise the beetle - a beetle I'm already farmilliar with. It's certainly a good shot, but not what I would want in an encyclopaedic shot of a christmas beetle. Witty lama 15:13, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support It's taken by the ledgendary Fir0002! So therefore it needs to be featured XD--Penubag 08:23, 13 April 2007 (UTC)penubag
  • Comment. Please don't take this the wrong way but do you have anything to say about the photo as reason for your support? Even Fir0002 sometimes doesn't get his photos through FPC. Pstuart84 Talk 12:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Yes of cource. I really do think that the picture is good. It is well focuced, sharp, good contrast, no noise, etc. My aboive statement was just supposed to be humorous.-- Penubag  04:37, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral sorry for the pointless vote, but it's a pointless nomination. It's not representative of the species and hence of really limited encyclopedic value. I guess -minor quibble- I'd have chosen a slightly less side-on view to avoid things like the leg emerging out of the head. The fact remains that is a really good, interesting and well-exectued shot which works on many levels and would get my support on commons, but here it's a bit of a waste of time. mikaul^talk 13:07, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose I wanted to support this, but now more than one person has mentioned that its not representative of the Christmas Beetle I can't give it my support. Shame because it's a wonderful shot :( Ishaana 21:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Question I was hoping to get more information on whether this was a typical Christmas Beetle or not from Fir0002 before I voted on it. Why doesn't it look like the beetles Witty lama recognizes as Christmas Beetles? Enuja 01:13, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • You're guess is as good as mine. I know what Witty lama is saying, but the vast majority of the christmas beetles I see around Swifts Creek look like this. Maybe it's something to do with varying maturity levels? Coz this specimen was collected off the kitchen window which he'd been crashing into for half an hour! Maybe juvenile's are much shiner? I really don't know --Fir0002 12:06, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - there isn't a single species of Christmas beetle; the name is the common name for all 35 members of the genus Anoplognathus. The christmas beetle article is wrong.--Peta 02:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying the situation here and fixing the article! It does make a lot of sense that "Christmas beetles" are a genus. I did some more looking around, and Fir, have you identified your beetle to the species level? It's labeled as Anoplognathus olivieri in the taxo-box, which is a different species name than the name that Christmas beetle originally gave (A. pallidicollis). In some additional looking around, however, and I did find a photo of Anoplognathus olivieri from a company that sells them (odd, that) [1], and it's shiny, too. Also, the text of the article at the time you added your picture to it said that Christmas beetles have differently lengthed forelegs. I would interpret that to mean that of the front legs, the one of the left is longer than the one on the right (or visa versa) instead of that there is a short middle leg. Now that I know that this beetle had been crashing into a window for about 30 minutes before you photographed it, I'm concerned that his beetle is simply missing part of its leg. Any more information? How did you get the species ID? Enuja 05:43, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Not promoted MER-C 11:35, 21 April 2007 (UTC)