Talk:Common stingray

	Common stingray has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones Date Process Result March 25, 2010 Good article nominee Listed
	A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on March 9, 2009. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Pliny the Elder claimed that the toxic spine of the Common stingray could kill trees and corrode iron?

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Common stingray/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Ucucha 18:02, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• "its sting was perceived as deadly"—"perceived" seems a strange phrase here.

I used "perceived" because the sting isn't actually that deadly, just that the ancients thought it was. I'm open to better suggestions though.

That kind of wording seems weird in the context of "deadly"—it's hard to imagine how something can be perceived as deadly when it is not, since it either kills or it does not. Couldn't the difference have something to do with improved medical treatment?

I just took it out

• Do you have the Greek transliteration for trygon (τρυγων, I suppose, but you'll need a source to confirm that)?

Done

• Quote marks for "father of taxonomy" should be unnecessary unless you can attribute the quote.

Fixed

• I don't think the second paragraph of "Taxonomy and phylogeny" is quite clear. There appears to be a contradiction between the sentence saying that there are many early references to the species and the one indicating that most of those were composite.

Rephrased a little, see if it's better.

Yes, seems good now.

• Perhaps include a cladogram?

Done

Thanks. It's getting a bit full around there; perhaps move the Belon image to "Human interactions"?

Not enough room there either; I like it where it is now to emphasize the historical significance of this species

• gloss spiracles, papillae

Done

• "The skin is smooth..."—does this refer to the tail or the entire body?

Fixed

• How are the references from classical antiquity specifically attributable to this species?

This species is basically the stingray of Europe, even though there are other European species. Day (1884) attributes classical references directly to this species, as do other sources.

OK. Then perhaps cite those sources as additional corroboration for the sentences which say that Pliny c.s. described this species.

Added secondary sources for those statements

• In the range map, the range does not extend into the Baltic, as the article indicates. Also, doesn't it occur around Sicily, Sardinia, Crete, and other larger islands?

Fixed

Not that I can see.

Did you clear your browser cache?

I guess not.

• doi for ref. 8 is broken (and perhaps unnecessary, because you already have a link).

Fixed

• I think the external links are unnecessary, since both are already cited as sources.

Honestly, I just put them there to fill out the section so it's not just the Commons box hanging in a blank space. I don't think they do any harm.

WP:ELNO tells to avoid those links, but I can see good reason to include them here and in any case, GAs don't need to comply with all content guidelines.

Ucucha 18:02, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Let me know of further issues. -- Yzx (talk) 19:11, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for addressing the issues so quickly; I am passing this as a GA now. Ucucha 19:47, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your time and effort. -- Yzx (talk) 19:52, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

According to this article (german only), the females have an uterus and mammary glands, see http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/knorpelfische-dasyatis-pastinaca-stachelrochen-vor-mallorca-a-918801.html. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.0.123.1 (talk) 14:49, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The female does in fact have a uterus, as all stingrays give live birth. However, they certainly don't have mammary glands (and are very certainly not mammals!). The confusion probably arose from the fact that they nourish their unborn young with histotroph, which is sometimes called "uterine milk" but is not related to mammalian milk in any way. -- Yzx (talk) 17:12, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]