Don't accept the chauvinistic tradition that labels our era the age of mammals. This is the age of arthropods. They outnumber us by any criterion – by species, by individuals, by prospects for evolutionary continuation.
The aim of this WikiProject is to set out broad suggestions about how to organize data in the articles relating to insects, arachnids, crustaceans and other arthropods. We also hope to encourage the development of important stubs and articles following these suggestions. In general, these are only suggestions, and you shouldn't feel obliged to follow them.
In many cases, it makes sense to combine several taxonomic levels in a single article. For example, the genus Limulus contains only one species, Limulus polyphemus, so the one article covers both levels. Conversely, sometimes it is better to cover only a part of a taxon: mite deals with four different (but related) families and ignores the other families in the order Acari.
Some large families, such as the Papilionidae, will need to be broken down at some stage because of the number of species. For this, lists of species by subfamily may be created. In some cases, geography, logistics, familiarity with fauna, and convenience may require a study to be restricted to a region or political boundary. Spider taxonomy and List of butterflies of India (Papilionidae) are good examples of attempts to achieve this.
It may be useful to start with a high-level article, such as a family article, and then split off genus and/or species articles as the material builds.
If possible, create links to articles on the levels immediately higher and lower. An article on a genus such as Bombus should link back to the family Apidae and order Hymenoptera, and down to species articles where they exist. Considering the vast number of species in some genera (or genera in some families, etc.), this may not always be possible, but should be tried as often as possible.
Overview of the classification of arthropods[edit]
At what level is it worth having a separate Wikipedia article for a particular arthropod? Any level you like. If we write individual articles for all one million-odd described species, we will be at it for a long time! The simplest (and probably best) rule is to have no rule: if you have the time and energy to write up some particularly obscure subspecies that most people have never even heard of, go to it!
As a general guideline though, combine several species or subspecies into a single article when there isn't enough text to make more than short, unsatisfying stubs otherwise. If the article grows large enough to deserve splitting, that can always be done later.
Also, it is preferable to start at a higher taxonomic level and work our way down to particular species than the reverse.
What about extinct arthropods? At the very least, we should include arthropods that have become extinct within historical times: within the last 5000 years or so. Most extinct arthropods will be much older however, but there seems to be no obvious reason to exclude any of them: there is already a nice page for trilobite; if an expert on fossil arthropods comes along and wants to contribute more, all the better.
In cases where common names are well-known and reasonably unique, they should be used for article titles. Scientific names should be used otherwise. Note the following guidelines in using scientific names:
Names of genera are always italicized and capitalized— Drosophila, Homarus, Limulus.
Specific epithets are always italicized and preceded by the name of the genus or an abbreviation of it— Limulus polyphemusorL. polyphemus, but never plain polyphemus, since such identifiers need not be unique (e.g. Gopherus polyphemus, Antheraea polyphemus). They are never capitalized.
Names of higher taxa are capitalized but not italicized— Limulidae, Orthoptera, Crustacea.
In the orders Odonata and Lepidoptera, common names may be capitalised; other common names should be in lower case.
In cases where a group only contains a single subgroup, the two should not be separated. If there is no common name, the article should generally go under the scientific name that is most often used when discussing the group, or under the scientific name of lowest rank if there is no clear preference. However, for a genus that contains a single species, the genus name should be used since it is included in the binomial. For instance the order Amphionidacea, which has the single species Amphionides reynaudii, is discussed at Amphionides.
Not all species need have separate articles. The simplest (and probably best) rule is to have no rule: if you have the time and energy to write up some particularly obscure subspecies that most people have never even heard of, go for it! As a general guideline, though, it's best to combine separate species into a single entry whenever it seems likely that there won't be enough text to make more than a short, unsatisfying stub otherwise. If the entry grows large enough to deserve splitting, that can always be done later.
A useful heuristic is to create articles in a "downwards" order, that is, family articles first, then genera, then species. If you find that information is getting thin, or the family/genus is really small, just leave the species info inline in the family or genus article, don't try to force it down any further.
This is likely to be the single most difficult part of the project. Not only does arthropod taxonomy vary significantly from one authority to another, but it is in a state of constant change. There is no single authority to rely on; no one list can claim to be the list.
The following items are desirable for articles of all levels, although the detail will vary depending on several factors. These items do not need to be separated into distinct sections; text should flow in continuous prose so far as possible. The order this information is included is also relatively unimportant, although the order listed is generally preferred.
Description – A brief overview of the animal's appearance, including typical sizes. How does it differ from related taxa, or other taxa with which it could be confused?
Distribution – Where does it live, geographically?
Ecology / behaviour – What habitats does it inhabit? What does it eat? What eats it? What other taxa does it interact with (symbioses, competitors, parasites, etc.)?
Importance to man, if any
Taxonomic history – When was the taxon first described, and by whom? How is classified now?
Note: the table below only shows articles tagged with the {{WikiProject Arthropods}} template, so excludes those tagged as belonging to descendant wikiprojects.
The following articles have been assessed as Good Articles, but lack illustrations of the subject. If you can find, or create, a suitably licensed illustration or photograph, please upload to Commons and add to the article(s) to make them even better.
You may want to check existing articles to see if they are up to Wikipedia standards. If you find them dissatisfying, you can modify them yourself or add them to one of the lists above. It would be good if we could bring all the articles about orders up to a good level, and then work down. In this way, we would have a good basis to improve family, genus and eventually species-related articles.
If you are feeling very brave, you may want to improve taxonomical lists such as (this is far from being a comprehensive list):
Millipedes and centipedes have several orders and families without articles, and several important subtaxa without adequate coverage. Polydesmida, the largest millipede order by far, is especially in need of expansion.
You can also browse the taxoboxes of articles concerning groups that you like, and create articles when you find a red link (see for example the taxobox on the Braconidae article). Don't forget to add the appropriate stub template (see below). Many classifications may be found on specific pages, such as : CucujoideaorApocrita for example.
You can also help categorise the articles sensibly and consistently.
Andy Temperley – Mainly interested in land crabs from the genus Cardisoma. I can provide photos of most species in the genus.
Anna Frodesiak – Interested in mites, especially the more unpleasant ones.
Appleton11 – Enthusiatic ameteur interested in endemicNew Zealand spiders. Looking to create and update pages related to this.
Arboviral – I study insects and ticks involved in the transmission of pathogens (i.e. vectors). Specifically mosquitoes, Culicoides biting midges, ticks and large biting flies (tabanids, stable flies (Stomoxys), etc).
AshLin - Primarily Lepidoptera but interested in all insects and arthropods.
Ba'Gamnan – Mostly interested in Vespidae (wasps).
Bfpage - most likely to be working on the Monarch butterfly.
Kaarel I am a molecular biologist and an amateur entomologist interested in invertebrate zoology... have done some research on Coleoptera and Thysanoptera
MMalay – PhD student; I study barnacles and hermit crabs. Love all inverts & anything related to the tropical Indo-West Pacific.
Mothman27 - High school student with a very large insect collection of Lepidoptera, coleoptera and others. I am knowledgeable on US moths and Worldwide Silkmoths and will create species pages.
Sarefo – mostly spiders (inWP:SPI), but insects are cool, too ;)
SB_Johnny – Applied entomology... I mostly work on wikibooks about how to kill, control, or sometimes attract arthropods, but also take a lot of photos which I post on commons.
wikiskimmer – a semester or two on ants, some botany, entomo, fungi..
Wilhelmina Will – I have created many pages on extinct crustaceans, and intend on creating many more.
Wloveral Butterflies, ants, bees, and social and potter wasps. Arthropod phylogeny.
LeónHormiga General interest in Ecdysozoa, alive and fossil. Biogeography and entomology in academy, multimedia upload and page creations in Wikipedia.
Remember to mark up stubs with the appropriate template. Where specific templates do not exist (e.g. Merostomata, Pycnogonida, etc.), use {{arthropod-stub}}. Otherwise, see below.
Please place {{WikiProject Arthropods}} at the top of an article's talk page so articles can be assessed.
What this template does:
It will help to lead new editors to this project.
If complete with quality and importance grading (see Article Classification and grading scheme), it helps us to stay on top of the huge number of arthropod-related articles.
Please make sure to add articles to the appropriate categories among the ones listed at Category:Arthropods. If there are any categories that you think should be created, please request them here or on the talk page.
Note:"Open Access" does not always mean "free to use". Media licensed "CC-BY" can be used without restriction, while "CC-BY-NC" or -ND (non-commerical or non-derivative) cannot be used on Wikipedia. (See Commons Licensing for more details)
All images and text published in these journals are free to use on Wikipedia when authors are attributed, unless otherwise noted.
The pages below provide fairly up-do date information on species names and classification, but it's a good idea to verify when the data was last updated and verified.
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