Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Insects

We should have an article for stylus / styli

We should have an article for stylus / styli

In a few of the most primitive insects (the Archaeognatha), the metasomal segments bear small, articulated appendages called "styli", which are often considered to be vestigial.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metasoma

Modern Archaeognatha and Thysanura still have rudimentary appendages on their abdomen called styli

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_insects#Early_evidence

Etc - these are mentioned in about 10 existing articles.

Here's the existing disamb page for "stylus" / "styli" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylus_(disambiguation)

- ~2025-40964-19 (talk) 17:06, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

Use of Tables

I'm writing some paragraphs for Hypoponera punctatissima in hopes to expand the article and I'd like to feature the specific morphometric measurements of the ant. Could i use a table to present this information?

link to my sandbox FranticSpud (talk) 14:47, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

There's kind of a point with a table like that I'd be saying it might be drifting into WP:NOTJOURNAL territory rather than encyclopedic content. If I'm writing a species article, I'm usually avoiding technical WP:HOWTO information (and prose) on how an entomologist might identify the species. Usually it would be more generalized for an encyclopedic audience, but literature dealing with more specific ID could be cited for further reading. KoA (talk) 21:17, 7 January 2026 (UTC)

AntWiki as a reference

Under the Resources section of the Ant task force subpage, AntWiki is said to be "good for finding references" which would imply it is not a reliable source to use. This has been seconded by another editor in the Teahouse when I asked about using AntWiki. However, I have seen in several articles AntWiki is used as a reference (Lasius genus, for example)

I'm confused as to the consensus surrounding AntWiki, and I think the wording of the ant task force subpage should be amended if AntWiki can be used as a reference, and tidying up the articles that do use it if it is unreliable.

Courtesy link to AntWiki's home page

Courtesy link to AntWiki's editing policies

Courtesy link to Wikipedia's reference policies

Im in a bit of a rush so sorry if this is hard to read or understand FranticSpud (talk) 15:35, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Antwiki runs into the problem of it being a wiki-style source, generally always to be avoided as a source. While it is closed site which only allows experts to contribute, I support the task force guideline of good for sourcing references, but not to be referenced as a stand alone, since any information ther SHOULD be cited and sourced to a peer reviewed or expert authored source already. That Lasius is using it should be fixed, it was one of only 6 edits performed by @Tboneboss99:.--Kevmin § 17:13, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Would removing the antwiki sources and replacing them with a citation needed be good or is it better to leave the antwiki source? FranticSpud (talk) 21:10, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Leave the antwiki sources and add {{Better source needed}}. Plantdrew (talk) 21:49, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. An Antwiki source is better than no source.

I'm also not so certain that we shouldn't use Antwiki as a reliable source. The Wikipedia guidance is against using user-generated sources, not against sites using a particular style of software. Antwiki states it's editors are ant experts and restricts editors to those who have published on ants or have approval from other editors (I assume this would be mainly students working in labs of ant experts). Many sites considered reliable are much more opaque on who the editors are.  —  Jts1882 | talk  07:57, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

I'd have assumed that despite the name, it would be considered more of a catalogue, database or an encyclopedia instead of a wiki, considering it lacks the "anyone can edit" component. Would it be worth bringing this to a debate amongst a wider audience of editors? FranticSpud (talk) 21:01, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

Possibly. The place to do that is the Reliable sources noticeboard, if you want to. Chess enjoyer (talk) 00:27, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Karl Rost

The article Karl Rost has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Tagged as Unreferenced for almost 15 years. No other language has a reliably sourced article from which to translate. Only passing mentions were found in searches of Google and Google books.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion based on established criteria.

If the proposed deletion has already been carried out, you may request undeletion of the article at any time. Bearian (talk) 10:16, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

He's mentioned in Horn & Kahle, Ueber entomologische Sammlungen, Entomologen & Entomo-Museologie; roughly the same info. He's also with a few dozen valid species in GBIF. Seems unwise to delete. Kweetal nl (talk) 11:04, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

There is an extensive article on Grokipedia. While that is unusable, it can't all be AI hallucination, suggesting there is material somewhere. Probably borderline notability.  —  Jts1882 | talk  11:54, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Renamed species?

Hi there! As I'm patrolling articles for NPP, I've noticed a few recently created articles for insects where the species may not be listed in common databases (e.g., Catalogue of Life or GBIF) or sources seem sketchy, and I'm unable to find sources through Google Scholar. A source two is typically provided, though it's often over 100 years old. The age isn't necessarily a problem, but I'm curious if it's possible the species has since been renamed. Relevant articles include Machilis multispinosa, Machilis shiobarensis, Machilis oudemansi, and Machilis nipponica. I'd appreciate help from the community to help sort this issue out. Thank you! Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 18:28, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to TrueMoriarty as article creator. Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 18:28, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

I'll try to look into it, I don't have too much time right now but I'll make an effort to. FranticSpud (talk) 19:00, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, FranticSpud! No worries if you can't get to it quickly. I just wanted to put it out there so others who have more expertise in the area can look into it. Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 19:02, 25 January 2026 (UTC)

Could you please give me some names of reliable catalogues? I would be happy to add references from them. Thank you.

TrueMoriarty Talk | Contribs 02:50, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

I can't speak broadly, but for New Page Patrol, we are encouraged to check species in Catalogue of Life, which describes itself as "the most comprehensive initiative to compile a single, integrated list of all known species worldwide". Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 16:46, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

True that I cannot find references in Catalogue of Life for the relevant species you mentioned. But I think that catalogue skipped them. If you need more references, I suggest you to enter the reference links of the pages, from where you can find references for the references, which can be inserted in the slmain article.

TrueMoriarty Talk | Contribs 17:06, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Hi Significa liberdade, I happened to notice you also flagged up similar issues for some articles for leaf beetle species that were created recently, e.g. Rhyparida sangirensis, Rhyparida longipes. (Courtesy ping to Steppeherder as article creator of these.) I've been diving into papers for this beetle family for some years now, especially the subfamily Eumolpinae which these ones belong to, and unfortunately I think the issue here is they just haven't been looked again scientifically since their original descriptions. Possibly this is because they are from regions of the world that currently don't get as much research attention (e.g. Southern and Southeast Asia, New Guinea, in this case), at least in this subfamily, as I've noticed the same issue for I think hundreds of Eumolpinae species from the same parts of the world. (I could be wrong but that is the impression I get) At best you can possibly find them in catalogues if they're available, but they may not be that recent or even online.

As for Catalogue of Life, I think it's still just massively incomplete right now, at least in insects? There are so many described insect species (more than a million apparently, looking up) that I wouldn't be surprised if it has gaps. Monster Iestyn (talk) 17:15, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Do you have any recommended databases for insects? I certainly wouldn't say CoL is the end-all, but for the beetle species, I often had trouble finding any additional sources supporting their existence. I found one or two that seemed to have synonyms. For Machilis maritima, I found a source that seemed to insinuate it was also referred to as Petrobius maritimus. Because this isn't my background (as you'll see, my bio says I'm prone to literature), I wanted to check to see if I was missing something and if people more experienced in this area could take a look. I come across these through New Page Patrol, and species are generally considered "easy patrols", but these ones have me a bit confused, and I want to ensure the quality of the encyclopedia. :) Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 17:51, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

@Significa liberdade: Some databases are linked in Wikipedia:WikiProject Insects#Taxonomy and references. Other than those, there's the Species File websites for a number of insect groups, Systema Dipterorum for Diptera (flies), Symphyta has ECatSym (which seems to be down as of writing, unfortunately), and there's probably others I forget offhand. Though last I remember, COL already happens to use these as sources for species in those groups anyway?

For beetles in particular... that's a bit trickier. There certainly isn't one database for all of them at least, that much I know. Databases are more likely to be per family from what I'm aware, Cerambycidae (longhorn beetles) for instance has Titan database. Carabidae (ground beetles) had Carabidae of the world, but that is no longer free to use: you have to subscribe to it to view its content. Chrysomelidae (leaf beetles) doesn't have a family wide database meanwhile, at best I've seen websites cataloguing all species for particular subfamilies, or catalogues of species from particular biogeographical realms, or country or state checklists? Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:16, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Good resources for insects are a problem. Even some of the well-known groups have poor coverage. The Polyneoptera have best coverage as they all have species files, which are curated and reasonably up-to-date. The "paraneoptera" also have species file coverage. The holometabolan orders have big gaps in the coverage, with no good sources for whole big orders, with some subgroups have dedicated sources but many others only having old material (e.g. much of Lepidex/GLI). As far as I can tell there is no global resource for Archaeognatha, apart from aggregation sites.

On CoL, it's only as good as its source databases. There is a source checkbox that displays the source. Where it uses species files and other specialist databases, it's a good first step. You can there go to the source and use that directly. There are a few sources that don't have their own databases and you can only get the information from CoL or checklistnbank (e.g. GLI, CarabCat).

For what it's worth I've compliled my own list of sources for insects, with some breakdown of what has good and poor coverage in CoL. See User:Jts1882/Phylogeny_and_taxonomy_resources#Insects. Any further suggestions would be welcome.  —  Jts1882 | talk  10:45, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

On the artciles in question Machilis multispinosa seems to be a valid extant species and Machilis shiobarensis a valid fossil species (I added PBDB), but Machilis oudemansi seems to be a synonym of Machilis germanica (CoL). There isn't much on Machilis nipponica.  —  Jts1882 | talk  11:01, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Machilis nipponica is cited by two sources TrueMoriarty Talk | Contribs 15:28, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

What's the second one? There's the original description, which I just added, and the Alamo image based on that source. As I said at the talk page, the Alamo image reference should be removed unless used in a See also section.  —  Jts1882 | talk  17:08, 27 January 2026 (UTC)