Talk:Crabeater seal

Copyright Infringement?

• Crabeater seal - possible copyright infringement. BONNER B 1995 Birds and Mammals - Antarctic Seals. in Antarctica Pergamon Press 202 - 222 Kingturtle 05:20 29 May 2003 (UTC)
  • Uwe Kils, an experienced user, makes attributed use of info from Bonner, which looks like fair use to me, and what you would expect from an academic giving his references. Unless it can be shown that the article itself is a copyright infringement, I say leave it. Uwe's other articles are certainly original (see Krill). There is also the point that I suspect nobody else has a copy of this book to check! jimfbleak 06:44 29 May 2003 (UTC)
  • Dr. Kils is a university professor. I don't believe he would plagiarize. As Jim said, that's just a standard bibliographic method used in academic papers. --Menchi 07:41 29 May 2003 (UTC)
  • I imagine I just don't understand the wikipedia syntax for citing a reference. Is there a standard syntax? Kingturtle 07:47 29 May 2003 (UTC)
    • I don't know if there is a standard. In practice, either written the out style Uwe used in that article, or the linked method he used in krill seem to be equally common, as is no reference (I'm particularly poor at referencing my paper sources). Incidently, I've now footnoted the reference in the crabeater article using the famous †: jimfbleak 12:58 29 May 2003 (UTC)
      • I know Bonner in person, we met in Antarctica - he told me many facts about the amazing crabeater, I just wanted to give him well deserved credit for his excellent book - my input for the article is just a copy of the webpage we put up for free education within a philanthropist's project (the first one on the web ever) on antarctic sciences http://www.ecoscope.com/crabeatr/index.htm - in our profession it is well accepted practice to allow citations by others as long as they list the source - if we all continue to contribute to wikipedia and also succeed in a fair amount of editing it into a reviewed source there is a fair chance that it might get soon some substantial support from philanthropists, and many staff might become hired to backup, mirror and make it independant also from money sorrows - as we helped [fishbase] to hatch from beginnings in our Kiel lab, by endorsing it, giving good references and expertizes and hooking it up with the right people with interest in free / clean education and the monitary liberty - many good people found good jobs in this free education project - Uwe Kils 21:08 29 May 2003 (UTC)

Just curious, do these animals actually eat crabs?

It sounds like they don't, so why the moniker. This would be something interesting to add to the article, I bet.

Krill is in the biological world no crab, but the name is traditional Uwe Kils 19:02, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

• The folks who coined the current name didn't mean crabs: Il se nourrit principalement de crevettes, ce qui donne une coloration rouge à ses excréments. C'est cette circonstance des mœurs de cette espèce qui a déterminé nos voyageurs à lui donner la dénomination qu'elle porte "It feeds mainly on shrimp, which gives a red coloration to its feces. It is this circumstance of the customs of this species which determined our travelers to give it the name it bears". Even though from the modern point of view krill is no shrimp either (the former has a head separate from the carapace, the latter has them fused together; the discoverers probably hadn't investigated the animal's diet properly), "crab-eater" is a mistranslation originating already in the 1840s. Ain92 (talk) 14:36, 19 August 2022 (UTC) PS I actually suggest that this historical aspect is covered in the article.

Commonness as a 'large creature'

How large is "large"?

There are several billion humans, and tens of millions of dogs in the United States alone. Depending on where one draws the line between dogs that one considers large creatures and those that one doesn't, the number of 'large dogs' must be well over 15 million.

Aren't there lots of horses and cattle, too? Wildebeest?

A safe qualification would be to describe them as the most common wild, predatory animal larger than humans. Nobody in his right mind would breed dogs larger than an adult human because a dog that size would be too dangerous to have nearby.

There are at least 1.3 billion cattle so this is definitely not true.

Age

How long do they live?

Vandalism

Someone has changed this to Maneater Seal. Please undo this vandalism. Velociraptor888 12:16, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Funny thing is, that name is just as accurate as "Crabeater Seal"! Heavenlyblue (talk) 21:49, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

When I opened this article earlier today, the lede had spent four days dutifully reporting something about a "maneater" that was a "little known mammal" somewhat less abundant than the "1.5 billion cows on earth". Yikes! Anyhow, I've attacked the article and added a considerable amount of information, relying on the iucn report, the article in the Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals, and scholarly articles cited therein. It seems to be in decent shape now, though all feedback is welcome! If, by the way, anyone feels like cleaning up the references int the wiki citation format that would really be lovely. Best, Eliezg (talk) 12:52, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

By the way, I upgraded the "importance" of this article to "mid". Not sure how mammal people ascribe importance, but aside from the fact that every species is obviously "special", this one happens to be the most abundant single marine mammal, with an enormous range, and many fascinating adaptations. Not sure whether it should still be considered "start" class? Eliezg (talk) 13:02, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

It appears that no one has taken the time to define how importance should be assessed for WP:MAMMAL. Personally, I think this species falls in the gray area between low and mid, so I'll stick with your assessment. I've performed a quick copyedit, and overall, I'd say the article looks pretty good. I don't know much about the literature on this species, but if there's not much out there, either in primary or secondary sources, then I would say this article is close to B or GA class. I was being conservative by assigning it C-class. My primary concern is the lack of citations for a few brief statements as well as a few whole paragraphs. If you can fix that, I'll bump it up to B-class and encourage you to push for GA. Otherwise, great work! – VisionHolder « talk » 20:57, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

And to be more specific, for GA, not only does the article need the missing citations, but the lead will also need to be longer. Since the lead merely summarizing the content below it, it does not require citations. – VisionHolder « talk » 21:04, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the positive feedback. I've expanded the article, the references and the lead quite a bit. A brief to-do list (mostly for my own benefit) includes:

1) expanding behavior - esp. reproductive behavior (males engage in serial monogamy, and tend to their mates and pups (rare in pinnipeds!), but get scarred up by the females, who are the real bosses),

2) A brief bit on interactions with humans: there were three historical attempts at commercial harvest, and common used to feed dogs on antarctic expeditions.

3) Phylogenetic and biogeographic relationships to other monachinae

Anyways, thanks! Eliezg (talk) 09:24, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Wow! It keeps looking better and better. I'll reassess it when I get home from work. In the meantime, if you want, you can look at Babakotia as an example of a short article. The key there is the lead. Notice the lack of refs and how it strictly summarizes what's found below. New information should not be added to the lead. If you need a place to put the etymology of its scientific name (for example), a short short section on its evolutionary history, phylogeny and taxonomy would be good. Anyway, gotta run... Be back soon. – VisionHolder « talk » 12:25, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Northern Fur Seal which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 02:00, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

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• Mummified Crabeater Seal.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 05:39, 25 May 2023 (UTC)