Talk:Predation

Predation 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
September 2, 2018	Good article nominee	Not listed
October 4, 2018	Good article nominee	Listed

Current status: Good article

A summary of this article appears in biological interaction.

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1

Humans as predators[edit]

The section on humans, like the rest of the article, is fully cited (WP:V) to reliable sources (WP:RS). It has been necessary to revert attempted uncited edits which have been largely irrelevant to the article, based on no more than editorial opinion. That's obviously not all right, specially in a reviewed article. If editors have suitable reliable sources to hand, or want to discuss changes, then here's the place. If they have personal opinions, then the article isn't the place. It's a biology article, not sociology, and not a discussion forum. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:02, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is no part of the definition of predation in this article that suggests that the prey is hunted or trapped in the wild in any way. Humans kill the whole animal to eat it, so as a species, we are predatory in our farming practices. Maybe the sources that you refer to are working on a different definition, but the wikipedia article, especially if it is going to be in any manner describable as a good article, should be internally consistent. I haven't removed any information, so the information that the sources give is unaffected. Only information that is likely to be challenged needs sourcing, so I would invite you to present to me the group of humans capable of reading an encyclopaedia who do not understand that farming contributes dead animals for consumption. Maybe my choice of wording is not the best, but to exclude livestock farming from discussion of humans as 'an organism..[that] kills and eats another organism' is absolutely ridiculous.

I wouldn't normally include farming as an example of predatory behaviour, and would used a more nuanced definition to exclude it. But I'm not the one trying to defend an article founded on that definition, I am simply trying to make said article have some consistency. Without it, it does not deserve space in Wikipedia, yet alone Good Article status. Kevin McE (talk) 21:51, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are voicing the personal opinion of an editor, WP:OR, rather than peer-reviewed statements in scientific papers. If you want to locate reliable sources and cite them in the article, that's fine. Otherwise, not. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:33, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am trying to make Wikipedia not look stupid. That humans eat farmed food, and that organisms are killed in that process, is about as far from original research as I can possibly imagine. And if you were to read WP:V, rather than cite it as a dogwhistle response, you would see that "any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material": again, I invite you to indicate the user of an encyclopaedia who is likely to challenge the idea that organisms are killed in farming by humans for human consumption. Peer reviewed statements in scientific papers are not the only RS, so as an accusation tat means nothing, and if an article is based on the definition of a term, it must be consistent in applying that definition, or at least admit shortcomings in, or deviations from, the definition.

Please confirm how you would believe that you can satisfactorily address the issue of humans killing another organism for food (the definition that this article uses) without addressing agriculture. Kevin McE (talk) 08:54, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that human farming meets many (all?) definitions of predation is patently obvious and needs no citation. However, as the definition section discusses, the label "predation" is applied inconsistently, and some behaviors that clearly meet definitions of predation just aren't considered "predation" (the example of the parasitoid wasp is given). From a quick Google search, I couldn't find any source discussing human farming as predation (or explicitly excluding human farming from a definition of predation). It would be nice if human farming was briefly mentioned in the Definition section, perhaps in one of the first two paragraphs where there is already discussion of behaviors that are/aren't considered predation. However, without some source on whether human farming is considered predation, I wouldn't know what to write. Ajpolino (talk) 14:27, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Kevin McE: The verifiability has been challenged by two people. Make that three now. I went through a very similar thought process to Ajpolino. RockMagnetist(talk) 17:09, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised that you count Ajpolino's comment "needs no citation" as a challenge to the verifiability. I am also surprised that you think the fact that humans kill animals for food needs a source: let me help you. Kevin McE (talk) 15:27, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Kevin McE: You are not addressing the core of Ajpolino's argument. Making snide comments doesn't help. RockMagnetist(talk) 22:33, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm asking those who are not willing to allow the article to be changed so that it is consistent with its introductory sentence to consider changing the opening sentence so that it is consistent with the article. Are you going to address that, or simply make irrelevant comments about talk page discussion? Kevin McE (talk) 11:10, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have addressed it, and so have the other two editors here. I have even provided a source below that classifies farming as cultivation mutualism. But since you're not satisfied with our responses, I'll request further input at WP:WikiProject Ecology. RockMagnetist(talk) 17:52, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that Chiswick Chap got there before me. RockMagnetist(talk) 17:53, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Other species besides humans practice farming (see, for example, this article), and some kill and eat the product. It's referred to as cultivation mutualism (see also this article). It might be worth making a note of this in the article. RockMagnetist(talk) 17:27, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Eating living matter[edit]

The definition seems to make a requirement that is not fulfilled by many predators. The death of the prey often occurs after it is eaten, for example in seed predation, ovivory, many cases in which the predator is bigger by a large factor than the prey (whales and krill, at an extreme) or lacks the physical equipment to kill other than in the act of consumption(eg spiders). This aspect of the definition needs re-examining. Kevin McE (talk) 12:00, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Solitary Versus Social Predation[edit]

Solitary Versus Social Predation - A claim is made that out of the 245 terrestrial carnivores, 177 of them are solitary. This statement is false at worst and misleading at best. When I checked the source for the claim, it appears the source was referring specifically to terrestrial members of Carnivora which should be referred to as carnivorans. There are approximately 270 members of order Carnivora, most of which are predatory and terrestrial. While I was not able to find out how many terrestrial carnivores there actually are, I know this statement is incorrect when you account for the fact that there are many more terrestrial carnivores that are not even part of order Carnivora. There are carnivorous mammals that are not included, carnivorous reptiles, and many carnivorous invertebrates which are terrestrial. I would recommend modifying the statement or removing it altogether.

I hope this is a helpful contribution I have made. --MarsAtlantica (talk) 19:07, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Somebody must have copy-edited Carnivora to carnivores. I've put it back. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:23, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with chart in Definition section[edit]

The chart in the Definition section (shown here) seems wrong somehow.

Why wouldn't the herbivory and scavenging areas overlap?

Sea snails and crabs would be examples of creatures that feed on algae as well as other dead creatures.

@Chiswick Chap: Did you create this image? ~Anachronist (talk) 03:18, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, ok, I can make them overlap. It's peripheral, as it doesn't concern predation, but whatever. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:46, 2 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Missing lede?[edit]

@Chiswick Chap:, as the original GAN nominator. 1a of WP:GA? says that GA articles should comply with the manual of style for lede sections. However, it looks like the lede of this article has disappeared since it was promoted in 2018. Would you or someone else knowledgable in this subject be able to write a new lede for this article? If not, I will send this to be reassessed at WP:GAR. Thanks. Z1720 (talk) 18:23, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Everything's fine. A IP vandal on 19 June accidentally commented-out the lead and the first few sections of the article, replacing ... --> with ... Kristen -> so the comment failed to close. The entire text of the lead and the invisible sections was still in the article. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:00, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Image[edit]

Took this dramatic image recently of a great blue heron eating a brown water snake. Thought it might belong in this article, but I see there are already a lot of images already. Dropping it here to defer to others. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:40, 9 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's a fine image. We do as you say have enough here already, especially of vertebrates. It would be nice to make a well-organised page of predation images over on Commons, if you felt like doing that? Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:45, 9 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]