This is the newsletter for
WikiProject Tree of Life, including a roundup of recently-promoted content (FA/GA/DYK) and talk around the town. If you are interested in receiving such a newsletter, please add your name below.
All help is welcome to produce this community newsletter! I understand that Wikipedia editing is a volunteer activity by people with real lives, however, so don't feel that you need to commit to a lifetime of service. Feel free to come and go as ideas/the urge to copyedit strikes you.
Enwebb—creator and benevolent dictator for now
SchreiberBike—copyeditor as time allows
starsandwhales—copyeditor and possibly writer (as time allows)
Our first double issue in
almost four years, although we will try to return to a monthly schedule henceforth (incidentally, the last double issue saw
Markham's storm petrel at GAN, and this one sees it finally pass FAC).
The
March 2024 GAN Backlog Drive starts today; everyone is welcome to participate and help reduce the backlog of GANs.
The January edition of our
monthly rolling contest was won by Quetzal1964 with 100 points from 40 articles, mainly related to various species of marine fish. simongraham was second with 80 points from 14 articles on jumping spiders.
The February edition saw Quetzal1964 win for the second time in a row, with 114 points from 43 articles. In second place was Snoteleks, with 21 points from 7 seven articles on various unicellular
eukaryotes, including the GA
Telonemia.
January DYKs
... that Dacrytherium, literally meaning 'tear beast', was named after its "
tear-pit"? (3 January)
... that the wood-pasture hypothesis posits that semi-open wood pastures and not primeval forests are the natural vegetation of temperate Europe? (5 January)
... that until April 2023, when the
genusTriassosculda was discovered, the
mantis shrimp fossil record contained a gap of more than a hundred million years? (5 January)
... that although Olga Hartman believed that her
basic research on marine worms had no practical value, it was applied to experimental studies of oysters? (6 January)
... that Oxford ivy grows towards the light to bloom and then towards the darkness when going to seed? (17 January)
... that S. F. Light(pictured) disliked using his full name? (20 January)
... that the fossil turtle Acherontemys was named for a "river of the fabled lower world"? (26 January)
... that having lived in Central Park for more than a year after becoming homeless, Flaco(pictured) has been accused of being a peeping tom? (19 February)