Talk:Micrurus fulvius

I have copied the following from my talk page and moved it to the discussion page of the article, where I think it is relevant. Micrurus fulvius Nancy Sculerati MD

Hi Nancy, While I appreciate your desire to contribute to Micrurus fulvius, I have a number of problems with your last edits to this article. For starters, you did not included any references for the information you added. I like to include references for everything: not only to back up the statements, but also to remind myself of where the information came from (I have many books on the subject).

Your statement about the fangs being short, blunt and not hollow is in error. All elapids have hollow fangs with which they inject their venom, although the fang groove is "not perfectly consolidated over the canal" (Wright & Wright, 1957). Your statement furthermore seems to understate the potential seriousness of bites from this species. Before Wyeth antivenin became available, 10-20% of bites were fatal. Stidworthy (1974) mentions that "of the few bites that have been delivered to humans by coral snakes, a high percentage have been fatal." In the United States, there are somewhere between 20 and 60 coral snake bites a year (Campbell & Lamar, 2004).

As for the rhyme, it's probably a good idea to include it, but only in the Description section and I insist on a reference. There are also variations of this rhyme. When I was a kid, for example, I learned it as "Red and yellow kills a fellow, Red and black nice to Jack." Regarding your edits to the Description section, those need to be in a separate sentence with their own reference, since Behler & King (1979) do not make the caparison you added.

I disagree with your position that most specimens are too small "to easily inflict an open wound". In 1893, L. Stejneger wrote of M. fulvius: "...it has been repeatedly asserted that the mouth of the Elaps is so small that it cannot bite as well as other poisonous snakes. This, however, is somewhat of a mistake" (from Wright & Wright, 1957). In fact, most snake's jaws can open almost 180° and I believe M. fulvius is no exception. It is true that the most coral snake bites are to the hands and fingers, but this is also because the snake is usually being handled when the bite occurs, and not just because the head is relatively small (Campbell & Lamar, 2004).

Finally, I'm disappointed about the way you somehow managed to use a generic common name for this species no less than four times within a single paragraph. I try to avoid using any names at all in the text, opting instead for terms such as specimens, snakes and species. After all, it is a monograph! At any rate, all of the information you added to the introduction belongs in the Description section. The introduction is supposed to contain a summary of the rest of the text as opposed to containing any original information.

Sorry to be so tough on you, but I'm just as hard on myself. So much nonsense has been said and published in the media regarding venomous snakes that we must take great care to ensure that these articles are as accurate as possible. (If you want to reply, you can do so here, since I've temporarily added your talk page to my watchlist). --Jaap Winius 11:15, 23 December 2006 (CST)

That little rhyme was taught to me by Professor Herndon G Dowling, a well-known herpetologist who was a full professor of Biology at NYU, and had been curator of snakes and reptiles at both the American Museum of Natural History and the Bronx Zoo in NYC. I do not know the origin of the phrase. Dr. Dowling's teaching points about the coral snake were made during several field trips to the southeastern United States, on which I had the privilege of accompanying him - where many of the mimics live in the wild, and where there are also a number of vipers, as I'm sure you know. His remarks about snake bite were not aimed at a person handling the snake, but to a person wandering in natural areas where they are endemic. Whereas the Eastern rattlesnake inflicts many bites on the person who might be cutting brush and trees and not watching their feet - even if shoed, the coral snake accounts for very few fatal or injurious bites to humans in the wild, for the reasons mentioned. Nancy Sculerati MD

P.S. the teeth in this species are grooved- and in that sense "hollow", but the tooth does not extend all the way around the hollow, and in that sense they are not nearly as effective in delivering venom. I stand by my statement that the teeth are relatively blunt, as compared to viper fangs. Nancy Sculerati MD

For all I care, you can add anything you want to this article -- just as long as it is relevant and you provide the necessary references. Anything beyond that I'm sure we can work out. It's just that I've written well over 100 articles for WP/CZ and have gone out of my way to make sure they're all 100% referenced. I too remember lots of things that are not in my books, including that rhyme, but even though it would sometimes make writing easier, I never include that in these articles. Instead, all of the information I add is very carefully researched and referenced. I'm asking you to please follow suite. --Jaap Winius 14:09, 23 December 2006 (CST)

Found a "red and yellow" reference, and quoted it. I don't know how to put the reference in with a proper footnote, and I hope that you can help. I'm very impressed with the work you have done both here and on Wikipedia, and I will try to work with you. Since I have access to the medical literature, in a large part, I think I will work a bit on the article on Snake Venoms. I would appreciate your input, and look forward to any edits you might make - as well as discussion on the talk page. Regards, Nancy Sculerati MD

I've moved most of your stuff to new section called Mimicry, where I also modified your reference and added some more information myself. Notice how your reference now appears in the Cited references section. However, we'll need to find some more references for the other stuff you added, or else it'll have to go. I've tagged those sections so as to make sure you know which ones I mean. Also, would I be correct to assume that everything in your paragraph (not in section Mimicry) ahead of the Conant reference is from that book? (fair warning: I just ordered the same 1975 edition of this book 2nd hand from Amazon for $10.00).

If you'd like to work on the Snake venom article, great! I have a good deal of information on the subject, but have to admit that the biochemistry is beyond me. I'd be happy to help you where I can. The WP version of this article started out as a copy of a paper by George Albert Boulenger that was published in 1913. Toxinology has come so far since then, that you might as well scrap the current article and start from scratch. --Jaap Winius 22:24, 23 December 2006 (CST)

References

Actually, Nancy found a good example where a footnote is unnecessary, I think, and the requirement of a footnote amounts to pedantry. There are many examples of "common knowledge" that we get from a variety of sources for which probably no source is more reliable than the memory of an attentive, intelligent adult.

I too am impressed by your work, Jaap, so please don't take this in the wrong spirit. I think the habit of including very many references in our articles is problematic, and I think I've put my finger on why: the difficulty with over-referencing articles is that the references themselves have to be double-checked. It is far easier for an expert to consult his or her sources, which are far more ready to hand than whatever references happen to be cited for a specific point. In other words, references are idiosyncratic, whereas information is more universal and hence easier to check.

On Wikipedia, references are used for two purposes (among perhaps others) for which they are not needed on CZ. (1) To prove to each other that what we are writing is correct, and not just making stuff up. If we are dealing with experts, we get out the references only if we disagree. Otherwise, they are not necessary; we trust that an expert will not simply make stuff up, because his or her professional reputation is on the line. (2) To make the article seem more authoritative. But since the approval of a genuine expert on CZ will make the article quite credible, references are not needed for this.

In short, then, Jaap, we won't have Wikipedia's requirements regarding referencing. In fact, for readability and maintainability, we might start removing a lot of WP's references. --Larry Sanger 00:35, 24 December 2006 (CST)

Nancy's is a good example, I admit. However, if we start adding unreferenced material like that, where will we draw the line? That's why I think its easier to just take the black and white approach and either state something with a reference or not state it at all. As for using references at all, I cannot image not working that way. Here are some reasons why:

• I have many books on snakes that contain references like this for important facts. One of my favorites (True Vipers by Mallow et al., 2003) has references for perhaps 75% of the text or more. The authors could have left out those references, but they left them in for a good reason: to add credibility to their work. So, if it's good enough for their publications, how can it not be good enough for ours? We need that same credibility.
• That's not to say that references don't benefit the authors. I've written many articles, but often read over them and wonder whether I made any mistakes or not; perhaps I suspect that I did not paraphrase accurately enough. But, thanks to my own references I can see which books to check for the information in question and can quickly settle the matter.
• Also keep in mind that we've got (will have) many authors working on many articles over long periods of time. In this particular case, neither of the current authors of this article are experts and it may be a while before a real herpetologist shows up and is willing to review all of the articles we've produced. If this herpetologist sees anything he doesn't trust and wants to ask questions, hopefully we will still be here to answer them. If not, I can only imagine that he will be very happy if he is at least left with the appropriate references.
• Regarding experts, I think that we'll be lucky if we can get experts to check all of our articles for errors, but I very much doubt that we'll get them to write them all for us. I have little doubt that most of the writing will still be done by non-experts, in which case the experts will be less than impressed if we do indeed include references for everything. After all, that's pretty much the way our professors taught us how to write papers back when we were students at the university, right? (of course, I wouldn't know this because I've never studied at a university).
• Having everything 100% referenced is great for avoiding conflicts. For example, Nancy and I are currently at odds regarding certain physical characteristics of the fangs of M. fulvius. Right now it seems to be her word against mine, but such conflicts are easily avoided -- also between experts -- if all parties simply agree to back up all of their claims with proper references. If both parties have good references, then it's no problem whatsoever to include both statements as opposing points of view.
• So, if you're not an expert and you're writing an article on a subject with which you're not 100% familiar, forcing yourself to find referfences for everything can also teach you new things. For instance, I wrote Bitis gabonica twice: the first time based largely on what I remembered to be correct, and the second based on what I forced myself to discover. The result: I found out that, like everyone else, I previously had an exaggerated idea of the size of these animals. They are indeed the heaviest vipers in the world, but they're not that heavy!
• I'll admit, though, that adding and maintaining references can be a bit of a pain. They also clutter up the text, especially for authors. However, I've managed to get used to the system the way it is and would rather have it the way it is than not at all. To make things easier for myself, I have a little workaround: a text file that I keep open when writing articles that I copy reference entries from whenever I need them (it has entries for all of the relevant books that I own). This is not to say that the footnote system cannot be improved; a number of good ideas have been kicked around in the forum that I believe are quite promising, such as a central database for references, or a way for letting the readers make the footnote marks appear and disappear.
• Finally, if you Google for "How to Write Professional Articles" you'll end up with a number of articles telling you the same thing: that good references for everything are essential. Yes, professional reputations are on the line, but that's exactly why the experts always include really good references for everything! Which is why we'd better do the same, or else people will see us as no better than WP.

In conclusion, references have many advantages and few drawbacks. They are essential for good articles and using them for everything is a no-brainer. If you think credibility at CZ is going to come automatically, you're dreaming! We're going to have to earn that reputation, article by article, sentence by sentence and be really hard on ourselves. Only then will the experts take us seriously and will students be able to quote our articles and feel confident that they will not get bad grades from their teachers. --Jaap Winius 10:26, 24 December 2006 (CST)