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 | African river martin is part of the River martin series, a featured topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Taxobox image
editHmm...doesn't much look like a martin...more like a Blackbird (????????????) Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:41, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
TFAR
editDescription
editCas Liber I'd like to ask about this sentence, which appears in the second paragraph in African river martin#Description:
- There are many bird species in which there is sexual dichromatism which is not apparent to the human eye, but spectroscopic analysis of this martin's head feathers suggests that the colour differences between the sexes are small even to the birds' perception.
The way this is worded, particularly the phrase at the end, "even to the birds' perception", sounds as if the spectroscopic analysis discovered that the differences "are small even to the birds' perception". I'm wondering if that is even possible. I can understand a spectroscopic analysis discovering that the colour differences between the sexes are small, but not that the birds perceive the differences as small. Perhaps a few words could be added to indicate that the differences are small even to the birds' perception, but not as something discovered through spectroscopic analysis, perhaps:
- There are many bird species in which there is sexual dichromatism which is not apparent to the human eye, but spectroscopic analysis of this martin's head feathers suggests that the colour differences between the sexes are small, probably also even to the birds' perception.
Also, even though "which" is often used to introduce a restrictive adjective clause (more on WP than elsewhere), it would be good to avoid the use of "which" twice in close proximity. I suggest using "that" for the second one:
- There are many bird species in which there is sexual dichromatism that is not apparent to the human eye, but spectroscopic analysis of this martin's head feathers suggests that the colour differences between the sexes are small, probably also even to the birds' perception.
– Corinne (talk) 23:32, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
P.S. - It would read just a bit better if it said "the differences in colour between the sexes" instead of "the colour differences between the sexes":
- There are many bird species in which there is sexual dichromatism that is not apparent to the human eye, but spectroscopic analysis of this martin's head feathers suggests that the differences in colour between the sexes are small, probably also even to the birds' perception.
I might even suggest using the singular: "...the difference in colour between the sexes is small". Using the singular "the difference" does not necessarily mean that the feathers contain only one color:
- There are many bird species in which there is sexual dichromatism that is not apparent to the human eye, but spectroscopic analysis of this martin's head feathers suggests that the difference in colour between the sexes is small, probably also even to the birds' perception. – Corinne (talk) 23:53, 8 February 2016 (UTC)