Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Prairie Dog Washington DC 1.jpg

Black-tailed Prairie Dog

File:Prairie Dog Washington DC.JPG

A black-tailed prairie dog at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., looks out from a system of tunnels (also known as burrows), displaying its characteristic scanning of the horizon. Using its dichromatic color vision, a prairie dog can detect predators from afar and then alert others to the danger with special calls. Some researchers believe prairie dog communication is sophisticated enough to describe specific predators.

Edit 1 (remove green fringing + shorter caption) A black-tailed prairie dog at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., looks out from a system of burrows, displaying its characteristic scanning of the horizon. On average, these rodents grow to between 12 and 16 inches (30 and 40 cm) long, including their short tails.

Reason

Used as the main picture in the Prairie dog article, replacing a low quality, small size government photo. There are currently no other pictures of prairie dogs of this quality so this photo fills an important encyclopedic gap. Granted, part of the prairie dog is cut off, but the photo illustrates a very familiar and common pose of prairie dogs: looking out of a tunnel system.

Articles this image appears in

Prairie dog

Creator

Asiir

Nominator

Asiir

• Support — Asiir 12:02, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
• Conditional support. The caption needs to explain how large they get, since the image gives no indication of size. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-20 13:43Z
  • No, it doesn't have to! That's the purpose of the article, not a FP or PoTD caption. Taking it to the extreme, should the caption also tell us what they eat, how they mate, etc? The image doesn't show that either... Support, by the way. Cute, high enc, technically good enough for me. --Janke | Talk 14:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC
    • If the caption emerges as an issue, I will gladly collaborate on writing a caption that is more satisfactory. For those who aren't aware of the debate, please see Wikipedia_talk:Featured_picture_candidates#Caption_Issues. ... How about this sentence from the prairie dog article: "On average, this stout-bodied rodent will grow to be between 12 and 16 inches (30 and 40 cm) long, including its short tail." --Asiir 15:50, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
    • The caption doesn't tell us if the thing that's pictured is an infant, juvenile, adult, male, female, and there's nothing to use as a size scale (is it the size of a horse or a horsefly?) This has nothing to do with the article, and everything to do with providing an accurate, encyclopedic image that isn't misleading or open to interpretation. It's simple enough to fix, so why not fix it? — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-20 16:40Z
      • Added size indication to caption. Sorry, I'm not an animal expert, so I can't specify sex or age. --Asiir 02:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
        • Looks good. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-21 13:35Z
• Comment - what's up with the green fringing on some of the stalks in the background? Oh, and the only portion of the caption that's really necessary here is the first sentence. howcheng {chat} 16:06, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I wondered about the green fringing too. I can't remember if the background grass was actually partially green or if it's some aberration from the lens. --Asiir 16:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comditional Support Edit 1 -support only if the green fringes are removed. but great picture. -Nelro 20:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Green fringing removed for edit 1, as well as contrast slightly enhanced and slightly sharpened around face. --Asiir 02:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
  • i still see green fringes in edit 1 -Nelro 11:57, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Sorry, uploaded the wrong photo last night. Edit 1 is now the correct version. --Asiir 12:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support - gorgeous photo, wish we had more like this. I'd like an even higher resolution version, but it meets the requirements. Stevage 00:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support - preference for edit 1. Great photo, its all been said already. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 10:51, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support edit 1--Mad Max 14:55, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support edit 1. I love prairie dogs. howcheng {chat} 17:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support edit 1, though either is fine. Good exposure and composition. --Tewy 21:59, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support edit 1 per above. Well framed, good quality and composition. Removing the green fringe helped. -Andrew c 02:14, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support edit 1 8thstar 17:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support Beautiful animal and beautiful photo.--Svetovid 21:09, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
• Support edit 1 per above.--HereToHelp 01:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Promoted Image:Prairie_Dog_Washington_DC_1.jpg --KFP (talk | contribs) 21:45, 8 April 2007 (UTC)