Commons:Categories for discussion/2018/05/Category:Buphagus erythrorhynchus on big mammals

Category:Buphagus erythrorhynchus on big mammals is a specific category depicting a mutual realtionship. It is not at all like the umbrella category Category:Buphagus erythrorhynchus with other animals which should encompass all interspecific relationships, visible on the existing photos.

Category:Buphagus erythrorhynchus with other animals is a possible mother category of Category:Buphagus erythrorhynchus on big mammals, but it is completely wrong to add categories like Category:Animals sitting on other animals, Category:Mutualism to Category:Buphagus erythrorhynchus with other animals, as it would be correct to add a bird of prey or a snake eating Buphagus erythrorhynchus or Buphagus erythrorhynchus eating a insect on the ground to this category. Therefore please restore the original category and start a Category:Buphagus erythrorhynchus with other animals as its mother category, when there are pictures depicting something which is not a Buphagus erythrorhynchus on a big mammal but something else. - Kersti (talk) 07:07, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• I changed it because it had no parent category. There is a "birds with other animals" parent category, but no "birds with big mammals" parent category; that may be because it is hard to define what "big mammals" are. The animal categories are getting overcategorized, divided into too many subcategories. It is getting nitpicky and this is not helpful for people trying to use categories to find the files they need. There should be a reason why big mammals should be separated from mammals of other sizes, for example. Change the categories however you want but help us out by making it clear why each subcategory is really necessary; some of us actually use the category system and if it becomes hard to use, we have to change it. Thanks, have fun Ruff tuff cream puff (talk) 19:27, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with both of you. "Big animals" or "Big mammals" is ambiguous and doesn't match the category tree. But Category:Animals sitting on other animals isn't a good parent category for Category:Buphagus erythrorhynchus with other animals. Category:Buphagus erythrorhynchus on other animals is would make logical sense. We might actually skip right over that and create Category:Buphagus erythrorhynchus on mammals, with perhaps Category:Birds on other animals (a sub-category of Category:Perched birds) as a potentially useful middle category. I can understand your desire to have Category:Mutualism involved, Kersti Nebelsiek, but this bird simply sitting on a large mammal is not actually a visual demonstration of mutualism. - Themightyquill (talk) 20:49, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ruff tuff cream puff: I changed it because it had no parent category.

The first category of one type never hast a parent category. But there are possible sister categories as there are other birds like cattle egrets (Bubulcus sp.) which tend to do similar things. The mutual realtionship ist to big mammals - it doesn't eat the ticks on crocodiles or snakes - and as the category name has no sharp border, "big" is not exact, the border the animal uses ist no more exact than "big" - it won't sit on rabbits, to eat ticks, but maybe sometimes on sheep. The category tree should agree first with the reality. You will find the birds of the genus Buphagus alsways on the animals, while they feed on their ticks, cattle egrets are really often near the Mammals which they tend to clean. And in this case it is really nessesary to name the category for the mutual relationship "big mammals" as they clean Buffalos but eat mice.

I am not shure how to name the parent category, I think Category:Cleaning symbiosis would be a good idea. But for the species having a cleaning symbiosis I think it is in many cases better to do it as I did it in Category:Buphagus erythrorhynchus on big mammals as they have a cleaning symbiosis, but you seldom see the act of cleaning on the photos and often see the birds simply sitting on the animals they tend to clean. I would guess if the bird isn't hungry he sits on a Buffalo for protection. A lion won't catch a bird if there's a buffalo calf to catch and a carnivore of the size of a fox won't try to catch a bird on a buffalo, as the buffalo is too dangerous. The other way round the mammals are friendly to the birds which eat their ticks, but you usually wont find a hawk on a buffalo, even if the hawk might think it is a good place to hunt mice. But you will often find cattle egrets hunting mice near Buffalos! Additionally the birds may warn the mammals if a lion comes near, as they fly away when the lion comes. A Vulture in the same situation may think. "Wonderful if the lion is hunting, there will be scraps for me!" and sit and wait for the scraps. Simply sitting on the mammal is therefore part of the mutual relationship, which doesn't exist with other bird species like hawks and vultures.

A mutual relationship is useful for both partners and there are many possible uses.

I think it is a good idea to name the categories for what you see on the pictures (Buphagus sitting on big mammals) and catecorice the categories for what it is (cleaning symbiosis). It is highly significant that there is no photo in the category where the bird does something else in relationship to animals. Additionally there are parent categories for the different aspekts of the category name Category:Animals sitting on other animals, Category:Mammals with other animals, Category:Mutualism.

--Kersti (talk) 06:09, 7 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Since images specifically depicting the mutualism are rare, it might make sense to have a subcategory of Category:Mutualism to the effect of Category:Birds that eat ticks from other animals and put all of Category:Buphagus erythrorhynchus in that. It might even be broader -- Category:Mutualistic birds or Category:Symbiont birds, whatever the correct terminology would be. - Themightyquill (talk) 12:01, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Definition: Mutualism or interspecific cooperation is the way two organisms of different species exist in a relationship in which each individual benefits from the activity of the other.

I thought that I explained that simply sitting on the mammal is part of the mutual relationship, as it is part of the use both partners have from it. therefore all interactions between both partner are part of the mutualism. --Kersti (talk) 15:19, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Kersti Nebelsiek, Ruff tuff cream puff, and Themightyquill: - Only just seen this, while updating the species category to the correct spelling (it is erythrorynchus, not erythrorhynchus - see IOC [scroll to end of page] and the protonym).

As to this discussion: the ecology of the species is so strongly tied to large mammals, that this subcategory effectively becomes a synonym of the species category itself: it is hard to find a photo of an oxpecker not on a large mammal. Removing photos from the base species category into this subcategory effectively leaves the base species category almost empty. Therefore, I'd advise that these 'on animal' subcategories should be discontinued in entirety, or redirected to the base species category. And it is reasonable to add categories like Category:Animals sitting on other animals and Category:Mutualism to the base species category itself.

If this option is not liked, at a minimum, this subcategory needs to be moved to the correct spelling, and the taxonavigation needs to be copied in from the species category, so that the images contained in it can be found more easily by web trawlers that pick up the taxonavigation template. - MPF (talk) 13:58, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Further thought: what would be more useful is a subcategory separating out the photos which are primarily of the mammal where the oxpecker(s) are very small as a proportion of the photo; thus e.g. File:African buffalo or Cape buffalo, Syncerus caffer, with Red-billed Oxpecker, Buphagus erythrorhynchus, at Kruger National Park, South Africa (20331801793).jpg would go into this subcategory, while e.g. File:Buphagus erythrorhynchus -Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve-8.jpg where the oxpecker is the main subject, would remain in the base species category. Obviously a bit subjective at times (e.g. File:Impala Taxi (27996567182).jpg), but most should be fairly easy to decide. - MPF (talk) 16:00, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]