Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Traumatic insemination

Traumatic insemination

Original - Traumatic insemination, seen here in the bedbug Cimex lectularius, is the insertion of sperm into the female by breaking through the carapace of the abdomen and injecting the sperm inside. This makes the male's reproduction more efficient; however, the threat of infection and necessity of healing decreases the female's life expectancy. Traumatic insemination is also found in some other invertebrate species, including some nematodes, flies, and leaf bugs.

Edit1 Gaussian blur on background to reduce artifacts

Reason

A stunning illustration: You can see the carapace cracking.

Articles this image appears in

Traumatic insemination, bedbug

Creator

Rickard Ignell of Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Note

Please notify Raul654 of the result of this, as uploader.

• Support as nominator (Edit1 is best) --Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• (As the one who get permission for the image) Support Raul654 (talk) 16:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• comment I wish the focus were on the point of insertion. de Bivort 17:26, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Given the difficulty of the image - the bedbugs are not going to stay still for you - I think that it's surprisingly good. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 17:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Good heavens, we've sunk from bug porn to bug rape. Highly encyclopedic though. May I step on them? Durova^Charge! 21:15, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support per Durova. ZooFari 21:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Impressive stuff. Adds great value. |→ Spaully^₪† 23:58, 2 April 2009 (GMT)
• Comment You know, I've just been looking closer, and noticed there's some JPEG artefacting. It seems to be almost entirely in the background, but be aware. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 01:07, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support educational value is much more important to me that some background jpeg artifacts. -- m:drini 03:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
• Conditional support. Too bad about the focus, but there's not much that can be done about that. There is however a dust particle on the sensor or the mirror, just under the thorax of the male. Full support with bells if you remove that. -- Michel Vuijlsteke (talk) 08:50, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support Looks good to me. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 15:42, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
• Weak support for good EV and hard to capture. --Muhammad(talk) 18:54, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support- the important part is in focus. I wonder if she's in pain? J Milburn (talk) 11:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Probably not -- In the majority of examples of invertebrate nociception noted above, there seems to be little, if any, evidence that the animals' responses persist in anything akin to the manner described for mammals. As Eisemann et al. (1984) have described in a review of the "biological evidence" concerning pain in insects, "No example is known to us of an insect showing protective behavior towards injured parts, such as by limping after leg injury or declining to feed or mate because of general abdominal injuries. On the contrary, our experience has been that insects will continue with normal activities even after severe injury or removal of body parts." Raul654 (talk) 16:07, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support Edit1: Definitely worthy. Maedin\^talk 20:18, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Which do you prefer? Original or edit? ~ ωαdεstεr16_«talk^stalk» 22:23, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Promoted File:Traumatic insemination 1 edit1.jpg MER-C 12:41, 11 April 2009 (UTC)