Pyrochroid* page - "Food" correction

because now both appear as contradictory statements on the Pyrochroidae page under the Food category.

The first one says larvae are not normally predaceous (citing Young, 1975), and a later statement says larvae are typically predators living under bark (a direct quote from this page by William Godwin at Texas A&M Entomology).

It seems that older sources may have listed the larvae as carnivorous/predaceous (ie. Arnett 1968 when citing literature from 1914-1951).

Daniel Young works on the Pyrochroidae of the World and wrote the family chapter in American Beetles. His work in 1975 revealed that larvae were fungivorous, based on gut contents.

JM Campbell in the Checklist of Beetles of Canada and Alaska states: "The feeding habits and biology of pyrochroids were summarized by Young (1975). Larvae live in dead wood and are apparently fungivorous rather than predaceous or xylophagous as reported by earlier authors."

Hope this helps with your revision of the food category description.

Thanks, Charlene. The "old sources" explanation clears up the previous confusion. I've added your comments to the Guide page for future reference.

...it is not really fixed. (Poor choice of words on my part.) I actually saw that the added information was incongruous with the statement already on the page. However, I am too much of a beginner to be able to know which source is more reliable (Godwin vs. Young). I do agree that the information on guide pages should not conflict in this manner. As a side note, it would be helpful to know who actually made the update to the page; in my mind this is exactly why I think a comment should be left on the post by the editor when responding to such requests.

So, Robin, how would you suggest we amend this so that it reads more professionally? Should we defer to one source over the other, or rewrite the information to clearly express that there are two differing opinions on this matter?

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I was really hoping that I was being more helpful than I was being annoying. (*smile*)

I agree that a comment is useful. It saves time to other editors.

if I stumble upon something that was corrected/added by another editor. It does save others the time of looking into something that has already been addressed.