Saturday, March 6

Animal names.



The science of taxonomy, as you surely know, has ways of comparing all the living things in the world and clumping the most closely related among them (those which can actually interbreed) into species, then the most similar species into genera (singlur: genus), genera into families, families into classes, classes into orders, orders into phyla, and so on.

Out of the technical jargon you will hear scientists (or other people) talk about groups of animals (usually at the "family" or "class" level, but not always) with a sort of short-hand 'group name' - like hominids for all humans and their closely related ancestors (Homo Neanderthalis, Homo Erectus, Australopithicines like "Lucy", and so on, but NOT, for example, chimps or gorillas, which are more distantly related to the hominids than hominids are to each other). With me so far?

Ok, so here are some scientific shorthand terms used to describe common animals. I've tried to put them generally in order from easiest to hardest. Try to give the common (non-scientific name) for that group or perhaps an example or two. How many can you get?

No search engines, please!

00. Primates - Humans, Apes, Monkeys, Prosimians
01. Felids
02. Canids
03. Ursids
04. Cetaceans
05. Equids
06. Marsupials
07. Piscids
08. Arachnids
09. Monotremes
10. Squamates
11. Testudinates
12. Chiroptids
13. Accipiters
14. Annelids
15. Pinnepeds
16. Lagomorphs

Ok, I think we'll stop there. 16 is a nice, square number (square of a square!). I'll give you a hint: In the list above 10 are mammals (not counting "00"), and 6 are either birds, reptiles, or other things.

Good luck, and if you know any other common group names you didn't find on this list, please share them so we can all learn!

14 comments:

  1. 00. Primates - Humans, Apes, Monkeys, Prosimians
    01. Felids - Cats
    02. Canids - Dogs
    03. Ursids -
    04. Cetaceans -
    05. Equids - Horses
    06. Marsupials - Koala, Kangaroo
    07. Piscids - Fish
    08. Arachnids - Spiders
    09. Monotremes -
    10. Squamates -
    11. Testudinates -
    12. Chiroptids -
    13. Accipiters -
    14. Annelids - Beetles
    15. Pinnepeds -
    16. Lagomorphs -

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  2. Don't look up! Spoilers!

    Bonus points for "ruminants" and "cephalopods."

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  3. 00. Primates - Humans, Apes, Monkeys, Prosimians

    01. Felids - Cats
    02. Canids - Dogs, wolves
    03. Ursids
    04. Cetaceans
    05. Equids
    06. Marsupials - The Big Foot class, marsupilami. :)
    07. Piscids - fishes?
    08. Arachnids - spiders of course
    09. Monotremes - monorails????
    10. Squamates - squids, polips maybe
    11. Testudinates
    12. Chiroptids
    13. Accipiters
    14. Annelids
    15. Pinnepeds
    16. Lagomorphs

    ech... :(

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  4. Cephalopods must be the polips then... I suppose. :)

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  5. 00. Primates - Humans, Apes, Monkeys, Prosimians
    01. Felids Cats?
    02. Canids Dogs?
    03. Ursids
    04. Cetaceans shelled sea animals
    05. Equids
    06. Marsupials Young in outside pockets
    07. Piscids
    08. Arachnids Spiders
    09. Monotremes
    10. Squamates
    11. Testudinates
    12. Chiroptids Chiropractors
    13. Accipiters
    14. Annelids
    15. Pinnepeds
    16. Lagomorphs Wow, I don't know many!

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  6. ~~~~SPOILERS~~~~

    If you still want to play, please do! However, don't read any further or you'll ruin it for yourself, since I'm going to give the answers now.

    01. Felids - Cats
    02. Canids - Dogs
    03. Ursids - Bears
    04. Cetaceans - Whales, Dolphins
    05. Equids - Horses
    06. Marsupials - Kangaroos, Possums
    07. Piscids - Fish
    08. Arachnids - Spiders
    09. Monotremes - Platypus, Echidna
    10. Squamates - Snakes!
    11. Testudinates - Turtles, Tortoises
    12. Chiroptids - Bats
    13. Accipiters - Hawks, Falcons
    14. Annelids - Worms
    15. Pinnepeds - Seals, Walruses
    16. Lagomorphs - Rabbits

    Thanks for playing!

    ~~~END SPOILERS~~~

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  7. thanks for the invitation but no way.

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  8. Bonuses:

    Ruminants - cows, sheep, deer
    Cephalopods - octopuses, squid
    Bivalves - clams, oysters
    Gastropods - snails, abalone

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  9. BillyByte gets the humor award for "Chiropractors."

    Good one!

    ---

    Mandula, nice try! 4 right.

    Andrea is still winning.

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  10. Eeek. I´m ok until #9 and then I get stuck, completely.

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  11. Shoulda gone into the sciences in Uni instead of all those soft courses you took! :P

    But anyway if you didn't peek at my answers you could fill it out up to 9 and probably take the lead, still.

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  12. I already peeked - at least I´m honest about it. I wanted the answers to the ones I didn´t know. And it would´ve only been 8, #9 was the first one to stump me.

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  13. Thanks for being honest :)

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