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:

Courageous Meadow Dragon said...

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 -

Metamatician said...

6 right! You're winning!

Metamatician said...

Don't look up! Spoilers!

Bonus points for "ruminants" and "cephalopods."

Mandula said...

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... :(

Mandula said...

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

billybytedoc said...

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!

Metamatician said...

~~~~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~~~

Hans said...

thanks for the invitation but no way.

Metamatician said...

Bonuses:

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

Metamatician said...

BillyByte gets the humor award for "Chiropractors."

Good one!

---

Mandula, nice try! 4 right.

Andrea is still winning.

Unknown said...

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

Metamatician said...

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.

Unknown said...

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.

Metamatician said...

Thanks for being honest :)

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