Taxonomy Discussion Thread

When I was a boy, the living diprotodont marsupials were placed in 3 families
Phalangeridae: all phalangers plus the koala
Vombatidae: wombats
Macropodidae; kangaroos and rat kangaroos
All the marsupials were then placed in one order, Marsupialia
 
Of course! I find surprising that this surprises you! Koalas are considered as in Phalangeridae not just by "people" but by eminent taxonoms too, including Thomas (1888), Bensley (1903), Simpson (1945) and Tate (1945), and for me this is still the most acceptable classification.
 
Kakapo said:
Of course! I find surprising that this surprises you! Koalas are considered as in Phalangeridae not just by "people" but by eminent taxonoms too, including Thomas (1888), Bensley (1903), Simpson (1945) and Tate (1945), and for me this is still the most acceptable classification.
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Chlidonias looks at given dates of taxonomy followed by Kakapo, and just shrugs.
 
Kakapo said:
Of course! I find surprising that this surprises you! Koalas are considered as in Phalangeridae not just by "people" but by eminent taxonoms too, including Thomas (1888), Bensley (1903), Simpson (1945) and Tate (1945), and for me this is still the most acceptable classification.
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Out of genuine curiosity, how do you come up with your taxonomy? I don't mean to belittle you, but you seem to really enjoy "correcting" the rest of us but the taxonomy you claim is correct is almost always either from 60+ years ago or seemingly completely of your own creation. I also have a hard time finding a pattern. Usually you seem to just lump anything that looks similar (to you anyhow...) or that was once lumped together, but then you'll split stuff like fur seals. Do you ignore genetic evidence? Geographical? Behavioral? I'm actually curious as to the method of what most of us would call madness.

~Thylo
 
I have my own issues with updated taxonomy but that's purely because I resent having to remember what's been changed and when! :p But in this day and age I find it churlish to ignore new findings based on DNA and won't resort to previous classifications unless proven right (again) by scientific methods... But back to the point. I don't agree with every split, but come on, koalas and possums? Really? ;)
 
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ThylacineAlive said:
Out of genuine curiosity, how do you come up with your taxonomy? I don't mean to belittle you, but you seem to really enjoy "correcting" the rest of us but the taxonomy you claim is correct is almost always either from 60+ years ago or seemingly completely of your own creation. I also have a hard time finding a pattern. Usually you seem to just lump anything that looks similar (to you anyhow...) or that was once lumped together, but then you'll split stuff like fur seals. Do you ignore genetic evidence? Geographical? Behavioral? I'm actually curious as to the method of what most of us would call madness.

~Thylo
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I dislike to being still talking about how taxonomy works in a thread that should be devoted only to captive cuscus, but I just can't ignore your belligerant comment made so specifically for me so I will reply you.
I come up with my taxonomy using a mix of knowlegde, logic and acceptance between the many different taxonomic schools, analizing case by case.
I don't enjoy correcting nothing, it's absolutely the contrary, many zoochatters and in this case, clearly, you, are enjoying "correcting" me, even when my impressions are not an error to be corrected.
I don't claim that a taxonomy "is correct", I always claimed that is the correct one for me. Each user is free to follow the taxonomic school that they want. It's a quite different thing. But all the occasions that zoochatters are fighting with any thing that I say about taxonomy, are making me too tired, so maybe finally I should state a taxonomy as"the correct"... total, your reactions would be the same.
I don't see a reason by mention that the followed taxonomy is from +60 years ago as a reason for find it incorrect. Just plain, this IS not a reason. The accurateness of a taxonomy don't depend of the date of the purposal, but of the accurateness itself. Many scientific names used already for Linnaeus in 1758 are still in use (I know many others not). Even some of the Aristoteles hints into taxonomy are still valid (for example he was one of the first that considered cetaceans as mammals and not fishes). What I mean is that you don't should use a date as a reason for calling an opinion as "outdated", but you should use other additional arguments for it.
There is not a pattern, so you logically can't find one. In the same way that 99'9% of the hundreds of thousands of world taxonomist didn't used a pattern. We are talking about biodiversity in the case that you didn't realized. The tree of life is an ever evolving thing that are branching constantly (at a very slow rate for human measures), and while clearly you can differenciate one branch from another, you can't put exactly a division in the point where a branch bifurcate, and you can't considere all the points of the branches of the tree with the same pattern, just because each branch is different.
I don't lump anything that looks similar (please stop accusing me of things!), if it's not consensed by scientific community at a point. If not, I would have been considering spurges and cacti as parents, a thing that never was considered, even by the earliest botanists. You're right that I lump in a quite number of cases things that are considered by lumped together by the Mankind and scientific community. I don't get your point with fur seals. I don't split fur seals in a different group than sea lions, if you meant this, and I'm unaware that nobody splits these in two different families (tough it would not surprise me as this absurd results are the ones provided by modern taxonomy in many cases).
I don't ignore genetic, geographical or behavioural evidences, it's absolutely just the contrary: I considere all evidences together with the grade of acceptance and my own impressions for make a whole consensus. This is how taxonomy works, dude, for every taxonomist in the world!
As I told before, there is not a method. Madness is just the modern taxonomy.
 
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Kakapo said:
I dislike to being still talking about how taxonomy works in a thread that should be devoted only to captive cuscus, but I just can't ignore your belligerant comment made so specifically for me so I will reply you.
I come up with my taxonomy using a mix of knowlegde, logic and acceptance between the many different taxonomic schools, analizing case by case.
I don't enjoy correcting nothing, it's absolutely the contrary, many zoochatters and in this case, clearly, you, are enjoying "correcting" me, even when my impressions are not an error to be corrected.
I don't claim that a taxonomy "is correct", I always claimed that is the correct one for me. Each user is free to follow the taxonomic school that they want. It's a quite different thing. But all the occasions that zoochatters are fighting with any thing that I say about taxonomy, are making me too tired, so maybe finally I should state a taxonomy as"the correct"... total, your reactions would be the same.
I don't see a reason by mention that the followed taxonomy is from +60 years ago as a reason for find it incorrect. Just plain, this IS not a reason. The accurateness of a taxonomy don't depend of the date of the purposal, but of the accurateness itself. Many scientific names used already for Linnaeus in 1758 are still in use (I know many others not). Even some of the Aristoteles hints into taxonomy are still valid (for example he was one of the first that considered cetaceans as mammals and not fishes). What I mean is that you don't should use a date as a reason for calling an opinion as "outdated", but you should use other additional arguments for it.
There is not a pattern, so you logically can't find one. In the same way that 99'9% of the hundreds of thousands of world taxonomist didn't used a pattern. We are talking about biodiversity in the case that you didn't realized. The tree of life is an ever evolving thing that are branching constantly (at a very slow rate for human measures), and while clearly you can differenciate one branch from another, you can't put exactly a division in the point where a branch bifurcate, and you can't considere all the points of the branches of the tree with the same pattern, just because each branch is different.
I don't lump anything that looks similar (please stop accusing me of things!), if it's not consensed by scientific community at a point. If not, I would have been considering spurges and cacti as parents, a thing that never was considered, even by the earliest botanists. You're right that I lump in a quite number of cases things that are considered by lumped together by the Mankind and scientific community. I don't get your point with fur seals. I don't split fur seals in a different group than sea lions, if you meant this, and I'm unaware that nobody splits these in two different families (tough it would not surprise me as this absurd results are the ones provided by modern taxonomy in many cases).
I don't ignore genetic, geographical or behavioural evidences, it's absolutely just the contrary: I considere all evidences together with the grade of acceptance and my own impressions for make a whole consensus. This is how taxonomy works, dude, for every taxonomist in the world!
As I told before, there is not a method. Madness is just the modern taxonomy.


From this point forwards, I will not reply anything in this thread that is not relative to cuscus and other phalangerids.
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My comment was not an attack on you.. I simply wanted you to explain how you come up with your taxonomy (which you now have) as I didn't understand your methods. Taxonomy is a surprisingly subjective thing and you are entitled to your own opinions on it, but at the same time I don't think it is unfair to ask for you to explain and offer evidence when you insist things such as elephants being only one genus with two species, or that most gazelles need to be lumped back into one genus, or that Felidae comprises of only two genera.

Apologies if you've felt we've been attacking you when pushing these points, but when you make comments telling members they're wrong for including the Northern White Rhino on a list of species that will be Extinct soon it doesn't exactly come across as you simply sharing your own opinion.

My point was not that old taxonomy is inherently outdated, simply that a lot of the sources you use to cite your beliefs are studies that have been considered invalid for a long time. Plenty of old taxonomy is still considered correct today, but when the last reference to anyone believing a Koala is a possum is from 1945, I'm pretty inclined to doubt it. New taxonomy is not always correct nor should it be taken as law right off the bat. The new tiger orientation and Groves' ungulate taxonomy (something I clearly was too quick to buy into for the most part) are good examples of this, and look how many different species have been proposed for Giraffa in the last few years before we finally seem to have settled on four species. New taxonomy does have the added benefit of new research, though, including advancements in genetic data that simply was not available just a few decades ago.

Again, I wasn't accusing you of anything, I simply did not understand how you go about things. My point with the fur seals is that, traditionally, several fur seal species, including townsendi, have been lumped together as one species. Usually you seem to side with lumping species (gorillas, elephants etc.), even when the overwhelming majority of scientists and evidence sides with splitting, but with fur seals you split them despite that taxonomy admittedly still being contested by some. This breaks the "pattern" that I normally saw in your beliefs, but as you've explained there is no pattern so my point was mute.

~Thylo
 
Chlidonias said:
At least he didn't say "my point is moo".
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Nothing wrong with that, in the continuously mutating English language it works for me -people understand it, it makes sense ("it's a cow's opinion, it's irrelevant") and, brilliantly, is both wrong and (sort of right) at the same time. Plus, it's great bait. :D
 
Moderator note: and from here was split off from this thread: A zoo made with the avatars of Zoochatters!


Kakapo said:
Opps... one more confusion :confused: sorry! I certainly prefair a red wolf over a coyote :)
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Given the number of uncontroversial and long-standing species you refuse to accept, I am utterly amazed you accept a still-debated one such as Red Wolf :p

I mean, I accept it too... but I do so from a position of not lumping everything in with the kitchen sink!
 
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TeaLovingDave said:
Given the number of uncontroversial and long-standing species you refuse to accept, I am utterly amazed you accept a still-debated one such as Red Wolf :p

I mean, I accept it too... but I do so from a position of not lumping everything in with the kitchen sink!
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I think it's pretty ridiculous to still debate this one. My local Beardsley Zoo exhibits Grey and Red Wolves and if the animals are near the viewing windows you could even look at them both at the same time. They look absolutely nothing alike other than being "wolf-shaped". The one that I think is still contested is the status of Canis lycaon, a taxa which is almost entirely overlooked and forgotten despite surely being highly endangered, perhaps even Critically Endangered at this point.

~Thylo
 
ThylacineAlive said:
I think it's pretty ridiculous to still debate this one. My local Beardsley Zoo exhibits Grey and Red Wolves and if the animals are near the viewing windows you could even look at them both at the same time. They look absolutely nothing alike other than being "wolf-shaped". The one that I think is still contested is the status of Canis lycaon, a taxa which is almost entirely overlooked and forgotten despite surely being highly endangered, perhaps even Critically Endangered at this point.

~Thylo
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Oh, fully agreed :) my point is more that the species is less widely-accepted than the majority of species Kakapo refuses to accept!
 
TeaLovingDave said:
Given the number of uncontroversial and long-standing species you refuse to accept, I am utterly amazed you accept a still-debated one such as Red Wolf :p

I mean, I accept it too... but I do so from a position of not lumping everything in with the kitchen sink!
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What?????? I never refused to accept a species that is uncontroversial. And the fact is that red wolf has been uncontroversial since ever, just only extremely recently it started to became controversial.
And I'm NOT in a position of lumping everything in with the kitchen sink, in the case that you are accusing me of doing it.
 
Kakapo said:
What?????? I never refused to accept a species that is uncontroversial. And the fact is that red wolf has been uncontroversial since ever, just only extremely recently it started to became controversial.
And I'm NOT in a position of lumping everything in with the kitchen sink, in the case that you are accusing me of doing it.
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The Red Wolf has been going back and forth between full species and subspecies for decades. Nowadays I'm not sure of any major source who still refers to it as a subspecies but it's certainly not extremely recently.

And to be fair, I'm pretty sure the African Forest Elephant split is less controversial than the Red Wolf ;)

~Thylo
 
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