June 12th, 2017: Classifying Critters

[xoxoxoBruce]

When you wander around the great outdoors, no matter if it’s woods, swamp, plains, you’ll see all kinds of critters, living
or dead. Academics being what they are, have a desire to bag and tag them all into neat cubby holes. Make order out of the
chaos nature is. They start with kingdom, critters being animalia, then proceed through phyla, classes, orders, families, genera
and species. Of course it has to be done in Latin or something they contrive to be hard to spell or remember.

In her delightful series of animal illustrations, artist Kelsey Oseid explores and presents the amazing diversity of the earth's living things. Arranged by group and drawn by hand, Oseid's illustrated critters double as scientific studies and whimsical works of art.

Hey look, a bluebird. Oh no, it’s a Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata, Class Aves, Order Passeriformes, Family Turdidae,
Genus Sialia (Sialia sialis, Sialia mexicana, or Sialia currucoides).
It's a little confusing when they all look like birds.



She uses groups below Kingdom or Phylum, but still has a shitload of critters to choose from in putting her posters together.
Here she uses class, infraclass, and Infraorder. Google says Infraorder ranks below suborder, and Infraclass ranks below
subclass. Oh great, as if it wasn't confusing enough.



Fuck it, they're all critters, and I'll call them anything I want.
Hey look, a Bluebird.

link

[Snakeadelic]

The science of classifying living things according to their genetic & evolutionary relationships to one another is called taxonomy.

That's all I'm gonna say or I'll be typing ALL DAY. Taxonomy's been a hobby of mine since grade school.

[Snakeadelic]

Turns out there are no Sialia birds in the Passeriformes poster. The bluest birds on that one are the Steller's Jay (crested, black head & neck), the Fairy Bluebird (not related to Sialia birds, black and blue all over), and the Barn Swallow up top with its shiny blue-black back, pale belly, and orange throat.

There are 6 birds in that section that I've seen and/or photographed .

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yes, I was using Bluebird as an example of what we say vs the scientific jargon.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Where the system runs into trouble is when trying to classify rare animals like Scotland’s elusive nocturnal national critter, the Haggis Scoticus.

[Gravdigr]

Pfft. That's obviously a tame one. Doesn't have the back-horns and forehead sack of the wild haggis.

[Diaphone Jim]

I thought it was scrotius