Nexus Scientific Classification

[Dray]

I'm wondering if we can put together a scientific classification for all of the dragons that exist in the Nexus to get a better idea of what can (or should... or shouldn't!) be able to breed together... or just for the sake of having a neat classification system.

I was thinking of this:

Kingdom: Animalia (Save for a few outliers, like Unyko's plant-dragons, or Shard's neon dragons, etc!)
Phylum: Chordata (do we have any spineless dragons? XD)
Class: Nexusii (somewhere ought to class things as 'from the Nexus'!)
Order: Draco? ('form of a dragon'!)
Family: Planet? (Pernii? Alskyrii?)
Genus: Agency? (Falusii? Darkling Dawnii? XD)
Species: Name? (Pernus? Asandus?) Hybrids?
Subspecies: Breeds/Hybrids?

I haven't done a bunch of research about how hybrids are named, but that would be something that would be important for me to figure out.

Anyways, any thoughts? Any taxonomy experts in the forum who want to smack this setup down?

eta: fiddling with this, it immediately becomes apparent that the species place of origin gets lost if the dragon's drawn at a different place -- for example, if I'd wanted to name an Asandus that was adopted from the Fur & Feathers frenzy, the planet of the species' origin (Avengaea) is different from the planet of the dragon's birth. (Atu.) So that's a problem. XD

[delyar]

Argh I had a huge post written up but the draft didn't save for some reason.

There are some flaws immediately present in the current format. For one, phylogenic classification is based on genetic similarity so having places of origin supercede species name is inherently flawed. Instead, it should go species then places of origin as a subspecies determinant. It is also important to remember that cross-species breeding in the real world rarely works and cross-genus breeding never works (no known exceptions that I know of). Ergo, the farther up you go, the less similar/compatible species should be.

I think it would be neat to have a differentiation between reptilian and mammalian dragons - using eggs/fur as a defining feature. This would be something you can shunt in at family level, which is a bit fucked but we want the Draco designation to take it over.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Nexusii
Order: Draco
Family: Reptilia/Mammalia/Other?
Genus: Planet of BREED origin (Pern, Avengaea)
Species: Name (Pernus? Pernese?, Asandus)
Subspecies: Subgroup (None, Niteshan)

So for example, Animalia Chordata Nexusii Draco Reptilia Pern Pernus Falas or Animalia Chordata Nexusii Draco Mammalia Avengaea Asandus Niteshan - where Niteshan is a subspecies. In short form, they would be Pernus falas (P. falas) or Asandus niteshan (A. niteshan).

Alternatively, we can use the subspecies designation as used for some species such as the horse (the common horse is actually a subspecies of Equus feras, called Equus feras caballus, shortened to E.f. caballus or Equus caballus). This allows for greater flexibility for the Asandus subspecies and so on by creating a tiered system where we can put agency under the greater subspecies heading.

So we could, in theory, create something that changes it to Avengaean asandus niteshan sanctuary or A.a.n. sanctuary for those born in the sanctuary (forgive me if I'm using the wrong term). This also allows for differentiation between the greater falas species and the FGPC derivative, naming one as simply P. falas and the other as P.f. genetic.

I'm not sure how this would fit into the system as you have it set out. I really like having the planet of origin as genus and the species as species, even if that gets a little redundant for certain species. But that also creates the problem of having multiple subspecies for the Asandus subtypes. I know that the Asandus subtypes aren't analogous to the colours of other species so I can't bump them "down" from subspecies.

Alternatively, we can treat the place of origin as a "breed", similar to horse breeds. These have no designation in the latin name - they are listed as simply (using the Asandus example) A.a. niteshan Sanctuary breed. This turns the Falas example into P. generic Falas breed... which is less elegant.

As a note, hybrids such as mules have no specific designation. They are listed by their two parent genus species designations. For example, mules are Equus asinus x Equus caballus. As such, a Niteshan/Piralan crossbreed would be A.a niteshan x A.a. piralan. Adding a breed classification to this would be complicated as those aren't hereditary unless they're purebred.

[Dray]

Ha ha, so basically, anything that is more than a little mixed-breed would be pretty much screwed for designations.

I like the way that you have this, though, I think it's far more elegant than my fumblings could really get at!

[StarFyre]

It's a nifty idea, but I'm not entirely sure that we could keep it sane and understandable. *add two cents, wanders off to find more painkillers for headache*

[delyar]

It's a nifty idea, but I'm not entirely sure that we could keep it sane and understandable.

Yeah that was my impression - I just felt like outlining the thought process behind it in case people were interested in it.

I'll see if I can wrangle it into something more useful using clades. Clades are fun - they're categories and can be incorporated into the hierarchy but they have no designated spot and you can have multiples... or none at all.

And I guess hybrids would get rounded up to the nearest similarity and be listed as something like Draco sp. or A. asandus sp. for simplicity and then have their designation listed more specifically if desired. Kind of like how we list "mutt" on some fields then list out "Lantessama/Winter/Drak/Lvarian" blah blah on some pages.

Any opinions on the reptilia/mammalia classification? From my background in biology, I tend to classify things like that... but we're talking about creatures that fly and breathe fire/metal/whatever so we don't have to stick to that.

[StarFyre]

Any opinions on the reptilia/mammalia classification? From my background in biology, I tend to classify things like that... but we're talking about creatures that fly and breathe fire/metal/whatever so we don't have to stick to that.

From my vague remembrances of bio, back in the ancient days when I was a froshie undergrad (aaahh, the good ol' days =P ), reptilia tend to be scaled and lay eggs, while mammalia tend to be furred and give live birth and suckle their young.

Of course, we could always do something craaaaaaazy and create, say, a draconia classification. I mean, these are six-limbed (usually) beings and as far as earth biology, six limbs just does not exist. This, of course, excludes the wyverns and "holy shite how many legs/wings does that thing have?" species that crop up now and again, but the majority are six-limbed.

[delyar]

From my vague remembrances of bio, back in the ancient days when I was a froshie undergrad (aaahh, the good ol' days =P ), reptilia tend to be scaled and lay eggs, while mammalia tend to be furred and give live birth and suckle their young.

Of course, we could always do something craaaaaaazy and create, say, a draconia classification. I mean, these are six-limbed (usually) beings and as far as earth biology, six limbs just does not exist. This, of course, excludes the wyverns and "holy shite how many legs/wings does that thing have?" species that crop up now and again, but the majority are six-limbed.

Yeah, I was thinking that we'd use "six-limbed" as the Draco classification farther up, then differentiate into Mammalia/Reptilia/Other and then go into planet-specific stuff. Which seems a bit odd, to recreate a mammalia/reptilia classification within the draco classification as that doesn't happen elsewhere. And would feathered dragons follow an analogous reptilia->ave pattern?

Basically, we can try to make it look like what we know... or come with our own taxa entirely based on combined characteristics (soooooo much more work but potentially really cool).

[StarFyre]

Personally, I'd pitch Earth-taxa and recreate ours from the ground up, because frankly, what we've got is great for what we've "got" (aka, what exists on earth), and there's very little Earth-natural that exists that cannot be defined via Earth-taxa, but these don't follow earth-rules. Ala my six-limbed note as previous - that sort of limb orientation just doesn't exist here - and going by natural order, if there's one six-limbed species on a planet, you better be damn certain that there's gunna be more than that. That sorta stuff just doesn't come out of nowhere.

Anyway, getting off my high horse...

[delyar]

My only reservation for that is that it'd involve compiling a series of traits for every species, listing them out and then ordering species into completely new taxa. This is incredibly time consuming. Sure, some species are simple like Pernese/Alskyran but once we get into more varied species, it gets crazy very quickly.

Maybe it would be a neat summer project but I know I certainly don't have time for that right now.

[Dray]

That project was already put out there by JKatkina here (I love you, old-database-transfer-over!) with some folks having put forward examples of their own critters. I don't know if that helps, but it might be a start in helping to classify species.

Going beyond an end-result of having a nifty latin-looking scientific name, would you guys like to see other consequences for actually grouping these species? Compatibility? Ratio of dud offspring or the chance of non-compatibility? Evolutions, mutations, likely directions of growth away from or towards a specific species? Traits that could crop up in mutts that come down specific branches of the tree?

[delyar]

I think any combination of that would be cool but we have to be careful about the limitations that could crop up. None of us seem too keen on breeding limitations but I feel kind of weird putting together a phylogeny that completely ignores the fact that mammals + reptiles = no. I mean, I guess we could consider dragons to be a ridiculously polymorphic species for breeding purposes but that seems like cheating.

I'm going to play around with that listing and see what I come up with as "most common" traits for the top of the phylogeny by use of ridiculous excellage. I will report back.

[Dray]

There is something that's kind of neat about having Nexus-members who can actually specialize in this sorta stuff, now.

[delyar]

Ok using that thread Dray linked:

54: One head, Four Limbs
53: One tail
43: Two wings
28: Hide
20: Pupilled eyes
19: Fur
17: Scales
13: Feathers
12: Compound eyes
9: No wings
5: Four wings, variable wings
4: Variable tails, colour = ranks
3: Variable heads, three tails, colour = gender
2: Two tails, two limbs, six wings, gemmed, glowing
1: No limbs, variable limbs exoskeleton, incorporeal, no skin, not a dragon, bipedal

Not really sure how useful this data is without redoing a better survey with actual fields so people have to answer all the questions. (I guessed for the eyes because I think that's a neat thing to consider.) A lot of the fields were incomplete etc.

I need to head to bed now but I'll draw up an example phylogeny in the morning. The rule for a phylogeny is that very few things evolve twice, so the purpose of a phylogeny is to make a sort of "map" of how things should go. Obviously not all one-headed dragons have 4 limbs and not all dragons with 4 limbs have one head so that's not a combined trait, just the likeliest initial point (and subsequent changes are mutants).

Should probably clarify that phylogeny = "family tree" of species.

[Dray]

So the thickest trunk of this tree would have the traits that show up the most, with branches splitting off that also specify those traits which are listed as fewer?

[delyar]

Basically. You can lose traits repeatedly but you usually don't gain traits repeatedly. So, for example, the hydra families would start off as 2-winged four-legged one-headed scaled creatures then branch off into 2-winged four-legged variable-headed scaled creatures and then some would lose their wings to become unwinged four-legged variable-headed scaled creatures.

The problem is that multiple phylogenies are "plausible" so there's no one answer. What I come up with is not necessarily what others would come up with. Not to mention that the data is not necessarily representative of ACTIVE species in the Nexus as I think a lot of people just added random brainbeast species to the list instead of actual given-out-as-adoptables species.

[Dray]

Ahhh, that would make a huge difference.

We could run a background study! I think right now the most active are these:
-Darkling Dawn Fauna Frenzy Pairings (Active Clutches Here)
-Starfall Asana Dragons (Information Here)
-Old Blood Frenzy Participants (Pairings Here -- Though I have noticed that there were one or two pairings that didn't make it to this list while I was making babies! I'll have to go back and double-check. I think it had something to do with Yakima sending participants late and me slipping them in!)
-Variable Dragon Giveaways from Nidus Corona (Specific to the most recent clutches are Draks, Some info dug up here, Geperna, Info Here and Pernese, Info Here.)

There's also the winter gather, but I'm not sure what's going into that yet!