Title says all. Like with white lion and white tiger, caterpillar isn't a species but rather a form of an animal, in this case a juvenile form. Specifically, it's comparable to how the tadpole is to amphibians or larva to other insects (not to mention both larva and tadpole are general tags themselves)

Caterpillar are a type of larval stage actually, so imho it should also imply larva to begin with. (vaguely relevant but since I'm here: tadpole should imply amphibian)

...And just like that it was changed! Huh! Thanks to whichever mod that did this.

I'd... argue with this, because while technically true... most people won't tag individual species.

Plus, the layperson has no idea if a caterpillar is from a butterfly or a moth... or a sawfly! Those apparently also are called caterpillars.

How do we tag the species on characters like these?

post #1227975 post #721009 post #512840

I have no idea what species they are. They're caterpillars.

And we're not really into tagging butterflies in general.

our *butter*fly* related species tags:

2156 - butterfly
27 - ambient_butterfly (which should be swapped to a general tag, now that I think about it, along with the other ambient* tags)
7 - butterflyfish
5 - butterfly_humanoid
3 - sodium_butterfly (I don't think this is a species. When I goggle it, I get linked to lots of pages about why butterflies drink tears and muddy water to get sodium. All three of these were tagged by Furrin_Gok -- maybe you can shed some light? :)
3 - Peacock_butterfly - Only one of which actually looks like what I'm seeing on google...
3 - Monarch_butterfly - Probably the most easily identified butterfly out there. Three posts.

In my opinion... If a medieval villager wouldn't have known that they were different species, they probably shouldn't be tagged differently. ;) So.. Butterflies and caterpillars are different, tadpoles and frogs are different... etc :)

but that's my two cents <3

SnowWolf said:
I'd... argue with this, because while technically true... most people won't tag individual species.

Plus, the layperson has no idea if a caterpillar is from a butterfly or a moth... or a sawfly! Those apparently also are called caterpillars.

How do we tag the species on characters like these?

post #1227975 post #721009 post #512840

I have no idea what species they are. They're caterpillars.

And we're not really into tagging butterflies in general.

our *butter*fly* related species tags:

2156 - butterfly
27 - ambient_butterfly (which should be swapped to a general tag, now that I think about it, along with the other ambient* tags)
7 - butterflyfish
5 - butterfly_humanoid
3 - sodium_butterfly (I don't think this is a species. When I goggle it, I get linked to lots of pages about why butterflies drink tears and muddy water to get sodium. All three of these were tagged by Furrin_Gok -- maybe you can shed some light? :)
3 - Peacock_butterfly - Only one of which actually looks like what I'm seeing on google...
3 - Monarch_butterfly - Probably the most easily identified butterfly out there. Three posts.

In my opinion... If a medieval villager wouldn't have known that they were different species, they probably shouldn't be tagged differently. ;) So.. Butterflies and caterpillars are different, tadpoles and frogs are different... etc :)

but that's my two cents <3

I see what you're saying, but I argue that this is fixed by their implications to their base species. Caterpillars would still have the insect tag as a species while keeping caterpillar as a general tag, and don't need to be tagged as a butterfly (unless the image contains a specific caterpillar design that is unique to a certain species that is recognizable)

So, therefore, the average person will see it's tagged as insect and be fine in knowing this is an insect. I wasn't necessarily advocating for them to all be tagged as specific butterflies or anything UNLESS the context of the post clearly shows a specific butterfly species to the average viewer.

I agree with SnowWolf, it should be a species tag. Any character who is just a "Worm with legs" is a caterpillar instead of a worm.

Anything species-related should be in the 'species' category, for consistency.

I don't understand why tags such as white_tiger and caterpillar should be general tags, while hybrid, vampire, regional_variant, and shiny_pokemon are species.

Furrin_Gok said:
I agree with SnowWolf, it should be a species tag. Any character who is just a "Worm with legs" is a caterpillar instead of a worm.

Personally I don't agree; for example I don't the the average person would think something like a beetle grub or the southern flannel moth's/puss caterpillar would be the same as the standard caterpillar, when both are technically "larva with legs". Similar? Sure, but they aren't gonna be perceived as caterpillars by most, and I feel tagging larva with legs as inherently being caterpillar will lead to mistags of grubs and the like being "just caterpillars", etc.

Also just to be picky: caterpillars/larva aren't worms, and worms are in fact an entirely different class of animal (earthworms for example are worms of the annelid phylum). Caterpillars are a baby form of the insect, and as such can vary drastically between each other, this is why caterpillars can have drastically different appearances and why I feel it shouldn't be a species tag. If it can differ so drastically in appearance by person to person that it can be unrecognizable when comparing between other works of the species, I don't feel it should be a species tag. Tigers, for example, are easily identifiable and iconic so the species tag is warranted there. Caterpillars, being a stage of life of such a large amount of creatures and varying so drastically I don't feel warrants the status of species.

Genjar said:
Anything species-related should be in the 'species' category, for consistency.

I don't understand why tags such as white_tiger and caterpillar should be general tags, while hybrid, vampire, regional_variant, and shiny_pokemon are species.

Actually I personally I feel all of those should be general tags too, imho.

DiceLovesBeingBlown said:
Actually I personally I feel all of those should be general tags too, imho.

What about marine (generic tag for any aquatic creature), monster and humanoid?

Moving all informative tags to general would leave a lot of creatures without a species tag.

DiceLovesBeingBlown said:
Actually I personally I feel all of those should be general tags too, imho.

Hell no. They refer directly to species, thus they go under the species category. It's how things work with holidays going under the copyright field, it's for the convenience of seeing them easier.

And no, I wouldn't ocnsider the fuzzy caterpillar a "common caterpillar," but I would call it a caterpillar. And that's what the tag is.

Genjar said:
What about marine (generic tag for any aquatic creature), monster and humanoid?

Moving all informative tags to general would leave a lot of creatures without a species tag.

Honestly a good point

Eh, that's that then! Seems most of you disagree with me, so then maybe it should stick to being a species tag.

I'm not sure which mod changed it to begin with (it was changed super sudden, not sure who did it), but perhaps we could contact a mod to revert the change or one will see the results of this thread and revert it.

Broader use of species type is better than switching them to general. After all, there are over 283,000 general tags and only 11,899 species.

We also have ghost as a species.

tadpole is probably general type because nobody noticed it. It only has 73 posts. The implication to amphibian has also been brought up before with no action.

I'm prepared to write a strongly worded letter to the admin who changed caterpillar to general.

Lance_Armstrong said:
Broader use of species type is better than switching them to general. After all, there are over 283,000 general tags and only 11,899 species.

We also have ghost as a species.

tadpole is probably general type because nobody noticed it. It only has 73 posts. The implication to amphibian has also been brought up before with no action.

I'm prepared to write a strongly worded letter to the admin who changed caterpillar to general.

Honestly all some good points, thanks lance

I will say that I do still think caterpillar should imply larva, regardless of its status as a species or not. (Also that tadpole > amphibian implication wouldn't hurt either)