Topic: [BUR] 3 missing order-level taxa of mammal (Carnivoran, Artiodactyl, Perissodactyl)

Posted under Tag Alias and Implication Suggestions

The bulk update request #8661 is pending approval.

create implication carnivoran (3) -> mammal (3401229)
create alias carnivora (1) -> carnivoran (3)
create implication ailurid (26715) -> carnivoran (3)
create alias lesser_panda (3) -> red_panda (26317)
create implication mephitid (29843) -> carnivoran (3)
create alias mephitidae (17) -> mephitid (29843)
create implication mustelid (72373) -> carnivoran (3)
create implication procyonid (46219) -> carnivoran (3)
create implication pinniped (6063) -> carnivoran (3)
create alias pinnipedia (0) -> pinniped (6063)
create implication bear (132881) -> carnivoran (3)
create alias ursidae (47) -> bear (132881)
create implication canid (1316053) -> carnivoran (3)
create implication felid (694464) -> carnivoran (3)
create alias felidae (244) -> felid (694464)
create implication euplerid (777) -> carnivoran (3)
create alias eupleridae (0) -> euplerid (777)
create implication herpestid (4726) -> carnivoran (3)
create implication hyena (45778) -> carnivoran (3)
create implication viverrid (1903) -> carnivoran (3)
create alias viverridae (6) -> viverrid (1903)

Reason: Carnivoran (order Carnivore), Artiodactyl (order Artiodactyla, even-toed ungulates), Perissodactyl (order Perissodactyla, odd-toed ungulates).
These clades are lacking from this site, in spite of being highly important mainstreams in the field of furry. Currently, the family-level taxon of these imply "Mammal" directly. This incompleteness makes considerable inconvenience and unnaturalness.
Perhaps someone who tried to maintain the species tags was demotivated in the process. Thus the aborted project should be resumed.

For the arrangement of taxa the following rules are applied:

  • Following the pracedent, avoid scientific name as possible, like Caninae -> Canine, Felidae -> Felid. Thus the suborder Suina ought to be changed to Suine.
  • If the alias with -ae of the scientific name is lacking, request the alias.
  • Pronghorn lacks a family-level taxon, thus it should have its family, Antilocaprid (Antilocapridae), for their extinct species.
  • Lesser Panda is a synonym of Red Panda, by the way.
  • Asiatic linsangs are not a part of Viverrid (Viverridae) any more, but Prionodontid (Prionodontidae). But the discussion about that will be left for another time.
  • Tags of the families of Pinniped also need to be made, but it will not be done at this time.
  • As for Nandiniid (Nandiniidae), or African Palm Civet, it seems not to be had here yet.

Updated

The bulk update request #8662 is pending approval.

create implication artiodactyl (0) -> mammal (3401229)
create alias artiodactyla (0) -> artiodactyl (0)
create alias cetartiodactyl (0) -> artiodactyl (0)
create alias cetartiodactyla (0) -> artiodactyl (0)
create alias even-toed_ungulate (0) -> artiodactyl (0)
create implication tylopod (1) -> artiodactyl (0)
create alias tylopoda (0) -> tylopod (1)
create implication camelid (4847) -> tylopod (1)
create alias camelidae (0) -> camelid (4847)
create implication suina (26473) -> artiodactyl (0)
create alias suina (26473) -> suine (4) # has blocking transitive relationships, cannot be applied through BUR
create implication ruminant (22) -> artiodactyl (0)
create alias ruminantia (0) -> ruminant (22)
create implication chevrotain (23) -> ruminant (22)
create implication moschid (125) -> ruminant (22)
create alias moschidae (0) -> moschid (125)
create implication deer (81032) -> ruminant (22)
create implication giraffid (8537) -> ruminant (22)
create implication antilocaprid (4) -> ruminant (22)
create alias antilocapridae (0) -> antilocaprid (4)
create implication pronghorn (375) -> antilocaprid (4)
create implication bovid (191265) -> ruminant (22)

Reason: See topic #45163

The bulk update request #8663 is pending approval.

create implication whippomorph (0) -> artiodactyl (0)
create alias whippomorpha (0) -> whippomorph (0)
create alias cetancodonta (0) -> whippomorph (0)
create alias cetancodontan (0) -> whippomorph (0)
create implication hippopotamid (3501) -> whippomorph (0)
create alias hippopotamidae (0) -> hippopotamid (3501)
create implication cetacean (15047) -> whippomorph (0)
create alias cetacea (0) -> cetacean (15047)
create implication perissodactyl (0) -> mammal (3401229)
create alias perissodactyla (0) -> perissodactyl (0)
create alias odd-toed_ungulate (0) -> perissodactyl (0)
create implication equid (418840) -> perissodactyl (0)
create implication tapir (417) -> perissodactyl (0)
create implication rhinoceros (6240) -> perissodactyl (0)

Reason: see topic #45163

macsionnaigh said:
Following the pracedent, avoid scientific name as possible, like Caninae -> Canine, Felidae -> Felid. Thus the suborder Suina ought to be changed to Suine.

sorry about the Um Actually but just FYI, all these are scientific names. They're just the name of the family vs. the name for an individual member of the family. But yeah, e6's tag system prefers the name for the individual member of the family. (And yes common names are preferred when they exist but none of these taxa have common names so this is fine)

Updated

I fully support the addition of carnivora and probably the ungulate ones too, but:

  • since common names are preferred, perissodactyl should instead be named odd-toed_ungulate and artiodactyl named even-toed_ungulate please. Unless we're including cetaceans under artiodactyl I guess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artiodactyl Researchers use even-toed ungulate when they want to exclude cetaceans. Also chevrotain should instead be mouse-deer, etc.
  • I'm not sure if we need some of these like the suborder ones (ruminant, tylopod, whippomorph)

Updated

It may be helpful if you could reorganize your BURs to have the easy aliases like felidae -> felid in their own BUR, separate from the stuff that may need more discussion, so that we can approve those ones more quickly :) thanks

wandering_spaniel said:
I fully support the addition of carnivora and probably the ungulate ones too, but:

  • since common names are preferred, perissodactyl should instead be named odd-toed_ungulate and artiodactyl named even-toed_ungulate please. Unless we're including cetaceans under artiodactyl I guess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artiodactyl Researchers use even-toed ungulate when they want to exclude cetaceans. Also chevrotain should instead be mouse-deer, etc.
  • I'm not sure if we need some of these like the suborder ones (ruminant, tylopod, whippomorph)

How do you think about "classification by genetic relationship" vs "classification by superficial resemblance"?

I'd like to support the former, because of the following reasons:

  • e6 already has plenty of tags of genetic taxa that include creatures with totally different physical appearances. For example, arthropod refers both of barnacle and silkworm; it is difficult to understand they are in the same phylum without knowledge of taxonomy.
  • Not only extant animals are relevant to the site, but also extinct ones.
    • As for the even/odd-toed ungulates, the use of them is not recommended because in some cases in the fossil species they do not correspond to the actual appearance. For example, Toxodon (in the order Notoungulata) and Macrauchenia (in the order Litopterna) have three-toed feet with hooves and are genetically included in Euungulata (true ungulates, the clade of the two ungulate orders), but they are not counted in the order Perissodactyla.
    • An extinct species of non-camelid tylopod is depicted in the post #2050569 (seems to be Agriochoerus antiquus ). This animal cannot be categorized in other ways.
    • Pakicetus is definitely classified in cetaceans as their ancestor, but it's appearance is literally the even-toed ungulate. Yes, the two terms are not exclusive against each other.

wandering_spaniel said:

  • I'm not sure if we need some of these like the suborder ones (ruminant, tylopod, whippomorph)

We have suina (suine) already.
At least each members of ruminants resemble in appearance and it would also be useful for searching/tagging in the "what you see" basis. (I think of some legendary animals with a shape that can only be described as some ruminant, such as Qilin in Chinese mythology)
As for whippomorph, the establishment of a common clade tag for whales and hippopotamuses would not be harmful in itself. The name controversy exists, however it should be discussed in the future if there is a move to change it in the academic community.

wandering_spaniel said:
Also chevrotain should instead be mouse-deer, etc.

That article seems to say the species of the genus Hyemoschus and Moschiola are called chevrotains and of Tragulus are called mouse-deers.
This debate would be not about whether it is a common name, but rather whether it is a pure English or French-derived word. If you feel it's unnatural as an English speaker, it can be discussed in a separate topic.

Updated

macsionnaigh said:
That article seems to say the species of the genus Hyemoschus and Moschiola are called chevrotains and of Tragulus are called mouse-deers.
This debate would be not about whether it is a common name, but rather whether it is a pure English or French-derived word. If you feel it's unnatural as an English speaker, it can be discussed in a separate topic.

Haha totally my bad, I skimmed! Disregard that, sorry

macsionnaigh said:
We have suina (suine) already.

Fair enough, yeah. +1 then

Bump for voting/discussion? This seems like a pretty big change to only have one vote

Looks like a bunch of taxon names -> member-of-taxon names (i.e. -idae to -id) and pretty simple taxonomy implications, not super in-depth
(i.e. you didn't use intermediate taxa just because you could, e.g. bovoid (~bovid ~moschid) or pecoran (ruminant -chevrotain) shenanigans avoided)
+1

Hippopotamid should probably be aliased to just 'hippo'. It's two species and both are called hippos.

macsionnaigh said:
How do you think about "classification by genetic relationship" vs "classification by superficial resemblance"?

I'd prefer a hybrid which balances less confusion for layman against taxonomic accuracy. Just because taxonomically two groups are related genetically doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea for them to be so tagged on e621, which is used by a lot of users whose idea of zoology is fairly limited. An example is birds. They are technically dinosaurs, specifically theropods, but we don't tag them as such, mostly to reduce confusion and reduce tag bloat. A justification for this is that birds have diverged so much from other dinosaurs that what constitutes a bird and what constitutes a dinosaur are two different things in the public mind, even among trained zoologists.

  • e6 already has plenty of tags of genetic taxa that include creatures with totally different physical appearances. For example, arthropod refers both of barnacle and silkworm; it is difficult to understand they are in the same phylum without knowledge of taxonomy.

Yes, it's going to be a mishmash of how the standards apply sometimes, I will agree there. Adjustments will be inevitable as we go along, especially as move we away from mammals and birds. That's a major drawback to trying to balance proper taxonomy with keeping it simple enough for the layman.

  • Not only extant animals are relevant to the site, but also extinct ones.
    • As for the even/odd-toed ungulates, the use of them is not recommended because in some cases in the fossil species they do not correspond to the actual appearance. For example, Toxodon (in the order Notoungulata) and Macrauchenia (in the order Litopterna) have three-toed feet with hooves and are genetically included in Euungulata (true ungulates, the clade of the two ungulate orders), but they are not counted in the order Perissodactyla.

I personally would prefer to flip the ungulate aliases:

alias artiodactyl -> even-toed_ungulate
alias perissodactyl -> odd-toed_ungulate

on account that those are the common names for the orders. Using hoofed mammal instead of ungulate might be better, but the length bothers me. I think sticking with ungulate might be best, especially since we have a tag like unguligrade. The feet of extinct members might blur the line a bit, but the names are based on characteristics shared by living species, so it shouldn't be a problem for users to understand that a bongo belongs in this group while a horse belongs in that group. Users aren't likely to be basing what sort of hoofer a critter is by the number of toes it's got, but by what species it is (especially since a lot of the time, we can't see the feet, and different styles make counting the number of fingers unreliable).

It's true the SANUs (South American native ungulates) aren't closely related to either the artiocactyls or the perissodactyls, but they are genetically closest (though distantly due to South America's long "splendid isolation") to the artiodactyls although they typically had odd numbers of toes. Besides, their evolutionary relationships are still a matter of debate in scientific circles so, for the sake of user sanity, I think it best to simply have three categories of ungulates โ€” even-toed_ungulates, odd-toed_ungulates, and south_american_ungulatesโ€“ and leave it at that.

If a case can be made that a taxonomic tag can be useful, it's okay to be used, even if it's a "big word". Of course, sometimes, we might elect to leave out certain tags if there's no advantage to keeping them, such as if there's only one species or genus in a family. For example, if there are 2 genera in the order X-idae, but there are 20 species in the genus Y-is and only 1 species in Z-is. We could just drop Z-is and implicate the 1 species directly to X-idae even though we'd keep Y-is. The best counterargument to that? Upload valid posts of other species in Z-is so that including it makes sense. Plus, we get more pictures to add to the archive. ;)

Are we going to be consistent here? Heck, no. What do you expect from half-organized committee work by volunteers? :p

    • Pakicetus is definitely classified in cetaceans as their ancestor, but it's appearance is literally the even-toed ungulate. Yes, the two terms are not exclusive against each other.

There's nothing that says Pakicetus can't be tagged as both, even if later animals would be only tagged as cetacean. Transitional forms are like a character in mid-transformation, a mix of the character's starting and ending species, but not entirely either one. We'd tag them as both, even though pictures showing the post-transformation character would not be tagged as the pre-transformation character's species. Because isn't that what evolution boils down to? A constant, long-term transformation sequence?

As for whippomorph, the establishment of a common clade tag for whales and hippopotamuses would not be harmful in itself.

Perhaps not harmful, but also not terribly helpful, either, in my opinion. The common perception of what a cetacean is and what a hippopotamus is are similar to the difference between that of birds and other dinosaurs. However, looping back to your example of barnacles and silkworms, just as we would tag those two as arthropod, we would still tag hippopotamid and cetacean as mammal, even though we wouldn't lump them together as whippomorph. It's another example of the compromises necessary when trying to balance scientific accuracy with what layman understand.

That article seems to say the species of the genus Hyemoschus and Moschiola are called chevrotains and of Tragulus are called mouse-deers.
This debate would be not about whether it is a common name, but rather whether it is a pure English or French-derived word. If you feel it's unnatural as an English speaker, it can be discussed in a separate topic.

Personally, I have no problems with using chevrotain if mouse-deer won't work for it. If it being from a non-English language were a problem, we'd be tagging king_tyrant_lizard instead of tyrannosaurus rex. Sometimes, the "big word" is the common name.

Updated

The thing about names, taxonomy, and categorization is that which ones are appropriate depends on context and use.

Going by botanical definitions bananas and tomatoes are berries while a raspberry is not. This use of the term is great if you're in a context where you're identifying the shape and organization of a plant's ovaries. It's useless if you're discussing culinary uses of fruit where flavor profile and preparation are better criteria for organization.

The casual classification of animal taxonomy is always in a sort of grey area. The juvenile classifications of pets, farm, jungle/safari/zoo, water, and forest are definitely too basic for this site's purposes. At the same time calling a cetacean-based fantasy creature a hoofed mammal isn't helpful for art where visual classification will be more clear.

clawstripe said:
I'd prefer a hybrid which balances less confusion for layman against taxonomic accuracy. Just because taxonomically two groups are related genetically doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea for them to be so tagged on e621, which is used by a lot of users whose idea of zoology is fairly limited. An example is birds. They are technically dinosaurs, specifically theropods, but we don't tag them as such, mostly to reduce confusion and reduce tag bloat. A justification for this is that birds have diverged so much from other dinosaurs that what constitutes a bird and what constitutes a dinosaur are two different things in the public mind, even among trained zoologists.

Yes, it is inevitable to use paraphylies, since it is not prohibited even in current taxonomy.
If we make eared seals (sea lions, fur seals) part of seals, seals would be pinnipeds other than walruses.
I also think linsang can't be placed under its appropriate family. Asiatic linsangs (family Prionodontidae, the animals distributed in Asia, originally called "linsang") and oyans (order Poiana, family Viverridae, the animals distributed in Africa, also called African linsangs) have history of mixed up, so we cannot distinguish artworks of them unless their species is indicated, even if oyans are not called linsangs any more.

clawstripe said:
I personally would prefer to flip the ungulate aliases:

The concept of even/odd-toed ungulate has not existed from ancient time, they are just invented in 19th century by a biologist named Charles Owen.
See this ngam: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=even-toed+ungulate%2Codd-toed+ungulate%2Cartiodactyl%2Cperissodactyl%2Cartiodactyla%2Cperissodactyla%2Cungulate&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&case_insensitive=on&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3
It shows even/odd-toed ungulate is less common than artiodactyl/perissodactyl from the point of view of frequency in literatures. The historical context of why this happened is obvious. "Even/odd-toed ungulate" is not official, but translation of what Owen invented, for convenience for laymen, impairing accuracy. These terms did not exist before Owen.
Being an easy English name does not necessarily mean being a common name, but it can be a slang, informal name, childish or vulgar form.
Unlike most of scientific names, which is named known species alternatively in the modern ages, artiodactyl and perissodactyl had existed first, and even- and odd-toed ungulates are kind of their nicknames named afterwards.

Furthermore, some consider Artiodactyla is even-toed ungulates and whales.
Such a word with such an unstable definition is not suitable for tagging.

For the above reasons I consider even/odd-toed ungulate is inappropriate as tag names.

clawstripe said:
It's true the SANUs (South American native ungulates) aren't closely related to either the artiocactyls or the perissodactyls

It's wrong. This is why I referred to Toxodon and Macrauchenia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxodon

Analysis of collagen sequences obtained from Toxodon as well as from the litoptern (another group of indigenous South American ungulates) Macrauchenia found that notoungulates and litopterns were closely related to each other, and form a sister group to perissodactyls (which contains equids, rhinoceroses and tapirs) as part of the clade Panperissodactyla, making them true ungulates.[12][13] This finding has been corroborated by an analysis of mitochondrial DNA extracted from a Macrauchenia fossil, which yielded a date of 66 million years ago. for the time of the split with perissodactyls.[14]

Use of south_american_ungulates is not useful for either laymen nor experts, because they are neither similar in appearance nor having been proven to be genetically related (btw also SANUs other than notoungulates and litopterns are hypothetically Euungulates).

clawstripe said:
Using hoofed mammal instead of ungulate might be better, but the length bothers me.

"Hoofed mammal" doesn't equal non-archaic "ungulate". Being "Greco-Roman" has an effect to hinder people's literal understanding.
The ungulates in classical sense includes elephants, hyraxes, manatees/dugongs. The definition of "ungulate" has changed over time.
Archaic Ungulata includes elephants, advances of fossil research added hyraxes and manatees/dugongs to it, and advances of genetic biology dismantled the clade Ungulata.
Genetic phylogenetics proposes Euungulata, common clade of Artiodactyl and Perissodactyl, instead of Ungulata. If we need ungulate, it would be an alias of euungulate.
However, this should be discussed in a separate topic since it is a classification group above orders.

Here I'd like to mention one other possible negative effect of making them "even/odd-toed ungulate".
e6 is not only for actual animals but fictional ones, so there would be animals from another dimension/timeline/earth where organisms have evolved differently from the real-life earth.
Imagine otherworldly animals that externally look like hoofed mammals. It's silly to count their hooves and put them in a taxon that is not really set up. But such a useless argument can actually happen.
This is the reason why I prefer artiodactyl and perissodactyl from a practical point of view.

clawstripe said:
If a case can be made that a taxonomic tag can be useful, it's okay to be used, even if it's a "big word". Of course, sometimes, we might elect to leave out certain tags if there's no advantage to keeping them, such as if there's only one species or genus in a family. For example, if there are 2 genera in the order X-idae, but there are 20 species in the genus Y-is and only 1 species in Z-is. We could just drop Z-is and implicate the 1 species directly to X-idae even though we'd keep Y-is. The best counterargument to that? Upload valid posts of other species in Z-is so that including it makes sense. Plus, we get more pictures to add to the archive. ;)

Are we going to be consistent here? Heck, no. What do you expect from half-organized committee work by volunteers? :p

There is no reason to give special treatment to suine (suborder Suina) only.
We have already Ailurid, although there aren't any existing species other than red panda within; and also Canine (Caninae), although all of non-canine canids (Canidae) are extinct.
Even if you do nothing, there will be posts of many fossil species definitely in the future. Still, do you think they are not needed?

regsmutt said:
Hippopotamid should probably be aliased to just 'hippo'. It's two species and both are called hippos.

That's just a informal/colloquial shortened name, not used in formal biological discussions. Unlike most of scientific names, Hippopotamus is an venerable name with long history, given by the ancient Greeks themselves.

Updated

Man. Whether or not a term originated in greek or the 1800s is not relevant to this website.
The argument about counting toes on fictional species just pushes me into the camp of "just call em all ungulates."
Ailurid needs to be cleaned up (why are there so many Unikitty posts in ailurid -red_panda) and aliased. The canid/canine near total overlap issue has discussion around it.

regsmutt said:
The argument about counting toes on fictional species just pushes me into the camp of "just call em all ungulates."

That is definitely the worst choice.
Mind you, the definition of the term ungulates is not guaranteed by academic institutions. Therefore, there are many definitions of ungulates, differing person to person, era to era.
There are some parties on the definition of ungulates:

  • Whether elephant's toe nails are hooves: in the classical definition, ungulates (Ungulata) includes paenungulates (Paenungulata, or Hyracoidea (hyraxes), Proboscidea (elephants), Sirenia (dugongs and manatees)), which is not genetically related with euungulates (true ungulates), and their hoof-like nails have developed independently with true ungulates.
    • Whether hoofless paenungulates are ungulates: even if we think elephants (and hyrax) are part of ungulates, their clade Paenungulata genetically includes Sirenia (dugongs and manatees), whose limbs don't have any hooves but are fins.
  • Whether cetaceans (whales) are included in (even-toed) ungulates: as mentioned above, even-toed ungulates is just a colloquial name, not official, not defined by academic institutions any more. Hence this term is ambiguous.

If we adopt ungulate formally, those parties will engage in conflict each others, and it will be sunken into chaos. Which party would you join in and fight along? ๐Ÿ˜…
There's no way not to avoid evitable problems, which will take extra costs, in advance, right?

Updated

macsionnaigh said:
That is definitely the worst choice.
Mind you, the definition of the term ungulates is not guaranteed by academic institutions. Therefore, there are many definitions of ungulates, differing person to person, era to era.
There are some parties on the definition of ungulates:

  • Whether elephant's toe nails are hooves: in the classical definition, ungulates (Ungulata) includes paenungulates (Paenungulata, or Hyracoidea (hyraxes), Proboscidea (elephants), Sirenia (dugongs and manatees)), which is not genetically related with euungulates (true ungulates), and their hoof-like nails have developed independently with true ungulates.
    • Whether hoofless paenungulates are ungulates: even if we think elephants (and hyrax) are part of ungulates, their clade Paenungulata genetically includes Sirenia (dugongs and manatees), whose limbs don't have any hooves but are fins.
  • Whether cetaceans (whales) are included in (even-toed) ungulates: as mentioned above, even-toed ungulates is just a colloquial name, not official, not defined by academic institutions any more. Hence this term is ambiguous.

If we adopt ungulate formally, those parties will engage in conflict each others, and it will be sunken into chaos. Which party would you join in and fight along? ๐Ÿ˜…
There's no way not to avoid evitable problems, which will take extra costs, in advance, right?

It's really not as big a deal or as confusing as you're making it out to be. 1) is it an euungulate 2) does it have hooves. Someone starts mass tagging manatees and cetaceans as ungulates? Tell them to cut it out. Splitting hairs over scientific terms and academic backing on a furry art site is unnecessary.

I like taxonomy, but it's frequently changing based on new information, shifts in philosophy, and politics. The lines of where a species starts and ends- and the line between any closely related group for that matter- is extremely blurry. Ask five biologists to define 'species' and where you draw the line get ten different answers.

A classification system must be tailored to the specific needs of the people using it. This is a visual art site. "Does it have hooves and look like a deer-cow-horse?" is a perfectly valid way to sort things in this context.

regsmutt said:
It's really not as big a deal or as confusing as you're making it out to be. 1) is it an euungulate 2) does it have hooves. Someone starts mass tagging manatees and cetaceans as ungulates? Tell them to cut it out. Splitting hairs over scientific terms and academic backing on a furry art site is unnecessary.

I like taxonomy, but it's frequently changing based on new information, shifts in philosophy, and politics. The lines of where a species starts and ends- and the line between any closely related group for that matter- is extremely blurry. Ask five biologists to define 'species' and where you draw the line get ten different answers.

A classification system must be tailored to the specific needs of the people using it. This is a visual art site. "Does it have hooves and look like a deer-cow-horse?" is a perfectly valid way to sort things in this context.

Mate, that is merely your subjective view. Unnecessary or not is not decided by only you.
Which one of you and Encyclopedia Britannica (which says elephants, hyraxes, manatees/dugongs are ungulates) is reliable source?
Whilst other order-level tags of mammal are offered as officially granted taxa, why on the earth an unofficial term ungulates can be granted irregularly?
"Tell them to cut it out" is the said extra cost, it is not our task to impose a certain definition of a word self-righteously (We should respect people with different opinions and diversity should be maintained).

Implication should provide right taxonomy in the way that is not confusing uneducated people. We should not multiply confusion by using ambiguous words that doesn't have an unified definition even for professionals.

Basically it is impossible to accord species and appearance, for the specific needs of the people using it, because "This is a visual art site" where accepts works with various arrangements of body types in a same species (anthrofied/feralized/transformation).

If you want tags for hoof-bearers, it wouldn't be affairs here, but a body type like anthro, feral, biped, quadruped, etc., any more.
The tag hoof seems not to be used for the case the character has hooves but they are hidden, out of screen or amputated; but the tag unguligrade, which is mentioned above by Clawstripe, already covers the ungulates you want to call. Is using this existing tag unsatisfactory for you?

macsionnaigh said:
Mate, that is merely your subjective view. Unnecessary or not is not decided by only you.
Which one of you and Encyclopedia Britannica (which says elephants, hyraxes, manatees/dugongs are ungulates) is reliable source?
Whilst other order-level tags of mammal are offered as officially granted taxa, why on the earth an unofficial term ungulates can be granted irregularly?
"Tell them to cut it out" is the said extra cost, it is not our task to impose a certain definition of a word self-righteously (We should respect people with different opinions and diversity should be maintained).

Implication should provide right taxonomy in the way that is not confusing uneducated people. We should not multiply confusion by using ambiguous words that doesn't have an unified definition even for professionals.

Basically it is impossible to accord species and appearance, for the specific needs of the people using it, because "This is a visual art site" where accepts works with various arrangements of body types in a same species (anthrofied/feralized/transformation).

If you want tags for hoof-bearers, it wouldn't be affairs here, but a body type like anthro, feral, biped, quadruped, etc., any more.
The tag hoof seems not to be used for the case the character has hooves but they are hidden, out of screen or amputated; but the tag unguligrade, which is mentioned above by Clawstripe, already covers the ungulates you want to call. Is using this existing tag unsatisfactory for you?

Ungulate and its odd/even toed variants are useful tags for indicating that the "base" species is hooved, even if the artist drew it as a plantigrade anthro. The hoof tag indicates that the artist has drawn hooves somewhere in the image, so some anthro ungulates would be missed.

Paraphyletic taxa were addressed earlier in the thread with the note that birds don't get dinosaur tags. It's not that confusing unless you're being petulant about DNA relationships.

publiqclopaccountant said:
Ungulate and its odd/even toed variants are useful tags for indicating that the "base" species is hooved, even if the artist drew it as a plantigrade anthro. The hoof tag indicates that the artist has drawn hooves somewhere in the image, so some anthro ungulates would be missed.

Paraphyletic taxa were addressed earlier in the thread with the note that birds don't get dinosaur tags. It's not that confusing unless you're being petulant about DNA relationships.

In taxonomy, the denial of paraphyletic groups is not absolute nor its purpose. It's the problem that ungulates have lost their strict biological definition in modern taxonomy, which lies in a different dimension to the fact that birds are genetically dinosaurs.
We have eulipotyphlan (Eulipotyphla) and afrosoricid (Afrosoricida), which has been made in result of dissolve of old insectivoran (Insectivora), already. As all other taxa have adopted modern standards, they should follow suit.
I think tagging for the Ungulate should be independent from actual taxa of the characters if it is realized, like marine tag which includes all of aquatic animals. It should be argued apart from perissodactyl and artiodactyl.

btw we're not getting anywhere as it is, so I'd like to propose some alternative options for cetacean.

  • Cetancodont (Cetancodonta): Whippomorpha seems to be a controversial taxonomic name. Taxonomic names are usually Greek or Latin, but Whippomorpha is based on English portmanteau, that is very lame as a scientific name. I personally dislike this taxon name. Some argue that it should be renamed to Cetancodonta, but academic conventions make that impossible.
  • Cetancodontamorph (Cetancodontamorpha): As an alternative to the above, there seems to be an opinion they want to make a de facto renaming by making Cetancodontamorpha, that includes all of Whippomorpha and is all of the descendents of common ancestors of whales and hippopotamuses after branched from ruminants, an official suborder.
  • Provisionally, put it under artiodactyl (Artiodactyla) directly: We cannot be sure how those taxa names will be changed in the future. There is also an idea to attribute it directly to Artiodactyl provisionally. I said PROVISIONALLY but the time of the discussion again can be 10, 20 or even 100 years later. It does not have to be during our lifetime.

How does everyone think about this?

Updated

macsionnaigh said:
In taxonomy, the denial of paraphyletic groups is not absolute nor its purpose. It's the problem that ungulates have lost their strict biological definition in modern taxonomy, which lies in a different dimension to the fact that birds are genetically dinosaurs.
We have eulipotyphlan (Eulipotyphla) and afrosoricid (Afrosoricida), which has been made in result of dissolve of old insectivoran (Insectivora), already. As all other taxa have adopted modern standards, they should follow suit.
I think tagging for the Ungulate should be independent from actual taxa of the characters if it is realized, like marine tag which includes all of aquatic animals. It should be argued apart from perissodactyl and artiodactyl.

btw we're not getting anywhere as it is, so I'd like to propose some alternative options for cetacean.

  • Cetancodont (Cetancodonta): Whippomorpha seems to be a controversial taxonomic name. Taxonomic names are usually Greek or Latin, but Whippomorpha is based on English portmanteau, that is very lame as a scientific name. I personally dislike this taxon name. Some argue that it should be renamed to Cetancodonta, but academic conventions make that impossible.
  • Cetancodontamorph (Cetancodontamorpha): As an alternative to the above, there seems to be an opinion they want to make a de facto renaming by making Cetancodontamorpha, that includes all of Whippomorpha and is all of the descendents of common ancestors of whales and hippopotamuses after branched from ruminants, an official suborder.
  • Provisionally, put it under artiodactyl (Artiodactyla) directly: We cannot be sure how those taxa names will be changed in the future. There is also an idea to attribute it directly to Artiodactyl provisionally. I said PROVISIONALLY but the time of the discussion again can be 10, 20 or even 100 years later. It does not have to be during our lifetime.

How does everyone think about this?

None. Cetacean is fine as-is.

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